CBL's 2024 Categories

Hi, I'm Carrie, and I live in Seymour TN with my 12-year-old furbaby, Adrian. Last year I didn't keep up with the group very well. I'm hoping to find a better balance this year. We'll see. In addition to reading, I also enjoy family history research, music (I play the piano for church), and knitting. When the weather is warmer and the days are longer I spend a lot more time outside walking for exercise and helping to maintain the flowers at shrubs at our subdivision entrance. I work full time, and I'm also the president of our HOA, which is more active than some because it's a condo development. Some days the only reading I manage is audiobook listening on the way to and from work.

I'm keeping my categories simple again this year with a primary focus on the challenges in this group and in the 75ers group.

My thread wouldn't be complete without a photo of my reading buddy, Adrian. Here he is buried in the blankets on the sofa, where he's usually snoozing right next to me.

American Author Challenge

JANUARY
Mark Twain - Life on the Mississippi (4) - completed 1/28/24

FEBRUARY
Susan Sontag - Illness as Metaphor (4) - compelted 2/11/24

MARCH
Truman Capote - In Cold Blood (3.5) - completed 3/17/24

APRIL - Nonfiction
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson (3.5) - completed 4/27/24

MAY
William Maxwell - Ancestors: A Family History (3.5) - completed 5/19/24

JUNE - Queer authors
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (3.5) - completed 6/18/24

JULY
Mona Susan Power - A Council of Dolls (3) - completed 7/31/24

AUGUST
Jeffrey Lent - A Slant of Light (2.5) - completed 8/15/24

SEPTEMBER - American by choice
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende (4) - completed 10/20/24

OCTOBER
Katherine Anne Porter - The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter (3.5) - completed 10/31/24

NOVEMBER - Jewish American authors
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (4) - completed 11/30/2024

British Author Challenge

JANUARY
Joan Aiken - Black Hearts in Battersea (4) - completed 1/6/24
Arthur Conan Doyle - The Poison Belt (2) - completed 1/26/24

FEBRUARY
Ronald Firbank - Caprice (2.5) - completed 2/28/24

MARCH - Welsh authors
Half a Crown by Jo Walton (4) - completed 3/5/24

APRIL
Barbara Pym - Less than Angels (4.5) - completed 4/13/24

MAY - Portal fantasy
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling (3.5) - completed 6/2/24

JUNE

JULY - Animal tales
My Dog Tulip by J. R. Ackerley (3) - completed 8/2/24

SEPTEMBER - The 1980s
Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes (4) - completed 9/30/24

Nonfiction Challenge

JANUARY - Prize winner off the beaten track
1812: War with America by Jon Latimer (3.5) - completed 1/24/24
Society for Military History's Distinguished Book Award

FEBRUARY - Women's work
The Girls of Atomic City by Denise Kiernan (4) - completed 2/21/24

MARCH - Forensic sciences
Beyond the Body Farm by Bill Bass & Jon Jefferson (4.5) - completed 3/9/24

APRIL - Globalization
Vermeer's Hat by Timothy Brook (4) - completed 4/20/24

MAY - Wild wild west
Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey by Lillian Schlissel (4) - completed 5/31/24

JUNE - Middle Europe
Between the Woods and the Water by Patrick Leigh Fermor (4) - completed 6/24/24

AUGUST - Being Jewish
Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza by Adina Hoffman & Peter Cole (4.5) - completed 8/31/24

SEPTEMBER - Essays
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (3.5) - completed 9/24/24

NOVEMBER - Too small to see
The Woman Who Split the Atom by Marissa Moss (4.5) - completed 11/23/24

DECEMBER - As you like it
The Man Who Invented Christmas by Les Standiford (4) - completed 12/11/24

HistoryCAT

JANUARY - North & South American Wars & Conflicts
1812: War with America by Jon Latimer (3.5) - completed 1/24/24

FEBRUARY - Georgian/Regency Britain
Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods by Roy Adkins & Lesley Adkins (4.5) - completed 2/29/24

MARCH - Science & medicine
Beyond the Body Farm by Bill Bass & Jon Jefferson (4.5) - completed 3/9/24

APRIL - Riots, revolution, & mayhem
Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke (3.5) - completed 5/3/24

MAY - Middle Ages
A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters (3.5) - completed 5/9/24

JUNE - Historians
The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams (2.5) - completed 7/10/24

JULY - Spies
The White Mouse by Nancy Wake (3) - completed 7/19/24
From Russia with Love by Ian Fleming (2) - completed 7/22/24
Avenue of Spies by Alex Kershaw (3.5) - completed 7/31/24

SEPTEMBER - WWI/WWII
American Flygirl by Susan Tate Ankeny (4) - completed 9/15/24

NOVEMBER - Ancient & Classical History
Women in the Valley of the Kings by Kathleen Sheppard (3.5) - completed 11/13/24

DECEMBER - Religions & religious festivals
The Man Who Invented Christmas by Les Standiford (4) - completed 12/11/24

PrizeCAT

JANUARY - Long-running prize
1812: War with America by Jon Latimer (3.5) - completed 1/24/24
Society for Military History's Distinguished Book Award

FEBRUARY - Prize from my own country
The Girls of Atomic City by Denise Kiernan (4) - completed 2/21/24
Merze Tate - Elinor Ostrom Outstanding Book Award - American Political Science Association

MARCH - Prize new to me
Maybe by Morris Gleitzman (4) - completed 3/2/24
KROC: Kids Reading Oz Choice Award
Deep Sea by Annika Thor (3.5) - completed 3/25/24
(Nils Holgersson-plaketten)
The Salt Path by Raynor Winn (4) - completed 3/26/24
(RSL Christopher Bland Prize)

APRIL - Women's writing
Home by Marilynne Robinson (5) - completed 4/23/24
(Orange Prize for Fiction)

MAY - Books that won 2 or more awards
The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever (4) - completed 5/31/24
(Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award)

JUNE - Book lists
The Black Angels by Maria Smilios (3) - completed 6/9/24
(Los Angeles Public Library Best of the Year - Nonfiction 2023)

JULY - Prize from a country other than your own
An Island of Our Own by Sally Nicholls (4) - completed 7/29/24 (Independent Booksellers' Book Prize)

AUGUST - Prize for a genre
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick (3.5) - completed 8/29/24

OCTOBER - One that missed out
A Lady's Guide to Etiquette and Murder by Dianne Freeman (4) - completed 10/16/24 (Nominee - Sue Feder Memorial Award for Best Historical Mystery (Macavity); nominee - Simon & Schuster Mary Higgins Clark Award (Edgar))

NOVEMBER - Children's book awards
The Woman Who Split the Atom by Marissa Moss (4.5) - completed 11/23/24 (Dogwood Readers Award, Grades 6-8)

DECEMBER - Prize of your choice
Excursion to Tindari by Andrea Camilleri (3.5) (Bancarella)

CalendarCAT

JANUARY
The Dead Alive by Wilkie Collins (3.5) - completed 1/29/24
(Collins born Jan 8, 1824)
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, translated by H. T. Willetts (5) - completed 1/31/24
(Takes place on a day in January)

FEBRUARY
Wake: the Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts by Rebecca Hall, illustrated by Hugo Martinez (4) - completed 2/3/24
Nina Balatka by Anthony Trollope (3.5) - completed 2/10/24
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume (4) - completed 2/20/24

MARCH
Skirts: Fashioning Modern Femininity in the Twentieth Century by Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell (3.5) - completed 3/24/24
Woman, Captain, Rebel: The Extraordinary True Story of a Daring Icelandic Sea Captain by Margaret Willson (4.5) - completed 3/31/24

APRIL
The Late Mrs. Willoughby by Claudia Gray (3) - completed 4/5/24
(Autism Acceptance Month)

MAY
The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever (4) - completed 5/31/24
(Author born in May)

JUNE
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (3.5) - completed 6/18/24 (Audiobook Appreciation Month)

JULY
It's All Relative by A. J. Jacobs (4) - completed 7/7/24 (Family Reunion Month)
Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kastner (3) - completed 7/26/24 (author died 7/29/74)

AUGUST
Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare (3.5) - completed 8/7/24 (Antony and Cleopatra both died in August of 30 BC)
Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza by Adina Hoffman & Peter Cole (4.5) - completed 8/31/24 (Cole has an August birthday)

OCTOBER
The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis (5) - completed 10/23/24 (Halloween)

NOVEMBER
The Woman Who Split the Atom: The Life of Lise Meitner by Marissa Moss (4.5) - completed 11/23/24 (Meitner was born 11/7/1878)

DECEMBER
The Man Who Invented Christmas by Les Standiford (4) - completed 12/11/24

Reading Projects:
1,000 Books to Read Before You Die

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, translated by H. T. Willetts (5) - completed 1/31/24
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume (4) - completed 2/20/24
Skellig by David Almond (4) - completed 3/5/24
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (3.5) - completed 3/17/24
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (2.5) - completed 3/23/24
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson (3.5) - completed 4/27/24
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (2.5) - completed 4/30/24
Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke (3.5) - completed 5/3/24
The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever (4) - completed 5/31/24
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (3.5) - completed 6/18/24
The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams (2.5) - completed 7/10/24
From Russia with Love by Ian Fleming (2) - completed 7/22/24
My Dog Tulip by J. R. Ackerley (3) - completed 8/2/24
A Passage to India by E. M. Forster (5) - completed 9/20/24
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (3.5) - completed 9/24/24
Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes (4) - completed 9/30/24
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende (4) - completed 10/20/24
The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter by Katherine Anne Porter (3.5) - completed 10/31/24
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (4) - completed 11/30/24

Agatha Christie
Ordeal by Innocence (3) - completed 2/29/24
Cat Among the Pigeons (4) - completed 4/12/24
The Unexpected Guest (3) - completed 4/20/24

Jane Austen
Jane Austen's England by Roy Adkins & Lesley Adkins (4.5) - completed 2/29/24
The Late Mrs. Willoughby by Claudia Gray (3) - completed 4/5/24

Rex Stout
Too Many Women (3) - completed 1/3/24
Trouble in Triplicate (4) - completed 5/23/24
The Second Confession (3.5) - completed 7/8/24
Three Doors to Death (4) - completed 9/8/24
In the Best Families (3.5) - completed 11/11/24

Group Reads

So Shall You Reap by Donna Leon (3) - completed 1/6/24
The Girls Who Fought Crime by Mari K. Eder (3) - completed 1/14/24
The Golden Calf by Helene Tursten (4) - completed 1/23/24
Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts by Rebecca Hall, illustrated by Hugo Martinez (4) - completed 2/3/24
Nina Balatka by Anthony Trollope (3.5) - completed 2/10/24
Poseidon's Gold by Lindsey Davis (4.5) - completed 2/11/24
The Longmire Defense by Craig Johnson (3.5) - completed 3/15/24
Skirts: Fashioning Modern Femininity in the Twentieth Century by Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell (3.5) - completed 3/24/24
Woman, Captain, Rebel: The Extraordinary True Story of a Daring Icelandic Sea Captain by Margaret Willson (4.5) - completed 3/31/24
The Fire Dance by Helene Tursten (3.5) - completed 4/7/24
Mischievous Creatures by Catherine McNeur (4) - completed 5/14/24
The Black Angels by Maria Smilios (3) - completed 6/9/24
Last Act in Palmyra by Lindsey Davis (4) - completed 6/29/24
The Beige Man by Helene Tursten (3.5) - completed 6/30/24
Time to Depart by Lindsey Davis (4) - completed 7/22/24
Wild Girls by Tiya Miles (3.5) - completed 8/3/24
Wandering through Life by Donna Leon (4) - completed 8/24/24
American Flygirl by Susan Tate Ankeny (4) - completed 9/15/24
The Treacherous Net by Helene Tursten (3) - completed 9/18/24
The Blue Tattoo: The Life of Olive Oatman by Margot Mifflin (4) - completed 10/13/24
A Dying Light in Corduba by Lindsey Davis (3.5) - completed 10/31/24
Women in the Valley of the Kings by Kathleen Sheppard (3.5) - completed 11/13/24
Who Watcheth by Helene Tursten (3.5) - completed 11/17/24

Everything Else

Right Ho, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse (4.5) - completed 2/11/24
All the Devils Are Here by Louise Penny (4.5) - completed 2/16/24
Tevye the Milkman by Sholem Aleichem (5) - completed 4/19/24
The Consequences of Fear by Jacqueline Winspear (3.5) - completed 4/27/24
The Word Is Murder by Anthony Horowitz (4) - completed 5/17/24
The Silver Branch by Rosemary Sutcliff (4) - completed 8/14/24
What You Are Looking for Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama (4) - completed 9/5/24
The Devil's Novice by Ellis Peters (3) - completed 10/8/24
Holes by Louis Sachar (4.5) - completed 10/19/24
The Secrets of Wishtide by Kate Saunders (3.5) - completed 11/5/2024
Clark and Division by Naomi Hirahara (4) - completed 11/22/24
Love That Dog by Sharon Creech (4) - completed 11/22/24

I always look forward to the end of year memes. Here's my 2023 meme, using titles of books I read during the year!

Describe yourself: The Confessor

Describe how you feel: All Passion Spent

Describe where you currently live: A Chateau under Siege

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Brick Lane

Your favorite form of transportation is: 4:50 from Paddington

Your favorite food is: What She Ate

Your favorite time of day is: Night Rounds

Your best friend is: Daughter of the Morning Star

You and your friends are: Wise Gals

What’s the weather like: The Coldest Case

You fear: Catching Fire

What is the best advice you have to give: Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History

Thought for the day: Thanks to My Mother

What is life for you: No Longer at Ease

How you would like to die: Not Quite Dead Enough

Your soul’s present condition: Meditations

What was 2023 like for you? The Ardent Swarm

What do you want from 2024? Great Short Books

Here's an alternate meme with a dinner party theme. I think I managed not to repeat any books used in the other meme.

What would you call the event? The Hunger Games

How did they find their way? The Mystery of a Hansom Cab

How did they know they'd arrived? The Knowledge of the Holy

Any special activities? The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown

Did your guests stay over? For Her Own Good

Were there servants to help? Women in White Coats

Was there turn down service? Where There’s a Will

How were the guests greeted? Deborah Calling

Was dinner held for later comers? Over My Dead Body

And dinner was? The Silver Pigs

Afterward? Grandma Gatewood’s Walk

Welcome back, Carrie (and Adrian)!! Have a great reading year. Per your end-of-year meme, I wish you many short books :) Agatha Christie should be good for that!

>13 rabbitprincess: Thanks, RP! It's good to be back!

Short Adrian story. A couple of weeks ago, I grabbed something from my closet just before heading out the door for work. When I came home for lunch, I found Adrian in the closet. I hadn't realized that he had followed me in earlier. I thought he was in another room eating his breakfast. He seemed to take it in his stride, and I'm thankful for that. I think it upset me more than it did him!

Good to see you and Adrian back! Sorry to hear Adrian got locked in the closet but he probably thought the new location was a treat.

Thanks, Vivienne! While he was in there, he cleared out the dust bunnies from under the dresser, so he was helping his mom!

Stopping by to say hello to you and Adrian.

Great to see you and Adrian set for another year of the Category Challenge!

>15 cbl_tn: Hope Adrian enjoyed his adventure. My mama cat is always being locked in the garage due to sneaking by me. Enjoy your 2024 reading.

>18 hailelib: >19 DeltaQueen50: >20 lowelibrary: Thank you all for dropping by! I hope you have a great reading year!

Happy reading in 2024!

>22 MissBrangwen: Thank you! The same to you!

Reading Projects
Too Many Women by Rex Stout

Nero Wolfe’s latest client is a Wall Street engineering firm where a rumor is circulating about the death of a former employee. The authorities are satisfied that the death was an accidental hit-and-run, yet a member of the firm insists the man was intentionally murdered. Archie goes undercover in the firm to find out if the rumor is true. It’s a perplexing case that almost stumps Wolfe, until a last-ditch effort flushes out the truth.

This book was less satisfying than most of the other series books I’ve read to date, mainly because so many elements of the murder were withheld until an information dump at the end of the book. Wolfe usually figures out what must have happened before the police or anyone else has a glimmer of understanding, and then he collects the evidence that proves it. In this case, Wolfe spent most of his time trying to persuade suspects/witnesses to tell him what they know, and he was less impressive than I’ve come to expect.

3 stars

>24 cbl_tn: Hope your next read is better than your cousin's book!

>25 thornton37814: Me, too!

Happy reading, Carrie!

>27 MissWatson: Thank you! The same to you!

Group Reads
So Shall You Reap by Donna Leon

Venice’s Commissario Brunetti and his colleagues investigate the death of an undocumented Sri Lankan immigrant. The case is more personal than some for Brunetti because he had spoken with the victim just a day before his death. With very little information to go on, it would be easy to justify quickly moving on to other cases, but Brunetti doesn’t do that. He gives it his full attention.

Brunetti, his family, and his colleagues feel like old friends after 32 novels, and spending time with them is comfortable. I’m having a hard time identifying any other reason to recommend this book. The pace is so slow that my mind wandered to other things while I was listening to it, and I hadn’t missed any important details that made it necessary to rewind the audio to pay closer attention. I was mildly interested in the case’s connection to Italy’s Red Brigade kidnappings in the late 1970s and early 1980s since I recall those because of family members who were stationed in Italy at about that time. The subplot about officer Alvise is superfluous. It isn’t connected to the case Brunetti investigates in this book, but maybe Leon is setting up a plot for a future installment. If I had been this book’s editor, I would have cut large parts of that section.

3 stars

British Author Challenge
Black Hearts in Battersea by Joan Aiken

Orphan Simon arrives in London looking for his friend, Dr. Field. Although he follows Dr. Field’s instructions to a boarding house near the Thames, Dr. Field appears to be unknown there. Simon finds the art school where Dr. Field arranged for him to study and bides his time while he watches for clues to his friend’s whereabouts. Simon is delighted to find his old friend and fellow orphan, Sophie, who is now the companion of the Duchess of Battersea. Simon, Sophie, and several new-found friends must band together to save the duke and duchess and the king from a Hanoverian plot.

What’s not to like about this fun adventure filled with villains, heroes, and mistaken identities? It’s a perfect way to spend a cozy afternoon and evening bundled up against the winter cold.

4 stars

>29 cbl_tn: I agree with you about the Alvise part. I still haven't really figured out why it was included.

>31 thornton37814: I'm glad it's not just me!

What I'm Knitting



My office freezes in the winter, so I knitted myself some fingerless mittens to keep my hands warm while leaving my fingers free to type. This was my first attempt to knit in the round and it wasn't as difficult as I expected.

>33 cbl_tn: Yay!

>34 thornton37814: I was determined to get them done so that I can use them in the office this week!

>33 cbl_tn: Nice! They look like they'll go with everything. I wasn't thinking of that when I knit myself a pair of bright green fingerless gloves ;)

>36 rabbitprincess: The color doesn't show up well in the photo, but they're a really pretty lavender. It's a fairly universal color. I wear a lot of black and gray so it will go well with those colors. Not so well with red, but that's OK!

>37 cbl_tn: Ah OK, I thought they were grey! Lavender would be nice.

>38 rabbitprincess: Alpaca wool, too! I actually made three. The first one was my "trainer" and I knitted it according to the pattern. Then I made adjustments for a better fit. I have short hands and I found out that I'm not a "most" of the "one size fits most".

>39 cbl_tn: I am the same. Most mitten patterns I need to make smaller or use a child's size pattern! They look wonderful.

>40 JayneCM: I am so glad I got them finished before the cold wave hits us next week! My current project is a hat to match the scarf I made for my brother for Christmas. His birthday is the end of next month, so I should be able to finish it in time to get it shipped.

Group Reads
The Girls Who Fought Crime by Mari K. Eder

The Girls Who Fought Crime explores the history of women in the New York City police department largely through the life of one female officer, Mae Foley. This account presents Mae as a larger-than-life character who bent the world to her will. It seems that there were few people, men or women, who could say “no” to Mae when she had her mind set on something.

Mae’s voice and the voices of other women who served alongside her add value to 20th century women’s history. I can’t wholeheartedly recommend this work due to the liberties the author seems to have taken in the telling of Mae’s story. She adds colorful details that no one could possibly know unless Mae had kept a detailed diary or wrote about the conversation in a letter. For instance, the author quotes a conversation that Mae had with her husband John:

”Hmm.” John was reading the newspaper. “Says here there’s a Liberty Loan parade coming up on October 25. They have a real German U-boat in the parade. Now that ought to be a sight to see. You want to go, Mae? Take the girls?”

“John Henry Foley, are you listening to me? I’m talking about runaways.”

John tried again. “Okay, if you don’t want to go to the parade, the city is going to park the U-boat in Central Park. Right there in the Sheep Meadow. You can tour it if you buy war bonds. What do you think?” John looked up, made eye contact. It was a mistake.

“Right there in the Sheep Meadow? John, there are young girls out there right now, far from home and getting into trouble.” Mae stomped her foot for emphasis. As a parent, she knew how to talk to the excitable young girls who thought their trip to New York was all a big adventure. In the back of her mind in every encounter was the thought of her own two girls at home. “What would you do if Florence tried something like this?”

John got the message. He folded the newspaper and looked up.

What source does the author have for this conversation? How does she know that John read this article in the newspaper and that he had a conversation with Mae about it? How does she know that Mae “stomped her foot for emphasis?” How does she know when John looked up at Mae, and when he folded the newspaper? There are no sources referenced for this conversation, so I can only conclude that the author embellished the narrative. This type of technique is used in creative nonfiction, which is the genre that best fits this work. Perhaps creative nonfiction is the best the author could do given the dearth of records documenting the early years of the NYPD. This book gives readers a glimpse of what life might have been like for a woman police officer in the NYPD in the first half of the 20th century. However, it will frustrate readers who want to go beyond feelings to facts.

3 stars

Group Reads
The Golden Calf by Helene Tursten

Irene Huss and her colleagues in Göteborg’s murder investigation unit must unravel the complex circumstances surrounding related murders. The murder victims are all connected by business and/or family ties to an internet company that crashed when the dot com bubble burst, enriching its founders at the expense of its investors. One survivor knows more than she is telling, and Irene and her partner search for a way to persuade her to talk. Meanwhile, Irene is distressed by some personal news shared by her partner and best friend, Tommy.

In some ways, this is the best book in the series so far. Irene’s domestic life didn’t distract from the murder investigation. Her husband, twin daughters, and dog made limited appearances in this book. The audio reader does a nice job with the narration and dialogue. I wish my library had more of this series available in audio format. There were some enjoyable scenes in a hospital near the end of the book. My other favorite in the series had a hospital setting, so perhaps the medical scene is a familiar one for the author. The ending is spoiled when the tension peaks to early and the investigation concludes with a long briefing (i.e. information dump) from an FBI officer.

4 stars

Nonfiction Challenge; HistoryCAT; PrizeCAT
1812: War with America by Jon Latimer

The back cover describes this book as “the first complete history of the War of 1812 written from a British perspective.” The treatment seems balanced rather than weighted toward the British involvement. Latimer challenges the perception of the War of 1812 as a draw, claiming instead a British victory because the United States achieved none of its stated aims. Perhaps in time the perception will shift, but Latimer is pushing against centuries of entrenched attitudes toward the war and its outcome.

3.5 stars

British Author Challenge
The Poison Belt by Arthur Conan Doyle

Professor Challenger gathers his companions from The Lost World and their oxygen supply at his home to await together Earth’s passage through a belt of ether that seems destined to poison most of the Earth’s inhabitants. From a window in the professor’s home, the group observes the ether’s effects. Will they survive, and if they do, what will post-apocalyptic life be like?

This novella hasn’t aged well. It seems obvious where the plot is headed because journalist Malone is writing in the first person, and it’s reasonable to assume that he is writing for readers outside of this small group. If this book passes the Bechdel test, it’s with a D minus, and the racial epithets would not be tolerated from a current author as they were in Doyle’s day.

One passage struck a chord with me:
You are to picture the loveliness of nature upon that August day, the freshness of the morning air, the golden glare of the summer sunshine, the cloudless sky, the luxuriant green of the Sussex woods, and the deep purple of heather-clad downs. As you looked round upon the many-coloured beauty of the scene all thought of a vast catastrophe would have passed from your mind had it not been for one sinister sign—the solemn, all-embracing silence. There is a gentle hum of life which pervades a closely-settled country, so deep and constant that one ceases to observe it, as the dweller by the sea loses all sense of the constant murmur of the waves. The twitter of birds, the buzz of insects, the far-off echo of voices, the lowing of cattle, the distant barking of dogs, roar of trains, and rattle of carts—all these form one low, unremitting note, striking unheeded upon the ear. We missed it now. This deadly silence was appalling. So solemn was it, so impressive, that the buzz and rattle of our motor-car seemed an unwarrantable intrusion, an indecent disregard of this reverent stillness which lay like a pall over and round the ruins of humanity. It was this grim hush, and the tall clouds of smoke which rose here and there over the country-side from smoldering buildings, which cast a chill into our hearts as we gazed round at the glorious panorama of the Weald.

This passage brought back memories of the days following September 11, 2001, when the skies were empty of planes and helicopters. I live and work close enough to several airports that the sound of planes and helicopters is background noise, “striking unheeded upon the ear.” The silence is one of my strongest memories from a day I’ll never forget.

2 stars

American Author Challenge
Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain

Before he became a famous author, Twain spent some years as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi. Twain recalls his early experiences in this memoir, with particular focus on his apprenticeship. About a third of the way through the book, Twain transitions to an account of his return to the Mississippi after an absence of several decades. Twain and his companions board a steamboat at St. Louis for a journey to New Orleans, then make the return journey from New Orleans all the way to the Twin Cities. Each landmark on the journey inspires a memory of his own experience or a story he’s heard from another. This part of the book gives the impression of vignettes that Twain has assembled for the reader’s entertainment. Twain actually got two books out of his 1882 steamboat trip. He was already working on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn when he wrote Life on the Mississippi, and he includes in it an excerpt from his work in progress. Twain’s 1882 journey was time and money well spent if it revived long-forgotten memories of river life and helped Twain hone his descriptions of the river in Huckleberry Finn.

4 stars

CalendarCAT
The Dead Alive by Wilkie Collins

London lawyer Philip Lefrank, under his doctor’s advice, sets sail for America to recuperate from overwork on a relative’s farm. His visit is not as restful as he hoped. He finds tension in the household, with his host’s sons and his farm manager pitted against each other and his host’s pretty niece sparking jealousy among the men. The farm manager disappears after an argument with one of the Meadowcroft brothers, and the discovery of a human bone and some personal effects in the lime-kiln lead to a charge of murder. Against all hope, Lefrank agrees to make one grand attempt to clear the accused man of murder.

Collins based this novella on a real case of wrongful conviction from the Early Republic era. Wilkie’s title is spoiler-y, as this is exactly what happens in the book – the “dead” man turns out to be alive.

3.5 stars

>47 cbl_tn: I've never heard of this one before. On the list it goes!

>48 MissWatson: It's short! The LibriVox audio I listened to was just over 2 hours long. That means it can easily be read in under 2 hours.

CalendarCAT; Reading Projects
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, translated by H. T. Willetts

What was life like for political prisoners in Stalin era Soviet labor camps? You could read a memoir and let a former prisoner tell you. Or you could read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and let Solzhenitsyn show you. Readers follow Ivan Denisovich Shukov through a typical day sometime in January from morning to evening roll call. Shukhov and his fellow prisoners exist in the bottom tier of Maslow’s hierarchy, and it’s painful to experience even vicariously.

I’d like to think that the Soviet labor camps are a thing of the past and that what’s depicted in this book would not be possible in the 21st century. I’d like to think that, but human nature hasn’t really changed in the seventy-some years since Stalin’s death.

5 stars

January Recap

American Author Challenge
Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain (4)

British Author Challenge
Black Hearts in Battersea by Joan Aiken (4)
The Poison Belt by Arthur Conan Doyle (2)

Nonfiction Challenge
1812: War with America by Jon Latimer (3.5)

HistoryCAT
1812: War with America by Jon Latimer (3.5)

PrizeCAT
1812: War with America by Jon Latimer (3.5)

CalendarCAT
The Dead Alive by Wilkie Collins (3.5)
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, translated by H. T. Willetts (5)

Reading Projects
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, translated by H. T. Willetts (5)
Too Many Women by Rex Stout (3)

Group Reads
So Shall You Reap by Donna Leon (3)
The Girls Who Fought Crime by Mari K. Eder (3)
The Golden Calf by Helene Tursten (4)

Everything Else

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

Best of the month: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, translated by H. T. Willetts (5)
Worst of the month: The Poison Belt by Arthur Conan Doyle (2)

Morning, Carrie! Very nice review of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - I have added my thumb to it. I am hoping to get to that one this year - I should just read it this month, actually, as I know it's short.

>52 Crazymamie: Morning, Mamie! Thanks for the kind words! It's short enough to read in a single sitting, although I spread it out over three days. Try to get the Willetts translation if you can. It's the one Solzhenitsyn authorized, and as I understand it was translated from the uncensored version.

>53 cbl_tn: Oh! Thanks for that, Carrie.

>54 Crazymamie: You're welcome!

CalendarCAT; Group Reads
Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts by Rebecca Hall, illustrated by Hugo Martinez

The graphic novel format is an unusual choice for a memoir of a historian’s research into the history of slavery and women-led slave revolts, but it works. The clear text and the black and white illustrations combine to impress on the reader the enormity of the historian’s task, the frustration arising from incomplete or missing historical records, and the anger and shame at running up against barriers to access to primary sources that might contain answers to the historian’s questions. The illustrations give form and face to enslaved persons whose names have mostly been lost to history but whose resistance to enslavement lives on in history for those who make an effort to see it.

This book would be useful for college students as an introduction to historical research. Hall describes her research question, the libraries and archival repositories she visited, the record groups she searched, and the other repositories and records the trail led her to.

4 stars

CalendarCAT; Group Reads
Nina Balatka by Anthony Trollope

In a departure from his typical English or Irish heroine, Trollope presents readers with Nina Balatka, a poor Czech Catholic woman who cares for her elderly widowed father whose business failures have left them living in a house they no longer own and on the brink of starvation. The house is owned by Josef Balatka’s Jewish business partner, Stephen Trendellsohn, whose son Anton has somehow become engaged to Josef’s daughter, Nina. The prospect of an interfaith marriage displeases both families, with Nina’s mother’s relatives, the Zamenoys, determined to prevent the marriage. For the Zamenoys, the end justifies the means, and if lying and cheating will accomplish their goal, they have no scruples about it. The deed to the house occupied by Nina and her father becomes a weapon for both sides, with the Zamenoys using it to try to separate the engaged couple and Anton Trendellsohn using it to force Nina to prove her loyalty to him.

Trollope never explains how the engagement happened. Nina’s part is more understandable. When her own relatives and the church fail to provide either physical or emotional support, it’s no wonder that Nina would respond to love and kindness from someone of another faith. Anton’s motives are more puzzling given the character that Trollope develops for him.

Trollope’s description of the Jewish characters’ physical and personal characteristics reflects the antisemitism of his era. Despite this, Trollope describes synagogue worship practice in a respectful way, and his Jewish characters are better exemplars of a Christian ethic of behavior than are his Christian characters.

3.5 stars

Everything Else
Right Ho, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse

Once again Jeeves, butler to Bertram Wooster, proves himself to be a paragon of domestic service. Not only must Jeeves keep Bertie’s household in order, he must also bring order out of the chaos that Bertie stirs up among his friends and relations. Jeeves’s matchmaking ability is put to the test at a house party given by Bertie’s Aunt Dahlia at Brinkley Court. Bertie’s friend Gussie Fink-Nottle has fallen hopelessly in love with Madeline Bassett but can’t find the courage to talk to her. A rift has developed between Bertie’s cousin Angela and her fiancé, Tuppy Glossop. Further complicating matters, Aunt Dahlia is in dire financial straits and the household’s French chef is ready to hand in his notice. Jeeves has his work cut out for him! The audio version read by Jonathan Cecil is delightful and adds to the novel’s humor.

4.5 stars

Group Reads
Poseidon's Gold by Lindsey Davis

Roman informer Marcus Didius Falco’s latest investigation keeps him close to home since it revolves around secrets that his soldier brother, Festus, might have been hiding on his last visit to Rome before his death. Falco teams up with is estranged father, Geminus, to search for the truth. Helena Justina once again provides loyal support. Davis gives a new twist to the wise-cracking private eye novel by setting the series in ancient Rome, and by the fifth book in the series I think she’s found a balance that will appeal to fans of either mystery subgenre.

4.5 stars

American Author Challenge
Illness as Metaphor by Susan Sontag

In what originated as a lecture series, Sontag reflects on the harmful metaphorical use of poorly-understood illnesses, tuberculosis and cancer, in literature, psychoanalytic discourse, and political rhetoric. Sontag cites example after example from works of literature, psychoanalysts/psychologists and political theorists to support her argument. Five decades later, cancer is in many ways as much a mystery as it was when Sontag wrote these essays, so their content is still timely.

4 stars

Everything Else
All the Devils Are Here by Louise Penny

The Gamache family has gathered in Paris in eager anticipation of the birth of Jean-Guy and Annie’s daughter. A few months earlier, Jean-Guy Beauvoir left his position as head of homicide in Montreal for a job in a private firm in Paris. His father-in-law, Armand Gamache, resumed his former position as head of homicide. A family vacation turns into a busman’s holiday for Gamache when his 93-year-old godfather, Stephen Horowitz, is run down and left for dead on a Paris street. Gamache must figure out the real reason that Stephen came to Paris to keep the rest of his family alive.

I should have saved this one for a weekend and lots of uninterrupted reading time. It was hard to put down, maybe because it’s more thriller than police procedural. Gamache is out of his jurisdiction, and his investigative team includes of his librarian wife Reine-Marie, his banker son Daniel, his lawyer daughter Annie. At least his son-in-law, Jean-Guy, has professional experience. The story touches on a lot of themes I love to read about – libraries and archives, art, the Holocaust, and a treasure hunt-like quest. Fellow Reine-Marie fans will be happy that she’s so prominent in this book. I also love that we finally get to know Daniel, who is often mentioned but seldom seen in other books.

4.5 stars

CalendarCAT; Reading Projects
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume

11-year-old Margaret’s family has just bought a house and moved from a New York City apartment to suburban New Jersey. Only child Margaret must make new friends and start a new school for sixth grade. The year is filled with even more transitions, as Margaret and her friends and classmates break in a first-year teacher and deal with the onset of puberty. Unlike most of the other children in her class, Margaret has no religious faith, and she’s beginning to be curious about religion. Without any religious instruction, Margaret develops a prayer life and talks to God about all the changes she’s experiencing.

I didn’t read this book as a tween since it was considered controversial then. Perhaps it still is. I’m not sure why. Margaret’s experiences over the course of her sixth-grade year are typical for anyone who went through middle school in the 1970s. Margaret develops good interpersonal skills as she learns that gossip isn’t always true, and as she learns to admit and apologize for her mistakes. If you enjoy audiobooks, don’t miss the audio version narrated by Laura Hamilton.

4 stars

Nonfiction Challenge; PrizeCAT
The Girls of Atomic City by Denise Kiernan

Kiernan explores the role women played in World War II’s Manhattan Project Oak Ridge, Tennessee location. The plant and the town of Oak Ridge sprang up nearly overnight as the project went into high gear. Women were involved in every aspect of its operations, including secretarial work, human resources, statistics, chemical analysis, equipment monitoring, janitorial work, nursing, and journalism. There is some selection bias since the women profiled were still living at the time Kiernan began work on this book. Many of the women still live in Oak Ridge or its vicinity, but some of the women had moved on to other locations.

Since I’m a Knoxville native, this is local history for me. Oak Ridge has not been a secret in my lifetime. I’ve always been able to go there, either with my family or on school field trips to the children’s museum or the Museum of Science and Energy. I’ve always been curious about its secret history, and this book didn’t disappoint!

One minor quibble. Kiernan includes the story of Ebb Cade, an African American construction worker who was subjected to medical experimentation without his consent. Cade wasn’t one of the “girls” of Atomic City, nor were the doctors who experimented on him, so he doesn’t belong in this book. He deserves his own book, but it seems that it hasn’t yet been written.

4 stars

British Author Challenge
Caprice by Ronald Firbank

This novella is set in the London theatre world of the early 20th century. Sarah Sinquier feels constricted in the cathedral town where her father is a canon. She longs for the London stage, and she runs away to fulfill her true calling as an actress. Sarah quickly falls in with a theatre crowd. Most of the novel builds toward the opening night of a production of Romeo and Juliet. Young Sarah learns how quickly triumph can turn to tragedy.

Apparently, Firbank’s novels are characterized by a heavy emphasis on dialogue. I’ve always appreciated this quality in Agatha Christie’s novels. Sadly, Firbank is no Christie. A century later, most readers will not have enough context to easily make sense of the dialogue. However, I’m not sure readers of a century ago would have had enough context either, unless they moved in the same social circle as Firbank. Maybe that was the point.

2.5 stars

Reading Projects
Ordeal by Innocence by Agatha Christie

The nature versus nurture debate is at the heart of this standalone psychological mystery. Jacko Argyle died in prison after he was convicted of murdering his mother by hitting her over the head with a poker. A couple of years after the trial, a new witness appears with exculpatory evidence that proves Jacko was not in the house when his mother was murdered. But if Jacko was innocent, then someone else must be guilty. The rest of the family and the household employees will live under a cloud of suspicion until the real murderer is discovered. The witness, Dr. Calgary, feels responsible for stirring up the cloud of suspicion, and he believes he has a moral obligation to solve the crime and free the innocent from suspicion.

This novel is very similar to many of Poirot’s cases, and I think it would have worked better as a Poirot mystery. It suffers from lack of an easily identifiable protagonist/detective. Sometimes Arthur Calgary works on the puzzle. Sometimes the local police superintendent works on it. Sometimes Philip Durant, the murder victim’s disabled son-in-law, fancies he can solve the mystery. Christie excelled at revealing character through conversation, and her dialogue carries her best novels. This novel focuses more on what various characters are thinking to themselves, and there isn’t a lot of dialogue. I think that’s why the pace seems to drag.

3 stars

HistoryCAT; Reading Projects
Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods by Roy Adkins & Lesley Adkins

Husband and wife authors and historians Roy and Lesley Adkins provide readers with insight into daily life as Jane Austen (1775-1817) would have experienced it. Each chapter looks at various aspects of life, from marriage and family life to home comforts, clothing and fashion, religious life, occupations, leisure and recreation, travel, crime and punishment, medicine, and death. Excerpts from letters, diaries and journals, and other writings of the period provide plenty of examples for readers. Besides examples drawn from Austen’s writings and writings of her family members, the Adkins also incorporate examples from the diaries of Somerset vicar William Holland, the diaries of Norfolk Parson James Woodforde, and the letters and diaries of north country governess Nelly Weeton. The volume of information makes for dense reading, but it’s never dull.

4.5 stars

February Recap

American Author Challenge
Illness as Metaphor by Susan Sontag (4)

British Author Challenge
Caprice by Ronald Firbank (2.5)

Nonfiction Challenge
The Girls of Atomic City by Denise Kiernan (4)

HistoryCAT
Jane Austen’s England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods by Roy Adkins & Lesley Adkins (4.5)

PrizeCAT
The Girls of Atomic City by Denise Kiernan (4)

CalendarCAT
Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts by Rebecca Hall illustrated by Hugo Martinez (4)
Nina Balatka by Anthony Trollope (3.5)
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume (4)

Reading Projects
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume (4)
Ordeal by Innocence by Agatha Christie (3)
Jane Austen’s England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods by Roy Adkins & Lesley Adkins (4.5)

Group Reads
Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts by Rebecca Hall, illustrated by Hugo Martinez (4)
Nina Balatka by Anthony Trollope (3.5)
Poseidon’s Gold by Lindsey Davis (4.5)

Everything Else
Right Ho, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse (4.5)
All the Devils Are Here by Louise Penny (4.5)

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

Best of the month: All the Devils Are Here by Louise Penny (4.5)
Worst of the month: Caprice by Ronald Firbank (2.5)

PrizeCAT
Maybe by Morris Gleitzman

The war is over, and 14-year-old Felix, Gabriek, and 16-year-old Anya are on their way back to Gabriek’s farm to make a new home. Things don’t work out as planned, though, and soon Felix is making plans for a new home in Australia. Maybe things will be better there. Felix must keep looking over his shoulder for the murderous gangster, Zliv, who blames Felix for his brother’s death and is determined to make him pay.

I’ve grown to love Felix over the first six books in this series. He is a survivor, but not in a selfish way. Felix has a gift for friendship, and he surrounds himself with others who need his help who can also help him. This book is a reminder that, for many, suffering and hardship didn’t end with the defeat of the Nazis. Felix and his friends are better off than when they started, but they still have more challenges ahead of them. I look forward to reading the final book in the series to see what a new life in Australia has in store for Felix.

4 stars

>66 cbl_tn: Ooh, a new-to-me Austen book! Definitely going on the TBR.

I somehow hadn’t starred your thread, but I’ve fixed that now. Lovely to see Adrian looking content with his perfect life! I’ll look for a copy of Wake. I just finished a novel about resistance to the Confederacy in which the challenges of historical research are mentioned at the end (in a very odd way, that I’m not sure entirely worked, but I found it interesting).

>69 christina_reads: It seems like we'll never run out of new Austen books. That's a great problem to have!

>70 RidgewayGirl: I've somehow missed you, too! I'll see if I can find you. I think you will find Wake interesting. Our book group had mixed opinions about the artwork. I liked it, but I can understand why it didn't appeal to some of the others.

You have reminded me that I need to post a picture from Saturday's Mardi Growl event. Adrian was my date. ;-)

Adrian and I enjoyed wandering around at Mardi Growl on Saturday. It was at the World's Fair Park in downtown Knoxville.

Reading Projects
Skellig by David Almond

Ten-year-old Michael faces more than a child his age should bear, with his family’s move to a house in poor repair and his prematurely born sister’s fight for life. As Michael explores the garage, he encounters a strange creature who changes his life. Is he a man, some sort of beast, or maybe even an angel? Soon Michael’s new friend and neighbor, Mina, shares in the secret.

This is an unexpectedly touching story. Michael’s intense worry for his baby sister manifests in acts of kindness toward the creature in the garage. Old soul Mina is a source of comfort for Michael and understands him in a way that only another child can. The author’s audio narration captures the innocence and awe of these children. My only reservation about this story is the occasional cursing. It would have been out of place in the home I grew up in and among my elementary school classmates.

4 stars

British Author Challenge
Half a Crown by Jo Walton

In an alternate Great Britain in 1960 where the nation made peace with Germany in 1941 and Hitler is still living, the nation is preparing to host a peace conference with representatives from Germany and Japan. 18-year-old debutante Elvira Royston is preparing to be presented to the Queen, and her guardian, Peter Carmichael, has his hands full preparing for the peace conference as head of the Watch. Elvira and her friend Betsy accept an invitation to a fascist rally at Marble Arch. Everything starts to go wrong when a riot breaks out at the Rally and Elvira is swept up in the aftermath. Does Carmichael have enough political capital to protect her without exposing his clandestine activities?

This was a page-turner as tension built around Elvira and Carmichael. The resolution was a little too quick and easy and it left some threads hanging. I wish I could say that the alternate world that Walton created in this trilogy would never really exist, but in the current state of the world, it’s all too easy to imagine such a repressive social structure developing.

4 stars

>74 cbl_tn: I had a similar response to the first book in the series, Farthing. Chillingly plausible.

>75 pamelad: I guess that's why they've been so successful!

>66 cbl_tn: The Austen book sounds good. I should keep an eye out for it.

Great that Adrian is doing well.

>77 hailelib: Thanks! I hope you find a copy!

Adrian had a rough patch several weeks ago, but thankfully he's doing much better now. It's looking like he might be allergic to chicken, and removing chicken from his diet has made a huge difference!

Nonfiction Challenge; HistoryCAT
Beyond the Body Farm by Bill Bass & Jon Jefferson

Legendary forensic anthropologist and “Body Farm” founder Dr. William Bass describes several of the cases that he’s worked on in his decades-long career. The cases highlight different aspects of forensic anthropology and the methods available to criminal investigators for identifying unknown corpses and determining cause of death. Bass is wearing his educator hat as he writes, and lay readers will come away with a basic understanding of forensic anthropology, its history, and related fields such as forensic dentistry and forensic entomology. Although Dr. Bass retired more than 30 years ago, he has continued to consult with criminal investigators. One interesting thing that this book illustrates is just how influential Dr. Bass has been in this field. Many of the professionals whose groundbreaking discoveries continue to advance the practice of forensic anthropology studied under Dr. Bass or under one of his former students.

4.5 stars

Group Reads
The Longmire Defense by Craig Johnson

Absaroka County Sheriff Walt Longmire opens a can of worms when he finds an old rifle hidden on his family’s elk camp. He remembers his father’s story about an accidental shooting that resulted in the death of one of Walt’s grandfather’s hunting companions. Walt, who never got along with his grandfather, wonders if his grandfather might have been a murderer. Walt’s questions catch the attention of people in high places, for whom it seems the past isn’t really dead. Meanwhile, Walt’s relationship with his undersheriff, Vic, takes a new turn.

I liked a lot of the elements of the story – a historical mystery where family history is important, well-read characters who think it’s natural to talk about books, dogs as supporting characters. However, the plot is so convoluted that it’s hard to keep track of all the important elements. I liked that Vic is absent through a lot of the book since I prefer her in small doses due to her foul mouth. If Johnson intended for his readers to be surprised that Vic had moved into Walt’s cabin, he shouldn’t have been so heavy-handed about Walt avoiding going home. Every time Walt wondered to himself where Vic had gone, I’d tell him “She’s at your house,” but he didn’t listen.

3.5 stars

American Authors Challenge; Reading Projects In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

This is the book that seems to set the standard for the true crime genre, so perhaps my expectation was too high. The book’s construction is like many novels, with frequent shifts of scene to follow different characters and their narrative journey. Capote tells the story of the murder of four members of a Kansas family by alternately following the family’s last day, the journey of the murderers toward their crime, their travels following the murders, the investigation, the trial, and the time on death row awaiting the execution date. Capote seems particularly sympathetic toward one of the murderers, Perry Smith, to the point that it ought to raise questions about his objectivity. There are no footnotes or endnotes for readers to verify the facts of the case.

3.5

Reading Projects
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

While in Paris for a conference, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon gets caught up into a murder investigation with symbolic meaning. The Louvre’s director has died, leaving behind cryptic clues about the motive for his murder. The victim intends for Langdon to solve the clues, but instead they implicate him. It’s doubly imperative for Langdon to unravel the mystery in order to prove his innocence.

This book created a sensation upon its publication a couple of decades ago because the plot weaves in unorthodox theories of Christianity. The controversy probably generated more readers than it deserved on its merits as a thriller. I didn’t have any trouble deciphering most of the puzzles, so it seemed like I was constantly waiting for the “expert” characters to catch up. There are better thrillers, and there are better sources than a novel for learning about Christian history from both an orthodox and an unorthodox perspective.

2.5 stars

CalendarCAT; Group Reads
Skirts: Fashioning Modern Femininity in the Twentieth Century by Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell

Fashion historian Chrisman-Campbell looks at the history of women’s fashion in the twentieth century through ten iconic styles: the Delphos, the tennis skirt, the little black dress, the wrap dress, the strapless dress, the bar suit, the naked dress, the miniskirt, the midi skirt, and the bodycon dress. Each chapter includes one or two black and white illustrations, plus there are 22 color plates. It’s still not enough illustrations, and most readers will need to Google images of some of the looks that are discussed that don’t have accompanying illustrations. This really needed to be a coffee table book, although it would have increased the cost and decreased its reach. I was hoping for more of a high street fashion history, which would have been of more interest to me than this history of high fashion and designer labels.

3.5 stars

>80 cbl_tn: I've been meaning to get to my next Longmire book.

>84 hailelib: Which one are you ready for?

>85 cbl_tn: The one just before, Hell and Back.

>86 hailelib: Be ready for a strange ride. I ended up liking it more than I thought I would.

PrizeCAT
Deep Sea by Annika Thor

It’s been four years since Stephie Steiner and her younger sister Nellie arrived from Vienna as Jewish refugees in Sweden. Stephie is in her final year of grammar school and boards in town with her friend May’s family, while Nellie still lives on the island with her host family. Stephie has many worries. She is in her last year of grammar school. Will the relief committee pay for her to continue her schooling, or will she be forced to leave school and get a job like almost all of the other girls her age? Why is her friend Vera behaving so strangely? Why has Nellie become sullen, angry, and distant? By far her biggest worry is the health and welfare of her parents, who are imprisoned in the Theresienstadt concentration camp.

I loved A Faraway Island, the first book in this quartet. It reminded me quite a bit of Anne of Green Gables. I became invested in then twelve-year-old Stephie’s story, and I want to see how her story ends. The books increasingly address more adult themes as Stephie ages, and this book includes themes that would be more appropriate for older teens, about the age that Stephie is in the book (15-16).

3.5 stars

PrizeCAT
The Salt Path by Raynor Winn

Raynor Winn and her husband Moth experienced a major financial setback that resulted in the loss of their home and livelihood. The very next day, Moth was diagnosed with a degenerative brain disease with no cure. With no home and no jobs, the couple decided to walk the South West Coast Path from Minehead to Poole, passing through Somerset, Devon, Cornwall, and Dorset. Because they have no money for hotels or campgrounds, the pair plan to wild camp along the trail. Winn’s memoir tells of their adventures on the path, and of coming to terms with Moth’s illness and with their homelessness. It’s a moving reflection on life, love, aging, resilience, and the restorative power of nature and physical activity. The audio version read by the author made this an extra special experience.

4 stars

CalendarCAT; Group Reads
Woman, Captain, Rebel: The Extraordinary True Story of a Daring Icelanding Sea Captain by Margaret Willson

In a time before living memory, Icelandic women worked alongside men on oar-powered fishing boats. One woman, Thurídur Einarsdóttir, became a highly-sought fishing boat captain. She also had a strong sense of justice and compassion for those on the margins, especially women and children.

Thurídur’s story survived thanks to Iceland’s storytelling heritage. The author combed archives to find any reference to Thurídur that has survived in the writings of her contemporaries and their descendants, in letters, in legal documents, and in poetry and legend. Since this is narrative nonfiction, the author’s preface includes a general statement on the quotes and paraphrased conversations in the book, and the “narrative liberties” employed to add color to the account. Such liberties in nonfiction works annoy me when they are unacknowledged, and the author earned my trust by acknowledging them from the outset.

4.5 stars

March Recap

American Author Challenge
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (3.5)

British Author Challenge
Half a Crown by Jo Walton (4)

Nonfiction Challenge
Beyond the Body Farm by Bill Bass & Jon Jefferson (4.5)

HistoryCAT
Beyond the Body Farm by Bill Bass & Jon Jefferson (4.5)

PrizeCAT
Maybe by Morris Gleitzman (4)
Deep Sea by Annika Thor (3.5)
The Salt Path by Raynor Winn (4)

CalendarCAT
Skirts: Fashioning Modern Femininity in the Twentieth Century by Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell (3.5)
Woman, Captain, Rebel: The Extraordinary True Story of a Daring Icelandic Sea Captain by Margaret Willson (4.5)

Reading Projects
Skellig by David Almond (4)
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (3.5)
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (2.5)

Group Reads
The Longmire Defense by Craig Johnson (3.5)
Skirts: Fashioning Modern Femininity in the Twentieth Century by Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell (3.5)
Woman, Captain, Rebel: The Extraordinary True Story of a Daring Icelandic Sea Captain by Margaret Willson (4.5)

Everything Else

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

Best of the month: Woman, Captain, Rebel by Margaret Willson (4.5)
Worst of the month: The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (2.5)

>90 cbl_tn: This one's going on the TBR! Looks great!

You got me with two book bullets today.

>92 rabbitprincess: I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

>93 hailelib: Which ones were a hit?!

CalendarCAT; Reading Projects
The Late Mrs. Willoughby by Claudia Gray

Following the events at Donwell Abbey as recounted in The Murder of Mr. Wickham, Juliet Tilney has been invited to visit Colonel and Marianne Brandon at Delaford. Meanwhile, Jonathan Darcy and several of his former classmates have been invited to spend a month at Allenham Court with Mr. Willoughby and his new bride. Mr. Darcy and Miss Tilney are surprised and pleased to see each other at a dinner party at Barton Park, but the evening ends in tragedy with the sudden death of Mrs. Willoughby, apparently from poison. Mr. Darcy and Miss Tilney have successfully investigated a murder before. Can they do it again?

I like Jonathan Darcy and Juliet Tilney as sleuthing partners. Jonathan has personality traits characteristic of autism or Asperger’s. Juliet accepts Jonathan’s differences, and she is very protective of him in social settings where others might not be as understanding. Even so, the book drags on too long. I listened to the audio version, and there is nearly an hour more of the recording left after the murder is solved. The author seems compelled to include all of the major characters from Sense and Sensibility, but one set of characters has a story line that is completely independent of the murder plot. Since it doesn’t advance the murder plot, it doesn’t belong in the book, and the author and her editor(s) should have resisted the temptation.

3 stars

Group Reads
The Fire Dance by Helene Tursten

When a dancer/choreographer disappears and her body is later found in the charred ruins of a fire, Goteborg detective Irene Huss is taken back fifteen years to one of her earlier cases. The current fire victim was eleven years old then, and she was the last person to leave the house where her stepfather died in a fire. Irene and her colleagues were never able to get the neuro diverse Sophie Malmborg to speak about the fire or what she witnessed. Is her death in a fire related to her stepfather’s death fifteen years ago?

Irene investigates largely on her own in this case because most of her colleagues are tied up with a gang-related murder. In some ways this made the plot tighter. Irene’s daughter, Jenny, has been featured in a couple of the earlier novels. This time around it’s Jenny’s twin, Katarina, who spends more time with Irene. Many readers will figure out the answer to the fifteen-year-old fire from the description of the dance that Sophie choreographed. The symbolism is obvious to the reader, and it should have been immediately obvious to Irene.

3.5 stars

>96 cbl_tn: I never could get into that series. I tried. I just hated the ones I read so much I couldn't continue.

>97 thornton37814: I'm sorry it didn't work for you. I'm glad you're finding books that you enjoy more.

Reading Projects
Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie

International intrigue comes to a girls’ school in this classic mystery with a hint of espionage. After spending a few weeks in the Middle East with her mother visiting her uncle, Jennifer Sutcliffe begins a new term at Meadowbank School for Girls. Unbeknownst to Jennifer and her mother, Jennifer’s uncle hid something in their belongings. Someone is aware of it, and this person won’t hesitate to kill to get hold of the hidden items. But who is it? One of the teachers, or maybe even one of the students? Eventually someone has the wits to summon Hercule Poirot, who quickly makes sense of all the strange events.

This is one of my favorite Poirot novels, even though Poirot doesn’t appear until very late in the book (about 2/3 of the way through, in fact). The clues are more heavy-handed than I’m used to from Christie. I am puzzled by the lacrosse sticks on the cover of the audio version, and the mention of lacrosse in the Overdrive book summary. As far as I can recall, lacrosse isn’t mentioned in the book. There are frequent mentions of tennis, however. I don’t know how you confuse the two sports, and it makes me wonder if anyone at the publishing company bothered to read the book.

4 stars

British Author Challenge
Less than Angels by Barbara Pym

Pym observes the observers in this novel populated mostly by anthropologists and anthropology students. Tom Mallow returns from two years of field work in Africa to finish writing his thesis. He resumes his live-in relationship with writer Catherine, only to soon take up with first-year student Deirdre.

This book raises the question of who is better equipped to observe and describe human nature – the anthropologist or the fiction writer? (Advantage: fiction writer. It’s obvious that Catherine understands Tom and his behavior better than Tom understands himself!) Pym gives several nods to her earlier novel, Excellent Women, with the reappearance of Esther Clovis and repeated mentions of Everard Bone and his wife Mildred. At a point of crisis, Catherine reflects that “I’m not one of those excellent women, who can just go home and eat a boiled egg and make a cup of tea and be very splendid…but how useful it would be if I were!”

4.5 stars

Everything Else
Tevye the Milkman by Sholem Aleichem

On the surface I have little in common with a 19th-century Russian Jewish peasant, yet these stories resonated with me. Tevye’s faith and his knowledge of the Hebrew Bible and teachings help him endure the hardships he encounters. Tevye’s love for his daughters reminds me of my own father. It must have been daunting to take on the job of narrating the audio version of such a well-known character. Listeners can’t help but compare this performance to Topel’s portrayal of Tevye on stage and screen. Neville Jason’s delivery far exceeded my expectation. I don’t often do rereads, but this one is worth a revisit.

5 stars

Reading Projects
The Unexpected Guest by Agatha Christie
The Unexpected Guest is one of Christie’s plays that wasn’t first a book or short story. Even though it’s original, it still feels like Christie has recycled past plots to create this play. A stranded traveler arrives at a remote Welsh home to find a woman holding a gun while her husband sits in his wheelchair, dead from a gunshot to the head. Did the woman kill him as she freely admits to the stranger, or is she shielding another member of the household? I listened to a BBC radio performance, and I suspect that it was abridged to fit the allotted radio timeslot. I don’t feel a need to read the full version, even though I own it in an omnibus edition of Christie’s plays. Recommended only for Christie completists.

3 stars

39. Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World by Timothy Brook

Historian Brook uses the Delft of Johannes Vermeer as the reference point for examining the expansion of globalization in the seventeenth century. Brook identifies objects or persons in 17th century Dutch artworks that link Delft with the wider world. Since Brook specializes in Chinese history, it’s not surprising that most of the paths he follows lead to China. While the term “globalization” may have entered common usage only in the late 20th century, it’s clear that its effects have been visible since at least the seventeenth century.

4 stars

PrizeCAT
Home by Marilynne Robinson

There is a balm in Gilead
To make the wounded whole;
There is a balm in Gilead
To heal the sin-sick soul.

After twenty years of estrangement and exile, Jack Boughton returns to his childhood home in Gilead, Iowa. Jack’s widowed father, a retired Presbyterian minister, is in failing health. Jack’s sister, Glory, the youngest of the eight Boughton siblings, has returned to the family home after a failed relationship. As the siblings care for their father’s needs, their kindred wounds and vulnerabilities form them into a unit apart.

Jack, and to a lesser extent Glory and their father, first appeared in Gilead in relation to his namesake, the Congregational minister John Ames. Home gives readers a different perspective on the fraught relationship between Jack and Reverend Ames.

I could point to Jack’s story as an explanation for why I am not a Calvinist. Reverend Boughton has worried about the state of Jack’s soul for his son’s entire life, and he holds out hope that Jack will accept God’s grace. He doesn’t see that Jack’s problem isn’t unbelief, but belief. Jack believes he is a reprobate and not one of God’s elect. He is unable to see himself as worthy of his family’s love. There isn’t a balm in Gilead for Jack Boughton.

5 stars

>104 cbl_tn: I have had this on my short stack to read soon for years now. You've really reminded me of how much I loved Gilead. And I am with you on the Calvinism. I can't understand the concept of a loving God assigning people who love Him to Hell before their birth.

>105 RidgewayGirl: It has been at the top of my TBR list for more than a decade. I'm not sure how I let it sit that long!

It seems that Marilynne Robinson is one of my favorite authors. I've read three of her novels and all three have been 5 star reads for me. I don't rate many books that highly.

Everything Else
The Consequences of Fear by Jacqueline Winspear

Maisie Dobbs has her hands full balancing work and family life with her adopted daughter. Her routine has her spending the first part of the week in London, juggling her private investigation business and her war work for an intelligence agency, assessing the psychological fitness and readiness of agents being trained to infiltrate occupied France. Her latest investigation crosses over into her intelligence work. A young boy who works as a courier for the government has witnessed a murder while delivering a message during an air raid, and he turns to Maisie for help. The trail leads to members of the French resistance.

The plot relies on too many coincidences, and the murder takes a back seat to intelligence operations. The developments in Maisie’s personal life are the highlight of the book. Maisie consoles her daughter, Anna, and her best friend, Priscilla, as they face the loss of those dear to them, and Maisie and her beau, American diplomat Mark Scott reach a crossroad in their relationship.

3.5 stars

American Author Challenge; Reading Projects
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

Author and humorist Bill Bryson writes about his experiences hiking the Appalachian Trail in the mid-1990s. This tale has been charming readers for nearly three decades, but it fell a bit flat for me. Unlike Grandma Gatewood, whose walk I read about last year, Bryson didn’t actually hike the entire trail Also, I didn’t appreciate the slightly contemptuous, condescending tone Bryson assumes toward the Southern Appalachians and especially Gatlinburg, a tourist spot for many, but also a stomping ground for locals like me. Bryson bemoans the fact that of the fifteen Gatlinburg tourist attractions he listed in his The Lost Continent, published nearly a decade earlier, only three of them were still there when he returned on his Appalachian Trail journey. I can tell you that at least three of them weren’t in Gatlinburg a decade earlier, either, because they were actually several miles away in Pigeon Forge. I’ve been to Bonnie Lou and Buster’s music theater, although not for the Bonnie Lou and Buster Country Music Show, and it was most definitely in Pigeon Forge. So was Carbo’s Police Museum and the Irlene Mandrell Hall of Stars Museum and Shopping Mall. Bryson claims the missing attractions had been replaced by new ones such as Hillbilly Golf, which was already there the first time he visited Gatlinburg. I guess he just missed it. When I was a child and eagerly anticipating a trip to Gatlinburg, Hillbilly Golf was the landmark that indicated we had arrived. It makes me wonder about what else Bryson missed in places that I’m not familiar with.

3.5 stars

Reading Projects
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

“When will this bad dream end,” the woman thought as the faded star’s voice droned on and on about the big fish that pulled the old man and his boat through the blue water. “This is as bad as A Farewell to Arms but at least it is not as long.” The woman woke from her daze as the small dog licked her hand. The dog’s eyes said to her “I am still here, and I want to go out.” The woman rose from her chair, hooked the dog to his leash, walked out into the bright sun and the green grass, and shut the door.

2.5 stars

April Recap

American Author Challenge
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson (3.5)

British Author Challenge
Less than Angels by Barbara Pym (4.5)

Nonfiction Challenge
Vermeer’s Hat by Timothy Brook (4)

HistoryCAT

PrizeCAT
Home by Marilynne Robinson (5)

CalendarCAT
The Late Mrs. Willoughby by Claudia Gray (3)

Reading Projects
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson (3.5)
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (2.5)
Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie (4)
The Unexpected Guest by Agatha Christie (3)
The Late Mrs. Willoughby by Claudia Gray (3)

Group Reads
The Fire Dance by Helene Tursten (3.5)

Everything Else
Tevye the Milkman by Sholem Aleichem (5)
The Consequences of Fear by Jacqueline Winspear (3.5)

Books owned: 2
Books borrowed: 1
Ebooks borrowed: 2
eAudiobooks owned: 1
eAudiobooks borrowed: 5

Best of the month: Home by Marilynne Robinson (5); Tevye the Milkman by Sholem Aleichem (5)
Worst of the month: The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (2.5)

>109 cbl_tn: I loved this review.

>109 cbl_tn: I am a fan of Hemingway's and your review was perfect.

>111 lowelibrary: Thank you!

>112 RidgewayGirl: I am not feeling it for Hemingway so I think this is it for me. I am glad that he has his readers, though! And I did love his Key West house and the six toed cats!

>109 cbl_tn: Another fan of this review! (But not a fan of Hemingway, though Old Man and the Sea is my least-disliked of his books.)

>114 Charon07: I guess that's true for me as well. I actually liked the parts of the book where the old man wasn't in the boat fishing.

I went to the Friends of the Library book sale this morning and came home with a stack of books, because I need more books. You know how it is. NOw I have to find room on my shelves for:

The Names of Our Tears by P. L. Gaus
The Care and Management of Lies by Jacqueline Winspear
Whispers of the Dead by Peter Tremayne
Some Danger Involved by Will Thomas
Run Afoul by Joan Druett
Two for the Lions by Lindsey Davis
The Jupiter Myth by Lindsey Davis
Under Occupation by Alan Furst
Broken Harbor by Tana French
Under Orders by Dick Francis
Comeback by Dick Francis
Field of Thirteen by Dick Francis
Knit Scarves & Shawls Now

>116 cbl_tn: Nice haul!

>117 RidgewayGirl: I wasn't expecting such a large haul. I didn't find much that interested me last year. I'm never able to make it until the last day of the sale because of my work schedule, and it's usually pretty well picked over by then.

HistoryCAT; Reading Projects
Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke

British philosopher Edmund Burke’s critique of the French Revolution could be summed up with the adage “don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.” As events progressed, Burke could have followed this up with “See, I told you so!”

3.5 stars

ETA: I left out a word!

>118 cbl_tn: When I was still in Greenville, and a short drive from the Really Big, Really Great book sale, I would wait to go until Sunday, reasoning that others should have first dibs. But when a big book sale involves a long drive to St. Louis, I went on the first day. There's another book sale, a mere hour's drive away in Springfield on the 18th, and I plan to go early then, too. And to stop by the Prairie Archives bookstore, a large used bookstore in downtown Springfield. I had better get reading.

>109 cbl_tn: Brilliant!

>120 RidgewayGirl: I will have to add Prairie Archives to my list of places to go. I have an aunt in Springfield, but I rarely get to visit.

>121 pamelad: Thanks!

>116 cbl_tn: My historical fiction book group read Some Danger Involved & really liked it. Especially me.

>123 ReneeMarie: That's good to hear! I've been meaning to try this author for quite a while, but I haven't managed to work him in yet.

>122 cbl_tn: The next time you do go visit your aunt, let me know and I'll drive down so we can browse the bookstore and grab a cup of coffee.

>125 RidgewayGirl: That would be wonderful!

>109 cbl_tn: That review is great!

>109 cbl_tn: I LOLed at that review!

>109 cbl_tn: Great review! Thank heaven you have Adrian to pull you to a better place.

>127 MissWatson: >128 christina_reads: >129 DeltaQueen50: Thank you all! I am pretty sure I am done with Hemingway. I've tried twice and he's just not for me.

HistoryCAT
A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters

Prior Robert of Shrewsbury Abbey convinces his fellow monks that they need the bones of Welsh Saint Winifred as a relic for the Abbey. Several of the brothers are selected to go to Wales to retrieve Saint Winifred’s remains, and Brother Cadfael is chosen because he speaks Welsh. The Shrewsbury party meets with some opposition from Rhisiart, an influential landowner, and then Rhisiart is killed. Brother Cadfael believes there is more to the murder than meets the eye, but he must tread carefully in his quest to unmask the killer lest his efforts cause more harm than good.

I started reading this series with the second book, One Corpse Too Many, because it was the first one that came into my hands. I was told by other LT members at the time that this was probably a good thing, because this first book lacks some supporting characters who make their first appearance in One Corpse Too Many. Having finally read the first book, I now know that the advice I received was spot on. This turned out to be a great way to experience this series – start with book #2 and treat book #1 as a prequel to pick up somewhere along the journey.

3.5 stars

Group Reads
Mischievous Creatures: The Forgotten Sisters Who Transformed Early American Science by Catherine McNeur

Historian McNeur rescues two nineteenth-century women scientists from undeserved obscurity. Sisters Elizabeth and Margaretta Morris spent most of their lives in their mother’s home in Germantown, on the outskirts of Philadelphia. The family was prosperous enough that Elizabeth and Margaretta were able to pursue their interests in the natural world, with Elizabeth focused on botany and Margaretta on entomology. The women’s social circle included prominent names in the sciences such as Asa Gray, Louis Agassiz, William Darlington, and Thaddeus William Harris. The sisters regularly published in scientific journals, although often anonymously or using initials to disguise their sex. Margaretta Morris was among the first women elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Both women made discoveries in their fields only to have doubts raised by male scientists who questioned the accuracy of their observations, and usually with credit for their discoveries given to male scientists.

This is a particularly timely read for me since one of Margarette Hare Morris’s discoveries is a species of seventeen-year cicada. I live in a county where Brood XIX of the 13-year cicadas are expected to emerge this spring.

4 stars

>131 cbl_tn: That is a very lovely cover, too!

>132 cbl_tn: I'm in an area that is expected to see two broods hatch and I'm looking forward to it.

>133 MissWatson: I think so, too!

>134 RidgewayGirl: Be sure and get photos! You will probably look forward to them leaving, too, if they're as loud as they were the last time we had them here.

Everything Else
The Word Is Murder by Anthony Horowitz

When author and screenwriter Anthony Horowitz is approached by a police consultant to collaborate on a true crime account of a murder investigation, Horowitz’s curiosity overcomes his initial reluctance. Just hours before the murder, the victim, mother of a famous actor, had visited a funeral home where she planned and paid for her funeral. Did she suspect that someone wanted her to die? Daniel Hawthorne, the former police officer turned private detective, gets under Horowitz’s skin, and to be fair, most people find Hawthorne highly annoying. But Hawthorne is brilliant, and the unlikely pair make a 21st century Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.

The line between fact and fiction blurs in this novel. Horowitz drops tidbits throughout on his real life projects, particularly Foyle’s War. Arthur Conan Doyle did it first with his fictional Dr. Watson as the first-person narrator of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Horowitz gives it a new twist by inserting himself into the story. I think it’s fun. YMMV.

4 stars

American Authors
Ancestors: A Family History by William Maxwell

Novelist and long-time New Yorker editor William Maxwell’s family memoir tells of his childhood and his family’s long connection to Lincoln, Illinois. Maxwell and my small town Illinois-born grandmother were contemporaries, so the setting interested me. Several generations of Maxwell’s family belonged to the religious movement now known as the Stone-Campbell Movement, which includes the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Churches of Christ, and independent Christian Churches and Churches of Christ. Maxwell digs deep into the history of the Stone-Campbell Movement in order to understand his family and the way that their faith shaped them.

Maxwell’s memoir wouldn’t pass muster as an example of genealogical methodology since it’s undocumented. However, this doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t be useful to genealogists and family historians. Maxwell views his ancestors through the lens of a fiction writer and gets to the heart of the personalities, motivations, and individual decisions that make up his family story. Many families with Midwestern roots likely had at least one branch that belonged to the Stone-Campbell Movement. Maxwell’s memoir offers a good starting point for readers with an interest in this movement since he includes references to several standard histories. Maxwell references Haynes’s History of the Disciples of Christ in Illinois, 1819-1914, which I’ve consulted for my own family history research.

3.5 stars

Reading Projects
Trouble in Triplicate by Rex Stout

These three Nero Wolfe novellas all have one thing in common: Wolfe’s client is murdered in each one (although technically he didn’t accept the victim as a client in the second novella). The novellas are out of order since the middle one takes place during World War II while Archie is in the army and assigned to Wolfe, while the first and last are set shortly after the war. The novella length works well for Wolfe stories. It’s long enough to allow the reader to consider multiple suspects for the murder, and the pace suits first-person narrator Archie’s repartee.

4 stars

PrizeCAT; CalendarCAT; Reading Projects
The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever

For the most part, the stories in this collection are character studies of individuals facing a moral dilemma or a psychological crisis, and they left this reader feeling unsettled. They make you wonder what is going on underneath the surface presented by strangers and casual acquaintances, and maybe even one’s close friends. The stories seem to be a product of their time, written over the decades of the mid-20th century from post-World War II through the mid- to late 1970s. In a way, they seem like the literary equivalent of mid-20th century television shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Twilight Zone. Many of the stories evoke the same kind of atmosphere as these television shows.

4 stars

Nonfiction Challenge
Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey by Lillian Schlissel

What was the journey like for the women who migrated west to Oregon and California in the mid-19th century? Historian Lillian Schlissel analyzes diaries, journals, letters, and memoirs of dozens of women who made this journey to form a picture of the journey from a woman’s perspective. Most of the women were young adults, quite a few were pregnant during the journey, and most were less enthusiastic about the journey than the men in their family. Schlissel breaks down her account by decade, allowing readers to see how the experience changed over time as the later travelers benefited from more settlements and sources of support along the trail than the earliest travelers. The book includes dozens of illustrations (photographs and maps), transcriptions of four representative diaries, and a table categorizing each of the women whose diaries are referenced by date of travel, age during the journey, marital status, number and ages of children, etc.

4 stars

May Recap

American Author Challenge
Ancestors: A Family History by William Maxwell (3.5)

British Author Challenge

Nonfiction Challenge
Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey by Lillian Schlissel (4)

HistoryCAT
Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke (3.5)
A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters (3.5)

PrizeCAT
The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever (4)

CalendarCAT
The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever (4)

Reading Projects
Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke (3.5)
The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever (4)
Trouble in Triplicate by Rex Stout (4)

Group Reads
Mischievous Creatures by Catherine McNeur (4)

Everything Else
The Word Is Murder by Anthony Horowitz (4)

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

Best of the month: Mischievous Creatures by Catherine McNeur (4)

British Author Challenge
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling

Harry Potter is back for his second year at Hogwarts (despite a bit of trouble getting there), and mysterious things are happening at the school. Students are being attacked, just as they were decades earlier when the mysterious Chamber of Secrets was opened. The Heir of Slytherin is said to have the ability to open the Chamber of Secrets and unleash its horror, and many at Hogwarts suspect that Harry may be the heir. Harry, with the help of Ron and Hermione, will need to find the narration real heir of Slytherin in order to acquit himself.

The setting and characters are the stars of the story rather than the plot. I guessed where things were headed fairly early on, although there were a couple of twists that surprised me. Despite the by the outstanding Jim Dale, my mind would wander, and I would find that I hadn’t missed anything important. The house elf, Dobby, became a sentimental favorite for me because my grandparents had a dog by that name when I was a child, long before Harry Potter’s creation.

3.5 stars

PrizeCat; Group Reads
The Black Angels by Maria Smilios

In the early to mid-20th century, Staten Island’s Seaview Hospital treated tuberculosis patients at a time when there wasn’t an effective cure. The nurses at the facility were mostly African American, and they were referred to by their patients as the “Black Angels.” Smilies relied on interviews with the families of the “Black Angels” and with the few surviving nurses to tell the history of Seaview Hospital from their perspective. Many of the nurses came from the Jim Crow South, looking for better opportunities in New York, only to be faced with the same kind of racism they thought they were leaving behind. These nurses were at the right place at the right time to take part in the clinical trials of the drugs that finally made a difference in the tuberculosis public health crisis.

This is an important story and one worth reading. However, it needed better editing. It’s padded with so much trivial social and cultural history references to popular music, television, current events, etc., that I became increasingly annoyed because it took so long to get to the point of the book. Unless authors are paid by the page, there is no reason for wasting so much of the reader’s time.

3 stars

>143 cbl_tn: That does sound like a fascinating topic! Too bad the execution didn't deliver.

>144 christina_reads: It's always disappointing when a book sounds better than it is!

American Authors; CalendarCAT; Reading Projects
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

Everybody in the past few years knew there wasn’t any real God. When she thought of what she used to imagine was God she could only see Mister Singer with a long, white sheet around him. God was silent—maybe that was why she was reminded.

From the moment I heard this sentence, I placed this book in my “silence of God” category – books I’ve read in which the author wrestles with God’s silence in the face of human misery and suffering. Tween Mick Kelly, African American Dr. Copeland, alcoholic Marxist/socialist laborer Jake Blount, and diner owner Biff Brannon all gravitate to the deaf and mute John Singer and confide to him their innermost thoughts and feelings. Not only is the God they speak to silent, he is also deaf. And by the end of the book, God is dead.

My interest waxed and waned with the uneven writing. The children are the strongest characters in the novel, and their voices seem the most authentic. The adult characters are a little more wooden, maybe because McCullers had more lived experience as a child than as an adult at the time the novel was written.https://www.librarything.com/privacy

3.5 stars

Nonfiction Challenge
Between the Woods and the Water by Patrick Leigh Fermor

Leigh Fermor takes up right where he left off in A Time of Gifts, having just crossed into Hungary in his journey across Europe on foot. His journey across Hungary includes stops at various castles and estates belonging to friends of the friends that he made in earlier stages of his journey. Leigh Fermor seems reluctant to leave his new friends and acquaintances behind. The Leigh Fermor who wrote the book several decades after the Holocaust and World War II, as well as his readers, are aware of an added melancholy because we know what the young Leigh Fermor and his acquaintances did not – how much destruction lay ahead in the not-too-distant future.

4 stars

>146 cbl_tn: - I saw you listened to this and thought it was good. My RL book club is reading this for our August meeting so maybe I'll read and listen to it next month.

I hope you enjoy the audio as much as I did! This will be an interesting book to discuss.

Group Reads
Last Act in Palmyra by Lindsey Davis

Informer Marcus Didius Falco has two commissions that take him east. The first comes from the emperor by way of Falco’s nemesis, Anacrites. Not wanting Helena Justina to know about the first commission, he accepts a second from Thalia. It seems that Thalia’s water organist ran off with a young man, and Thalia wants her back. The last news of her -came from the Decapolis. After a misadventure in Petra, Falco and Helena fall in with a group of traveling players headed for the Decapolis. Since there is strength in numbers, Falco and Helena join the troup, with Falco replacing the recently deceased playwright. Falco can look for the missing water organist as the group tours the Decapolis, and he can also look for the murderer who dispatched his much-disliked scriptwriting predecessor.

Although the plot has some deficiencies (including a dropped story line early on), I particularly enjoyed its setting. Petra is always fascinating, and the Decapolis is familiar to me from Sunday School since Jesus traveled there. It’s an unusual setting even for historical fiction, but it really worked for me.

4 stars

Group Reads
The Beige Man by Helene Tursten

Göteborg police inspector Irene Huss’s latest investigation takes her into the shadowy world of sex slavery. On a brutally cold night, a couple of car thieves hit and kill a pedestrian as they flee from police pursuit. They abandon the car, and the officers searching for them find much more than they bargained for – the body of a young girl bearing marks of strangulation. Change is afoot in the department with Irene’s boss on his way out in a matter of days. On the home front, Irene has to negotiate a health crisis with her aging mother, the possibility of an empty nest as her twins have reached adulthood, and a potentially serious health issue with her senior dog.

The author uses this book to raise awareness of the sex trade that affects so many thousands of people worldwide. Unfortunately, the awareness-raising is at the expense of the plot, which is a little thin.

3.5 stars

June Recap

American Author Challenge
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (3.5)

British Author Challenge
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling (3.5)

Nonfiction Challenge
Between the Woods and the Water by Patrick Leigh Fermor (4)

HistoryCAT

PrizeCAT
The Black Angels by Maria Smilios (3)

CalendarCAT
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (3.5)

Reading Projects
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (3.5)

Group Reads
The Black Angels by Maria Smilios (3)
Last Act in Palmyra by Lindsey Davis (4)
The Beige Man by Helene Tursten (3.5)

Everything Else

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

Best of the month: Between the Woods and the Water by Patrick Leigh Fermor (4)
Worst of the month: The Black Angels by Maria Smilios (3)

CalendarCAT
It's All Relative by A. J. Jacobs

I am a cousin! Author Jacobs adopted this phrase as a marketing slogan as he planned what he hoped would be the world’s largest family reunion. Jacobs looks at the “why” of genealogy and family history in brief chapters about various aspects including DNA, privacy, black sheep, family feuds, and biological families vs families of choice. In between topics, Jacobs slips in a few paragraphs about the event planning with a countdown to the big day. The final chapter reflects on the event – what went well, what didn’t, and what it all means.

I am a cousin! If Jacobs’ goal is to foster connections and a perspective of shared humanity, then he succeeded with me. One of the people he met while promoting his event was Donny Osmond, who happens to be a distant cousin. (Really!) I also know a couple of the genealogists that Jacobs consulted while planning the big reunion and writing the book, so there are just two degrees of separation between us.

Even though this book is a “why” rather than a “how to” for aspiring genealogists, the appendix provides useful tips for getting started, and it includes a decent annotated bibliography.

4 stars

>132 cbl_tn: Now on my library list.

>154 hailelib: It's a good one!

Reading Projects
The Second Confession by Rex Stout

In the belief that his youngest daughter’s boyfriend is a member of the Communist Party, a wealthy businessman hires Nero Wolfe to find proof of this affiliation before his daughter does something rash like marrying him. Before long, the boyfriend is dead, and Wolfe is looking for a murderer. This case once again brings Wolfe into contact with a mysterious mob boss that Wolfe refers to as X, and also as the only person he is afraid of.

This book would have been timely in its day since it was published just as the “red scare” was getting underway. It hasn’t aged well, and it has more the air of sensation than the sophisticated wit I’ve come to expect from Stout.

3.5 stars

HistoryCAT; Reading Projects
The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams

Henry Adams’ memoir is a mixed bag. It’s interesting because Adams was the grandson and great-grandson of two early presidents. Adams dabbled in politics in his early career but, unless I missed something, he never held elected office. He spent time in the bureaucratic ranks and voice political commentary.

Adams refers to himself in the third person throughout his memoir. This struck me as false humility. He bemoaned the years he sought but did not find education to prepare him for the future. Again, this struck me as false humility and arrogance. Isn’t he really saying that he wasn’t teachable?

Framing his memoir in terms of education conveniently allowed Adams to omit any mention of his wife and their troubled marriage, while talking at length about other women who contributed to his education. Adams kept his cards close to his chest, revealing only those that supported the public image he wanted to maintain.

2.5 stars

HistoryCAT
The White Mouse by Nancy WakeAustralian Nancy Wake was part of the French Resistance in World War II. After being forced to leave her Marseilles home due to the attention she had attracted from the Gestapo, Wake made her way to England where she received special operations training and returned to a different part of France and served under British direction.

Wake isn’t a particularly good writer, and if her memoir were published today, the publisher would likely have her work with a ghostwriter. However, the lack of polish does give her writing an air of authenticity.

Wake unashamedly reveals herself to have been something of a “party girl” in her youth. She didn’t lose some of those characteristics as she aged, and she continued to have a reputation as a heavy drinker into her senior years. She comes across as a potentially unreliable narrator, so readers would do well to seek out works written by her contemporaries and more objective biographers to assess her achievements.

3 stars

>157 cbl_tn: I think that the only way to make an autobiography worthwhile is when the author is willing to be honest about even the uncomfortable parts of their life and probably someone who thinks of themself as a Great Man is not going to do that.

>159 RidgewayGirl: That's a great observation!

>157 cbl_tn: For some reason that escapes me now, this is on my iPad. Sounds like I don’t need to be in a hurry to get to it.

>161 hailelib: I wouldn't be, but maybe you'll get more out of it than I did!

Group Reads
Time to Depart by Lindsey Davis

After several months in the east, informer Marcus Didius Falco lands in the midst of an organized crime investigation immediately upon his return to Rome. The corruption may have infiltrated the ranks of the vigiles, so Falco is tasked with investigating the investigators. This pits Falco against his best friend, Petronius “Petro.” Will their friendship survive? On the domestic front, Marcus and Helena search for new lodgings in anticipation of an addition to the family.

I like the way that Davis alternates the settings between Rome and its provinces. The books set in Rome allow Davis to develop the secondary characters, including Marcus’s many sisters and their children and Helena’s parents and brothers. The books set in other locations allow Davis to explore the far reaches of the Roman Empire. This pattern works well for me.

4 stars

HistoryCAT; Reading Projects
From Russia with Love by Ian Fleming

I’ve watched many of the Bond movies, some multiple times. This is my first and last experience with the books. I listened to three hours of the audio before Bond showed up. I’ve read and enjoyed many other Cold War era spy novels, so I don’t think the genre is the problem.

Skip the book, watch the film.

2 stars

CalendarCAT
Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kastner

Emil’s mother sends him to Berlin on the train to visit his grandmother. She gives him 140 marks for his grandmother and himself. While Emil sleeps on the train, the only other occupant of the compartment steals the money from Emil’s pocket. When Emil discovers his loss, he follows the man through Berlin, enlisting the help of a gang of boys. Together they devise a plot to catch the thief and retrieve Emil’s money.

I would have liked this book more if I had first read it in my childhood. It may suffer a bit in translation, but there are also issues with the plot that the translator can’t fix. Children had more freedom in the 1920s than they do a century later, but Emil and the other children’s actions strain credibility even for the 1920s. This is another instance where I liked the movie better than the book. I like the 1964 Disney film for its plot and its view of Berlin.

3 stars

PrizeCAT
An Island of Our Own by Sally Nicholls

Orphan siblings Holly, Jonathan, and Davy are barely getting by after their mother’s death. Jonathan has given up on university in order to care for his two younger siblings, but he struggles to pay the rent and cover other expenses like clothing and school supplies. When their eccentric great aunt Irene dies, the three learn that she has left them something in her will, but she has hidden her valuables and important papers. The only clues they have are photographs of the places where the valuables are hidden. The siblings set off on a treasure hunt to find their legacy with the help of some of their friends.

Even though the characters confront a lot of sadness head-on, this is ultimately an uplifting story of family, community, and discovery. The makerspace community that the children are a part of provides an interesting twist to a familiar treasure hunt theme. I would love to read a sequel to this story and see these children blossom.

4 stars

American Authors
A Council of Dolls by Mona Susan Power

Three generations of Native American women endure childhood trauma through the protection of their dolls. Narrated in turn by the childhood versions of the three women, the historical sections of the novel are the most powerful. The only real flaw is that the voices are too sophisticated for children who are still young enough to carry a doll with them everywhere they go. The fourth and final section of the novel is overwritten, and it undoes what the author so carefully crafted in the first three sections.

3 stars

HistoryCAT
Avenue of Spies by Alex Kershaw

American doctor Sumner Jackson, his Swiss wife Toquette, and their teenage son Phillip lived on Avenue Foch, in the midst of the Nazis who occupied Paris during the Second World War. Sumner and Toquette eventually joined the French resistance, and the family paid a high price for their opposition to Hitler’s Nazis. I listened to the audio version, and I found it difficult to follow because of all the details like address numbers, names and positions of officials, etc. I may revisit the print edition at some point to pick up on things I missed from the audio.

3.5 stars

July Recap

American Author Challenge
A Council of Dolls by Mona Susan Power (3)

British Author Challenge

Nonfiction Challenge

HistoryCAT
The White Mouse by Nancy Wake (3)
From Russia with Love by Ian Fleming (2)
Avenue of Spies by Alex Kershaw (3.5)

PrizeCAT
An Island of Our Own by Sally Nicholls (4)

CalendarCAT
It’s All Relative by A. J. Jacobs (4)
Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kastner (3)

Reading Projects
The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams (2.5)
From Russia with Love by Ian Fleming (2)
The Second Confession by Rex Stout (3.5)

Group Reads
Time to Depart by Lindsey Davis (4)

Everything Else

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

Best of the month: An Island of Our Own by Sally Nicholls (4)
Worst of the month: From Russia with Love by Ian Fleming (2)

>167 cbl_tn: I am taking a BB for this one.

>170 lowelibrary: I enjoyed getting to know this author! I will try her work again.

British Author Challenge; Reading Projects
My Dog Tulip by J. R. Ackerley

German shepherd Tulip’s owner is a middle-aged single British man. After recounting their initial adjustment to each other and his attempts to find a suitable vet, Ackerley devotes a chapter to peeing and pooping (a problem for city dogs in a time before picking up after them became the norm), and then he spends the rest of the book telling readers about his difficulties managing Tulip when she is in heat. He just skips over all the months that she’s not in heat.

Readers learn even less about Ackerley’s life. He lives alone. Has he ever been married, or is he a confirmed bachelor? The only relative readers meet is a cousin. Ackerley goes to work and comes home on weekdays. Where does he go and what does he do? He doesn’t tell us. (Although, to be fair, the book was initially published in a limited edition, and the intended audience probably knew Ackerley and his work without needing to be told.)

Were this book written today, it would be much shorter. Etiquette for dog owners now requires picking up after them, and many dog owners acquire their pets through adoption, with neutering or spaying a condition of the adoption.

3 stars

Group Reads
Wild Girls: How the Outdoors Shaped the Women Who Challenged a Nation by Tiya Miles

Historian Tiya Miles explores how the experience of outdoor life shaped the lives of influential 19th and 20th century women such as Harriet Tubman and Louisa May Alcott. Miles points out to readers that women faced fewer social restrictions in the outdoor world, and some women saw the outdoors as a way to push against the boundaries that constrained them.

I’ll remember this book for two reasons. First, Miles unearthed several eyewitness accounts of the Leonid meteor shower of 1833, including Tubman’s. Many observers believed they were witnessing the apocalypse. Secondly, Miles devotes most of a chapter to the Fort Shaw women’s basketball team and their demonstration of women’s basketball at the St. Louis World’s Fair. I had just recently finished a novel partly set at an Indian boarding school, and this book provided a deeper dive into an unusual aspect of the history of Native American boarding schools.

3.5 stars

CalendarCAT
Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare

I was able to follow the gist of the plot in the audio recording, but I need to read it one of these days to pick up on what I missed. It bears a lot of similarities to Romeo and Juliet. Just swap Egypt for Italy and political factions for a family feud. The ending is especially similar to Romeo and Juliet. Cleopatra has word sent to Antony that she is dead, he believes it and fatally wounds himself, then Cleopatra joins him with the help of an asp.

3.5 stars

Everything Else
The Silver Branch by Rosemary Sutcliff

In Roman Britain, young kinsmen Justin and Flavius share adventures while defending their homeland from a traitor’s rule. Justin is a doctor while Flavius is a soldier, and their success depends on each one using their skills. Sutcliff hints at what was going on at this point in time in the greater Roman Empire while keeping a tight focus on the plot. The characters are believable and sympathetic without the virtue signaling that too many 21st century authors use to draw attention away from their plot weaknesses.

4 stars

American Authors Challenge
A Slant of Light by Jeffrey Lent

I wanted to like this book more than I did. It felt overwritten. The author spent too much time in the characters’ heads telling readers what they were thinking, rather than leaving it up to the reader to infer from their actions. Even then, the explanations were insufficient to explain the motivations of most of the characters. The ending seems abrupt, as if the author didn’t allow any of the dust he’d stirred up to settle.

2.5 stars

Group Reads
Wandering through Life by Donna Leon

Donna Leon is the author of a long-running crime series set in Venice, so I expected her memoir to focus mainly on Italy. It takes her a long time to get there! After talking a bit about her childhood and early life, she moves on to her years teaching English in the Middle East and Asia. I found those chapters especially fascinating, particularly the years she spent in Iran leading up to the 1979 revolution and her time in Saudi Arabia. I wasn’t surprised by the pages she devoted to bees and bee culture since it found its way into one of her mystery plots. Her lifelong love of music, especially opera, also wasn’t a surprise, since music has featured in several of her mystery plots and the epigraphs in her books are nearly always from a libretto. The audio narrator’s delivery is a good match for the tone of the book, and it’s a great way to experience this memoir.

4 stars

>177 cbl_tn: The audiobook came through for me, and I'll begin it as soon as I listen to the last hour of or so of the one to which I've been listening. I really would have preferred the print on this one, but it just wasn't available.

PrizeCAT The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

In an alternate version of San Fransisco, change is in the air, and Americans (both Jews and non-Jews), Japanese, and Germans weigh decisions about their futures. In their world, the Axis powers won World War II, and both individual society and international relations operate in a vacuum of trust. Japan controls the U.S. West Coast and the Americans who still live there have adopted Japanese customs. Japanese and Americans alike consult the I Ching as an oracle to make decisions and foretell the immediate future. Everyone is morbidly curious about a book the Germans have banned, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, an alternate history of World War II in which Germany and Japan were defeated.

The theme of free will vs determinism resonated most with me. The characters, with a couple of brief exceptions, have a fatalistic view of the world and of their individual lives within the larger whole. By consulting the I Ching for even the most inconsequential of decisions, they cede their free will and personal responsibility for the consequences of their choices. If you take determinism to its logical conclusion, this book would be completely implausible because it would be impossible for history to have turned out any differently than it has.

3.5 stars

Nonfiction Challenge; CalendarCAT
Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza by Adina Hoffman & Peter Cole

For centuries, Jewish communities disposed of worn out or no longer useful documents by placing them in a geniza, a storage room in a synagogue or sometimes in a cemetery. Through a series of events at the end of the 19th century, the contents of a geniza in a synagogue in Fustat (Old Cairo) made their way to Cambridge and other centers of higher learning. Through painstaking cleaning and close examination of documents from the disorganized mass, scholars discovered works and authors that had been “lost” for several centuries.

Successive generations of scholars have built on each other’s discoveries. For instance, where one scholar focused on recovering the original text of palimpsests (reused parchment), a subsequent scholar recognized that some of the overwritten documents were authored by Yannai, a Jewish liturgical poet from the early Middle Ages whose works were thought to have been lost to history. Scholars continue to make new discoveries in the preserved documents with the assistance of advanced technology.

4.5 stars

August Recap

American Author Challenge
A Slant of Light by Jeffrey Lent (2.5)

British Author Challenge
My Dog Tulip by J. R. Ackerley (3)

Nonfiction Challenge
Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza by Adina Hoffman & Peter Cole (4.5)

HistoryCAT

PrizeCAT
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick (3.5)

CalendarCAT
Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare (3.5)
Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza by Adina Hoffman & Peter Cole (4.5)

Reading Projects
My Dog Tulip by J. R. Ackerley (3)

Group Reads
Wild Girls by Tiya Miles (3.5)
Wandering through Life by Donna Leon (4)

Everything Else
The Silver Branch by Rosemary Sutcliff (4)

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

Best of the month: Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza by Adina Hoffman & Peter Cole (4.5)
Worst of the month: A Slant of Light by Jeffrey Lent (2.5)

Everything Else
What You Are Looking for Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama

Five people vaguely dissatisfied with their lives make their way to the library at the community house where they encounter the librarian, Mrs. Komachi. Her book recommendations and bonus gift (one of Mrs. Komachi’s needle felting creations) inspire each of the five to explore new opportunities and try new activities to add more meaning to their lives. The audio version uses five different narrators for the five people whose stories are told, and I enjoyed the variety of voices. This book will leave many readers eager to explore the treasures in their local libraries to find inspiration for their own lives.

4 stars

>182 cbl_tn: I really enjoyed that book when I read it.

>180 cbl_tn: That one sounds interesting. Unfortunately the professor who would direct students to it most has mostly retired, and you probably see him more than I do!

>183 lowelibrary: Your thread might have been where I saw it! I know I saw it somewhere on LT but I have forgotten where.

>184 thornton37814: I really liked it. I told one of our OT professors about it and now he wants to read it. I donated my copy to the library

>185 cbl_tn: I picked it up a as a bullet earlier this year from charl08

Reading Projects
Three Doors to Death by Rex Stout

Nero Wolfe and his sidekick Archie Goodwin solve three more cases in this collection of novellas. The first case involves the fashion world and a supposedly long dead man who turns up as a fresh corpse. Wolfe takes the second case at the request of his friend, restaurateur Marko Vukcic, who wants Wolfe to prove that a chef accused of murder is innocent of the crime. Finally, Wolfe ventures out to Westchester to hire a horticulturist to take care of his orchids during Theodore’s extended absence. When the man Wolfe wants to hire becomes the prime suspect in a murder, Wolfe must prove him innocent for the sake of his prized orchids.

The novella format continues to work well for the Wolfe mysteries. Archie’s rapid-fire dialogue sets a brisk pace, and it seems like a natural fit for the shorter format.

4 stars

HistoryCAT; Group Reads
American Flygirl by Susan Tate Ankeny

The first time Chinese-American Hazel Ying Lee flew in a plane, she was hooked. She spent the rest of her life pursuing her dream of being a pilot. Hazel was one of only a few women accepted into a Chinese American pilot training program in the 1930s. Afterwards, she spent several years flying commercial aircraft in China, while her male colleagues flew as part of China’s air force. Lee eventually returned to the US. She was accepted into the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) training program. The WASPs ferried military aircraft to locations where they were needed, freeing male pilots for combat.

Many of the primary sources the author cites are housed in the Women Airforce Service Pilots official archive at Texas Women’s University. Scans of many of these documents and photographs are available in a digital archive, including photographs of Hazel Ying Lee and oral histories and correspondence of some of the women in Lee’s WASP classmates.

4 stars

Carrie, were you affected by Helene at all?

Group Reads
The Treacherous Net by Helene Tursten

Irene Huss and her colleagues in the Violent Crime Unit have a new boss. Huss’s former boss, Andersson, is spending the few months left before his retirement investigating cold cases. Irene and her colleagues are searching for a serial killer preying on young teens that he meets on the internet. Andersson and his colleagues investigate cold case with roots in World War II and a mysterious group known as The Net.

The two investigations are unrelated, and the verbal tie of “the net” feels forced. The cold case should either have been a spin-off from the series, or it should have been omitted entirely. The author set up some interesting dynamics between Irene and her new female boss, who uses her sexuality to manipulate the men in the department. She missed an opportunity to explore Irene’s attitude toward her former boss in light of the changes in the department and the potential for Irene and Andersson to consult each other concerning either of their current cases. I think this would have added more interest to the book.

3 stars

>188 cbl_tn: Hi there! I was not directly affected by Helene, but it didn't miss us by much. Where I work is right on the French Broad, and it was as high as it's been in my lifetime. I can see the river from the back of our building in the winter when there are no leaves on the trees. TVA had to release a lot of water from Douglas Dam because that's where the flood water from Asheville and from the Nolichucky River ended up. We're on a hill, though, so even record water levels didn't come anywhere near us. What's so sad to me is that, during my lifetime, land on the flood plain has been turned into subdivisions as family farms went out of business and the farmers sold fields to developers. The farmers knew better than to build homes on that land.

We didn't seem to get as much wind as the forecasters had predicted. I think we might have been in the eye.

>191 cbl_tn: I'm glad you escaped damage, but it really is hard for the people affected. My son is in college in Daytona Beach and I was so happy when he decided to leave on Monday to stay with friends at Clemson.

>192 RidgewayGirl: It is horrible for so many people, especially in western NC. Whole communities just gone. I can hardly bear to listen to eyewitness stories. I know a local first responder who was called in to help last week I think in the Erwin area and his family has no idea when he will be able to come home.

I am glad your son made it out on Monday. Just saw a live camera shot from Daytona Beach and it is already bad there even though the storm is still closer to the Gulf Coast.

Reading Projects
A Passage to India by E. M. Forster

This 100-year-old classic still has a timely feel with its exploration of issues of class and race. The novel seems to have been a harbinger of the end of the British Raj. It makes a political statement without compromising the elements of plot and character that can seem contrived in works by less talented authors.

5 stars

Nonfiction Challenge; Reading Projects
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

One of the interesting things we learn about Coates in this book is that he was trained from childhood to put his thought processes and feelings into words. That’s great training for a journalist! Through his gift of words, Coates speaks for a large segment of society with similar lived experiences. Reading (or in my case, listening) is the first step toward understanding.

3.5 stars

British Author Challenge; Reading Projects
Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes

There is a story here, but if you blink, you’ll miss it. On its surface this book reads like a literary analysis, biography, and trivia about Gustave Flaubert. Every now and then the first-person narrator drops tidbits of personal information about his marriage and his late wife that gradually take shape into a tragedy. Parrots appear frequently enough to serve a symbolic purpose, but not so often that the symbolism seems heavy-handed. It’s hard to find the line between fact and fiction in this novel. It works for me, but it might not work for everyone.

4 stars

September Recap

American Author Challenge

British Author Challenge
Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes (4)

Nonfiction Challenge
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (3.5)

HistoryCAT
American Flygirl by Susan Tate Ankeny (4)

PrizeCAT

CalendarCAT

Reading Projects
Three Doors to Death by Rex Stout (4)
A Passage to India by E. M. Forster (5)
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (3.5)
Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes (4)

Group Reads
American Flygirl by Susan Tate Ankeny (4)
The Treacherous Net by Helene Tursten (3)

Everything Else
What You Are Looking for Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama (4)

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

Best of the month: A Passage to India by E. M. Forster (5)
Worst of the month: The Treacherous Net by Helene Tursten (3)

>194 cbl_tn: I read that one many years ago (pre-LT) and really enjoyed it.

>198 thornton37814: If you ever want to revisit it, try the audio version!

Everything Else
The Devil's Novice by Ellis Peters

Brother Cadfael is troubled by the novice whose father leaves him at the Shrewsbury monastery. Young Meriet professes that he comes of his own free will, yet his troubled dreams disturb the entire monastery. When word reaches the monastery of a priest gone missing during his travels, Cadfael wonders if the disappearance is linked to Meriet’s troubled conscience.

The plot is characteristic of this series, without anything special to make it stand out. My mind wandered as I listened to the audio version, yet I discovered I hadn’t missed anything important when my focus returned.

3 stars

Group Reads
The Blue Tattoo: The Life of Olive Oatman by Margot Mifflin

In 1851, the 9-member Oatman family were part of the Mormon westward migration. The Oatmans were part of a sect headed for California rather than Utah. After falling out with their traveling companions, the Oatmans were on their own somewhere in what is now Arizona when they were attacked by a group of Yavapais. Thirteen-year-old Olive and her younger sister, Mary Ann, were kidnapped, while the rest of their family were massacred. Their older brother, Lorenzo, miraculously survived, and he never gave up on hunting for his missing sisters.

After a year of enslavement with the Yavapais, Olive and Mary Ann were traded to a group of Mohaves, who took them to California. Mary Ann was never strong, and she died during a famine. Olive spent about four years with the Mohaves. After rumors of a white girl living among the Mohaves reached American outposts, Olive was traded back to the US in 1856 and was reunited with her brother. Somewhere along the way, the siblings met Methodist minister R. B. Stratton, who wrote Olive’s captivity narrative and took her on the lecture circuit. Olive eventually broke free of Stratton after meeting the man who would become her husband. The couple settled in Sherman, Texas, where Olive died at 65.

Author and journalist Mifflin looks behind the legend to examine what really happened to Olive Oatman. What was the meaning of her facial tattoos? Was she tattooed against her will, or was her tattoo evidence of her assimilation into Mohave culture and society? Did Olive want to be repatriated, or would she have preferred to stay with the Mohaves? Mifflin suggests answers to these questions while leaving it up to readers to draw their own conclusions.

4 stars

>201 cbl_tn: I was fascinated by Oatman's life when I was a teenager. I think I read a novel based on her life, but I can't remember the title of it now.

>202 RidgewayGirl: This book mentioned several novels based on her life. The real story almost reads like fiction!

PrizeCAT
A Lady's Guide to Etiquette and Murder by Dianne Freeman

American Frances Wynn was a “dollar princess”, whose husband, Reggie, was the Earl of Harleigh. After Reggie’s death, Frances is ready to get out from under the thumb of the new earl, her brother-in-law, George, and his wife. Frances doesn’t announce her purchase of a leasehold property in London until it’s a fait accompli. To Frances’s surprise, her new neighbor in London is George Hazelton, the brother of her best friend, Fiona. George is also one of two besides Frances who know the true circumstances of her husband’s death. When questions are raised regarding the possibility that Reggie was murdered, Frances must investigate the rumors to clear her own name. Meanwhile, Frances is serving as chaperone for her younger sister, Lily, whom their parents have sent to London for the season to find a husband. Lily has no less than three suitors, one of whom may be the thief who has been stealing valuables from wealthy homes.

The audio reader’s voice and tone perfectly capture Frances’s affability and gentle sarcasm. Since Frances is a first-person narrator, audio seems a great choice for experiencing this series.

4 stars

Everything Else
Holes by Louis Sachar

When Stanley Yelnats IV ends up at Camp Green Lake, a Texas reformatory, endlessly digging holes in the dried lake bed, he knows it’s all his great-great-grandfather’s fault. His great-great-grandfather was cursed, and Stanley’s bad luck is evidence of the curse. Stanley didn’t do what he was accused of, but no one believed his story. As the days go by, Stanley realizes that there may be something sinister behind the hole digging, and the warden is in it up to her neck.

This story reminds me of the movie and stage play, Annie. The adults at Camp Green Lake, and particularly the warden, are larger-than-life evil characters, and the child hero, Stanley, uses his agency to change his circumstances for the better. Readers will root for Stanley as he adjusts to his circumstances and finds his way out.

4.5 stars

American Authors; Reading Projects
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

I had a hard time getting started with this family saga set in an unnamed South American country that strongly resembles Chile. Patience paid off in the end. Once I’d read about a quarter of the book, I was invested in the family and how their story would unfold. I had reservations about the magical realism because of past experiences with this genre, and I found Allende’s brand of magical realism more appealing than that of other authors I’ve read.

4 stars

CalendarCAT
The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis

In a series of letters written from one demon, Screwtape, to his nephew and trainee demon, Wormwood, Lewis exposes the nature of temptation and how easy it is to rationalize sin. It didn’t take me long to realize that Lewis had “stopped preaching and started to meddling”. I didn’t like what I saw reflected in my own life. Lewis died before I was born, yet his theological, philosophical, and cultural observations still feel fresh and relevant.

5 stars

American Authors; Reading Projects
The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter by Katherine Anne Porter

This collection of stories represents most of the author’s literary output over the course of her life. It’s really not a large body of work. I expected what it lacked in quantity to be made up in quality, but it didn’t work out that way. The early stories had an air of immaturity. The stories that resonated most with me were the last two in the collection – “Holiday” and “The Leaning Tower”. Porter worked on “Holiday” over several decades, and the final product is worthy of the author’s efforts. “The Leaning Tower” reflects Depression-era Berlin and the influences that led to World War II. From this side of the war, it’s chilling to see how accurate Porter’s perceptions were.

3.5 stars

Reading Projects
A Dying Light in Corduba by Lindsey Davis

When Falco’s nemesis, the chief spy Anacrites, is attacked and left for dead after a dinner party that they both attended, Falco is commissioned by the head of Anacrites’ rival agency to investigate the attack. The investigation centers on politicians and dignitaries from the province of Baetica, in what is now Spain. Falco needs the income, but he is troubled by the strong possibility that he will let down the love of his life, Helena. With the impending birth of their child, a trip to Baetica and back will be cutting it close, and Falco knows that Helena will never forgive him if he misses the birth. The problem is partly solved when Helena decides to go to Baetica with Falco. Her aristocratic connections might prove useful in solving the crime, but there’s still the problem of getting Helena safely back to Rome in time for the birth.

This book followed Davis’s established pattern for the series. Since the previous book was set in Rome, it was time for Falco to travel to one of the provinces. I’m finding that I enjoy the books set in Rome more because the secondary characters add so much to the stories set there. Falco’s relationships with them have developed over the course of several books. When Falco and Helena travel to the provinces, they’re interacting with a different cast of characters each time. These characters aren’t as well-developed as the series regulars.

3.5 stars

>206 cbl_tn: I agree, her brand of magical realism is very appealing.

>208 cbl_tn: I recognized the cover immediately--I just bought this book! (at a library book sale) I will look forward to the two stories you liked.

>210 NinieB: I will definitely try something else by Allende. And I hope you enjoy the Porter collection!

October Recap

American Author Challenge
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende (4)
The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter by Katherine Anne Porter (3.5)

British Author Challenge

Nonfiction Challenge

HistoryCAT

PrizeCAT
A Lady’s Guide to Etiquette and Murder by Dianne Freeman (4)

CalendarCAT
The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis (5)

Reading Projects
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende (4)
The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter by Katherine Anne Porter (3.5)

Group Reads
The Blue Tattoo: The Life of Olive Oatman by Margot Mifflin (4)
A Dying Light in Corduba by Lindsey Davis (3.5)

Everything Else
The Devil’s Novice by Ellis Peters (3)
Holes by Louis Sachar (4.5)

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

Best of the month: The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis (5)
Worst of the month: The Devil’s Novice by Ellis Peters (3)

>172 cbl_tn: J. R. Ackerley was a gay man so had to be circumspect because he could have been prosecuted. He wrote an entertaining memoir about his time in India, Hindoo Holiday.

>194 cbl_tn: I also gave A Passage to India five stars. I read it when I was much younger, but noticed a great deal more when I re-read it recently.

>213 pamelad: Ah. That makes more sense now.

Everything Else
The Secrets of Wishtide by Kate Saunders

After her clergyman husband’s death, Laetitia Rodd now works as a private investigator at the behest of her barrister brother, Frederick. The latest case calls for Mrs. Rodd to go undercover in the household of Sir James Calderstone to dig into the background of the widow with whom his son and heir has fallen in love. The case takes some unexpected turns with tragic consequences.

I listened to the Booktrack edition because that’s the audio version that was available from my public library. I didn’t enjoy the experience. According to the marketing material, the soundtrack is supposed to enhance the experience. I found it distracting. The music was loud enough to make it difficult to focus on the narrator, and the mood often didn’t match what was happening in the book. Based on this experience, I’m unlikely to listen to another Booktrack audiobook.

3.5 stars

Reading Projects
In the Best Families by Rex Stout

Nero Wolfe finally has a showdown with the master criminal he encountered twice previously, in And Be a Villain and The Second Confession. It all starts with a wealthy woman who wants to hire Wolfe to investigate her younger husband. Wolfe’s assistant, Archie Goodwin, has a cover story that will allow him to ask questions of the woman’s family, employees, and friends. Before he can make any progress, the woman is murdered, and then Wolfe disappears.

Wolfe’s head-to-head with Arnold Zeck is the culmination of a plot developed over the course of two previous Wolfe novels. Stout gives readers enough of the background so that this book could be enjoyed as a standalone, but I think most readers would find more satisfaction in reading the whole Arnold Zeck trilogy in order.

3.5 stars

HistoryCAT; Group Reads
Women in the Valley of the Kings by Kathleen Sheppard

This collective biography explores the lives and careers of the women who helped to establish the field of Egyptology in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For the most part, these women were not household names even at the peak of their careers. Men such as Howard Carter and Flinders Petrie received more acclaim. However, women such as Amelia Edwards and Marianne Brocklehurst provided much-needed funding for archaeological exploration in the 19th century, and Edwards was one of the founders of the Egypt Exploration Fund. After her early site experience with Flinders Petrie, Margaret Alice Murray became an educator who trained a generation of archaeologists in the methodology and background knowledge for their fieldwork.

Sheppard has organized the book in chapters about one or two of the women Egyptologists, rather than in a strictly chronological approach. The inevitable repetition had me turning back to earlier chapters to refresh my memory about the women who were minor characters in another woman’s chapter, and who later featured in a chapter of their own. The photographs are disappointing. They ought to be both larger and printed on higher quality paper so that the important details are visible to readers.

3.5 stars

Group Reads
Who Watcheth by Helene Tursten

Irene Huss and her colleagues in the Gotebörg police department are looking for a serial killer who preys on middle-aged women. The police narrow in on a suspect who fits the profile, but there is frustratingly little evidence. All they can do is wait for the killer to make a mistake. Then unexplained things start happening at Irene’s home. Is Irene the killer’s next target, or is someone from Irene’s past out to get her?

I’m torn about this series. Irene’s home life and her relationships with her colleagues are at the heart of these novels. Many readers will relate to the ups and downs in Irene’s life, such as her mother’s death, balancing motherhood with a career, becoming an empty-nester, losing a much-loved pet and bonding with a new pet. However, the mystery plots are weak and may disappoint readers who are well-read in the crime genre.

3.5 stars

Everything Else
Clark and Division by Naomi Hirahara

Aki Ito’s life changed with the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the onset of World War II. Aki, her parents, and her older sister, Rose, were forced to leave their home in Los Angeles and they were detained in Manzanar. Eventually, Rose was sent to Chicago, where the rest of the family was to join her in the Japanese American community near Clark and Division. Shortly before the family arrived, Rose was killed by a subway train. The official ruling is suicide, but Aki is convinced that Rose wouldn’t have killed herself. There must be more to Rose’s death, and Aki is determined to find the truth.

This mystery is more character driven than plot driven. Its strong sense of place and time will appeal to many historical fiction fans. Readers discover World War II era Chicago along with Aki as she explores Clark and Division and beyond.

4 stars

Everything Else
Love That Dog by Sharon Creech

Over the course of a school year, Jack listens to his teacher read poems in class, reads poems that his teacher assigns, and learns to write his own poems. He finds inspiration in his dog Sky, whose story is gradually revealed over the course of this novel, and in the poetry of Walter Dean Myers. This novel illustrates how poetry helps both its writers and readers explore their emotional world.

4 stars

Nonfiction Challenge; PrizeCAT; CalendarCAT
The Woman Who Split the Atom by Marissa Moss

Physicist Lise Meitner was an Austrian born Jew. Meitner’s work was underfunded and underrecognized in comparison with her male colleagues. Meitner collaborated closely with German chemist Otto Hahn over several decades. When Hahn consulted Meitner about the unexpected results of an experiment, it was Meitner who understood that Hahn had observed nuclear fission, it was Meitner and her nephew who published the explanation in Nature, and yet it was Otto Hahn who received credit for the discovery. Meitner and Hahn’s partnership would not survive the Nazi era.

Moss’s YA biography of Meitner is in part a graphic novel. Each chapter starts with a single page panel followed by text. The story is compelling, and the science is clearly explained. Moss includes a chronology of Meitner’s life, a glossary of scientific terms, one-paragraph biographies of the scientists mentioned in the book, and a selected bibliography. This book belongs in most middle and high school libraries.

4.5 stars

American Authors; Reading Projects
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

This character-driven novel exposes the absurdities of war through a group of men thrown together in a World War II aerial combat unit in Italy. Catch-22 describes the predicament of the protagonist, bombardier Yossarian, who needs to be relieved from combat duty for psychological reasons, but his self-recognition of his psychological unfitness for duty is paradoxically considered as proof of his sanity. Although the characters are fictional, I get the sense that the characters and situations are drawn from the author’s experience. The novel has a familiar feel thanks to the TV series MASH, which explores the same themes in a Korean war setting.

4 stars

November Recap

American Author Challenge
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (4)

British Author Challenge

Nonfiction Challenge
The Woman Who Split the Atom by Marissa Moss (4.5)

HistoryCAT
Women in the Valley of the Kings by Kathleen Sheppard (3.5)

PrizeCAT
The Woman Who Split the Atom by Marissa Moss (4.5)

CalendarCAT
The Woman Who Split the Atom by Marissa Moss (4.5)

Reading Projects
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (4)
In the Best Families by Rex Stout (3.5)

Group Reads
Women in the Valley of the Kings by Kathleen Sheppard (3.5)
Who Watcheth by Helene Tursten (3.5)

Everything Else
The Secrets of Wishtide by Kate Saunders (3.5)
Clark and Division by Naomi Hirahara (4)
Love That Dog by Sharon Creech (4)

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

Best of the month: The Woman Who Split the Atom by Marissa Moss (4.5)

PrizeCAT
Excursion to Tindari by Andrea Camilleri

Inspector Montalbano and his colleagues are investigating the murder of a young man in front of his apartment building when a man shows up asking them to investigate his parents’ disappearance. Coincidentally, the missing couple live in the same apartment building as the murdered man. There is no apparent connection between the murder victim and the missing couple, but the timing is suspicious.

Montalbano’s sarcasm can be laugh-out-loud funny, but his self-absorption makes him seem like someone I would avoid in real life. I much prefer Donna Leon’s Commissario Brunetti as a character, but I have a feeling that Montalbano is probably the more realistic character of the two.

3.5 stars

>219 cbl_tn: I read Evergreen, the sequel to this, and learned a lot about the treatment of Japanese Americans after the war.

>225 RidgewayGirl: I really like this author. I've read several of her Mas Arai mysteries about a Japanese American gardener in California. He is a Hiroshima survivor and she addresses the physical and psychological after effects.

Nonfiction Challenge; HistoryCAT; CalendarCAT
The Man Who Invented Christmas by Les Standiford

What makes this different from other biographies of Charles Dickens is that it’s written through the lens of what is perhaps his best-known work, A Christmas Carol. Dickens’ early life leads up to its writing, goes into some depth regarding Dickens’ financial situation and his inspiration for the beloved Christmas classic, and Dickens’ later work when he never quite managed to recapture the magic of this tale. Ebenezer Scrooge and his ghostly visitors are so much a part of popular culture that they may be more well known than their author. Standiford credits Dickens with popularizing Christmas traditions such as turkey dinners and Christmas trees. This book would be a great choice for the readers on your gift list.

4 stars

Adrian disappeared while I was fixing his food the other night. This is where I found him.

>228 cbl_tn: I read that first sentence and am very glad you went on to write that second sentence!

Checking in. I've got to interrupt the cats in a bit to remove my suitcase from the bed. I still have tops that are damp from washing the other day and "line drying". I guess I should have blown a fan on them. I tried moving the ones I'm taking to Mississippi so they'll be able to dry a little faster. They may be accompanying me in the front seat or atop all the luggage if I can't get them dry in time. Hoping they are dry when I go to pack them. I already have a lot of my stuff in the car. I have to pack the cross stitch bag and the computer bag--and decide about the books. I have 4 checked out from C-N, but I will probably only take 2 with me. There are 3 books from my Santa--at least I assume it's 3 in the Thrift Books bags. They will also go with me. Decisions, decisions!

>229 RidgewayGirl: Well, I knew he couldn't have gone far because I hadn't left the house since I'd last seen him! He just wanted to sit under the tree.

>232 thornton37814: Good luck with the packing! I'm still working through graduation on Saturday. I can think about Christmas after that!

Adrian has his second appointment with an animal chiropractor on Saturday. He is 13 and has some spinal degeneration affecting his mobility. I took him for his first appointment last Saturday and I've seen an improvement in his mobility this week. :-)

I want to let all my LT friends know that I had to say goodbye to Adrian today. His health had been declining for quite a while, but things turned bad very quickly this week. His estimated age was 13, but he could have been older since he was a rescue. He was my faithful companion for 11 years. He was dearly loved and he'll be missed.

I’m sorry for your loss.

Oh no! I'm so sorry :( Adrian was such a handsome fellow and it was always lovely to hear his stories.

>234 cbl_tn: I'm so sorry for your loss. You gave him a life full of security and love and I hope that every memory you have of your fine boy is a happy one.

Oh, I'm so sorry. I always enjoyed the pictures and stories about him that you shared.

>235 Charon07: >236 rabbitprincess: >237 RidgewayGirl: >238 japaul22: Thank you everyone for your kind thoughts. Adrian and I were blessed to find each other, and I have many happy memories of our time together.

I'm so sorry, Carrie. I always enjoyed hearing about him, especially after we lost our dog years ago. Hugs for you ((( ))).

>240 dudes22: Thank you. Adrian's passing leaves such a hole. I have family here for the next few days. I am dreading the quiet when they leave.

Oh Carrie, I am so sorry about your loss of Adrian. He was such an engaging fellow! Sending caring thoughts and hugs!

>242 DeltaQueen50: Thank you. The grief is coming in waves. I am OK and then some memory sets it off again.