What are you reading the week of April 27, 2023?

I've started Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes by Jacques Ellul.

I am about a third of the way through Crazy '08: How a Cast of Cranks, Rogues, Boneheads, and Magnates Created the Greatest Year in Baseball History by Cait Murphy. For those interested in baseball history only, but for those who fall into that category, this is an entertaining book about the beginning of baseball's "modern era."

20% into On a Knife Edge and Stopping the Panzers will come after that; still waiting to see if the Book Reserve Fairy comes through for me in the course of the coming week.

Since the inter-library loan request I had hoped to start May with only got shipped out yesterday (4/29), Makhno and Memory just went to the head of the line, to be followed by The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles.

Continuing to enjoy this audio via Libby ~

The Watchmaker's Hand (Lincoln Rhyme Novel, #16)
by Jeffery Deaver

I'm listening to The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford. It's great. I was not expecting such a twisted, dark tale. The narrator is doing a great job - he has just the right voice for the role.

In the land of paper-bound books, I'm reading Courtiers: The Hidden Power behind the Crown by Valentine Low, a recently-retired and well-respected journalist who was on the Royal Family beat for most of his career. It's very good.

I'm reading Table for Two by Amor Towles. I've finished the six short stories set in NY and am about to start the CA novella. So far, it's been excellent!

I am finishing up Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians by James Patterson and Matt Eversmann

Today I started reading Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal.

A Spy In the House – Y S Lee
3***

This is the first in a series featuring Mary Quinn (nee Lang), a Chinese-English young woman rescued from the gallows by some formidable women who have founded a school for young woman at risk. Having raised and educated her, so that she might become a teacher and be able to support herself, the headmistress now asks Mary is she’d like a more advanced position. The school, it seems, is but a front for The Agency – an organization of women detectives providing undercover investigations. No one, it seems, takes notice of women, so they are perfectly placed to observe and collect vital information.

Mary’s first assignment is to be the companion of a spoiled teen daughter of a wealthy merchant who, it seems, is committing insurance fraud. Placed in the Therold household, Mary is told to observe and report, but she should not be taking action. Her eagerness to impress cannot be suppressed for long, however.

Mary is intelligent, inquisitive, observant and compassionate. She is also self-possessed, resilient and quite capable of getting herself out of a jam, though Victorian gentlemen are prone to coming to her rescue regardless of her own abilities.

I had previously read book two in the series and enjoyed it, but wanted to start from the beginning to get more of Mary’s background. I look forward to reading more books in this series, and more from this author.

Evidence An Alex Delaware Novel
Jonathan Kellerman
4/5 stars
Alex Delaware is back and his friend Milo Sturgis are on a case where a couple was found dead in a home under construction. The young woman could not be identified but the man who was found Desmond Backer who was an architect. Also in this story is another woman, Helg Gemein who was his for former boss. Who killed the two victims?

Finished The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story created by Nikole Hannah-Jones as well as something completely different and not nearly as good, Magic in the Wind by Christine Feehan. Continuing with Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood and started Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy by Rumer Godden.

Finished A Spy in the House of Love by Anais Nin. It was an exploration of the difficulty melding our separate selves and dealing with the conflicting desires for security and freedom played out in an extreme case of those difficulties.

Started this audio via Libby ~

First Lie Wins: Reese's Book Club Pick (A Novel)
by Ashley Elston

The Summer of Katya
Trevanian
4/5 stars
"In the quiet Basque countryside in 1914, Jean-Marc Montjean, a handsome young doctor, moves to the small French village of Salies to assist the village physician. It's there that he meets the seductive, beautiful Katya Treville. Jean-Marc is bewitched, driven to know everything about her. But as he and her family become friendly, he realizes they are haunted by an old, dark secret.
When Jean-Marc learns that the Trevilles are planning to leave the village forever, he insists on a final meeting with Katya. That meeting and the events that follow turn what was an idyllic romance into an unending nightmare. And when Katya’s secret is revealed, the chilling climax will stay with the reader long after the last page is turned." 1983

Synopsis from Good Reads
I enjoyed this book - Very interesting!

The House In the Cerulean Sea – T J Klune
Digital audiobook performed by Daniel Henning
3***

Linus Baker is a caseworker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. He is conscientious and a rule-follower, and lives quietly with his cat, Calliope. And then he’s summoned by Extremely Upper Management and given a highly classified assignment: go to an orphanage on a remote island and evaluate the six dangerous magical children living there. Just how dangerous are these children? If the orphanage is closed, is there any place they can safely be moved to? Linus meets the master of the facility, Arthur Parnassus, who is pretty mysterious on his own. As Linus gets to know the island, the orphans and Parnassus, he comes to understand the relationships at work.

This is a modern fairy tale for adults with a message of tolerance, kindness, courage and forgiveness. The sentiment is charming and Klune gives us a wonderful fairy-tale ending.

So many of my friends have loved this book, and I feel that I “missed the magic.” That was probably my fault rather than the book’s. So much going on in real life, that I found it difficult to concentrate on the storyline while listening; perhaps one day I’ll go back to it and re-read it in text format.

Daniel Henning did a wonderful job of narrating the audio version. There are a lot of characters, and they span a variety of magical / fantastical beings as well as humans and animals. He was up to the task of giving them all unique voices.

The new thread is up over here.