Threadnsong Reads in 2020

This reading list has worked well for me for a couple of years and for a couple of reasons. I can track some personal challenges (like the new name of Category 1 because I just want to finish these darn books!). Reading through Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series is another goal.

Despite my best efforts to keep my book buying down to a minimum, they just keep tempting me with their new journeys or new bits of information. So what's a reader to do? Besides, it helps me keep my local independent bookstores in business which is so very, very important.

And then there is the TBR stack! I find that I can just whittle it down with reading challenges, sometimes oldest first, sometimes a book spine that is staring me in the face that I bought a few years ago.

Here, once again, are my general categories:

Category 1 - Just finish the darn book!
Category 2 - TBR pile
Category 3 - New book pile
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series
Category 5 - Classics

Again, keeping monthly listings that include totals and reviewing books that don't fit any of these categories is still my prerogative!

Below is my modified tracking hamster:




Here's to a great 2020!

Ed: As if I didn't have enough categories, I've decided on one more: Classics. Because. I have several sitting on my shelf and it's time to read them.

January Reading Log

Category 1 - Just finish the darn book!
Category 2 - TBR pile Clockwork Angels by Kevin Anderson and (now the late) Neil Peart, Guardian of the Promise by Irene Radford, The Book of Being by Ian Watson (I bought this in 1991, and never read it!)
Category 3 - New book pile The President is Missing by James Patterson and Bill Clinton (at JFK over the summer and worried I might not have a book to read on the flight home)
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series

Finished "President" as my first book for the year!

And then followed up with these other three. Totally loved "Clockwork" and listening to the Neil Peart musical tributes has renewed my interest to re-read 2113.

January Current Count 4
Yearly Count 4

1) January Category 3 - The President is Missing by James Patterson and Bill Clinton
5*****

It is a gripping, fast-paced, international spy/political/cyber thriller pulling out all the stops. There is a glimpse of computer systems that have gone down, and lights are blinking, and a young woman approaches the President with a bizarre message about upcoming cyber events that might just be right.

Plausibility of the actions and conversations of a President are presented here with the help of former President Bill Clinton: backroom and private conversations that have to happen; the mindset of the Secret Service; and what is the human side of power. And of war. Add to that the backdrop of the Sarajevo conflict, the modern Eastern European vs. Russia tensions, and the help of NATO and branches of the Saudi royal family, and it all comes together for a true page-turner.

2) January Category 2 - Clockwork Angels by Kevin J. Anderson and Neil Peart
5*****

I discovered this book quite by accident when I (literally) stumbled into the author's booth and saw the novel 2113 in the same booth. The author (not the late Neil Peart) described both books, and I only had the money for one so I bought 2113 first, then this book a year later. And it does not disappoint in the least for the delay!

It tells the story of young Owen Hardy, who inhabits the world described in the final Rush album, "Clockwork Angels." His life is orderly as prescribed by the Watchmaker who ensures that clocks run on time, that life is orderly, that the Hardy's apple orchard will have its rains at the correct time for the harvest and the cider making.

But Owen often looks to the stars and wonders what could be beyond in the capital of Albion, Crown City. He takes a steampunk-style train (a combination zeppelin and rail train, something I had a hard time grasping), and gets to finally see the Clockwork Angels perform their mechanized routine from the top of the clock tower.

And Owen wonders more, and finds a team of wandering circus performers, and as he finds there is more to life than living in the "best of all possible worlds" he travels with the players until his heart is broken and then takes ship for the island of Poseidon. Terrible things happen, he makes his escape, and finally goes on his solo venture to find the Seven Cities of Gold that his late mother's book describes in detail.

I love the imagery in this book, the way in which the album is expanded into story, and the bits of Rush lyrics were fun to come across. I think this is the first book of Kevin Anderson's I've read (though I've probably seen episodes of his TV writing), and now that Neil Peart is no longer with us, the insights he provides at the end are especially poignant.

3) January Category 3 - Guardian of the Promise by Irene Radford
4****

A continuation of the earlier volume Guardian of the Vision, with the nearly-grown children from that earlier time who set off on adventures of their own. There are a lot of children, and while this works well at the beginning it does leave some strands caught waving in an English gale.

The book starts well, with the main/narrated character, Deirdre, taking the action with "I". She is the daughter of Father Griffin and Roanna of Scotland, and is fostered by her uncle, Donovan. Donovan is father to three children: Beth (by his first wife) and twins Hal and Griffin. So, keeping all these characters straight and with their own story arcs is one of the challenges this book faces.

What Radford does well is concentrate on the most central characters and on Queens Elizabeth and Mary, Queen of Scots, as well as introducing a new evil element: werewolves. She's able as an author to see where a storyline might go stale and resolves that conundrum with something other than demons or (the obvious) vampires. And the werewolves here have their own social structure and a mad master, El Lobison, who controls them through their priestess, Yassimine.

Another thing I liked about this book was that Radford does not shy away from making central characters dis-likeable, while still weaving a story around them. Donovan is pretty wishy-washy and not as capable with his magic to throw off his spell-cast love for Mary. And Yassimine, who in her captivity longs to kill El Lobison, she instead realizes after many years that he has made all decisions for her and she does not wish to do so for herself.

As with others in this series, this book goes to many different locales in key moments in Western European history, such as the aftermath of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre (orchestrated by El Lobison) and brings in the tensions and friction of the time (Protestant vs. Catholic). And while there are sections with fast-paced action at the beginning, introducing the key plot elements, the last third slows down to a number of years, when Deirdre and Michael are married and running their pub that helps gather information for Sir Francis Walsingham on Queen Elizabeth's behalf.

4) January Category 4 - The Book of Being by Ian Watson
3 1/2 ***

Hmmm. Well. Hmmm. It's pretty good, given that it's the only book in the series I ever read. In fact, I found it on my bookshelves over the holidays and the original sales receipt, from 1991, was still in it! So it was high time.

It picks up where the original story left off. And the fact that the story line is cohesive in itself, that previous characters are discussed and developed, showed that this was a work by a good author. The protagonist, Yaleen, is newly reincarnated and discusses her installment as a priestess despite being a three-year-old. Apparently this world recognizes different incarnations and honors the spirit despite the appearance of the new body. Or its age.

Some of the conflicts involve the River and whether men can sail on it more than once, and an entity called the Godmind in the guise of a giant serpent. And the latter part of the book became a little convoluted where Yaleen partakes of a potion (?) that slows time so that a ritual can take place. It was hard for me to determine if Yaleen is crushed to death (again) and visits other souls as a spirit in an attempt to end the Godmind. And if the end of the book is the continuation of the series, and the reincarnation was a part of the ritual or just what exactly happened. Still, I enjoyed it, and I'm glad to have finally read it!

February Reading Log

Category 1 - Just finish the darn book! The Great Shame by Thomas Keneally, Chapter 23.
Category 2 - TBR pile Reign of Madness by Lynn Cullen (I thought I lost it and recently found it so re-reading it from the beginning is a moral imperative)
Category 3 - New book pile Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey, Fate of the Red Queen by Mab Morris, The Image of the King by Richard Ollard
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series

February Current Count: 1
Yearly Count: 5

February Category 1 - The Great Shame by Thomas Keneally

Chapter 23: "Glorio, Glorio, to the Bold Fenian Men"

In Chapter 23, we're returning to Ireland from voyages that took the mid-1800's Irishmen who rose up against the Crown from Van Dieman's Land, to Australia, to San Francisco and New York, to Central America, and leading troops in the American Civil War.

Now for the first time, the history takes us back to Ireland and "the Bold Fenian Men." And now, for the first time, I know what that phrase means! It refers to the next generation of Irish rebels (again, men) who rebelled against the terrible taxation by the landlords and the eviction of the tenants who worked their lands. They rise after the Famine and concurrent to the years of the American Civil War. As one quote has it: ". . . from the year1858 to that of 1870, these same landlords succeeded in evicting close upon fifteen thousand families from homes and holdings." Fifteen thousand! That is the 19th Century equivalent of the housing bubble in the 2007-2008, when homeowners signed impossibly high mortgaged letters and were evicted from their homes by banks (modern landlords).

The bold Fenian men were a literate group and journalists who caused controversy by their writings and their newspaper, Irish People. A prominent Cardinal called for a boycott not just of the newspaper but also of any store that carried it. Many of them became Army Officers, in such companies as the Hussars and the Lancashire Fusiliers, where they worked to recruit other Irish Officers into their cause. Because at the time, the British Army was one of the few professions open to young Irishmen who were not farmers. Were it not for a sheaf of papers with names of associates that was found, by accident or negligence or cowardice, they could have continued their work. But the names were found, turned over to police, and military courts were convened with shoddy charges that became years-long prison sentences.

By this time in history, photography is available, and so the photographs exist of an Irish cottage being breached during an eviction; four of the Fenian leaders in their "mug shots"; and more traditional drawings of several Civil War charges (Meaghers' and Corcoran's) as well as a military court.

5) February Category 3 - Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey
5*****

Wow, what a fantastic book! I picked it up a few years back, intrigued by the idea of political machinations and a woman who uses her abilities as a spy while also a courtesan, and I was so totally immersed in the world I found it hard to put down. Jacqueline Carey's abilities as a writer breathe life from the first few sentences into the live of Phedre and her world (loosely based on medieval Western Europe and the British Isles). She can turn a swordfight into a song of 5 sentences, or the siege of 30,000 Skaldic warriors into a panorama of 2 paragraphs, and still I felt as though I were there. There are political intrigues a-plenty for any "Game of Thrones" fans.

The main character is born into a world where "Love as thou wilt" is woven into the fabric of Terre d'Ange (France), where a son of Mary Magdalene's tears and Yeshua's blood from the Cross is born from the Earth and Elua wanders it with His Chosen. One of them is his mistress, Naamah, the Companion of Love, and Phedre is born into this world. She is abandoned by her parents so that they may go more a-roving, and the mote of red in her eye marks her as an "anguisette" who experiences pain as pleasure.

There are some S&M sex scenes, though not nearly as graphic as vampire-does-everyone-s/he-can (they are more part of the plot than thrown in to sell books), and being a scion of one of Naamah's Thirteen Houses is seen as a calling in the way that others are wheelwrights or shop keepers. Phedre is brought up to serve and finally taken into the care of Delauney, a learned man with a household and a mysterious past. He brings up Phedre and Alcuin to serve as spies while training them at their craft of sexual pleasure. And there are strict rules in this world: for every assignation, a contract is drawn up; a courtesan has a marque tatooed into her/his back, and when that marque is complete, they are no longer under contract to a House and may choose their own assignations. In addition, Delauney guards his charges with an armed guard for their safety.

And there is royalty in and out of these pages, and an aged King, his unwed granddaughter, traitors to the crown, Universities of learning, legends of the Master of the Straits (the seas between Terre d'Ange and Alba), and raids by the Skaldi into the fertile lands. The writing is gripping, the action takes place without apology, and over it all is a worshipfulness of love in its many forms.

6) February Category 2 - Reign of Madness by Lynn Cullen
5*****

This book was a re-read for me, or most likely a re-read it all the way through this time since my place holder was a note for the bookshop where I bought it prior to Ms. Cullen's book signing there. So this time I read it in its entirety; it's neither a new book or a TBR book, but fit the 3 x 3 challenge for February having red on its cover. Finished in early March but with DH's surgery I haven't posted anything till now.

It's five stars for a couple of reasons: the fleshing out of characters based on contemporary accounts is masterful; and once again, Lynn Cullen manages to bring an otherwise unknown woman to life. And yet, for the subject matter, it is a sad and tragic life.

Juana of Castile was an older sister to Catherine of Aragon, and the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. She was raised to be a princess and is willing to marry he-whom-her-parents-wanted, which she does with great enthusiasm when that time comes. The prince she marries is Philippe the Good, Duc of Burgundy who starts as a caring, lustful husband and later becomes her jailer.

While the term "gas lighting" has only recently come into vogue, that is exactly what Phillippe does to her, and does to her subjects. Juana becomes Queen of parts of Spain due to older siblings' deaths, but Philippe's machinations, along with those of her great aunt-in-law, the Dowager Margeret of England, create an environment where she turns over these titles to him. Whether she meant to, whether she wanted to, is one of the puzzles that this book delves into. Also explained are several instances that Philippe uses to cast doubt about her sanity to her subjects and to her father; Ferdinand also has a hand in seizing her titles.

The worst part about reading this book is where it ends up: Juana spends more than 50 years imprisoned by her husband, father, and eldest son. For no crime other than just being. It gives her story a poignancy that is hard to resolve when reading the masterful characterization of this bright, beautiful young girl who, like Marie Antoinette, never inherited the spine? strength of character? that her mother wielded against her enemies.

March Reading Log

Category 1 - Just finish the darn book! The Great Shame Chapter 24: "Re-Making Montana, Violating Canada"
Category 2 - TBR pile Ferocious Irish Women by Edmund Lenihan, Irish Folk Tales by Henry Glassie (ed.)
Category 3 - New book pile - on hold while I catch up on March challenge
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series

March Current Count: 4
Yearly Count: 10

So the March 3 x 3 challenge was a good one and got a couple of books off of my shelves and read. One is a shocker in how bad it is written, the other was really just more a way of presenting a period in Irish history and is a romantic historical fiction. Will get back to general reading soon.

7) March Category 2 - Ferocious Irish Women by Edmund Lenihan
2**

Oh. My. The only reason that I did not give this book one star is because it is probably one of the first books written in Ireland about Irish women. These were five women I had never read about; Biddy Early is the woman most histories cover. Otherwise, stories abound of fictional Irish women in relation to their Irishmen, but few accounts exist of individual women in Ireland.

But this coverage of 5 women's stories is shameful. The stories are written with more detail about the men in the stories (the exception being "Lady Betty") than about the women, and the pictures! Good St. Patrick and Brigid and all the Saints!! If you cannot include any drawings but those by a child, where all the women's faces are those of monsters, just leave the pictures out!

I don't know much about the pulling together of these stories: how difficult it was, what sources Lenihan used, why he chose these stories. They could have been good in the hands of a good storyteller. And there are several books that he cites at the end for children, but if this book was intended for children I would be appalled at the quality of the others.

However, for all the authors of Irish historical fiction out there: please grab a story from this book and turn it into something decent. These women lived troubled and sometimes desperate lives, and they certainly need something better than this book.

8) Daughter of Ireland by Juliene Osborne-McKnight
3***

This is a decently good book set during the reign of Cormac Mac Art, the Irish King credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland. It is told from the point of view of an orphaned young woman raised in the Druid tradition and her role during these transitional years.

She rescues a young girl who was taken as "booty" during a cattle raid out of her abusive situation, and while she battles the girl's captor she meets another traveller who is the ollamh, the master poet of the King. He also happens to be someone from her past and a trained Fenian warrior.

Aislinn brings the girl to safety with the help of this Fenian and poet, Eoghan, who for mysterious reasons does not take his father's name as his surname. And when she is safely with the Deisi tribe, they will not tell her the truth of her own parentage. These mysteries grow and cause problems between Aislinn and her beloved, which are all brought to light in the court of Cormac Mac Art at the height of the Court of Tara.

There were some elements of this book I did not like: Aislinn alternates between wishy-washy and a ferocious Irish woman in a way that seems more necessary to move the plot forward than one that serves good characterization. In addition, the triumph of one religion over another within a few years is always problematic, and I definitely did not like the portrayal of the Druids once Cormac mac Art took up the mantle of Christianity.

Still, it presents the introduction of writing into Ireland and other historical turning points in its history to the general public, as well as the way of life of the peoples of Ireland in this time.

9) March Category 2 - Irish Folk Tales by Henry Glassie (ed.)
4****

This is an amazing collection of folk and fairy tales, featuring everything from historical figures and bog men to ghosts and the fae folk. There are sections for "Faith" ("Saints" and "The Priest and His People"), "Wit" ("The Wise and the Foolish," "Wits and Poets") and "Mystery" ("Death and Tokens," "Ghosts," "Away").

Each tale has been well-documented both as the teller, what County, and who collected it. Many of the collectors are well-known Irish folklorists, including Lady Gregory and Henry Glassie, and the tales range from the 1830's to the 1970's. I found it especially poignant to read the earliest ones or the ones recorded just in the early years of the Famine.

Another thing that kept me drawn into these tales is the dialect that is recorded, or at least the way of speaking. An example is from "Daniel Crowley and the Ghosts" from 1892 in Kerry:

"There lived a man in Cork whose name was Daniel Crowley. He was a coffinmaker by trade and had a deal of coffins laid by, so that his apprentice might sell them when himself was not at home."

There was also a Cinderella-like tale towards the end called "Fair, Brown, and Trembling" that features two older sisters who consign the youngest (and most beautiful) to be a scullery maid. They are the daughters of the King Aedh Curucha. When Trembling is aided by the henwife, she goes to the door of the church three different Sundays wearing three different gowns and riding three different horses. But the similarities are quite striking between the two tales.

10) Foundation by Isaac Asimov
4****

A sci-fi classic which still, despite its emphasis on atomic power and almost no women in key roles, provides insights into humanity that still hold true.

The premise is that the Galactic Empire and its home planet of Trantor are going to fall after twelve thousand years of interstellar rule, and millennia of chaos will ensue. Thirty thousand years, per Hari Seldon's psychohistory calculations. However, Dr. Seldon has devised a plan through his Encyclopedia Galactica project that will result in only a thousand years of anarchy.

And brilliantly, Asimov shows key points in the start of that thousand years, individual short histories that have bearing on one another only because each key person in those histories realizes that they are coming to a Seldon-anticipated moment: there seems to be no way out of their particular galactic situation except for one, and that would be what Seldon predicted.

I read this book in my early 20's, liked it well enough, but remember being jarred by the decades and centuries between the stories. Now, I read it with a lot more understanding of human interaction, and some measure of cynicism, which helps Asimov's originality shine through.

March Category 1 - The Great Shame by Thomas Keneally
Chapter 24: "Re-making Montana, Violating Canada"

Well, this chapter came as quite a shock to me! I had no idea, growing up in Atlanta, that members of the US Army attempted to invade Canada! But they did and were aided by the Fenians. Even more eye-opening was that there were large numbers of the Confederacy who were safe harbored in Canada, and there were combined forces who captured a Union gunboat on Lake Erie. The largest area of the incursion was Niagara from Buffalo, New York, with numbers killed, wounded, and captured, Canadians, US, and Fenians (allied on both sides, I think) alike.

The other portion of this chapter is the life and work of General Thomas Francis Meagher whilst Governor of Montana. He is hard-pressed by the entrenched Republican Party in Montana and vilified in the newspapers by them. His governorship and standing as a Union Democrat proves successful in that he is able to turn the balance of power towards his party. Moreover, he and Elizabeth spend three months in the western part of the state touring their territory. But they are still the invaders of this territory and Meagher's fault is that while he is able to create treaties with the Blackfoot tribes, he does not see the incursion he is doing as at all related to the incursion of Ireland by the British over generations. I'm very grateful to Keneally for pointing this matter out.

Finally, Keneally goes into the story, the mystery, really, of Meagher's death on a riverboat and disappearance into the Missouri River. To this day, the cause of death has never been determined: whether it was drunkenness, suicide, an accident, or an unauthorized Fenian assassination. And what was reported to be his body several months later is still in dispute.

April Reading Log

Category 1 - Just finish the darn book!
Category 2 - TBR pile The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams by Lawrence Block, Isle of Dogs by Patricia Cornwall
Category 3 - New book pile Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series

April Current Count: 4
Yearly Count: 14

This group's "Separated by a Pond" tour has brought in some interesting choices for my reading as has the SFF Kit on the 2020 Category Challenge group. For both places, Ottawa and Moonheart became a choice, and then "Daisy Jones" was a perfect book for my new book choice. And given the current lockdown situation, having some great, easy-to-read murder mysteries rounded out the choices.

11) Moonheart by Charles de Lint
5*****

Where do I begin with this review of one of the most influential books in my life? It is splendid. I have read and re-read it for (literally) decades, and I always find something new in it. Whether it's the explanation of the magick that resides in music, to the idea of an Otherworld that exists next to our own, the chance finding of magical items, there are elements that continue to draw me in.

The basic premise is a house in Ottawa built by the grandfather of the current owner that is massive and takes up one entire city block. It houses Jamie Tams and his orphaned niece, Sara. They have an inheritance and run a little flea market where Sara finds some interesting artifacts in a box in the back. Concurrently, the local RCMP are running an operation looking into the paranormal, but behind those scenes is a rich, evil business man who craves absolute power.

Woven into this tale of music and mystery is the feud between the Welsh bard Taliesin, the druid he cast into stone before being set off across the Atlantic in a coracle, and the mythical beings who inhabit the New World, a seemingly ageless sorcerer's apprentice, and the Ottawa folk music scene, and the tale-telling abilities of a master story teller, and you have a classic urban fantasy.

>15 threadnsong: I’ve been re-Reading this series over the past year, like you I read them when I was much younger.

Loved Daisy Jones and the Six, an excellent audiobook.

>19 Andrew-theQM: I look forward to your reviews, Andrew. Especially because there's a change in age in your reading cycle.

>20 Andrew-theQM: I heard that the audiobook featured the interviews by different readers. Was that your version of the audio?

>21 threadnsong: Yes it was all very well done and just made for audiobook. Felt like a tv or radio production.

>22 Andrew-theQM: My review of the written book is below. I'll be sure to check out the audiobook when I come across it at my local library.

12) April Category 3 - Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
5*****

Had this not been a gift from a friend, I don't know if I would have treated myself to it. And if I hadn't, I would have regretted my choice. Because it is an amazing, wonderful book. I was just on the young side of many of the supergroups from the 70's: I could enjoy their music on the radio but I was not old enough to attend many of their concerts. Still, it's the music I grew up with and it influence my life choices.

Reid captures the feel of a band in this gem of a book: the talent, the personalities, the struggles, and the interactions. It's not enough to just say "egos," it's also the interactions that take place under the stress of touring together with the high of playing in front of a live audience. She structures the book as a series of interviews with the members, manager, sound tech, and all those associated with a fictional 70's band. It is a brilliant way to bring this story to life in a way that is authentic to rock music of this era. Highly recommend it to appreciators of any music genre, especially those of use who lived through these times (or wondered about what it was like to live through them).

>24 threadnsong: I loved that book! Was one of my favorites from last year.

>25 JulieLill: Totally agree.

>25 JulieLill: I was surprised at how great it was and pleased that it is right up my alley. Glad I'm keeping such good company with >26 Andrew-theQM:!

13) April Category 2 - The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams by Lawrence Block
4****

This was a really funny book. And you know, I know people like Bernie Rhodenbarr, with his strange, cynical sense of humor. They are good people and I think if I did not know real people, I may not have enjoyed this book as much as I did. And while it is one of a series, it works very well as a standalone.

It's NYC in the mid-90s so it is a slower paced world with people who make phone calls from pay phones and no internet. Bernie is a reformed burglar who is making a living off his low rent bookstore until his new landlord steps in. And lo and behold, the low rent is now going to be upped by $10K per month.

And then Bernie's burgling itch starts up that evening over drinks with his good friend and fellow small business owner, Carol. He really doesn't mean to, but he eventually winds up in an apartment where the rich older couple is in Europe for a while, and things happen. Like, jewelry and cash and, wait, why is this door locked? Oh. it is, and there's a dead guy in it. But the door only locks from the inside (an interesting look at burgling and the tools and the folks who are able to enter locked doors and drawers) and how did he get dead?

A cast of characters that border on the all-money-but-no-brains category ensures, some of whom are related to one another, and then there is the stolen baseball card collection and the reason for some cards being more valuable than others, and you get a funny and strangely twisted story of burgling and mayhem and a very strange ending.

14) April Category 2 - Isle of Dogs by Patricia Cornwall
4*****

A quietly, darkly humorous take on the usual Dr. Kay Scarpetta investigative murder mysteries. And while most of the humor is not the "laugh out loud" variety (until Trip, the seeing-eye mini-horse comes on the scene), this book and its characters throw out many humorous instances even in the dark parts.

As is usual with Cornwall's books, there are several threads going around: a string of unsolved murders and mayhem; a psychopath or several; a woman at the top of the Police Department; and a political player who works every angle to secure his position.

Add to this the arrangement of a young police/investigative officer who has gone on an extended leave of absence in order to research subjects for a proposed "Trooper Truth" website (as was common in the early days of the internet), a nearly blind governor whose intestines are riddled with discomfort, and the independently-minded folk of the Island of Tangiers, right off the Virginia coast, and you have ingredients for a wry look at mayhem and the impossible happening just the way we always hope it would.

May Reading Log

Category 1 - Just finish the darn book! The Great Shame by Thomas Keneally, Chapter 25
Category 2 - TBR pile Friday by Robert A. Heinlein
Category 3 - New book pile Star Trek: Timetrap by David Dvorkin
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series
Category 5 - Classics

May Current Count: 3
Yearly Count: 17

Another month for pulling new and TBR books off of shelves! Thanks to this month's group challenge, I've selected the sci-fi category, especially because the SFFKit challenge for May is Ai or human/machine configurations. I still read the Star Trek series because, well, Star Trek. My coffee shop reading, which had provided a quiet backdrop for Tolkien's "History of Middle Earth" series is now my front porch, though with a coffee and sweet from the local coffee shop through their take-out. And their bulk coffee is just the best.

Off to the reading races . . .

15) Star Wars by George Lucas
3 1/2 ***

It's a good, solid take on this classic action adventure movie. At the time it was written, no one (especially the film makers) had any idea that it would become a cultural phenomenon. But it did, and owning the original book from back in the day brings some interesting tidbits to life. Besides the fact that Han shot first.

The movie was such a visual experience that the descriptions in the book seem a bit klunky. But it is also interesting to read how Lucas (and probably the late Gary Kurtz) had to put words to things that they saw in their heads. And there are also scenes in the book that didn't make it into the movie; place descriptions are also a good, fill-in backstory.

16) May Category 3 - Star Trek: Timetrap by David Dvorkin
3 1/2 ***

It is a solid three and a half stars for me. The usual characters are explored, and by this point the "canon" of Star Trek books has become solidified and this one is #40 in the series (just before "The Next Generation" starts its run).

The Enterprise finds itself in the same part of the galaxy where "The Tholian Web" took place and a similar jump through time occurs. This time, though, Kirk finds himself not in and out of the Enterprise but solidly on board a Klingon warship with a crew of strangely garbed Klingons. They are gentle and thoughtful, and tell him that he has jumped forward 100 years through a space-time disturbance.

As time passes, both onboard the Enterprise, on Earth, and on the Klingon new/old ship, bits of things start to occur that make the plot really start to evolve. Kirk, who has fallen in love with a Klingon woman, finds that she is out of consciousness for a while and his host is getting more short-tempered. Further, there are gaps in the history of which he is supposed to play a part. Spock finds strange occurrences between high-ranking members of the Federation and parts of Earth (and other planets) that were utterly destroyed, and a brilliant scientist is becoming unglued. These final plot twists really saved the book for me and helped it be out of the ordinary.

17) May Category 2 - Friday by Robert A. Heinlein
3***

It's a good read, and probably representative of Heinlein's later, well-rehearsed voice. His polyamorous families are very much in play in virtually any family gathering set of episodes, and trigger alert: there is a rape scene at the beginning.

The basic premise is that Friday is an Advanced Person whose status in society is below that of "real" people. She is physically indistinguishable from a human female, including having Cherokee features. One thing that impressed me about Heinlein is that in her EnnZed family (New Zealand in this book), Heinlein confronts the endemic racism of the white family when a daughter marries a Tongan. As in Africa. They are not averse to Friday's AmerIndian bloodlines, nor are they averse to the Maori peoples; their rationale is that both groups are "first peoples." But for their daughter to marry a Tongan! She is instantly disowned. Friday risks it all, and loses, when she demonstrates her AP self.

The space flight and transportation makes my head hurt, and the continued sexcapades with all of the people she picks up are a bit much. But Friday does struggle with acceptance into humanity and her story is reasonably well told.

May Category 1 - The Great Shame by Thomas Keneally
Chapter 25: "Fenians Transported"

A fairly short chapter, revolving around various transports and daring voyages from America to Ireland, or from Ireland to England, and eventually winding up in Western Australia. There was another attempted uprising of the Fenian forces in Ireland, but once again the leadership overestimated their numbers and firepower and willingness to fight for a "cause."

What makes this chapter especially noteworthy are several areas of modern tie-ins to the Fenian uprising.

First is the appointment of a French Brigadier-General in the American Union Army during the Civil War to be the Fenian military leader. His name was Gustave Paul Cluseret, and he is credited with re-naming the Fenians to the Irish Republican Army.

Second is the start of "the pattern of Irish terror in London, and of a wilful English judicial incompetence" with the last public execution in England, that of Michael Barrett. On the spot where he died, Newgate, a car bomb exploded in 1973 beside the Old Bailey, the spot where he died.

Third is the Hougoumont that set sail for Western Australia in 1867; its "passage would end the transportation to Australia of British convicts which had begun with the little ships of Captain Phillip's First Fleet in 1788.

Fourth is that it was on this voyage that a convict only known as Corcoran was the last transportee to die aboard ship during British penal transportation to Australia.

It's tough reading, both from the incredible amount of subject matter Keneally brings to bear, and from the distance of history. And yet, the injustice that the Irish convicts faced at the time is so very similar to what has happened in the U.S. The civil and paramilitary violence that the IRA performed is horrific and so not justified. And certainly the police-inspired brutality and killings brought to our eyes in the US makes this section especially timely.

June Reading Log

Category 1 - Just finish the darn book! The Great Shame by Thomas Keneally, Chapter 26
Category 2 - TBR pile A Tale of Two Maidens by Anne Echols; Dinner with DiMaggio by Dr. Rock Positano; Prairie Fires by Caroline Fraser
Category 3 - New book pile The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series
Category 5 - Classics A Journal of a Plague Year by Daniel Defoe

June Current Count: 3
Yearly Count: 20

Reading has certainly been a mainstay, and recent book challenges have encouraged me to pull books off the shelf and read them. Plus, with the current pandemic, I wanted to read what was out there to try to get a handle on it all.

June Category 1 - The Great Shame by Thomas Keneally
Chapter 26: "The Fenians of the Desert Coast"

Either a) the chapters are getting shorter or b) I'm finding them easier to read. Or c), I really want to finish this book this year.

Either way, this was a very interesting, almost story-like chapter. It describes several of the convicts aboard the last transport ship, named above, as it goes to Perth and Fremantle, in Western Australia. Where there were already towns and penal colonies, and that says something in and of itself in mid-1800's sea-faring terms.

There were still harsh conditions for the prisoners imposed the Wardens, though by this time were generally being commuted or at least minimized to account for the character of the young convicts. John Casey, a young man with literary tendencies, was initially assigned to hard labor during the rainy winter of his first year for sending an unauthorized letter to the parish priest; it was later commuted to one month of solitary confinement. Still solitary, but he was much happier with the change in his fortunes.

The bulk of this chapter centers around the writer John Boyle O'Reilly, and his story is a classic tale of daring escape with several near-misses thrown in. He is able to convince a local priest to help him (and this after an attempted assassination on Prince Alfred), along with a freeman and a fisherman, to contact a Yankee whaler that would pass by Banbury and agreed to take O'Reilly on board. The first whaler misses the signal in the fog and distance, but the second one takes him on board where he becomes a close friend of the third mate and takes part in a whaling expedition. When the whale destroys the boat, his friend pulls his face out of the water and saves his life. Travels ensue, ships are searched, O'Reilly is not found (thanks in part to a brilliant ruse involving an anvil and his hat thrown overboard), and finally he arrives safely first in Liverpool (lodging arranged along with secrecy as to his identity) and finally to Philadelphia.

18) June Category 2 - A Tale of Two Maidens by Anne Echols
5*****

What a truly amazing, engrossing book! I had seen it mentioned on an earlier book site and Joan of Arc is one of my heroines. This book does her legend and her tribulations justice and lends life to her legend. As Ameline and Felise play chess one night, their world turns upside down, just as the book jacket says. Their sister, Charlotte, looks on.

When the events of this night occur, suddenly, Felise must then decide how she will take care of herself and Charlotte in what is, truly, a man's world. She is an apprentice scribe, not yet ready to earn her way in the world, and this skill does come into play in several places in the book. Most notably, she sees how Jeanne's factions are playing against her in the words that she is forced to record among the principals, although Felise does "edit" her work.

Medicine, warfare, starving soldiers, medieval towns, factions for and against the Dauphin, all are described and brought to life from the observations of a courageous smart young woman.

>36 threadnsong: I imagine (i've not read Keneally's book) that the "Yankee whaler" was the Catalpa. Incidentally, the town is Bunbury, not Banbury. (Nice town—I have very fond memories of a couple of trips to Perth, Bunbury and the Margaret River region.) There is a traditional song in Australia about the rescue. You might find these interesting: an article about the song and the song itself. There's a couple of other performances on YouTube, but this is the least "authentic" (that is, it sounds more like music than a bar brawl).

>38 haydninvienna: Hello! Yes, thank you for the correction. In squinting at the tiny print on the tiny map of Australia, it is Bunbury. And in checking the book, the Yankee whaler that took on board O'Reilly is the Gazelle. I will check out the song in your link above as soon as I finish typing here! I had never heard of O'Reilly but I'm glad that he was well-known enough to have a song written about his escape. It is quite remarkable and I'm glad he made it out so that we now have his words.

And in reading the words to the song in your link and checking the index of Keneally's book, the episodes of the Catalpa and the Georgette happen about 50 pages further on, in a chapter entitled "The Fenian Whaler." So, this chapter is an earlier escape by a single Fenian that must have launched a movement.

19) June Category 3 - The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
5*****

What a fantastic gem of a book! It takes place in the frozen, snowy depths of Russian in the time long before the Revolution, when Czars were jockeying for position and each land-holder was in charge of his own lands and his own people. Into this land comes a young woman who does not quite fit into the Royal Court and who instead finds deep, passionate love with Pyotr and travels to his home.

They have several children, and before she dies she gives birth to her youngest, Vasya, who has her mother's magic in her eyes. As Vasya grows she confers with the household dieties: the domovoi who lives in the giant oven that also serves as the family bed; the vazila, who lives in the stable and sees to the health of the horses; and the sly rusalka who lures unwary men to their watery deaths.

Into this family comes Anna from the Court, Pyotr's new wife, who also sees spirits but sees them as demons, and Konstantin, the overpious Priest from Moscow. Their conflict with Vasya's Sight, and their own demons that they invoke, play against a Russian fairy tale of the Winter King and his brother, the One-Eyed Bear. When the Bear gains domination, fear grips the heart; when Konstantin prays against demons, the people of the village stop feeding their little spirits of their household and instead whisper against Vasya and her magics.

I will admit to worrying over and over about Vasya's fate, to the point where I snuck a peek at the end of the book. But where her story takes her is beyond anything I could have dreamed, and is completely absorbing in its intensity.

20) June Category 2 - Dinner with DiMaggio by Dr. Rock Positano
5*****

An engrossing book, full of vignettes of a look at the great Joe DiMaggio, famed Yankee center fielder, through the eyes of one of his latest friends. Dr. Rock Positano was a new, young podiatrist in New York City who believed in non-surgical treatments for foot problems. Joe DiMaggio had his Major League career cut short from a botched operation to remove a heel spur. They met, and over a period of a few years became good friends. And then great friends.

They dined whenever DiMaggio was in NYC, and Dr. Positano's growing knowledge of this famous man is captured around Italian restaurant tables in New York. Of course, these dinners did not come about without sacrifice: Dr. Positano had to put his life and his practice on hold when he got that call, but he learned about the many secrets and twists that made this man known and beloved by millions.

For fans of baseball, or New York City, or even those who wonder how fame changes one (and how to cope when it does), this is a must-read book. The chapters start with a bit out of DiMaggio's personal journals and while they are not necessarily in chronological order, the dinners do grow in depth and understanding of how these two men formed a strong and worthwhile friendship.

>39 threadnsong: Well, there you go: I've learned something. The Catalpa incident is pretty well known in Oz; the earlier one involving O'Reilly and the Gazelle, not so much. But it appears that O'Reilly was indirectly involved in the Catalpa incident as well, at least as an adviser.

It appears that O'Reilly became quite famous as an author, publishing several books of poetry and a novel. According to Wikipedia, he is supposed to have been John F Kennedy's favourite poet. O'Reilly seems also to have been adopted by Bunbury as a kind of local icon.

July Category 1 - The Great Shame by Thomas Keneally
Chapter 27 - Fenians at Large

The bulk of this chapter is the pardoning of many Irish convicts in Perth and the aftermath. The changes in their status were mostly in keeping with the length and type of sentence, though there were a few convicts who had to wait for a few years more. Also complicating the release of the convicts were the rules in states such as Victoria and New South Wales that still recognized these men as criminals. John Kenealy was able to travel to Melbourne and surrounding areas with funds he had received in the west, and the Irish community in these two provinces were galvanized into taking the government to task for its continued resistance to recognizing these men's new status.

Other prisoners made a clean break from Australia with funds received from sympathetic supporters, and went to the US or returned to Ireland. Cork and Dublin welcomed home their long-lost sons.

O'Reilly's career is further described as a journalist covering yet another attempted invasion of Canada in 1870 by Fenian forces. And the same situation held true from past invasions: the supporting troops were thousands less than anticipated; reserves were held back during crucial battles; and commanders did not grab land when they could.

Also at play early in 1870 was a Vatican decree urged by the British government that outlawed the Fenians. Which I find as a nugget of historical gold that helps reinforce the intensity of conflict between Irish Republicans and their followers and the British government.

21) July Category 3 - Prairie Fires by Caroline Fraser
5*****

This is an absolutely extraordinary book that sheds light on this famous woman whose girlhood so many people know. It answers the questions of what happened to her after those first four years of marriage and how did she get to be "there" in the first place?

I heard about this book through a BookTV broadcast, and I was especially struck by how Fraser addressed what I had found as questionable when I read the first two in this series last year. In fact, Fraser does not start with Laura: she starts with the four Dakota tribes and their nuances (one was hunting, one was the visionary tribe), and their betrayal by white settlers. There were instances where the lands promised by the government to the Dakota were empty since the tribes were on their annual hunt. And just like Pa, the settlers moved in and took over. The war that broke out, the 1862 US-Dakota War, resulted in more US casualties than other, more famous battles in the West and led to a general feeling of mutual hatred.

A wealth of details leads up to the tales we know, going back to Ma and Pa's ancestors, where they settled and when, drawn from letters, pamphlets, land sales, and eventually Census records. Fraser turns the same research on to Laura's life and does not hold back on shining the truth about the Ingalls family's poverty.

Finally, the adult Laura and her daughter, Rose, are presented as complex human beings fraught with conflict and gifts. Rose was an experienced writer in the field of yellow journalism (extending to biographies of Jack London and Herbert Hoover), and it was she who urged her mother to write. Laura wrote her memories though often the historical aspect is changed or eliminated by both women.

22) July Category 3 - The Image of the King by Richard Ollard
3***

I will start this review by saying it is an extraordinarily researched book. I am also not the intended audience: it is written for a reader or scholar well-versed in the time period of Charles I, Cromwell, and the Restoration. On the other hand, it gives a good foundation for a casual reader, even if the references to the Battle of Edgehill, for example, are brief. It provides the necessary moments in time and persons involved to pique interest.

Ollard's basis for this book is drawn on the different portraits of father and son, provided in different sections, and what those forms and figures say about the men. Charles I's assumption that he need not learn statehood, until the death of the Prince of Wales, is examined from portraiture as well as from history. Then there is the flamboyance of Charles II upon his return, after many wanderings, from the court of Louis XIV. I find that mesh of research materials intriguing: how does the King present himself as a painting subject, given what we know from his historical record?

While I usually give high marks to a well-researched and innovative historical work, the circular language in here, the multiple "he's" in a sentence when there are multiple subjects, and the meandering sentences made it a difficult read. Hence only 3 stars.

23) July Category 5 - A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe
5*****

Reading this in 2020 is like knowing that we've been here before. I got to know this book via the appendices before even starting the volume which gave me a good grounding on what to expect. Because seriously, I never would have wanted to read this book until now. And I cannot recommend it enough.

There are charlatans called out for peddling false cures. There are sick people stuck in their homes to prevent the rest of the City from getting the Plague. There are people who don't know they're sick who go about their business until they literally fall down dead. There are people who don't want to abide by the new law to stay in their homes, so they leave to go about their business, or go into the countryside. Whether they infect others is determined by where they were in the City when the Plague hit. There are people who turn to religion with a depth that they had not had before. And there are dead carts.

It is a series of observations, not a full narrative of events. Although there are two or three "stories" in here (a trio of brothers, a waterman who struggles to feed his family locked in their home), the vast majority of the pages are full of anecdotes, observations, and lists of the numbers of dead. What is fascinating is how the Plague started by one merchant from the Low Country who arrives, not knowing he is infected, and the Plague moves from West to East. Were I not living now, I would never have known the importance of such a detail.

24) Blade of Fortriu by Juliet Marillier
5***** (as a re-read)

Original review: Wow. I didn't think it could happen. A part of a trilogy that brings other, minor characters into the fore and fleshes them out. But here you have that twist, in the hands of a master writer, who keeps both lines of a story going a la Two Towers.

Still building his kingdom and dealing with the problems of the Gaels in the West of his country is new king Bridei with his wife Tuala at his side and a young son. The battle scenes are well-written and what I would imagine war on horseback with weapons to be: all the blood, pain, and sudden turns of change.

Then you have the primary plot of Faolan, the spy and trusted companion of Bridei, who is to escort the young Ana to her betrothed, Alpin, in distant Briar Wood. Both characters are mentioned as minor details in a larger tapestry in Well of Shades; here they have the central stage of events in the story. Such a deviation from the normal method of storytelling helps the history of Fortriu move forward while still keeping the reader's interest.

Again, there are plot twists that keep you alert and guessing and interested in every character's outcome. Even the bad ones: are they going to get their just desserts? And what is going to happen to one group of individuals or to another?

The writing is still more terse than Daughter of the Forest (whose writing is on par with Guy Gavriel Kay and Patricia McKillip), but I think that style adds to the difference in plot between the two. And landscape and culture and history.

25) The Well of Shades by Juliet Marillier
5*****

Oh, wow. Oh really, really wow. Finally, Faolan's thoughts begin to turn back towards the light, and the history of his life becomes the forefront of this book. Oh, and remember Drustan's guard from Blade of Fortriu? Well, now we learn more, much more about him.

This is a dark book, as the principle female character, Eile, is a victim of childhood rape by her stepfather and has a three-year-old daughter. Her dealing with the world is right on, and while her healing may be a little fast for reality, it does fit in with the pace of the story.

And then you have more character development with Tuala (yes, really), and the druid Broichan. Interestingly for our times, there are two young women in positions of power who have received harsh punishment as children. As a result, they both grow into chaotic monsters who see others as playthings for their whims, and no real consequences to their actions up till these events.

26) August Category 3 - Stiger: Tales of the Seventh, Part One by Marc David Edelheit
4****

This was a good book, and that statement coming from someone who is not always a fan of the Roman Empire nor someone familiar with Edelheit's larger series. His writing was well done for both internal struggles and external place descriptions (even I could envision the cattle crossing scene and what the land looked like!), and his character, Stiger, came across as realistic. And he didn't devolve into his angst or his trials, either.

Instead, he reads the men both above him in the chain of command as well as under his command, and uses his knowledge and learning to navigate the various situations he is thrown into. Edelheit also writes about campaigning as though he had been in the armed services or was close to other who had been; the language was authentic.

This book is a prequel to his larger series, and I bought it on a whim at the book selling booth at DragonCon. Glad I did. It is based on the Roman Empire's style of government and Army, though set in the fictional world of Istros. Which I'm OK with.

27) August Category 2 - The Children's Blizzard by David Laskin
5*****

This is a very, very good book and one that I will re-read at some point to re-capture the details that escaped on the first go round. And it was also delightful to read a weather geek explain the phenomenon that caused this catastrophic blizzard: high pressure, low pressure, and how they work. Maybe someday I'll understand that aspect!

Laskin does a phenomenal job researching the lives of the families caught up in this push into the Western US plains. He researches the history and places where 5 or 6 families originated, their customs, reasons for making the voyage, experiences to get to their ports, and other similar stories from the time. So we get to know some families, know that they had stories similar to other people from the same region or on the same transport, and they were not plucked up and placed in the Dakotas or Nebraska out of thin air.

There is a great deal of research into early American weather forecasting, especially what worked and what didn't. And the Signal Corps and Lieutenant Woodruff, who was an active duty soldier in charge of the weather forecasting and relaying messages East from the various points in Montana and the Great Plains, interpreting them, and drawing them on a map ready for the telegraph machines.

When the storm hits, Laskin again goes into detail about the snow and ice and crystals, as well as what extreme cold does to the human body based on survivors' stories and medical evidence. It is also important to know, and I didn't, that there were survivors who lasted the night, only to die the next morning when the blood from their freezing limbs began to circulate around their hearts.

So it's a heart-wrenching historical account, very similar to "Isaac's Storm" and tales about the Northwest Passage, of people who left one land and set of difficult circumstances for hope of a better life, only to have that life changed so tragically.

28) August Category 3 - The Rowan by Anne McCaffery

A good, strictly sci-fi Anne McCaffery with some well-written women lead characters. The Rowan, of course, is our main protagonist, and we see her from childhood through into adulthood. The story takes place in a future time when Earth's inhabitants have colonized planets and move not through engine power but through the vast abilities of telepaths.

She is found after a mudslide because her mind will not stop shouting, and the Prime (the primary telepath of her planet) insists on rescuing her. This Prime is also a doozy of a character and is created for that purpose: not every female character can be likeable! Contrast her with the Rowan's primary caregiver, and some snippy cousins, and you have a good human basis for this sci-fi story.

Once the Rowan grows into adulthood, however, the story navigates in and around and through this interstellar travel, an invasion by an alien species, and a love story between equals. I did have to shake my head at McCaffery's /the Rowan's statement that she "never felt more womanly" than after she gave birth, but there you have it. Definitely a good and decent read and insight into a future of possibilities.

29) August Category 3 - Slavery by Another Name by Douglas A. Blackmon

Wow. I grew up in the South, among very educated folks and those not quite so (as in, good ol' Southern culture), and I had no idea. Just none. I am horrified and saddened and it now changes how I see the world.

Blackmon does an excellent job with tracing what must have been horrifying stories about how Reconstruction fell apart, how the Northern states decided that the Southern states had best "tend to their own affairs" when it came to re-enslaving African-Americans, and how both Northern and Southern industrialists (read: railroad and steel barons) benefitted from ghastly practices.

It's set mostly in Alabama, though there is a chapter on Atlanta and Georgia re-enslavement. Basically, a black man could be picked up for vagrancy, theft, bearing a firearm, or any number of charges, sent to prison, his fine is paid, and the person who pays his fine gets to use his labor to pay back the fine with interest. Then he is sent to coal mines or forced to work in and around coke ovens till his debt was paid or he died. That practice sheds light on current discussions about cash bail and court costs as further causes of poverty in poorer, African-American communities.

It's gripping, hard to read, and brilliantly written. Definitely deserving of a Pulitzer.

September Category 2 - Ladies of the Lake by Caitlin and John Matthews
2**

Not counting this book since I didn't read it all the way through.

Oh my. I so wanted to like this book. I have loved the writings of John and Caitlin Matthews and their insights on so many levels of the Arthurian mythos.

But this book doesn't cut it. They explore nine women who are associated with Arthur, many forgotten by history and Arthurian writers, which is a great premise. As they write each chapter, though, they get so bogged down in speculation and pulling in aspects of Celtic mythmaking that it just stopped being informative and interesting and became a morass of too much stuff.

30) September Category 2 - Murder of Angels by Caitlin Kiernan
3***

A truly unexpected novel, and not the ghost story I thought it would be. There is the trauma Daria and Niki face when they live through a mass suicide/bad drug trip a decade ago, there is their love story fraught with Niki's schizophrenia and Daria's touring as a rock bassist, and then there comes the tale of the after life. All melded together with descriptive, flowered writing full of imagery and telling a story.

My rating of a 3 is a combination of my likes and dislikes of this book. For the writing alone, the crafting of the love story and Niki's illness and Daria's life, I would give it 4 stars. The imagery Kiernan creates and brings the reader to is a gift. But her pulling in an even more complex after life, and the influence from other beings who have their own agenda on this world, I give it 2 stars. There seemed to be no true, clear path to a resolution, only a lot of imagery and re-naming and journeying to an end that seemed more convoluted than story.

31) September Category 3 - Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Kobes Du Mez
5*****

What a timely, well-researched, fascinating, gripping book Du Mez has written. It traces the rise of white Christian evangelicalism from a small and fringe group to the powerhouse that dominates huge swaths of commerce, politics, and education. And how this group's view of Jesus is not that of the gentle, robed man who advocated "love thy neighbor," but instead a warrior whose mighty sword will swiftly kill millions of enemies.

The myth of the heroic warrior male in American history starts with Teddy Roosevelt, a short, high-voiced man who chose the cowboy persona and became President and patron of the West. But it didn't stop there, and morphed from Teddy Roosevelt to John Wayne to Ronald Reagan to Trump. None of these men were evangelical, but that does not seem to matter to this movement: they are brash, swaggering, and insistent that women stay in their appointed places. Boys are bullied into being men, girls are brainwashed into total submission, and any difference from these norms, including sexual assault, are the victims' fault. And her father's, because he did not protect "his" daughter/property well enough.

It is a quick read by a professor who has done an extraordinary amount of what must have been difficult research, and documents how we came to be where we are now.

32) October Category 2 - The Movement of Stars by Amy Brill
4****

This was an extraordinary book full of the inner dialogue of a brilliant woman. Modeled after a real life Northeastern woman astronomer, this fictional heroine lives during a time of strict rules imposed by the Nantucket Quakers on dress, actions, and education. Hannah Price lives at home with her father, her twin brother has earlier sailed out on a whaling vessel to earn the funds to marry. All Hannah wishes to do is watch the stars and gain the opportunity to control her own life. Into her life of measurement and repairing nautical instruments is a dark-skinned man from the Azores who wishes to become her student. So she takes up the offer and both their lives are changed.

Reading this book in this moment in modern history is timely: as the Quakers discuss the sin of slavery, they are also unable to fully accept the African Americans and darker skinned peoples on their island. Their patronizing attitude towards others speaks volumes towards the later "hands-off" view of Northern Reconstructionists who fail to honor true freedom, including voting rights, land rights, and freedom of movement, of newly freed slaves in the South.

Set in the 1840's, Hannah's story is well told and her internalized oppression is a literary triumph. She remains true to herself, mostly, and merely wants to stand on her own two feet, gazing at the stars, and earn her own way in the world.

33) October Category 3 - Old Man's War by John Scalzi
4****

What a great book! I had never read Scalzi before this one, but after seeing him on DragonCon Virtual this year (2020) build a burrito in his kitchen (hint: it included lasagne), I went to my library and put this book on hold.

And the premise of leaving Earth as an old person to go fight in the interstellar war is brilliant in its execution. Of course your body will become young again, just not in the way it's imagined. And this is not a nice universe like Star Trek or McCaffery would envision: humanity is literally fighting every other sentient species out there. Cooperation is almost nil, hence the need for a constant army.

The combination of high tech with human thought is well done, and Scalzi does not shy away from having known characters killed off. Not the narrator, at least not in this book, but we get to know people and then, like in war, they are killed in action.

34) October Category 3 - Lock In by John Scalzi
5*****

Oh my gosh, what a timely book! Published in 2014, John Scalzi takes the knowledge that we were due for a pandemic and creates Haden's Syndrome. He also creates the socio-political backstory that gets us to a brand new FBI agent who is also the artificial intelligence being that is inhabited by his "locked in" body.

And to avoid being pedantic or too explanatory, Scalzi uses the plot and conversations to explain much of the daily life of the characters. He does provide an explanation of Haden's Syndrome right at the start of the book, and I did refer to it several times while reading. But the economic factors, the consciousness trapped in a body, the different recovery rates, the AI that walk among us, and even a celebrity background are all explained as the story unravels.

Oh, and it's a police procedural. Just for the mystery fans out there, it just has a sci-fi, all-too-modern twist to it. Which adds to the plot rather than detracts from it. Like if Joseph Kellerman or Patricia Cornwall were to write a sci-fi mystery.

35) October Category 5 - The Last Emperox by John Scalzi
4****

I bought it because of the interview earlier this year that John Scalzi did on NPR, in part because of the political intrigue and in part because most of the main characters are women. And the snark is just the right amount without being cynical.

This third novel in the series was a little harder for me to get into, either out of sheer exhaustion or because I had not entered this world through the first two books. That said, it was still an easy book to pick up and read and not feel completely lost. The POV shifts from character to character, and again, I am amazed that any writer is able to write such complex female characters. Even the TV series "Lost" killed off three complex women characters when the writers couldn't pigeon-hole them into traditional TV roles. But I digress.

A great, complex book about the intrigues that happen when a society grows so lopsided that all food and trade goods are controlled by a few monopolies belonging to highly-placed families. Space travel is possible, but the Flow is collapsing and it doesn't seem like humanity is going to survive in their isolated space colonies. All this as our Emperox is learning how her life has changed since becoming the inter-galactic ruler of a vast, sprawling empire with great technology but a limited time for its humans. How it all gets, well, solved is brilliant.

36) The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
5*****

One of my favorite books of all time that I can always turn to. Like, for a challenge on the SFFKit 2020 Category Challenge page, and hey, I'd like to include some fantasy in with my heavy sci-fi this month.

October Category 1 - The Great Shame by Thomas Keneally

Chapter 28 - Home Rule and Dynamite

As the 1870's progress, the focus on Irish immigration history changes, with John Boyle O'Reilly rising to prominence with his writing, and John Devoy had taken over the Fenians in their new incarnation as Clan na Gael. It's interesting to read the history behind these organizations, as there are so many Irish folksongs about the "Bold Fenian Men" and not so much the actions that alienated them from the Irish they were credited with helping.

This era is the time of the Boston tenements, so even 30 years after the Famine the poverty rate among the Irish immigrants in this city is enormous. Most of them performed the manual labor in factories and homes. Infant mortality was abysmal, and O'Reilly/Keneally observed that "politicians who claimed to be a 'good friend to the Irish' were offering very little except bare toleration."

O'Reilly became involved in the literary salons of Boston (yes, the same Boston) that included the abolitionist and feminist Anne Phillips and occasional visits by Emerson and Walt Whitman. But again, the dichotomy between literary salons and the rising Irish political machine in northeastern politics is notable.

Meanwhile, Devoy climbs his rungs to gain subscriptions through Clan na Gael that include buying and outfitting a whaler from New Bedford, MA, in an effort to rescue the Western Australian Irish and return with them to the States. Again, "revolutionary" and "home rule" become more and more common themes in Irish immigrant politics.

And the deaths of many earlier Irish conscripts are listed, though John Mitchel is allowed to return to his beloved Ireland. His fellow prisoner, John Martin, lived in Meath and served in the House of Commons. Still, old grudges surfaced between Disraeli and Mitchel, and the death of Mitchel and his beloved Jenny end this chapter.

37) November Category 3 - Too Much and Never Enough by Mary L. Trump
5*****

What a spectacular view of this man and the severely dysfunctional family that created him. Dr. Trump's knowledge of childhood development and her psychology background show through from the very first pages.

She documents the psychopathology of Fred Trump, Sr., and how it so severely hampered any emotional bonding with the two youngest children in the family. Add to this Donald's mother's illness (possibly a by-product of severe emotional neglect) and a lack of any repercussions for bad behavior, and you have what lived in the White House for 4 years.

And the impact on Mary's own family is also profound. Her father, Fred, Jr., was the only sibling who broke away from the family mold and pursued his passion. He seemed like a kind and caring soul whose "fatal flaw" was in needing his own father's approval, and not able to cope with the harsh reality that he was never going to get it. That damage resulted in alcoholism and both a broken marriage and a broken family.

It is as important to modern Presidential politics as any book on Watergate or the 9-11 disasters. It is also a call to action for those who care for children's welfare, be it personal or professional. Healing and love need to happen at an early age, and the sooner the intervention, the better.

38) November Category 2 - His Father's Eyes by David B. Coe
4 1/2 ****

I am beginning to enjoy the darker, grittier side of urban fantasy, and this is one of the authors who is a reason why. It is the second in the series, but it is not imperative to read the first. It takes place in modern day Phoenix and is a combination of detective fiction mixed with were-creatures.

The novel picks up with Justis Fearsson remaining a private investigator and tracking down a suspect who, without the help of magic, would have shot him dead. But the magic comes from another source, and the full explanation of that source and why it has an interest in him weaves into the latter part of the book.

There is an almost-too-detailed explanation of magic at the beginning, but once Coe realizes that his audience "gets" it, he dials down the how and concentrates on the mystery portion. And the mystery is not just why people have been killed, but also killed is a supposedly immortal runemyste in a bizarre, ritualized manner. Even going between the real world and the magical one becomes part of the pace of the book. Fearsson has to navigate his former police partner, his new girlfriend, his declining father, and a powerful drug lord, who are all brought together in pursuit of who really dunnit.

39) November Category 5 - Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
3***

My original review:

When I hear people at work talking more about the newest house fix-up or the latest couple on a bachelor program, I begin to wonder where we are in this world of books burning. When there is one bookstore chain deciding what will be displayed, and one large book distributor deciding what even gets published, it's almost like we've bypassed this future world that Bradbury so vividly describes and we've gone straight into books not even being printed, so how can they be memorized?

And people wonder why I buy books, even if I haven't read them.

Update in 2020: It is darkly dystopian, and with what this year has been the only way I finished it was that it was for a book challenge. It is so prescient, though. The writing style is definitely 1953 so it can take some slogging through stereotypes. Still worth reading.

40) A Cold Heart by Jonathan Kellerman
5****

An interesting take on relationships, Alex and Milo, and Petra introduced in an earlier, standalone novel. Also converging is the world of art in its many guises: jazz and classical performances, seedy nightclubs and struggling art galleries, and the fan-zines.

In this case, a sequence of murders occur to artists who are making professional comebacks in all these fields that Petra begins to investigate with her new partner, the silent and stoic Eric. She calls in Milo and Alex, and each of them handles seemingly innocuous details of these cases in their own unique way.

The point-of-view of each Petra and Alex chapters are separate, and the aspects of the cases they work are clear and unmuddied. In addition to the police procedural chapters there are the psychological insights into the killers' motives: as we trace a car at a junkyard, the questions begin about the young man who abandoned it and what happened in his family to make him commit these crimes.

And of course there is the grit of after-hours Los Angeles alongside the privilege and glitter of Century Center and Bristol. And academia and hard-edged police work and trying to work through personal relationships to humanize the main characters.

December Reading Log

Category 1 - Just finish the darn book!
Category 2 - TBR pile Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay
Category 3 - New book pile The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry, The Policeman's Daughter by Trudy Nan Boyce
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series
Category 5 - Classics

December Current Count: 3
Yearly Count: 43

Well, 2 short this year, but still not too shabby. And "Essex Serpent" was a last minute addition, and it worked out to be worth the time.

41) December Category 3 - The Policeman's Daughter by Trudy Nan Boyce
3***

I really wish I had liked this book better, as I truly enjoyed Boyce's previous volumes in this series, but no. It just seemed too disjointed, as though she is showing Salt's introductions to these characters that make up her other two books. Then there is Salt herself and her constant forward-then-back recollections of her life to that point, her dad, and her refusal to budge. On anything.

Otherwise, the descriptions of the Projects (the "Homes"), the complicated relationships between the people who live there, and the grinding tragedy of so many people's lives are spot on. They were written with compassion rather than pity, and Boyce must have been a heck of a police officer who brought much of herself into her work.

42) December Category 3 - The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
4****

What a great book! A friend recommended it and I am glad I took a chance on it. Set in late 1800's Essex County and London, the action takes place with the rumor of the infamous Essex Serpent who has taken up residence in the Blackwater, a tidal estuary near Colchester. Newly widowed Cora Seaborne longs to explore this town with its possible findings of paleontology and she meets with the Vicar of Aldwinter, the nearby town. He and his wife, Stella, live with their three children, and over the next few months their lives become strongly intertwined.

Part of what made this book so strong was its interweaving of themes: the idle rich and the dawn of modern surgery, spousal abuse and consumption, hypnosis and the heart's longing for what it cannot, or should not, have. Sections are divided by month, Nature is explored in all Her gaiety and glory, and even the Colchester earthquake plays a part.

43) Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay
5****

Yes, another book by this great author, and one that again I mark as a favorite. And one that I took my time to read because I just love discovering what world Kay will create this time.

A very early work of his, the plot is centered around a portion of the peninsula known as The Palm (modeled around Italy's boot). Nearly 20 years before the book there was a war in which one of the invader's sons was killed. It happened to be his favorite son, and the father happened to be a wizard. So he cursed the region of Tigana and set out to be the tyrant of the Western Palm, in constant stand-off with the wizard tyrant of the Eastern Palm.

So, while this is considered "fantasy" the use of wizardry is minimal and only allowed to be used by the two tyrants. Instead, there are individuals who come together in a series of coincidences (Kay is brilliant at creating these) and they find common purpose: they wish to regain the name of Tigana for their land and renew its name in the minds of all the Palm's inhabitants. Because yeah, the name, too, is wiped from minds, not just from the earth.

I want to read The Essex Serpent. Happy New Year 🥳🥳🥳🍾🥂🍾🥂

I hope you can get to it, Andrew. It was quite good.

And a Happy New Year to you as well! Congrats on all your reading accomplishments and I hope that 2021 brings a bit of reprieve to your duties as Headmaster.

>71 threadnsong: Thanks no sign of that yet, in fact quite the opposite. Hopefully later in the year things will improve.