What are you reading: November 16, 2024

I thought I'd get this week started.

I spent this week reading and finishing The Hanging Girl by Jussi Adler-Olsen and listening to Middlemarch by George Eliot. Middlemarch is wonderful. It was my late mother-in-law's favourite novel, and I understand now why she rated it so highly.

I'm planning to read next The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, which was the 2022 Booker Prize Winner. I haven't started it yet; I've been too engrossed in Middlemarch. Only 12 hours of listening remains!

Thanks! I was feeling sickly and the whole business just slipped my mind.

Finished Henry V's Navy and am starting Off-Earth.

Also finished Brazilians at War and Edges.

From the library: The Cloverton Charade by Sarah E. Ladd
New and 3rd entry in the "Houses of Yorkshire" series

About to finish Half-Life of a Stolen Sister (truly, I did not think I would read it as quickly as I have) and will probably start on Lancelot by Chrétien de Troyes next. I'm about half-way through Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng and plan to finish it this month.

What Time the Sexton's Spade Doth Rust
Alan Bradley
4/5 stars
Flavia de Luce is back again in a mystery about a case of poisonous mushrooms eaten by a neighbor, Major Greyleigh. Greyleigh used to be a hangman. The cook is a suspect but Flavia believes that she didn't do it. This is one of my favorite series! Books Off My Never Ending Reading List

I read Remembering Santa Fe by Willard F. Clark, part art book/part memoir, while in Santa Fe. It shows block prints of Santa Fe from 100 years ago while lamenting the changes the city has gone through in the following 60 years.

Now I'm reading Invisible by Paul Auster, my second by him.

Trespasses – Louise Kennedy
Digital Audiobook narrated by Brid Brennan.
3.5***

From the book jacket: In Northern Ireland during the Troubles, a young woman is caught between allegiance to community and a dangerous passion. Amid daily reports of violence, Cushla lives a quiet life with her mother in a small town near Belfast. By day she teaches at a parochial school, at night she fills in at her family’s pub. There she meets Michael Agnew, a barrister who’s made a name for himself defending IRA members. Michael is not only Protestant but older, and married, yet Cushla lets herself get drawn in by him and his sophisticated world, and an affair ignites. But a violent incident sets in motion a chain reaction that will threaten everything, and everyone Cushla most wants to protect.

My reactions
I had not heard of this book before one of my F2F book club buddies recommended it for discussion. Kennedy packs a lot into a slim volume. I had read Patrick Radden Keefe’s marvelous nonfiction book about the Troubles, Say Nothing, so I knew something about the strife, struggle and terrorism that characterized this time period. But Kennedy’s book made it so personal. It made me think of how often I want to just hide from what is happening around me and be left in peace to live my life – to sing, to dance, to love, to carry on – rather than to face the issues head on and DO something.

Cushla is a marvelous character. She’s caring and passionate about her teaching. She longs for a steady life on her own. She does her best to help her students navigate this troubling time. She wants to understand what cannot be understood. Mostly she wants to live her life without strife and terror. She comes to love Michael despite all their obvious differences – class, religion, politics. Of course, he is married, and I wanted desperately to warn her about the dangers of such a liaison, but …

Brid Brennan does a great job of narrating the audiobook. I did have a few moments where I had trouble understanding phrases in a vernacular with which I’m not familiar, so I was happy that I had the text handy to read those passages.

From the library: Where the Library Hides by Isabel Ibanez (YA)
New and 2nd entry in the "Secrets of the Niles" duet.

I'm currently reading Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature. It's 1000 pages long, so I doubt that I will be reading it exclusively over the next couple of months. I'll probably mix in some other reading.

A couple of days ago I finished Timbuktu by Paul Auster. I normally stay very far away from novels that have dogs as their protagonists, but this is Paul Auster, and I've admired the few books of his I've read. Without going into detail, then, I can say that I found this a very affecting book about love, acceptance in the face of eccentricity, perseverance and mortality. It's not really a very deep book, but I found it quite nice for what it was. You can find my somewhat longer review on my 50-Book Challenge thread.

I left on a 5-day family visit almost immediately upon finishing Timbuktu, and brought along Antony Beevor's military history, Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege.

starting this audio via Libby ~

The Golden Tresses of the Dead: A Flavia de Luce Novel
by Alan Bradley

>12 Molly3028: Love that series!

The Secrets We Kept – Lara Prescott
3.5***

Prescott’s debut is a literary espionage novel. The story is told from the perspectives of three different women. Sally has adopted a glamorous and sophisticated persona, which she has created by practicing deceit all over the world to pry secrets out of men. Irina is the daughter of a Russian immigrant, and the newest member of the CIA’s typing pool. Olga is Boris Pasternak’s mistress and muse. When the Soviet government refuses to allow Pasternak to publish his masterpiece, Doctor Zhivago, Olga helps arrange for it to be published in Italy. It becomes an international sensation, and the CIA hatches a plot to smuggle the book back into the USSR. Irina is recruited to help, and Sally is tasked with training her.

Although I have gotten tired of the multiple-narrators device, I have to admit that Prescott did a good job of it in this novel of intrigue and manipulation. Sally and Irina, in particular, each had information that the other lacked, and their push/pull relationship had to be affected by this. I was drawn into their dynamic and thought Prescott gave us a perfect ambiguous ending to their story.

I remember what a blockbuster hit the movie of Doctor Zhivago became. My friends and I all wanted fur hats (yes, even in Texas). At that age I had no idea of the political ramifications the novel had in Russia. I’m glad that Prescott chose to tell this story and enlighten me.

Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown
Anne Glenconner
4/5 stars
Interesting autobiography of Anne Glenconnor. She was friends of the royal family and acted as a Maid of Honor at Queen Elizabeth's Coronation along with being a Lady In Waiting to Princess Margaret. Well written! Books Off My Never Ending Reading List

The new thread is up over here.

>11 rocketjk: Two Austers in one week!