What are you reading the week of March 23, 2023?

My inability to focus on reading is continuing. I didn't get any reading done this week. *sigh*

Should finish up The Other Battle of Britain tomorrow. For the rest of the month I'm looking at Horned Armadillos and Rafting Monkeys, Dornier, and Lost Things.

Started this audio via hoopla ~

Peach Cobbler Murder (A Hannah Swensen Mystery, #7)
by Joanne Fluke

Patti LaBelle's Peach Cobbler has been added to my WM shopping list this week!

The Daughters of Yalta – Catherine Grace Katz
Digital audiobook read by Christine Rendel
4****

Subtitle: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War

When the Allied leaders chose to meet at Yalta for a summit concerning strategy for finally ending World War II, three young women, each a daughter of a key player, were asked to come along. Kathleen Harriman was the daughter of U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union Averell Harriman; she was a champion skier and a war correspondent. Sarah Churchill, a RAF officer (and former actress) accompanied her brilliant father, who depended on her astute political mind. And Franklin D Roosevelt’s only daughter, Anna, was tasked with keeping her father’s closely guarded secrets, especially when it came to his failing health. Each young woman had a fierce sense of family loyalty but was also blessed with political savvy. They not only witnessed history but helped to craft the world’s future. And then there were the romantic intrigues …

I found this “behind-the-scenes” history fascinating. I had heard of Sarah and Anna, but knew nothing of Kathleen. These young women – beautiful, wealthy and vivacious – were treated by the press as “society” stories. But they were far more than just photo opportunities. Each was highly intelligent and quite accomplished. And each one helped her father in key ways.

As a bonus there was more info on Churchill’s daughter-in-law. I had previously read Life of the Party: The Biography of Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman by Christopher Ogden, so familiar with Pamela, but this work nicely supplemented what I knew about her, as well.

Christine Rendel does a fine job of narrating the audiobook edition. But there were several sections that I chose to read in text. I find that reading history in text helps me to better absorb the information than listening.

>1 fredbacon: I hope that things slow down for you so that you can enjoy the pleasure of reading once again.

I am also short of focus, but poor mental health is the reason for mine. I finished an audiobook this week, Mary B. by Katherine J. Chen. It's another of my much-loved Pride and Prejudice fanfic perusings, focusing on middle daughter Mary Bennet, as so many do these days. It wasn't great, and the romance at the end of the book was a bit of a shock and not particularly believable.

I also did a re-read of a favourite novel, The House in the Cerulean Sea, which is healing, amongst many other things.

Now I've started a new audiobook, a thriller, Such a Quiet Place, which is relatively absorbing. I've read the first short chapter of a new biography: Charles III: New King, New Court.

I'm reading If It Bleeds by Stephen King. I finished the first story today and it was very good.

Schindler's List
by Thomas Keneally
4/5 stars
This is the fictionalized version based on the real-true life story of Oskar Schindler which was later made into a film. Schindler during WWII helped a number of the Jewish population escape from the death camps in Czechoslovakia. Lengthy but interesting!

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood – Howard Pyle
Adapted by Deborah Kestel
3***

A friend mentioned that her book club was focusing on classics this year and this was their monthly read. When I said that I had never read the full story (though, of course, I was familiar with the legend), she offered to pass the book along to me when she was finished.

Well, what she had was the “Great Illustrated Classics” edition, adapted by Deborah Kestel for a younger audience, and illustrated by Pablo Marcos Studio.

It’s a fast, fun adventure with lots of fighting, competition, disguises, and more than a few near misses. Most of the characters are here, including Friar Tuck, Little John and the Sheriff of Nottingham. But Maid Marion is mentioned only once.

I imagine the middle-school audience would enjoy this legend of adventure and derring-do. I wanted more depth to the story, though I doubt I’ll try to go back and read the original.

A Corner Of the Universe – Ann M Martin
Book on CD performed by Judith Ivey
4****

This is a wonderful Newbery Honor book written for middle-school-aged children. Set in about 1960, it focuses on Hattie Owens and her family. Hattie loves the small town in which she lives with her parents in the boarding house they run. It’s an insular world but Hattie knows every corner of it, and she enjoys her friends and neighbors. Her experience, however, is far different from that of her grandparents, who also live nearby, but who are quite wealthy. And then, the summer she turns twelve, an uncle she had never heard of appears. Adam has been living “at school” (really a residential institution for the mentally disabled), but the school has closed so he has come home while his parents search for other accommodations for him. Hattie relates the events of the summer of Adam in this story.

There are some serious issues dealt with in this novel, but Martin handles them deftly, honestly and with compassion. Hattie is a bright girl, curious and resourceful, polite and obedient. She is entranced with Adam who is more like a large child than an adult man. He is effusive and enthusiastic about everything. He’s also impulsive and prone to having a meltdown when under stress.

As Hattie pieces together the truth about her uncle she comes to understand a bit about what it means to grow up and the different ways in which people react to the unexpected. She learns that it is better to “lift the corners” and peek at what is hidden rather than try to forget about what is unpleasant or uncomfortable. She learns, too, that being different does not make you a lesser person.

Judith Ivey does a marvelous job of performing the audiobook. She is a gifted actress, and I particularly liked the way she interpreted Adam’s effusive speech patterns.

From the library: The Rose of Versailles by Ryoko Ikeda, English translation by Mari Morimoto and Jocelyn Allen
Teen/YA manga series (5 volumes) set during the reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI. A best seller in Japan when it was published in serial release during the early 1970s. It has been adapted as an TV anime series and stage. It was released in English translation for the first time a few years ago--the deluxe editions feature the original bonus artwork and publicity.

Robert Owen by Joseph McCabe

This is a short, clear biography of visionary English social reformer, Robert Owen, written by Joseph McCabe, who was himself, 70 years later, a prominent Rationalist writer and lecturer. (McCabe's wikepedia bio here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCabe)

Robert Owen was a British industrialist in the early 19th century who spent his life and a major bulk of his money attempting to improve the lot of the British working class in a multitude of ways, including promoting shorter work days (the standard at the time was 14 hours per day), raising the minimum age of factory employees from 7 years old to 10 or 12, creating schools for children and even day care at company and/or public expense and full equality for women. I've posted a longer review on my 50-Book Challenge thread.

I'm now on to something lighter, This is Murder, Mr. Jones, the fourth book in a 5-book murder mystery series featuring wise-guy literature professor/amateur detective Jupiter Jones. The series was written in the early 1940s.

Black Powder War – Naomi Novik
Digital audiobook narrated by Simon Vance
4****

Book number three in the marvelous series featuring Captain Will Laurence and his dragon, Temeraire. Following their exploits in China (book two), they’ve received special orders to escort three precious dragon eggs purchased from the Ottoman Empire from Istanbul back to England. It is important that the eggs arrive in England before they hatch. But they are waylaid several times, due in part to the schemes employed by the Chinese dragon Lien. Capt. Laurence and Temeraire have little choice but to launch an offensive against Bonaparte’s forces.

I love this series and this episode has more of the aerial “dog fights” that first entranced me in book one. I love that Novik used the Napoleonic War as the background to this story, while building on the legends of dragons and their varied traits. Temeraire is a marvel; intelligent, fluent in multiple languages, an astute observer and a skilled warrior. He is also devoted to Will and their relationship is an important part of the series.

I listened to the audio, masterfully performed by Simon Vance. I love the voice he gives Temeraire. And especially enjoyed the way he interpreted the latest dragon to join their adventures, the hatchling Iskierka.

It didn't take long for me to fly through the fun, 1943 mystery, This is Murder, Mr. Jones by Timothy Fuller. You'll find my review on my 50-Book Challenge thread.

Next, I'll be indulging my love of old histories about relatively obscure subjects. I'm about to start reading The Curragh Incident by Sir James Fergusson. The book, published in 1964, is about an (from the flyleaf) "incident at the height of the Irish Home Rule crisis of early 1914 when 58 cavalry officers, stationed at the Curragh and in Dublin, chose dismissal from the army rather than the possibility of 'active operations in Ulster.'"

The thread for next week starts over here.