What are you reading now?: December 14, 2024

Still working on Heart of Europe...just starting Those Beyond the Wall.

For the rest of the week I'm looking at World's Fastest Single-Engine Jet Aircraft, Road to Ruin, and Stalinist City Planning.

This week I'm reading Take Us to Your Chief by Drew Hayden Taylor. This is a book of indigenous science fiction short stories. I haven't had much time to read it, but so far I like it.

Just finished up Wool by Hugh Howey. This is the first volume of the Silo series. It was a great read, even if it stretched credulity in a couple of places. I don't have a sense of what I want to read next. Too many unread books sitting around my home to choose from.

I'm enjoying Michael Connelly's latest, The Waiting.

>3 fredbacon: I hear you. Sometimes when I'm overwhelmed by choices, I wind up spending a couple days pulling books out of piles, starting them, and putting them back again.

This week I listened to Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell. For the most part, I enjoyed it. But there was a character who kept bursting into tears, to the point where I disliked her, and to add to that, Gaskell died before completing the book. If I'd known that, I'd not have started.

I also listened to The Boyfriend by Freida McFadden. It had great twists and turns, and an entirely unforeseen ending, but once again, there was a character who annoyed me, as she seemed prone to instant paranoia, and that wore on me.

As I seem incapable of reading a physical book, I have taken my much-loved The Far Pavilions off the shelf, hoping that my love for this book will win my reluctant brain's approval.

I finished Omar Appears in Jerusalem by Najeeb Al-Kelani. This novel, originally published in 1970 and translated to English in 1986, is a fable-like tale about the return of Omar Ben Al-Khattab, an extremely important 7th Century Caliph, to Jerusalem soon after the Israeli occupation of the Arab part of the city during the 1967 war. My full review is posted on my 50-Book Challenge thread.

Reading-wise,this has been the Year of the Doorstop for me. Two 450-page Isaac Singer novels, Antony Beevor's 640-page history of the Battle of Stalingrad, and, the real reading-goal killers, the second and third books in Marcel Proust's "In Search of Lost Time" series (not only long, but sloooooow), and, well, let's just say I'm not going to reach either my overall 50-book goal or my Books of the Shelf goal either. The move from California to New York didn't help either. So, figuring I might as well just steer into the chunkster skid, I've decided to finish up the year by finally delving into Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe. Cheers, all!

>6 rocketjk: I planned to read a lot of long books, but didn't read as many as I had hoped. Middlemarch was 800+ pages, 1Q84 was nearly 1200, and Gone with the Wind was around 1100. I wanted to read Lonesome Dove, finally, but once again was stymied by the red centipedes not far into the book that cause the barber to lose most of his leg. I'm genuinely phobic of 100-legged bugs and apparently that phobia extends to the written word. Well done getting through Proust! I doubt that I'll ever read it.

My approach to the door-stop book is to nibble at it while I carry around shorter books; this probably works better with non-fiction.

>8 Shrike58: I did that with the last Proust I read. I read it in four 150-page sections with another book in between each. It worked pretty well for Proust. I think I'm going to try burning through Look Homeward, Angel in a straight shot, though.

The Five – Hallie Rubenhold
Digital audiobook narrated by Louise Brealey
5*****

Subtitle: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper

I’ve always been fascinated by crime and devoured many true-crime books. I’ve read several about the Jack the Ripper murders. Of course, they all focused on trying to figure out who Jack was. But Rubenhold takes a completely different path. She focuses on his victims – the women who were (mostly) mischaracterized as prostitutes.

The book is divided into five parts, each woman getting as full an accounting of her background and life as possible given the years that have passed since their deaths and their relative obscurity in society at the time. Rubenhold did extensive research and she really brings these women to life. We see that some were in solid relationships and enjoyed relative security before circumstances led to a downward turn in their situations. She makes a convincing argument that the women, far from being active sex workers, were more likely homeless and sleeping in alleyways or doorstops where they might find some shelter. For more than one, alcohol abuse played a key role.

Rather than victim-shaming, Rubenhold allows for compassion for the situations these women found themselves in. Even if they were prostitutes, they still deserved the full protection of the law, or at least the full efforts of law enforcement to find and punish the perpetrator of these heinous crimes.

What I found particularly touching was the very last chapter, where Rubenhold gives an inventory of the very meager belongings of each woman at her death.

Louise Brealey does a fine job of voicing the audio edition. This kind of narrative nonfiction works well on audio because the author made the effort of make the stories personal.

An Elephant In the Garden – Michael Morpurgo
5*****

A frail and elderly Lizzie tells the story of her youth in Dresden Germany during World War II. Her father was fighting on the Russian front. Her mother was a zookeeper and fearing for the safety of the young elephant, she brought the animal home each night to their private garden. But the war is taking a toll on everyone and when the bombing begins on a snowy February night the family must flee the burning city. How can they possibly evade enemy troops with an elephant in tow?

What a wonderful and heart-warming story! Inspired by true events, Morpurgo has crafted a tale of courage, perseverance, and kindness in the face of horrific deprivation. The author doesn’t dwell on the horrors of war, but he doesn’t skip them either. He shows that while nations may be enemies at war, individual people can (and do) disagree with their leaders. Morpurgo also takes the opportunity to show people doing what they believe is best and morally right despite the difficulty and even personal danger in doing so.

I had previously read War Horse by the same author, and did not warm to it. So I was a little hesitant to read this one, but I’m glad I did, because I loved this book. I think the difference, for me, was the narrator. The earlier book was told from the animal’s point of view and I found that awkward. In contrast, I was easily able to connect with Lizzie. I’m sorry there are no young children in my life because I kept wanting to read it aloud; I could easily imagine a teacher capturing the attention of a class with this story.

Update 2024: I re-read this for a challenge and am so glad I revisited it! There are two young people in my life now, girls I met through my library’s summer pen-pal program and I can hardly wait to talk to them about this book!

The Santa Klaus Murder – Mavis Doriel Hay
3***

The Melburys gather at Flaxmere, the family estate, for Christmas. But things rapidly go awry when their patriarch, Sir Osmond Melbury, is found – by a guest dressed as Santa Klaus – with a bullet in his head on Christmas Day. Neighbor and Chief Constable, Col. Halstock, takes charge of the investigation, and quickly ascertains that virtually everyone in the family stands to gain by Sir Osmond’s death. But who had the opportunity? And who was ruthless enough to murder the man?

This is a classic locked-room mystery. There are plenty of suspects, not only family members, but two male guests (both apparently interested in marrying Sir Osmond’s youngest daughter), as well as his private secretary and other staff members. The investigation is hampered by the number of “little lies” (some not so little) that various people Halstock, in an effort to conceal or divert attention from one or more parties.

Hay was part of the group of novelists of the “golden age of British crime fiction.” This work was first published in 1936. Her works have recently been rediscovered and reissued. It moves a bit slowly by today’s standards for the genre, but I was engaged and interested throughout.

>12 BookConcierge: I read that novel this time last year! It's one of several Christmas mystery titles from the British Library Crime Classics collection.

The Paris Library – Janet Skeslien Charles
Book on CD performed by Nicky Diss, Sarah Feathers,and Esther Wane.
3.5*** rounded up

This is a work of historical fiction based on the real story of the librarians and staff at the American Library in Paris during WW2. The author uses the de rigueur dual timeline to tell the story.

In 1939, Odile lands her ideal job as a librarian at the library in Paris. But the Nazi occupation soon makes things difficult. Fast forward to 1983 in small-town Froid, Montana, where a lonely teenager, Lily, befriends the widow next door, and Odile begins to teach her French.

Lily will uncover some of Odile’s long-held secrets, though not always understand their importance and true meaning. During the war, Odile will also be privy to secrets she doesn’t fully understand. In both cases there will be betrayals and the parties involved will have to come to terms with whether they can forgive.

I loved all the literary references and how Charles used the Dewey Decimal System throughout the book. She also did a fine job of exploring the various emotions and reactions to incredible stress. Some characters were virtually paralyzed by fear, others moved boldly, still others did their best to stay under the radar, hearts pounding while they tried to help the cause. The younger characters, especially Lily, were frequently impetuous and rash, not understanding until later how their actions / statements might impact others.

The author notes at the end tell us that, apart from Odile (our fictional heroine), all the people in the library were real; they all did what they could in the face of horrendous circumstances. Would that we all could be so brave and steadfast!

The audiobook is marvelously performed by a trio of talented voice artists. This certainly helped to keep straight both timeline and which point of view was being used in a given chapter.

The new thread is up over here.