bohemima aims for 100

I’m Gail; I usually read about 100 books per year. I read nearly anything, but I’m not especially fond of romance, westerns, or space-type science fiction. I’ll give most anything a try, though. Much of my reading is devoted to mysteries, particularly the Golden Age books or those written in that style; all things Victorian; and whatever my butterfly mind lands on for a moment. Sometimes I explore a topic in depth.

I live in Florida and am retired from teaching. I have two grown sons living in other states, and two cats right here with me.

In 2021, I’d like to do the following:

Enjoy my reading;
Learn something;
Cut back on book buying;
Write at least a few sentences about each book I read here in this thread;
Read Red and the Black

Currently reading
Old School but will finish tomorrow

The Intellectual Devotional (which isn’t what you think) and will finish in 2021
The Lives of the Novelists and *may* finish in 2021
Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and will finish in January
Agatha Christie Autobiography and will finish in January or February

Mystery Series in Progress

This category seems to number in the thousands...

Catherine Aird
Inspector Sloan/ Calleshire Chronicles
7/26
Next Up: Some Die Eloquent Kindle

George Bellairs
Inspector Littlejohn
16/52
Next Up: Dead March for Penelope Blow Kindle

Moray Dalton
Hugh Collier
1/14
Next Up: The Night of Fear

Michael Innes
Inspector Appleby
Next Up: My reading here is just a mess in terms of order. I’ll have to do some tidying up.

Peter Lovesey
Sergeant Cribb
1/8
Next Up: The Detective Wore Silk Drawers
DNF’d this one. I was really disappointed and quite sad, but it just wasn’t for me.

Basil Thompson
Inspector Richardson
2/8
Next Up: The Case of Naomi Clynes

Detective Peter Diamond
1/19
Diamond Solitaire

Colin Watson

Even More Modest 2021 Goals

1. 6 Victorian-era Classics

2. 3 Nonfiction Books on the Victorian Era

3. Read and watch 3 Shakespeare Plays (1/3)

4. Read and remove any 12 Physical Books (4/12)

These seem do-able. Maybe they are; maybe they’re not. We’ll see.

Books Read in January

1. Hamlet William Shakespeare 416 pp.
2. Will in the World Stephen Greenblatt 448 pp
3. The New Sonia Wayward Michael Innes (removed) 186 pp
4. The Norths Meet Murder Richard and Frances Lockridge 217 pp.
5. Behind the Beautiful Forevers Katherine Boo 288 pp
6. Agatha Christie Autobiography Agatha Christie 544 pp
7. Watercolor 365 Leslie Redhead (removed) 224 pp
8. The End of the Affair Graham Greene 192 pp
9. When Breath Becomes Air Paul Kalanithi 256 pp
10. Plaid and Plagiarism Molly MacRae 288 pp (removed)

Books Read in February

11. The Murder of My Aunt Richard Hull 216 pp
12. Malice Aforethought Francis Iles 288 pp
13. The Cornish Coast Murder John Bude 288 pp
14. A Voice from the Attic Robertson Davies 368 pp
15. Trouble in the Town Hall Jeanne M. Dams 260 pp
16. Richardson Scores Again Basil Thomson 206 pp

Books Read in March

17. Parting Breath Catherine Aird 159 pp
18. The Hunting Party Lucey Foley 336 pp
19. Greengage Summer Rumer Godden 186 pp
20. The Secret House of Death Ruth Rendell 190 pp
21. The Hound of the Baskervilles A. Conan Doyle 112 pp
22. The Body in the Library Agatha Christie
23. A Reliable Wife Robert Goolrick 296 pp
(removed)
24. The Daughter of Time Josephine Tey
25. When Last I Died Gladys Mitchell

https://karensbooksandchocolate.blogspot.com/2017/12/back-to-classics-2018.html

1. A classic written between 1800 and 1900

2. A classic written between 1901 and 1971

3. A classic written by a woman

4. A classic in translation

5. A children’s classic

6. A classic crime story, fiction or nonfiction

7. A classic travel or journey narrative, fiction or nonfiction

8. A classic with a single word title

9. A classic with a color in the title

10. A classic by an author that’s new to you

11. A classic that scares you

12. Reread a favorite classic
The Hound of the Baskervilles

First Up:

Will in the World Stephen Greenblatt

Currently on p. 49, beginning of Chapter 2

2020 Reading Stats

Happy reading in 2021! I like your "even more modest goals" section - I might have to do something similar in June.

Good health and good reads in 2021!

>11 hemlokgang: Thank you! And the same to you.

The last physical book I bought was Red and the Black, on December 26.

The last kindle book I purchased was Death after Evensong purchased on December 24.

Now let’s see how long I can keep this up.

Borrowed (and adapted and shortened) from Richard’s thread in the 75’ers:

Three Sentence Review

1. What can you expect from the book? (No spoilers)
ex: In The Murder at the Vicarage, the unpleasant Colonel Protheroe is shot to death after fighting with nearly everyone in the village.

2. What is amazing, amusing, wonderul, or memorable about the book? (Again, no spoilers).

Author Agatha Christie uses misdirection and a cleverly contrived murder method to keep the reader guessing.

3. Who would like this book?

If you enjoy brilliant but unassuming amateur detectives and/or like a female sleuth, this book is for you.

I might not stick with this, but for a tidy, informative review, or as an aid to one’s own memory, this is a winner.

Happy New Year, Gail. I'm glad I found you here xx

Thank you, Diana! I’m glad you found me as well!

In a bit of a surprise, but my first read of the year was Hamlet. Magnificent as ever. There’s nothing, I’m sure, that I could possibly add to what’s already been said about this play.

However, I can recommend most highly the Benedict Cumberbatch charity production from a few years ago, I think from the National Theater Company of Great Britain.
Most actors I’ve seen in the role of Hamlet have been ridiculously old for the part. Cumberbatch was at least somewhat believable as far as age is concerned. And his acting? I’ve never seen better.

Do check it out on You Tube.

Best wishes for a great year of reading in 2021.

Very impressive to start off with Hamlet!

Hoping for a quiet, non-violent week to Inauguration Day, Gail. Take care xx

Ah, here you are ...

>10 jfetting: I’m sorry; I inadvertently skipped your message. I’m trying to keep my goals small this year to eliminate any guilt when I go on a mystery bender.

>17 Eyejaybee: Thank you, Isn! I wish you a great reading year, too.

I started with Hamlet because I’m taking a tiny online course that uses Hamlet and The Tempest as its only texts. Both are rereads for me, but Shakespeare always says something new to me.

>18 DianaNL: As you may imagine, Diana, we aren’t really calm here. Between the US rapidly approaching 400,000 COVID deaths, and the constant undercurrent of feeling threatened by yet more violence from the extremists on the right, January of ‘21 is continuing right on from that Annus Horribilis, 2020.

I hope things will settle down after the Wednesday, and we can get back to at least some semblance of normal.

>19 mckait: Welcome to the quiet side of LT, Kath.

I finished Will in the World, which I loved.

Of course it isn’t a true biography, because of a lack of concrete information about Shakespeare’s private life. So author Greenblatt engages in lots of speculation; if he didn’t, the book would be a tiny one.

Honestly, though, what he has created is a fascinating picture of Shakespeare’s world and his place in it. Even if the reader is familiar with the era in that amateur “I’m a fan of the Elizabethan era” sort of way (that’s me), there’s plenty of authentic and slightly obscure period detail to bring it vividly to life.

The only caveat I have is that Greenblatt extrapolates too much from the works to back up his theories about WS’s life. Those theories (mostly) make sense, and he backs them up with plenty of background. But I think it’s a mistake with any author to presume a direct link from life to work.

That said, his discussion of the sonnets and their possible reflections of his life is fascinating—and convincing.

Four and half stars, and highly recommended to anyone interested in Shakespeare.

>23 Matke: that sounds interesting, Gail, I may check it out. As you say, biographers and critics often seem to go too far in extrapolating details of his life from the plays and sonnets, and we have relatively few sources to confirm or deny such theories.

The New Sonia Wayward by Michael Innes isn’t a mystery at all, but rather a semi-suspense comic novel.

A famous and successful romance author dies while aboard her boat. Her husband is the only other person with her, but we know right up front that he didn’t kill her.

The problem is that she provided nearly the entire income. Now that she’s dead, no more books—and no more income. Whatever is a fellow to do?

I’ve read other books with this premise, but Innes is so clever that he manages to make it a bit of a page-turner while maintaining an amusing (and amused) tone.

Good but not great.

>25 Matke: That sounds interesting. I have read a lot of Michael Innes’s books, but haven’t heard of that one. I also enjoyed a lot of the novels that he published under his real name, J. I. M. Stewart, and especially the Staircase in Surrey series.

>26 Eyejaybee: Uh-oh. I’m an unregenerate reader of series, so now I have to look up those Staircase in Surrey books. I knew that there were books published under J.I.M. Stewart, but I’ve never come across any.

I find his Michael Innes books wildly uneven. Sometimes they’re great, sometimes not so great, and sometimes they seem to be exercises in literary snobbishness, with dozens of references that the modern reader just doesn’t get.

I still read him, though, because those occasional gems make it all worthwhile.

>27 Matke:. I know exactly what you mean about how variable the Michael Innes books can be, but I also agree that, at his best, he can be wonderful. That is also true of the books he published as J. I. M. Stewart. I have read some of his academic books, too, which are very well written. He was quite an authority in late Victorian and early twentieth century novelists.

Behind the Beautiful Forevers is a painful read. Katherine Boo is a journalist who moved to India and spent time researching and documenting life in a slum just outside the Mumbai airport. She portrays lives that to this Westerner seem incredibly grim and depressing. Boo shows how desperate people do things that are immoral but seem necessary for survival and for any hope at all of improving their lives.

This isn’t a sentimental book; there’s no judgement here, either. Each character (all are real people; the book is based on extensive interviews and first-hand observation) is shown as completely human, with all the hopes and desires of anyone.

I needed a couple of weeks to complete my read of this. I can recommend it to anyone who is truly interested in the lives of others. Those who want to indulge in distant pity, or who want to condemn people who live in circumstances that are beyond your understanding should avoid this amazing and truthful book.

>28 Eyejaybee: I have an Innes lined up for later The Gay Phoenix. The opening is hilarious. It will be a while, though; I’ve got quite a few books on my TBR.

>29 Matke: It's on my Kindle but I've been putting it off for the reasons you mention in your review, even though it would be a worthwhile read. I've been stuck on light and frivolous, and thought I'd be pining for something weightier by now, but no!

>30 Matke:. I have never heard of The Gay Phoenix but will hunt down a copy.

>31 pamelad: Yes, it’s a difficult read. I often retreat to mysteries: problems solved, justice usually meted out; or Victorian novels: just escape to very different world. I read some nonfiction last year, and I’d like to do a bit more this year, now that my anxiety level has become manageable.

>32 Eyejaybee: I can’t remember how I came across this one, but it certainly looks like fun.

So many books behind here.

First, current reads:
Orley Farm ongoing
Tom Brown’s Schooldays ongoing
Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin dnf’d
The Intellectual Devotional ongoing
A Voice from the Attic completed

Starting today:
The Autobiography of Malcolm X set aside for now

Books Purchased This Quarter

Kindle

The Body in the Library read 2021
The Mazaroff Murder
The Groote Park Murder
The Death of a Fool
The World of Yesterday
A Thousand Ships
The Devil’s Elbow
Jurgen
The Vanished Pomps of Yesterday
Dead Water
Photo Finish
False Scent
Singing in the Shrouds
Swing, Brother, Swing
Pompeii
Publish and Perish
Black Narcissus
The Old Ladies
Delphi Collected Works of Hugh Walpole
Vintage Murder
Stamped from the Beginning
Autobiography of Malcolm X
The King Must Die
Under the Red Flag
The Greengage Summer read 2021
The Lady and the Unicorn
Final Curtain
False Scent
Death at Dovecote Hatch
The Prague Sonata

Physical
The Red and the Black
Reynard the Fox
Here, There, and Everywhere
King Jesus
The Iliad
The Odyssey
The Aeneid
The Inferno
Island of the Sequinned Love Nun
Seaton’s Aunt
Astonishing Animals
Murder Ink
Murderess Ink
I Am Shakespeare
And that’s quite enough of that for a while.

Time to get reading.

#35 - I have a lot of the Delphi Complete Works, including Hugh Walpole's (though in recent years I have been getting the parts editions directly from Delphi). I love his Herries Chronicles set in the Lake District.

>35 Matke: You're planning a Rumer Godden binge? I've added Black Narcissus to my wish list because it combines two of her recurring themes, nuns and India. And because I've seen the 1947 Powell and Pressburger film a couple of times. I can recommend the film highly, and very much doubt that the new miniseries could hold a candle to it.

>36 john257hopper: I’ve never read Hugh Walpole, but I’ve seen so many mentions of his work that I just got the omnibus edition to have in hand. I have a few Delphi Completes and find them very handy for on-and-off reading of some older, prolific authors.

>37 pamelad: Gee, it does look like I’m due for a Godden fest, doesn’t it? I’ve only read In This House of Brede, which I loved despite a sort of deus ex machine ending. I’m looking forward to getting into more of her books.

I’ve made little progress on my reading this month. I often rebel against anything I’ve actually written down as a goal, so m following a familiar path. All the books will get read, but maybe not immediately.

Sigh.

Wow. Reading slump going on here. I’m not sure why my attention span is now that of a bumblebee: a taste here, a few sips there, oh that looks pretty.

Discouraging but not fatal.

>40 Matke: I'm so sorry! I've been fighting my way out of one for weeks. The trilogy dragged me right out of it, wish I could find another that good. I might fall back on rereading the Catherine M. Wilson trilogy. Dunno yet.

>40 Matke: I am sorry about this. I have been lucky enough not to have had a reading slump really for a couple of decades.

>40 Matke: I suggest a Georgette Heyer re-read for your slump. Light, amusing, predictable, an escape from reality into another world. I'd been putting books down at the hint of anything awful about to happen, so Heyer's happy endings solved the problem.

>41 mckait: I can’t settle enough to read the trilogy right now but I’m absolutely certain it’s for me. It hits si many of my sweet spots, plus I really like the writing. Soon, I hope.

>42 john257hopper: Thank you, John. I’m not sure what’s going on but I’ve got a pretty good idea. I’m sure I’ll break out soon.

>43 pamelad: Thanks, Pamela. Currently I’m using some low-effort mysteries to deal with this. We’ll see.

And speaking of low-effort mysteries (I mean low effort on the reader’s part. This particular book was low-effort in other ways as well). I just finished The Cornish Coast Mystery by John Bude. In my opinion it leaves a lot to be desired.

Positive aspects:
The main character of the Vicar, Mr. Dodd, is beautifully drawn. The description of the Cornwall coast is wonderful. And an especially interesting part of the book occurs when Mr. Dodd uses what must have been school lessons on triangulation to solve a vital part of the murder puzzle. Bude provides an early example of CSI before such a thing has been heard of.

However: Mr. Dodd is the only strong character in the book. The rest are at best trite and at worst simple cardboard placeholders to advance the action.

The plot? Oh dear. I’m used to suspending disbelief while reading mysteries (John Dickson Carr, anyone?), and that’s fine. This one is a bit of a stretch, but that could have been excused. However, I really dislike it when the mystery can’t be solved by the reader. Clues that the detective finds in various ways but carefully conceals from the reader are often a deal breaker for me. I like the “fair play” aspect of stories; if the author deliberately conceals information from the reader, it seems almost a kind of cheating to me. And that’s the case here.

So, this one just fell flat for me and rated only two unenthusiastic stars.

ETA: When I say that the mystery can be solved by the reader, I mean that enough information is provided, however skillfully concealed, for a reader to identify the culprit. No secret telegrams to and from America, no visits to Somerset House without specifying what was found, (or at least the type of documents) etc. I don’t mean that I should always be able to figure it out. In fact, sly misdirection and clues very casually dropped into the middle of the narrative or dialogue are exactly what I like. A clever ending (The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Envious Casca, or Murder on the Orient Express come to mind) always delights me and brings a smile. I love to be fooled—but I don’t love being denied a fair chance by the author.

ETA I’ve read that this series improves as it goes on, so I might give it one or two more tries. Maybe.

So I’m left feeling that February was a Total Fail for me. As in Complete.

So, lesson from February:

Make No Plans.

I read an entertaining and provocative book about books, and five mysteries. Simply couldn’t settle down to any reading. Sigh.

Never mind, March will be better. I think.

I’ve been so very off track here. Back to some mini reviews so I can remember the books later.

The Norths Meet Murder by Richard and Frances Lockridge is an engaging, charming mystery from a bygone era.

The Norths are a smart and sassy Couple About Town in 1930’s New York City. There’s plenty of drinking, good eating, and snark.

When Pam North decides to have a party in an extra apartment in their building, there is of course a snag: a dead body. Discovering how and why the murdered man was in that apartment forms the plot. The Norths pair up with the local detective and of course the case is solved.

I found this amusing. The drinking doesn’t begin to approach the levels in The Thin Man, but still is...well, it’s a lot of drinking. However, the humor is really smart, the puzzle is intriguing, and the entire book is just fun to read.

Recommended to any fan of mysteries without gore.

An Autobiography by Agatha Christie is just as breezy and entertaining as her mysteries. The style is precisely the same as the Poirot and Marple stories, with just a bit of seriousness here and there.

She slides over her disappearance and ignores any downsides of her marriage to Max Mallowan. Nevertheless it’s worth reading for a picture of middle class life in Britain in the early 20th century.

Recommended to Christie fans.

The End of the Affair by Graham Greene is one of his depressing books. Full of Catholic guilt and that old (but still fairly prevalent) idea of a vengeful God monitoring sexual sins, it still held my attention.

Maurice has a long, somewhat obsessive affair with the married Sarah. He allows himself to cultivate, in a despicable way, Sarah’s husband. Meanwhile Sarah has an unconvincing internal conversion to Catholicism.

Naturally this ends badly.

As I look back on it, I don’t know why I liked this book.

Oh Gail! - I hadn't realised that I hadn't tracked you down for this year, or I forgot that I forgot. Very belated welcome back! :D

I had a horribly disorganised February too and am now trying to pick up the pieces. let's both hope for a much more soothing March. :)

>50 lyzard:
Thanks, Liz!

I’ve deliberately cut my LT participation way back this year, and switched groups to help accomplish that.

Please don’t feel bad about not finding me. Honestly, I don’t mind even a tiny bit.

>35 Matke:
I suffer from a severe case of both FOMO and Completism.

This is just ridiculous.

>52 Matke: I think a lot of us do. I sometimes purchase a Delphi Complete Works when I am interested only in 1 or 2 of the novels or plays etc. within it. I am also a complete sucker for the 99 pence daily deals if they look quite interesting.

>53 john257hopper: Oh, those $1.99 books! I can’t even look at them, they’re so tempting.

When Breath Becomes Air is a heartbreaking memoir by a very young doctor who is just completing his medical education, ready to launch into the world, when he’s diagnosed first with lung cancer, and then with metastatic cancer of the brain and other organs.

Author Kalanithi had a brilliant educational path and was going to be an excellent surgeon. Of course there’s some (well-controlled) anger here, and a great deal of sadness. I didn’t get any feeling of self-pity, though. Some of the book is like a case study of what happens when a patient develops this kind of cancer and strives to subdue it.

This isn’t sentimental or sloppy in any way, and certainly doesn’t have an attitude which I find appalling: cancer is the best thing that ever happened to me. I’m the Pollyanna of my family, but that thought process is just beyond me.

A couple of reviews I read criticized the author for writing “from a place of privilege.” In this context I don’t even understand what that means. He’s writing about his own most intimate experience. What else would a memoir be? And how one can translate a fatal cancer diagnosis and disease process as “privilege” is beyond me.

Recommended to those who are interested in doctors, cancer, or well-written memoirs.

Plaid and Plagiarism is just a so-so mystery set in Scotland. There are four main characters who aren’t really distinct from one another.

Lots of dialogue, and far too much texting, are used to advance the story. Not much action, and sadly very little description of the setting, which is what drew me to the book.

The mystery is just so-so as well. Read this only if you need a book that you don’t have to think about.

The Murder of My Aunt and Malice Aforethought work well as paired reads. Both use a device which is a bit gimicky: the narrator is the one planning the murder. So there’s no actual mystery involved, but there are plenty of turns to the plots, and lots of humor.

These books are also studies of people who don’t want to be controlled, but are completely comfortable with being cared for by others.

I do like this kind of story but it can quickly become a little tedious. So I’ll give this trope a rest for a while before trying another in the same vein.

Plot point: In each of these the narrator is a male who is tremendously resentful of what he sees as a dominating, crushing female. That didn’t take away from my enjoyment, but strong feminists might find the idea less than satisfactory.
And now that I think about it, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a book where the role of the murdering narrator is a woman. Hmm...

Mercy.

I am clearly not spending enough time here, since I reviewed the same book twice!!!

Anyway.

Somewhat out of order, but that’s just me right now:

The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie is the second in her Miss Marple series, and much inferior to the first entry, Murder at the Vicarage. In this entry Jane seems cold and rather harsh. And the classicism is really, really strong here. I’m not sure why I didn’t notice that in my (many) previous readings. She does get redeemed from complete snobbery at the very end, when she demonstrates a good deal of compassion for an NQOK person and thoroughly condemns those who would take advantage of that poor soul.

The book begins, of course with the body of a girl being found in the library of a “County” family. Who she is, why she was murdered, and how she wound up in Colonel Bantry’s library form the plot of the book.

This is a classic English Village Mystery: the violence occurs offstage, there are plenty of fair clues and plenty of misdirection. But I was disappointed this time. I was sad to find it both dated and slightly repellent.

Too bad, really. 3 nostalgic stars.

Currently reading a fairly intriguing novel: A Reliable Wife. The author makes excellent use of a fairly ordinary plot line but does it very well, I think. I’m at the half-way point.

March Mystery Madness has been a success here in my house, giving me a great excuse to read even more of my favorite genre—as if I needed such an excuse. Other than that my reading’s been in sad shape. I start lots of books and then put them down.

Sigh.

I read that in 2015. I don't remember it, but I gave it five stars.

:)