Fourpawz2 - 75 Books - Year 15

I'm Charlotte, living on the south coast of Massachusetts with my dear cat, Jane. It's a quiet life for the most part. I read a lot, when I am not working and Jane sleeps a lot, when she is not eating, sitting in the window or - occasionally - chasing the random mouse foolish enough to bumble into our tiny home.

Well - 2021 was an up and down kind of year. Both Jane and I had lots of dental work done, but to the good, nobody got sick. Got almost all of the window screens refurbished, but then a tree wiped out a fence. You know - the usual ups and downs. Am hopeful that this year will be a better one, but it's not gotten off to a great start. I am already waaaay behind in my reading and I think there is a dead mouse under one of the six and a half foot high bookcases in my bedroom.

I'd intended to have another picture of Jane in this space, but due to technical problems most of the pictures on my previous phone are temporarily/permanently trapped there. So, instead, I have gone with a picture of my little pal, Raquel, who belongs to a customer. We are great buddies and she is a wonderful little dog - even if she is the owner of the smallest bladder on the planet.

BOOKS READ IN 2022

JANUARY

1. The Dutch House by Ann Patchett - RL Book Club - finished on 1/10/22 - 5 stars
2. The Lady of the Forest by Jennifer Roberson - finished on 1/25/22 - 4.5 stars
3. The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips by Michael Morpurgo finished on 1/30/22 - 3.25 stars

FEBRUARY

4. While Justice Sleeps by Stacey Abrams - finished on 2/4/22 - 4.5 stars
5. The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson - finished on 2/9/22 - 4.5 stars
6. The Janus Stone by Elly Griffiths - finished on 2/13/22 - 3.25 stars
7. The Confederate Negro: Virginia's Craftsmen and Military Laborers, 1861-1865 by James H. Brewer - finished on 2/20/22 - 3 stars
8. Deep River by Karl Marlantes - finished on 2/21/22 - 4.5 stars

MARCH

9. Friends in High Places by Donna Leon - finished on 3/6/2022 - 4 stars
10. In Sunlight and In Shadow by Mark Helprin - finished on 3/11/2022 - 2.5 stars
11. Island of Wings by Karin Altenberg - finished on 3/14/2022 - 4 stars
12. Zoo Station by David Downing - finished on 3/19/2022 - 4.5 stars
13. Olive, Mabel & Me by Andrew Cotter - finished on 3/22/2022 - 5+++ stars
14. Days of the Dead by Barbara Hambly - finished on 3/30/2022 - 3.50 stars

APRIL

15. A Royal Pain by Rhys Bowen - finished on 4/06/2022 - 3.25 stars
16. The Children of Dynmouth by William Trevor - finished on 4/10/2022 - 5 stars
17. The Blessing Way by Tony Hillerman - finished on 2/23/2022 - 4 stars
18. Front Row at the Trump Show by Jonathan Karl - finished on 4/25/2022 - 4 stars

MAY

19. Savannah Breeze by Mary Kay Andrews - finished on 5/4/2022 - 3.25 stars
20. Jeremy Poldark by Winston Graham - finished on 5/9/2022 - 4 stars
21. The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides - finished on 5/16/2022 - 3.25 stars
22. An Ugly Truth by Sheera Frenkel - finished on 5/17/2022 - 3.25 stars
23. Passing by Nella Larsen - finished on 5/20/2022 - 4 stars
24. The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling - finished on 5/25/2022 - 4.5 stars

JUNE

25. Bird Box by Josh Malerman - finished on 6/6/2022 - 3 stars
26. Maus by Art Spieglman - finished on 6/10/2022 - 4 stars
27. Faithful Place by Tana French - finished on 6/12/2022 - 3.5 stars
28. One, Two, Buckle My Shoe by Agatha Christie - finished on 6/15/2022 - 3.25 stars
29. If Cats Disappeared From the World by Genki Kawamuta - finished on 6/16/2022 - 3.5 stars
30. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson - finished on 6/24/2022 - 6 stars

JULY

31. The Postscript Murders by Elly Griffiths - finished on 7/6/2022 - 3.25 stars
32. Murder in an English Village by Jessica Ellicott - finished on 7/13/2022 - 3 stars
33. A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende - finished on 7/19/2022 - 3.5 stars
34. The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell - finished on 7/25/2022 - 5+ stars
35. The Postmistress by Sarah Blake - finished on 7/30/2022 - 3.25 stars

AUGUST

36. Why We Did It by Tim Miller finished on 8/02/2022 - 3.50 stars
37. Secrets on Saturday by Ann Purser - finished on 8/10/22 - 3.25 stars
38. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison - finished on 8/29/22 - 5 stars

SEPTEMBER

39. The Children Act by Ian McEwan - finished on 9/6/2022 - 4 stars
40. Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns - finished on 9/10/2022 - 3.5 stars
41. Father's Day by Simon Van Booy - finished on 9/16/2022 - 3.5 stars
42. A Trick of the Light byn Louise Penny - finished on 9/23/2022 - 4.5 stars
43. Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel - finished on 9/30/2022 - 3.5 stars

OCTOBER

44. Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie - finished on 10/08/2022 - 3.25 stars
45. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman - finished on 10/18/2022 - 4.5 stars
46. Akenfield by Ronald Blythe - finished on 10/19/2022 - 4 stars
47. Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas - finished on 10/25/2022 - 3.5 stars
48. Citizens by Simon Schama - finished on 10/30/2022 - 5 stars

NOVEMBER

49. Hold the Line by Michael Fanone - finished on 11/02/2022 - 3.5 stars
50. The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver - finished on 11/04/2022 - 3.5 stars
51. Baggage by Alan Cumming - finished on 11/15/2022 - 3.5 stars
52. Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz - finished on 11/19/2022 - 3.75 stars
53. The Maid by Nita Prose - finished on 11/29/2022 - 4 stars

DECEMBER

54. Silesian Station by David Downing - finished on 12/2/2022 - 4.5 stars
55. Lord High Executioner by Howard Engel - finished on 12/8/2022 - 3.5 stars
56. The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse - finished on 12/15/2022 - 3.25 stars
57. The Moonlight Child by Karen McQuestion - finished on 12/15/2022 - 3.25 stars
58. The Buffalo Hunters by Mari Sandoz - finished on 12/17/2022 - 5 stars
59. Blood River by Tim Butcher - finished on 12/25/2022 - 5 stars
60. Why Read Moby Dick? by Nathaniel Philbrick - finished on 12/29/2022 - 3.5 stars
61. The Mask of Apollo by Mary Renault - finished on 12/31/2022 - 3 stars

REAL LIFE BOOK CLUB

January - The Dutch House by Ann Patchett - Finished
March - In Sunlight and In Shadow by Mark Helprin - Finished
May - The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides - Finished
July/August - The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell - Finished
November - Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas - Finished
December - The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse - Reading

RECOMMENDED BOOKS

TO ME:

BY ME:

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
Lady of the Forest by Jennfer Roberson
While Justice Sleeps by Stacey Abrams
Island of Wings by Karin Altenberg
Olive, Mabel & Me by Andrew Cotter
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

BOOKS ACQUIRED IN 2022

1. A Room Full of Bones by Elly Griffiths - acquired from amazon 2/4/2022 - digital reward $
2. King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild - used TPB in very good condition acquired through abebooks - 2/11/2022
3. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie - used TPB copy in not terrible condition acquired through abebooks 3/4/2022
4. The Secret Place by Tana French - used very good hard cover edition acquired through abebooks - 3/16/2022
5. Silesian Station by David Downing - 4/01/2022 - used TPB copy acquired through Abe books in good condition
6. Sea of Silver Lights by Tad Williams - used MMPB copy in pretty good condition - 4/11/2022
7. Triangle by David Van Drehle - used TPB copy in fair condition acquired through abebooks 4/15/2022
8. The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt - used TPB copy that has clearly never been read. Came with a business card from someone associated with some outfit called “Lincoln Train, Inc.” referencing the Belton, Grandview & Kansas Railroad - 5/5/2022. I love it when I get used books that come with a bookmark or a note that was forgotten by the previous owner.
9. Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie used MMPB that is only in fair shape that I got through Second Sale Books on 6/18/2022
10. The Wizard of Lies by Diana B. Henriques - used hardcover in pretty good condition that I got through SecondSale Books on 6/18/2022
11. George IV Prince of Wales by Christopher Hibbert - used hardcover in seriously used condition. Original owner: Cotuit Library, Cotuit MA. Bought through Abebooks on 7/8/2022. Am always amused when I buy a book from two counties away from me (as was this one), but receive it from a used book dealer who is located halfway across the country.
12. Knowledge of Water by Sarah Smith - used hardcover in pretty good condition acquired through Abe Books on 8/3/2022. Previously it belonged to the Northbrook Public Library in Northbrook, IL.
13. How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny - used hardcover in fair condition acquired through Abe Books on 9/17/2022. Would have liked a better copy, but Penny's used books are a little more expensive than the average.
14. Culture Wars by James Davison Hunter - used TPB copy in okay condition acquired through Thrift Books on 11/19/2022. It's a very tight copy with fairly yellowed pages which I don't think has ever been read. At the time, I was reading the only copy of this book available for borrowing through the library system in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It was so good I knew I had to own my own copy. So I bought it.
15. The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse - bought a copy through Kindle for December's RL book club, using digital credits I had kicking around.
16. The Age of Faith by Will Durant - used hardcover in extremely good condition acquired through Thrift Books on 12/01/2022. Previously it seems to have belonged to someone with the first name of Jane Something-or-Other. (The handwriting is even worse than mine.) Flipping through it I saw one tiny little note in pencil. Felt sorry for my mailman as this book weighs a lot and he had to tote it all the way down my street before he was able to unload it on my front steps.
17. The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie - used MMPB 22 year old copy in okay, slightly mangled condition acquired through Thrift Books on 12/05/22. Looking forward to reading it as it is only the second Miss Marple mystery that I have gotten to in my chronological reading of all of Christie's mysteries. Won't be able to read it until next year though as I have to get another Tommy and Tuppence read book before that. Not fond of T&T so I am getting a copy from the library instead of purchasing it.
18. The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers - used TPB 7 year old copy also in okay, slightly mangled condition (with a bit of water damage to the last 70 or so pages), acquired from Thrift Books on 12/05/22.
19. Spoilt City by Olivia Manning - used MMPB Penguin edition from 1974 which is in pretty decent condition even though, judging from the look of the spine, it has been read a number of times. Acquired through Thrift Books on 12/05/22.

.....BOOKS GIVEN A ONE-WAY TICKET OUT OF TOWN - HOPEFULLY TO A BETTER PLACE

1. Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow - Did not care for this book when I read it some years ago. Time for it to move on
2. The Summer House by Alice Thomas Ellis - Started it once, but it never got off the ground
3. Dances with Wolves by Michael Blake - Read it. It was exactly like the movie so I'd rather watch that and get the benefit of a great score, cinematography, and acting
4. Haweswater by Sarah Hall - Read it. It was okay, but not good enough to read again.
5. The Good Journey by Micaela Gilchrist - read in some years ago and it was pretty good, but not good enough to keep.
6. Unravelling by Elizabeth Graver - Read it, but it was not memorable.
7. The Fool's Tale by Nicole Galland - Read it, but it was kind a trudge.
8. Mistress Shakespeare by Karen Harper - Read it, but it was not awfully good.
9. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire - These re-worked fairy tale books are not for me
10. Into the Wilderness by Sara Donati - Did not get very far into this one before I was too annoyed to continue
11. The Shining City - by Kate Forsyth - Never got far enough off the ground for me to finish it.

.....AND BOOKS SENT BACK TO THE LIBRARY IN UNFINISHED SHAME

1. The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson - Audio Book
It was far too long and complex for listening to while working and I did not care for all the back and forth of different characters living for a while and being shunted off to The Bardo. Do not even like the word Bardo. It is why I’ve never touched Lincoln and the Bardo. For some reason, unknown to me, I don’t like the sound of it and do not want to read about it either. Not reasonable but it can’t be helped.
2. Moby Dick by Herman Melville - Audio Book
Thought that maybe listening to this one as an audio book might help, but it didn't. It was just as un-get-into-able in 2022 as it was in 1969. Maybe if I read Philbrick's book about it I will understand what it is that this book should be read by me. I love Philbrick; he might be able to explain it to me.

BORROWED BOOKS IN 2022
1. Deep River by Karl Marlantes - borrowed from Overdrive - 1/13/2022 re-borrowed on 2/3/2022
2. The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips by Michael Morpurgo - borrowed from the New Bedford Free Public Library, Wilks Branch - 1/27/2022
3. In Sunlight and In Shadow by Mark Helprin - borrowed from the Middleborough Public Library - 2/18/2022 and also from Overdrive a few days later
4. The Confederate Negro: Virginia's Craftsmen and Military Laborers, 1861-1865 by James H. Brewer - borrowed from Cary Memorial Library (Commonwealth Catalog) - 2/18/2022
5. Olive, Mabel & Me by Andrew Cotter - borrowed from Overdrive - 3/18/2022
6. The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson - borrowed from Overdrive - 3/28/2022 - returned unfinished
7. A Royal Pain by Rhys Bowen - borrowed from the Holmes Public Library - 3/31/2022
8. The Children of Dynmouth by William Trevor - borrowed from the Elizabeth Taber Library (Marion) - 4/08/2022
9. The Blessing Way by Tony Hillerman - borrowed from the Carver Public Library - 4/14/2022
10. Front Row at the Trump Show by Jonathan Karl - borrowed from Overdrive - 4/15/2022
11. The Ugly Truth by Sheera Frenkel borrowed from Overdrive - 4/29/2022
12. Savannah Breeze by Mary Kay Andrews - borrowed from the New Bedford Free Public Library, Wilks Branch - 4/30/2022
13. The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides - borrowed from the Freetown Public Library - 5/11/2022
14. Passing by Nella Larsen - borrowed from Overdrive - 5/17/2022
15. Bird Box by Josh Malerman - borrowed from Overdrive - 5/23/2022
16. If Cats Disappeared From The World by Genki Kawamura - borrowed from Overdrive - 6/6/2022
17. Maus by Art Spiegelman - borrowed from the New Bedford Free Public Library - 6/6/2022
18. One, Two, Buckle My Shoe by Agatha Christie - borrowed from the Carver Public Library - 6/11/2022
19. The Postscript Murders by Elly Griffiths - borrowed from Overdrive - 6/20/2022
20. Murder in an English Village by Jessica Ellicott - borrowed from the Westport Free Public Library - 6/30/2022
21. Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende - borrowed from a friend - 7/28/2022
22. Moby Dick by Herman Melville - borrowed from Overdrive - 7/28/2022
23. Why We Did It by Tim Miller - borrowed from the Mansfield Public Library - 7/30/2022
24. The Children Act by Ian McEwan - borrowed from Libby - 8/18/2022
25. Father's Day by Simon Van Booy - borrowed from Libby - 9/6/2022
26. Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel - borrowed from Libby - 9/16/2022
27. Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village by Ronald Blythe - borrowed from a friend - 9/16/2022
28. Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman - borrowed from Libby - 10/04/2022
29. Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas - borrowed from Westport Public Library - 10/20/2022
30. Hold the Line by Michael Fanone - borrowed from Wareham Public Library - 10/28/2022
31. Culture Wars by James Davison Hunter - borrowed from Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts through the Commonwealth Catalog - 11/03/2022
32. Baggage by Alan Cumming - borrowed from Libby - 11/03/2022
33. The Maid by Nita Prose - borrowed from Libby - 11/17/2022
34. The Moonlight Child by Karen McQuestion - borrowed from Libby - 11/29/ 2022
35. Why Read Moby Dick? by Nathaniel Philbrick - borrowed from Libby - 12/15/2022
36. The Big Lie by Jonathan Lemire - borrowed from Libby - 12/29/2022

BEST & WORST OF 2021

BEST READS

Bride of the Rat God by Barbara Hambly
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy by John Julius Norwich
Leningrad: State of Siege by Michael Jones
Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

WORST READS

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear
The Paris Secret by Karen Swan
Love, Nina by Nina Stibbe
Murder in Mink by Evelyn James

SPECIAL MENTION - THE BOOK THAT STILL MAKES MY SKIN CRAWL, BUT NOT IN A GOOD WAY

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

WORST COVER



The Romanov Bride by Robert Alexander - This cover was so boring. I would not take a book with this cover off the shelf in a million, million years

BEST COVER



My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry by Frederick Backman

I did not know until this afternoon, which cover I would pick. There were a number of covers that I liked - some of them rated a 10 of 10 - but this one appeals to me a lot. It has surefire Take-It-Off-The-Bookstore-Shelf appeal for me.

Lastly - a new category -

BEST BOOK TITLE - Bride of the Rat God by Barbara Hambly

Loved this title when I first ran across it and I still think it is a wonderful title. Think I will begin rating book titles this year as they are an important motivating factor for me when picking from a shelf.

reserved - space 8 - Just in case of something or other

Hope I am not too early to pop around my head and say - finally - welcome back, Charlotte.

Nope - you are right on time.

Thanks, Paul. Sorry to have taken so long, but stuff kept happening. However I am now back and I really do mean to try and do better at the participation part of things.

Welcome back!

Welcome aboard the 2022 train, cousin! So good to have you here.

Group needs you, Charlotte - you are the only one who rates the covers as well as the books!

Good to see you arrived, Charlotte, happy reading in 2022!

Hope you have a great year of reading!

>11 drneutron:,>12 PawsforThought:,>13 PaulCranswick:,>14 FAMeulstee:, and >15 thornton37814: - Thanks so much guys. Thank you for your kindness and patience with me dawdling along at the back of the pack!

Paul - I'm so happy that you, and others, like the cover ratings. Wish I came from an artistic or marketing background - my ratings might be a little more coherent if I were.



2022 Book Number 1/Lifetime Book Number 1,771 - The Dutch House by Ann Patchett - read for RL Book Club

The story of a dysfunctional family over the course of many decades. Maeve Conroy and her much younger brother, Danny lose, their mother when she walks away from her children and husband in order to go to India where she hopes/expects to help the poor. Her husband, Cyril, is a real estate developer who threw his wife Elna for a loop (and apparently dealt a fatal blow to their marriage at the same time) when he bought the very grand Dutch House for her and their family. He expected her to like the house - love it even, as he did - but Elna is intimidated by it and horrified that he has moved them all to a house that is so very different from the one in which they have been living. She thought they were poor; neither her family nor his had ever lived in anything of its size or kind before. Cyril not only bought the house suddenly and without talking to her about it, he bought absolutely everything in it expecting his family to live with and use the former owners' furniture, jewelry, sheets, silverware and whatnot as their own.

The Dutch House dominates the story and is a character all by itself. When the family finishes cracking up, neither Maeve nor Danny can free themselves from the house, even after their father's second wife (and soon to be widow) basically evicts them from the property. They are so injured by the suddeness with which they have lost their home and father that they obsess about the Dutch House (and Andrea) for decades. The Dutch House and all that happens there affects their lives pretty much forever.

I liked this book a lot - best Book Club book we've had in a long time. Patchett never fails to please- and I haven't even read Bel Canto yet.

Gave this one 5 stars.

Borrowed this one from the library. Knowing how much I have liked all of the previous Patchett books I've read, I should have just gone ahead and bought it.

COVER ART - Love this cover. It was painted by Noah Saterstrom and is intended to be the portrait of Maeve Conroy which hangs in the Dutch House. He has painted a girl who looks exactly like the girl Patchett describes and is perfectly done. I wouldn't mind having that painting myself. No surprise, I guess, that I have given this cover a ten of ten rating.

Hoping to finish something else this month; I have never been so far behind in my reading before. Unfortunately, the book that is closest to being done - Lady of the Forest - is 700+ pages long, so I may not get anything else read this month.

Hi Charlotte! I am in the process of reading The Dutch House by Ann Patchett. A good friend gifted me with the author's latest book, These Precious Days: Essays and I enjoyed it very much.

Thanks for your excellent review of The Dutch House. I liked the cover very much. In her recent book, she discusses the covers of her books and the process that goes into it.

I heard about her new book, Linda. Guess I need to put it in the list. Should be interesting to hear what she has to say about book covers from the author’s viewpoint.

>7 Fourpawz2: Thanks for posting your best books of 2021, Charlotte. I love seeing everyone's lists!

>16 Fourpawz2: I have really got to get that one read!

>19 alcottacre: - glad you liked my list, Stasia. What is it about lists? Why do we find them so appealing?

Hope you like it as much as I did.

2022 Book Number 2/Lifetime Book Number 1,772 - Lady of the Forest by Jennifer Roberson - from my shelves

Historical Fiction treatment of the Robin Hood/Maid Marian story. All the basics are here - Sherwood Forest, Friar Tuck, the Sheriff of Nottingham, Little John, Will Scarlet, etc. Roberson's villains are very villainous and this story - as she tells it - is a lot more interesting to me than the story I remember from when I was young which, looking back on it, always seemed kind of weak to me. (In my mind, I think I've always pictured the Errol Flynn version of RH which left me with an impression of Robin being a grinning fool.) She has added to Robin's backstory - he suffers mentally and physically from his time in the East as a Crusader and his time with the sexually predatory King Richard I has also left its mark. There is also a passionate love story between Maid Marian and Robin which causes a lot of problems for all concerned. I am thinking that Roberson did not intend, at the time she wrote the book, to write a sequel, because she does not give one little hint of what happens to Robin and Marian. But there is a second book that i picked up some years ago at a used book sale and I am looking forward to beginning it at some point in the next several months.

Gave this one 4.5 stars.

A definite keeper

COVER ART - Another 10 of 10. Absolutely love this cover by Anne Yvonne Gilbert, an artist who has done some really nice work. It's true that there is too much printing on this cover and the picture on my MMPB copy is decidedly smaller than I would like, but I know I would definitely pull this one off any bookshelf in creation.

As for the title - it is only so-so for me. "Lady of the Forest" is not particularly enticing or interesting and seems a pretty generic sort of title intended to appeal to a female audience.

Sometime tomorrow I will be starting The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips by Michael Morpurgo that I brought home from the library today. Have tomorrow to myself and hope to have plenty of time to read while we wait here in New England for all the freaking snow in the world to be dumped on us come tomorrow night and Saturday. There is a chance that it will interfere with my upcoming work week, which stinks, but there is nothing that can be done about that.

>21 Fourpawz2: Oh, that one sounds really good! Adding it to my list - thanks for the great review!

2022 Book Number 3/Lifetime Book Number 1,773 - The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips by Michael Morpurgo - borrowed from the Mattapoisett Library

The story of an English girl during WW2 when she was 11 and 12 (as told to her grandson, via an extremely long letter or perhaps a manuscript). There is a lot about her cat, Tips, who goes missing when Slapton - the village where she and her family live - has to be evacuated so that American soldiers can use it to practice for the D-Day landing that takes place six months afterward.

I found the part where Lily falls in love with Adie - an African American soldier who searches for Tips when she returns to the village - somewhat far-fetched. She seemed a bit young to fall in love. And a lot of the bits that comprise the story seem a bit cobbled together. However, overall, it was a pleasant enough story with some sad parts. Not sorry I read it, but I will not add it to my own library.

Gave this one 3.25 stars

The book's title only gets a 3 of 5 from me. 'Amazing' seemed a bit over the top.

COVER ART - A 5 of 10 rating. It's a very attractive cat, but not at all like the description of Tips in the book and I can't say that I found the background of soldiers, etc. the right one for this cover, even though there was, of course, a distinct military presence.

Still shoveling out from the weekend's blizzard. Have to work on the driveway and car today and am not looking forward to that. It's finally over 20 degrees out there; guess I should pull myself together and get to it.

We had a big ol' sleet storm here yesterday, preceded by a whole bunch of rain. Was kind of glad my customer canceled on me. Cold rain running down my neck in buckets - not my favorite thing.



2022 Book Number 4/Lifetime Book Number 1,774 - While Justice Sleeps by Stacey Abrams - from my shelves (and a Christmas present from one of my book-reading customers)

Thrillers of any kind are not something I go for much of any. However, I really enjoyed this political thriller by Ms. Abrams. As the end of June (and the end of term for the Supreme Court looms) Justice Howard Wynn, who suffers from an obscure condition, suddenly goes into a coma. An important decision looms, but Wynn - the swing vote on the court - will not emerge from his coma in time, leaving the court in a 4/4 tie. But wait - there's more.

To everyone's surprise Justice Wynn has directed that his lowly clerk should be appointed his legal guardian - bypassing his estranged second wife and his adult son (and only child) from his first marriage. Something is afoot in the White House and in the world of genetic manipulation - something which directly affects Wynn's son (who has inherited his father's unfortunate and rare condition) - and which could very well be affected by one of the decisions being handed down by the Court in only a few days time.

Abrams presents a very complex story - but I was entirely onboard with it, almost from the beginning. Avery Keene, the law clerk, is an appealing character. Sure she has an eidetic memory, is totally devoted to the rule of law, is crazy clever and is a bit of a chess whiz all of which, embodied in one person, might seem a bit convenient to some, but I didn't have any particular problem with it. It's Washington DC - the seat of government - and I kind of want/expect the folks there to be extraordinary people with great ability and devotion to duty. You know - totally unlike what we've been offered in the recent past.

Gave this book 4.5 stars.

Definite Keeper. Am wondering if Abrams will be writing another book with Avery at its center but can't imagine when she will have the time.

Gave this title a 3.5 out of 5 rating. It's kind of in the middling range - not terrific, but not horrible.

COVER ART - Gave this one a 6 of 10. Blindfolded Justice is a natural, of course, but is not wildly appealing. It's okay. The dust jacket was one of those that felt all soft and velvety - as much as a paper thing can. I still really like those and ran my paws over it a lot while reading. Weird.

>24 Fourpawz2: Charlotte, I think that you are the only person I know who can say with confidence how many books that they have read in their lifetime to date.

Have a lovely weekend.

Hey Paul! Well, I tried my best to come up with an accurate number. Helps that I have a definite number for the past 15 years thanks to being able to catalog my books here on LT. As for the years before LT - especially the years of my youth - I did not count any of the many times I re-read my books, which in those days was pretty frequently. For a woman who was constantly reading, my mother was hardly interested at all in seeing that I got books to read; I really can count the ones she got for me on the fingers of two - maybe three - hands. So - unfortunately - the actual number of books from those days is pretty small. Small wonder that I filched a lot of books from my mother's shelves - a lot of them/most of them not fit for children. Probably my lifetime number of books read is off a little bit, but it's close-ish.

2022 Book Number 5/Lifetime Book Number 1,775 - The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson - from my shelves

I bought this book sometime in the early nineties. I did start reading it around that time, but for some unknown reason never finished it. What that reason was I've no idea, but I am guessing that it just wasn't the right time for it.

Started from the beginning, of course and I have to say it was very funny. And informative and just generally very enjoyable. Read a lot of it to Jane; I think reading it aloud is probably the best way in which to read this one. Not that Jane knew. Actually I think she did not like it awfully well; the laughing kind of interrupted her naps. She doesn't like laughing or sneezing. For the same reason.

Gave this one 4.5 stars

Giving the title of this one a middle-of-the-road 3 rating. Not great, but not horrible.

COVER ART - a 4 out of 10 rating. Not a fan of Whistler's mom, the multi-colored print and - of course - the predominance of the print in general.

Fricking freezing again here on the south coast of New England. I'm done with snow and most especially with North Pole type temperatures. It's 27 degrees right now in the middle of very sunny afternoon (and the Weather Channel thinks that I want to know that it "feels like" 18 degrees), but by Thursday and Friday it is supposed to be in the mid-fifties. Both of those temperatures are wrong for here and I wish we could just go back to something normal. I know we can't and that this is what we've made happen, but I still wish we could.



2022 Book Number 6/Lifetime Book Number 1,776 - The Janus Stone by Elly Griffiths - from my kindle

This is only the third book from this series that I've read and once again there are more missing little girls at the heart of things. Archaeologist Ruth Galloway is drawn into matters when another skeleton turns up in what may turn out to be an ancient Roman site - or it may just be something from a grisly modern/modern-ish murder. As the resident expert on ancient Roman dead things, Ruth is called in and in nothing flat she is being stalked.

There is a secondary story involving Ruth's new pregnancy resulting from a one-night stand with the very married DCI Harry Nelson which she means to keep a secret from almost every one, but by book's end everyone but Harry's wife seems to know all about it. Expecting fireworks in the third book although seeing as how Mrs. Nelson has taken a fancy to Ruth, I may be quite wrong about that.

Gave this one 3.25 stars. Three stars is as low as I will go with rating a book that is not a total waste of time so 3.25 does seem to be not much of an endorsement. However it is a solid 3.25 and I did not regret reading it.

The title is not a bad one especially if you know who Janus is and so I am giving it a 3.5 out of 5 rating

COVER ART - As I read this on my Kindle and the cover is not much of a consideration I decided to pick the cover that obviously came from the same series of covers as the first one I read. It is definitely not a great cover. Yes - there is a well in the story, but it certainly isn't a wishing well. Pennies get tossed down wishing wells and not the kinds of grisly things that got tossed down the well in this book, so this cover certainly leads one astray. Plus, with the well sitting all by its lonesome on a field of orange as it is, it kind of seems as if the person responsible for this cover just kind of phoned it in. A lame effort that only gets a 3 of 10 rating from me.

2022 Book Number 7/Lifetime Book Number 1,777 - The Confederate Negro: Virginia's Craftsmen and Military Laborers, 1861-1865 by James H. Brewer - borrowed from the Cary Memorial Library through the Commonwealth Catalog

Published 53 years ago, this is a fairly standard treatment of a topic that is mostly obscured due to the loss of much information in the chaos of the war at the Confederacy's fall and the destruction of records when large parts of Richmond, VA were burned at war's end. Brewer did manage to reveal some small bits about the part that slaves and their owners played in this area during the war, as well as the part that I was most interested in - what the free people of color in Virginia (which had more free people, by far, than any of the other Confederate states) were doing during the war. Turns out that they were conscripted by the government to labor alongside the slaves and some whites - which, of course, I should have guessed was the case. Both slave and free performed an impressive number of jobs - it wasn't all about shoveling dirt for fortifications, by any means. Anything and everything in the way of jobs - menial and skilled - the men - and more than a few women - performed them for the Confederacy. Railroad work, transportation, mining, nursing, blacksmithing (a *lot* of blacksmithing), naval work and work in ordnance - black people did it all. The free people were paid for their work and the slave owners were paid by the government for the leasing of slaves (and some of the time the slaves were paid for their 'extra' work). The work they did was dangerous at times and invaluable to the Confederacy. Without a doubt, if the Confederacy had not compelled this workforce of thousands and thousands of black persons, to do the work they did, the war undoubtedly would have been a good deal shorter. But of course, there was no way that the Confederacy was not going to do as they did. It was inevitable that they would force this population to work for them, prolonging their slavery for years, for even the free were, in the long run, as slaves to those who made the rules in the Confederacy.

Lots of charts and lists in this book - professors do love them so much - but after a while I was kind of passing them by. Over all this was not the book I hoped for; it was pretty dry, but I did get to the end.

I have never encountered the word "brawn" so many times in one book before; Brewer used it a lot as well as the cringe-worthy phrase "strong ebony arms", but as he was born in 1917, I guess these choices can be forgiven as he was truly from another era.

Gave this one 3 stars.

The title is not great, but what could be expected, I suppose. It says what it is - so it gets a 3 of 5.

COVER ART - 5 of 10 for this photo of workers.

Dropping by to wish you a great weekend, Charlotte.

2022 Book Number 8/Lifetime Book Number 1,778 - Deep River by Karl Marlantes - audiobook, borrowed from Overdrive

Took me 6 weeks to listen to this historical novel in audio book form; I even had to borrow it twice in order to get it read. At over 700 pages it is a long, long book to try and listen to this way - especially as I mostly listen to books when I am working and I don't necessarily work every day and my days are most certainly not 8 hours long. Cleaning a house for eight hours at a stretch would have killed me years ago.

However, it was most definitely worth the time spent with it. It follows the Koski children - two brothers, Matti and Ilmarie and their sister Aino - born in Finland in the late 19th century and driven from their home due to Russian oppression of Finland and the attempts to crush any and all political activism by the Czar's government. The three of them end up in the forests of Washington state where a lot of Finns went in that time. In the case of the Koskis the men went into the lumber industry - risking their lives for a pittance. When Aino joins her brothers, she has been driven from Finland because of her Socialist activities. She is still a committed socialist and almost from the moment she lands in Washington she takes up the cause (which she never really dropped) and resumes her work for workers rights. She is incredibly single-minded on the subject and even though, over the years, she is arrested, suffers physically, and, for the most part, sacrifices all possibility of a life outside of the struggle she cannot bring herself to separate from the work that obsesses her.

Marlantes did a great job conveying how hard a life these people lived; can't imagine the physical strength and stamina it must have taken to be a lumberjack and the thought of the horrendous risks they took every day is mind boggling. Nope - if I'd been a man at this time I am pretty sure I would have ended up as a pusillanimous bank teller or something similar.

I really liked this book read by Bronson Pinchot - one of my favorite readers. He handled all of the various voices and accents without a hitch. He is one of those readers who can do the voices of the opposite sex and not make them sound silly. Not every reader can do that. Pinchot is pretty much of a five star reader and he was why I chose this book to read in the first place.

And there was an unexpected side benefit to reading this book. I was listening to it during the Winter Olympics and I noticed when I was watching the biathlon and cross-country events (they have been my favorites for the last several winter olympics) that I had no trouble at all picking out the names of the Finnish participants. There is something about Finnish names that makes them particularly easy to identify and am thinking that the language must be one of those rare ones in the world that has not evolved from another language group, easily catching my attention whenever I heard the names.

Gave this one 4.5 stars

COVER ART - Gave this cover an 8 out of 10. The photo relays perfectly the insanity that is lumbering. Definitely an eye-catcher.

Hi Charlotte, I really like your idea of highlighting the cover art of the books you read! Interestingly when Diane keenoy (a member of our group) and I attend library book sales, we often remark about the cover. And, as usual, we end up buying a book if the cover is eye catching.

Hi Linda! Good to see you.

Oh, those attractive covers. How many times I have fallen for a book because of its cover and lived to regret being such a sucker for a pretty face!

2022 Book Number 9/LT Book Number 1,779 - Friends in High Places by Donna Leon - from my shelves

An Inspector Guido Brunetti book.

There are a ton of underhanded doings at the Ufficio Catasto in Venice and it threatens the Brunetti apartment's very existence. Paola and Guido are hoping that the notorious inefficiency of city government will kick in and that they and their apartment will be forgotten and their home saved.

Unfortunately, Franco Rossi of the UC is murdered (and eventually 2 drug addicts are also killed at the same location) and the corruption at the UC, as well as the Financenza, is revealed to all. A noble family falls and Brunetti's apartment is saved (as I was pretty sure it would be). With every book more and more of Venice's rot is revealed. Will it ever end? Kind of hoping it won't because I enjoy this series so much. I am always charmed by the way Leon melds the Brunetti family life with whichever case is front and center. I think I might treat myself and start the next book soon.

A definite keeper.

I like the title. Friends in high places is pretty much what life in Venice is all about. Giving this a 3.5 out of 5 rating.

COVER ART - Really liked the golden pigeons. So very Venice, as I understand it. The light in this ancient city that I would like to visit, but never will, must be amazing.

2022 Book Number 10/Lifetime Book Number 1,780 - In Sunlight and Shadow by Mark Helprin - read for RL Book Club

Overly long. 705 pages was waaay too long for this book or any other where romance is so heavily featured. Helprin uses 1,000 words when 100 words would have done as well or better.

And I could not relate to Harry and Catherine or their worlds - post-WW2 New York City. He is a veteran returning to the leather goods business left to him by his father and she is an aspiring actress and full-time heiress. I found her to be rather two-dimensional and of little interest. But it was the things that Helprin wrote about her that was the worst. What, you ask, has annoyed me so much this time? How about this paragraph -

"As a rule her bearing was uncompromising and she held her head as if her name had just been called. Her breasts, not large, had, as a result of her long, firm back and superb posture, a perpetually attractive thrust. When she sat at table she had the habit of lightly grasping the edge with both hands, thumbs beneath the table top. This aligned her in a way that was ravishing. Even had her hands not been so beautiful, had her hair not been so glorious, had her face not been of breathtaking construction, had her youth not enveloped her like a rose, had her eyes not been so lovely, even had all this been different, the way she held herself, and her readiness to see, her fairness of judgment, and her goodness of heart would have made her beautiful beyond description. She was like many, though not everyone by any means could see it, beautiful, just beautiful, beyond description." Kee-ripes!

(Am still trying to figure out why Catherine would be holding onto a table in this manner. Have never seen anyone do this.)

And then there was the bit where Helprin commences to describe the incomparable Catherine's voice by saying "Catherine's singing was so amazing" blah, blah, blah (too much crap for me to make note of at the time of reading) "that time was vanquished." Oh. My. God.

He then throws in a secondary story where Harry's leather goods business is being threatened by Vanderame - a mobster - that was clearly intended to throw a few stones in the way of Harry and Catherine's impossible-to-care-about love story as well as Vanderlyn - an equally icky character - formerly part of the OSS - who provides an unbelievable and appallingly violent solution to the Vanderame problem. And I haven't even mentioned Victor, Catherine's former fiance who is a full-time, entitled, scum bag or her parents who should have lost custody of their impossibly beautiful darling many years before.

What a pile of steaming manure!

And how am I going to be honest about this book come the next book club meeting? Am pretty tired of being the resident picky, hard to please, critic of almost everything that everybody else picks. I actually tried listening to it on audio for a while and when that was not working I tried upping the rate I was listening to it to the 1.25 faster and then the 1.50 faster settings. But that did not work for me, either. Just made the Reader sound silly and all those thousands of words whipping by meant even less to me than they had at normal speed. Finally, I gave that up and went back to the physical book and plodded on. The last chapter seemed marginally better, but that may have been because I knew that it was the last and salvation was at hand. Gah!!! What a waste of time.

Gave it 3 stars at the time I finished it - must have been out of gratitude that I had finished and was still alive - but now, after carrying on here at such great length, I feel I should demote that rating to a mere 2.5.

The title gets a 3 out of 5 from me - mostly because I don't understand it. It might be profound or it might be pretentious. Not sure as I just don't get it. Perhaps some character actually said those words, but I was concentrating so hard on hating this book that I missed it.

COVER ART - a mere 4 of 10 for me. The colors are pretty and as much of it takes place in New York City I would have to say that a skyscraper was appropriate on the cover. But I'm not a fan of that type of building so I know that I would never pick this book off the shelf based on the cover.

>35 Fourpawz2: Heh. That does sound pretty horrible. My ears perked up at Mark Helprin's name because I remember loving Winter's Tale, so much so that I recently acquired it but have yet to reread it. Your excerpts make me think that I might find it problematic now in a way I couldn't see back in my youth...

Hi Chris! Lovely to see you here.

I do apologize for my rant about Helprin’s book and hope that I have not put you entirely off Winter’s Tale. I wish that I could learn to not just go off on a book when I am peeved with it and manage, instead, to cultivate a more adult kind of criticism. But I think, now that I am pretty far along age-wise, that it is likely I will never learn to do this.

2022 Book Number 11/Lifetime Book Number 1,781 - Island of Wings by Karin Altenberg - recommended by soulofherose - from my shelves

A novel based on the lives of the Reverend Neil MacKenzie and his wife, Elizabeth, on the island of Hirta, St. Kilda in the Outer Hebrides - an almost unimaginably remote settlement. The MacKenzies lived there from some point in the 1830s until 1843 when they left the island for good.

Neil is a minister who is saddled with an almost crippling guilt over the death of his best friend that happened many years before. The guilt is coupled with his evangelizing nature and it is not a good combination. He believes that he can force the local population into the modern world - into being the kinds of Christians that he approves of. He is partially successful and in the process he changes the society he'd found upon arrival into his idea of what a Christian society should be, not seeing that the way the people on Hirta had always lived was a true Christian society - almost an idealized society. He turned them into people who were no longer happy with their lives and their neighbors. It was heart-breaking. His wife, Lizzie, came to appreciate the islanders fairly quickly and could see all the good in them that her husband was blind to, but being a woman, in Scotland and married to a strong-willed minister with a lot of long-standing problems she was powerless to make him see what she saw.

There is also a secondary story concerning the mystery of what the islanders called the eight day sickness - a fatal illness which affected a shockingly high number of the babies born on the island - including two of the MacKenzies' infants. The babies would appear perfectly fine at birth, but within a fortnight they would sicken and die. Turns out that this illness was a result of living on the island - a contamination in the soil that went undiscovered for decades.

The islanders made some pretty awful sounding things from the birds they caught, but they really did not have any choice. It was not the kind of place where one could farm much of any and it could not support enough in the way of livestock for the people to live on. These things, coupled with the fact that in those times supply ships were able to get to the island only once a year and if the weather was bad - as it often was - the time between visits was often much longer. Altenberg writes of the islands, their natural beauty and especially of those many sea birds who made the place their home. She does a beautiful job; I had no difficulty seeing the place she described. The sea is almost a being - wild and dangerous. But beautiful. (And I am so not a sea person, even though I've lived next to the ocean all of my life.)

Very much recommended.

Giving it 4.5 stars. (Took away a half star on account of all those awful things made out of the birds. *Blearg!*)

The title gets a 4 of 5. Hirta is most definitely an island of wings.

COVER ART - A 7 out of 10. Just as remote and bleak looking as Altenberg describes.

2022 Book Number 12/Lifetime Book Number 1,782 - Zoo Station by David Downing - from my shelves

Winter, 1939. John Russell, journalist, English national and resident of Berlin, becomes a spy - amateur - in order to get the Jewish Wiesner family out of Germany and also to continue the work on a story begun by his friend, McKinley, an American reporter. A story that resulted in McKinley's grisly murder.

I really liked how Downing handled all of the elements of his story - especially those of life inside Nazi Germany in the days when day to day living had become so hard and dangerous. The time when people in the same kind of danger that the Wiesners were in could clearly see their few remaining exits closing - almost perceptibly - before them. A time - in its own way - very like today. (Never thought I would ever be saying that!)

I also liked the way he maneuvered Russell into staying in Germany. I knew it was coming, but did not know how Downing would accomplish it. Am very much looking forward to what he has in store for Russell.

This one is most definitely a keeper. It got 4.5 stars from me.

I like the title. Zoo Station - could not imagine what that might mean. Never thought it might be anything so obvious as a train station near a zoo. Giving it a 4 out of 5. Really caught my attention.

COVER ART - a 6 of 10. Likely it would not have made me pick it off a shelf, but it is a very true cover. The light spilling into the train station from above. I've been in a train station and seen that same exact light. All the grim greyness is not very attractive, but 1939 in Nazi Germany must have been a very grim time.

2022 Book Number 13/Lifetime Book Number 1,783 - Olive, Mabel & Me: Life and Adventures with Two Very Good Dogs by Andrew Cotter - audio book

Absolutely loved this book. Full disclosure - I was pre-disposed to have that reaction as I am a huge fan of these sweet and funny dogs as well as Andrew Cotter, their owner. (Have spent a lot of time watching their YouTube videos over the past year.) Most of the book is about these dogs and a good deal of the rest is devoted to other dogs who have been a part of Cotter's life. And then there are some bits about mountains which he loves and I, in real life, am only so-so about. Bad knees do not like mountains. However, I even liked the bits about the mountains.

Only down side - it did not go on forever.

I grew up a cat person, but dogs - other people's dogs - have been a welcome part of my life in the last ten or so years. I would have a dog of my own, but my house is too small, I would have to leave said dog alone too much of the time, I can't afford a dog, and Jane would hate it (and probably me). Other than that I'd hie myself over to the humane society and get myself a dog of my own.

Gave this one 5+++++ stars

The title's a good one. It says exactly what it is - a 4 of 5 rating for it.

Obviously it's not a keeper, but it is likely more of a getter. And I need to borrow the audio book from the library again.

COVER ART - an 8 of 10 for me. How could I not rate this cover, featuring these two adorable dogs, highly?

Very much recommended for people who like dogs - and especially Labs.

Sorry for the gushing.

Apparently today is my 15th Thingaversary but there is no way in Hell that I am buying 15 books to celebrate the occasion. I did buy two books yesterday - used as usual - so those will have to do.

>41 Fourpawz2: Happy Thingaversary, Charlotte!

After my 12th I started to count all acquired books for the occasion. Still I have a few to go, a month later.

Thank you, Anita.

Yup - it was fun for probably about 5 years. Back then it was Oh, Boy! I get to buy 5 books all at once. But now, a decade and a half later it’s - Ack!!! 15 books at $5 a pop! It’s insane. (Yes, I am a used book buyer almost all of the time. I am sitting on gift certificate from my birthday but I want to savor it for a while longer.)

Been very busy taking care of a friend's cats, birds and fish for the better part of the last three weeks and it has cut into my reading time. Think I will be lucky to finish ever 60 books this year.

Everything is in bloom and some of the time the temperature has gone up to the high sixties here on the south coast of New England, but the near freezing nighttime temperatures have not forsaken this area altogether. Supposed to be very chilly tonight as well.



2022 Book Number 14/Lifetime Book Number 1,784 - Days of the Dead by Barbara Hambly - from my shelves

Haven't read a book from the Benjamin January series in some time, so now seemed like as good time as any to do that ("now" being the middle of March or a little over a month since I finished).

In this book, Benjamin and Rose are married at last and are in Mexico after getting an urgent communication from their friend - the consumptive musician, Hannibal Septon - who is being held by Don Prospero Castellon for the murder of his son and heir - begging them to rescue him from the false accusation.

There are lots of characters in this story; so many that, for the first third of the book it was pretty hard for me to even sort them out as to who was who. And it does not help matters (for me or for Benjamin and Rose) that Don Castellon is as crazy as a billy goat, expecting his son's ghost to make an appearance on the Day of the Dead to point out his killer to his father. Until that time, Hannibal is a 'guest' at Castellon's ranch, and facing the near certainty that he will be executed very soon.

Santa Anna is a character in this mystery and Hambly has a lot of info about the political and social conditions in Mexico in 1835. Mexico's history at this time has been a mystery to me, so it was nice to read something about that.

Also, Rose has a very large part in Benjamin's investigations (she has had smaller ones previously) and I am thinking that she is probably going to continue helping her new husband with sorting through the mysteries he is called upon to solve.

Gave this one 3.5 stars - the plethora of characters were a bit of an impediment to my enjoyment of the mystery. Plus, Mexico being no substitute for New Orleans, it felt as if I'd been robbed of a major and very interesting character. Nevertheless this book is a Keeper and I intend to add another to the shelves soon.

The title was a very obvious one, so I can't give it more than a 2.5 rating.

COVER ART - Only gave this cover a 4 of 10 rating. Of course I disliked the quotes on the cover, but the main thing that bothered me was that little skull with the stitched mouth* that appears in the lower left-hand quadrant of the cover. I know it is appropriate to the holiday, but it has always kind of given me the creeps and I do not like having to look at it.

*I don't know what the actual word or words are that should be used to describe the skull's mouth, but that is how it has always looked to me. And I don't like it.

Yeah, that is an ugly cover.

2022 Book Number 15/Lifetime Book Number 1,785 - A Royal Pain by Rhys Bowen - library book

Georgie Rannoch - at the request of Queen Mary (wife of King George V) has the care and feeding of the Bavarian princess, Hannelore because the Queen is hoping that her son - the Prince of Wales - will drop the oh-so-unsuitable Wallis Simpson like a hot a potato once he gets a gander at the visitor from the Continent. Poor, silly, Queen Mary.

Georgie is a very reluctant hostess, but as she is so very poor and always afraid that she will be buried in the country somewhere, doomed to a life of deadly companionship to Queen Victoria's one surviving daughter if she does not do the Queen's bidding, once again agrees to do as she is asked.

The first body does not appear until half-way through this story so it is a bit slow. Until people begin dropping it was occupied primarily with the Princess Hanni's obsession with American gangster movies and her desire to get into the trousers of any and all of the young men she meets and secondarily with the problems Georgie Rannoch has trying to function as an ordinary servant while keeping her identity as the thirty-somethingish person in line to the British throne a big ol' secret. And of course, for Georgie, there is always the problem of her troublesome and unwanted virginity which she is trying so very hard to get rid of. Finally, however, the murders and attempted murders begin and Georgie puts all to one side in order to solve them while also preventing the assassination of the King and Queen.

I did not like it quite as much as I did the first book in the series, but it was still enjoyable enough. However, sooner or later, it will be necessary to bring an end to the series as the inevitability of the King's death and the P of W's ascension to the throne (and almost immediate abdication thereof) are only a matter of months away. Am thinking that I will probably just continue to borrow these from the library and not invest any actual money in buying them for my shelves.

Gave this one a 3.25 star rating.

The title is not a bad one - nowhere near as dopey as the first one - Her Royal Spyness - but not hugely clever, either.

COVER ART - Again - pretty good 1930s art on this cover that I am giving a 6 out of 10 rating to.

2022 Book Number 16/Lifetime Book Number 1,786 - The Children of Dynmouth by William Trevor - Borrowed from the Elizabeth Taber Library

Fifteen-year-old Timothy Gedge haunts the village of Dymouth; he is one of those characters who is always underfoot - asking a million questions and never knowing when he should go away. Worse - the things he says seem to have an unpleasant purpose. All of them are ostensibly said by him in order to help him gather the props he needs for his upcoming talent show act from the villagers and all of them are insinuating, threatening, creepy.

William Trevor did a great job with this. He walks the line perfectly between a book about a teen-aged ghoul and one of solid fiction that begs to be read again.

It could be another library book that I need to own.

Gave this one 5 stars.

The title did not make sense to me at first, but by book's end I began to understand it.

COVER ART - Not at all appealing to me and so in terms of shelf appeal it failed, but I think it did represent the power that Timothy Gedge had over the poor folks who lived in Dynmouth, so in a sense it was a good cover. 5 of 10.

What I am reading now -

Still reading Citizens by Simon Schama - a giant book about the French Revolution. And it is still going well. The Revolution is right around the corner.
The Rape of Europa by Lynn T. Nicholas - I am on the verge of packing this puppy up and sending it off to my local library branch. I am going to make an effort to get 100 pages read before I decide to act evict this one from the house, but it's not looking good.
In A Dark Wood Wandering by Hella S. Haasse - Have kind of stalled out on this one, too. I bought this book many years ago and I fear that my purchase was based primarily on the cover art. I will keep for a while longer and then make a decision about giving it the boot.
The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt - Really liking this one. In terms of pages I have not gotten very far, but I am not minding that as it is just so very interesting. And in some ways it is a good book to be reading at the same time as Citizens, as the French Revolution seems to be a jumping off point for so much that has taken place since the emergence of modern Europe, post-revolution.
Bird Box by Josh Malerman - audiobook - started this on 5/23. This is my work audio book and is just okay.
Getting close to done with it.
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. - Oh my gosh - I am just loving this one. As it was a Pulitzer winner I was a little bit leery of it; the big prize winners so often fail, I think, when it comes to combining excellence and readability. At the 70 page mark it is superb.
Faithful Place by Tana French - It has been a while since I read the previous Dublin Murder Squad books, so I thought it was high time that I continued with this series. Am about one-third of the way through it. I remember the first two books as being perhaps a bit better, but this one is still not a disappointment.

Am hoping that the RL Book Club that should have taken place in May, happens in June. Two different instances of Covid (one just an exposure and the other being the real deal) and a case of pneumonia (and neither of them involving me) wiped out all possibility of both the April and May meetings. If this keeps up, I won't have to worry very much about having to cook in July (so hate cooking in the summer); my turn might not happen until the autumn.

2022 Book Number 17/Lifetime Book Number 1,787 - The Blessing Way by Tony Hillerman - borrowed from the library

First time reading something from the Leaphorn series. In this one a man named Luis Horseman is killed and there is no clue as to his murderer's identity. Was he killed by a wolf-like creature from Navaho mythology or by an actual person? There's a lot of support for the former in the community, but there is really no way to tell.

Much time is spent with a Professor Bergen McKee who is intending to work at an archaeological dig in the area and ends up being captured by the actual murderer. I had been expecting Leaphorn to be much in evidence, but the focus was mostly on McKee and that was fine.

A good first book for the series, I thought. Gave it 3.5 stars.

Not a huge fan of the title - was not intriguing to me.

COVER ART - Only a 5 of 10 rating. Not very enticing, shelf-appeal wise.

What I am reading now -

Still reading Citizens by Simon Schama - my giant book about the French Revolution. Still interesting. And still huge.
The Rape of Europa by Lynn T. Nicholas - In spite of my good intentions to make a last effort with this book I have still not picked this up in the time since last Friday. But I still want to get to page 100 before a final decision on it.
In A Dark Wood Wandering by Hella S. Haasse - Same situation with this one - have not touched it.
The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt - Still loving this one. Finished another chapter and have continued on to the next.
If Cats Disappeared from the World by Genki Kawamura - work audiobook - Finished Bird Box by Josh Malerman the other day and started this one. A Faustian book and that it is not the sort of thing that I go for. But I'm still a bit intrigued, so I just might continue on with it.
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson - Still very good. Should get to the half-way point sometime in the next week.
Faithful Place by Tana French - About 70% of the way through this one. Still holding up. Expecting to be done with it in a few days.
Maus by Art Spiegelman - I was not a fan of graphic novels, i.e. comic books, before this and I am still not a fan. But a RL Book Club friend recommended it and so I will keep on keeping on and hope that this is the final GN whose covers I crack. Closing in on the half-way point. It's okay. Barely.

RL Bookclub may take place later this month. We will see. Still have the lemon squares for the last canceled meeting in my freezer, so I am ahead in that respect.

>37 Fourpawz2: Sorry for taking so long to circle back. No worries and no need to apologize for ranting. I do the same. I have a real love/hate thing for Patricia Briggs and pretty much keep my mouth shut about JK Rowling (the bigot) lest I yuck everyone's yum.

It's always good to have a heads up, and like I said, a youthful favorite might not bear middle-aged scrutiny. That's true more often than not.

>39 Fourpawz2: Zoo Station sounds interesting.

>40 Fourpawz2: And Olive, Mabel, and Me sounds heart-warming. Are you familiar with We Rate Dogs on Twitter (and also Instagram and FB, apparently)?

>44 Fourpawz2: I love the Benjamin January series. I was bummed when I could no longer find it in print, particularly mmpb. And I haven't been willing to pay $18+ for the trade paperbacks, or $10+ for ebooks. So I've stalled out at Dead Water. Though I see taking a peek that a sale is going on for some of the ebooks...

>49 justchris: - Not to worry, Chris. I am just happy to see you here at all in this most dingy corner of the 75 book group.

I guess we've all got a writer or two (or 450) who just send us off into the stratosphere.

I liked Zoo Station so much that I've already bought the next book in the series. Must move it into the basket where series books are supposed to sit patiently until chosen.

Am not - unfortunately? - on Insta, FB or Twitter. Good thing as there are a bunch of animals on YT whose videos have taken up far too much of my time as it is. Am just so drawn to almost anything concerning animals.

Yes - there are certainly limits to the amount I will pay for an MMPB. Guess I'd better begin searching for the next Benjamin January edition that I don't have now. May take a while.



2022 Book Number 18/Lifetime Book Number 1,788 - Front Row at the Trump Show by Jonathan Karl - audio book borrowed from Overdrive

Karl is a good writer, as I had hoped he would be and eminently fair to 45, who was never fair to him. A lot - most of what he revealed about Trump back in 2020 is long-since well known. The bit about Trump's lies about the number of floors in Trump Tower (to the tune of 10 non-existent floors) was new to me. How childish, pointless and just plain dumb of him to do that - a thing that was so easily discovered.

I was glad, nevertheless, to have finally listened to this book and I hope that Karl is at work on something else - like, say, something about the January 6th insurrection.

Gave this one 4 stars. If it had not been borrowed, but owned instead, it would be a keeper.

The title is better than average. The rhyming bit really caught my ear.

COVER ART - This is a very expected cover and not anything that I would have taken off the shelf based upon the photo alone. A 4 of 10 rating.

>50 Fourpawz2: Oh I am not actually on Twitter, but I do browse there. It is a public platform, after all, unless a user chooses to make their account feed private. Another I really like is https://twitter.com/ProBirdRights. Then there's https://twitter.com/TranslatedCats.

Oh, and I added Gilead to my TBR list.

2022 Book Number 19/Lifetime Book Number 1,799 - Savannah Breeze by Mary Kay Andrews - Not a fan of beach reads, but I did like the other two books by this author that I read several years back and decided to polish this one off back at the end of April in order to actually complete a series for once in my miserable life, only to find out that Ms. Andrews has written another book in this series. So, it seems that I am not yet done.

Savannah Breeze managed to be light and and interesting enough. In it BeBe - the other half of the Weezie and Bebe duo - has somehow become the victim of a major con by a sleazy (to me) South Carolina con man and lost everything - absolutely everything - that she owns. House, money, restaurant, her grandparents money and all of her own personal possessions now belong to this creep. All that is left is a derelict motel that the creep bought with some of her money. The creep had plans for it, but Bebe manages to take possession while he is temporarily out of the area, intending to sell it off asap in order to recoup some of her losses. As per usual in this kind of story, things go a little sideways and Bebe finds herself trying to make something out of the motel while she works first at locating the creep and then plotting her revenge. And of course, along the way, she manages to get involved with a new guy who does not seem very promising to her, but then it turns out that he is a lot better choice than the creep.

Entertaining and harmless. The kind of book - when it is halfway decent - is not a total waste of time.

Gave this one a solid 3.25 stars

The title is not much - very expected - and nothing about would move me to take it off the shelf on a whim.

Cover Art - a bit cartoony, but it is in keeping with the actual story so am giving it a 5 of 10 rating.

2022 Book Number 20/Lifetime Book Number 1,790 - Jeremy Poldark by Winston Graham - from my shelves.

Ross Poldark is on trial at the Bodmin Assizes, accused of inciting a riot on Hendrawna Beach meant to plunder the two ships that were wrecked there in the previous book (Demelza). There is even an accusation of murder. He is found not guilty which was a surprise to me; a lot of bad things have been happening to Ross over the previous months. Most surprising is the fact that Jud Paynter has a big part in Ross getting off.

As for Ross and Demelza - things are not going terribly well; this couple does not always communicate well and for much of this book the miscommunication continues.

Ross has not given up his plans to re-open one of the old mines (a different one, I think, than previously). And various secondary characters get on with their lives. The Poldark stories do not move at lightning speed, but there is a lot to be said for a world that moves at a more deliberate pace. Kind of wish I had more of that in my life.

This is a definite keeper. Have to find the next volume now. They are not easily acquired at a reasonable price. May have to break down and buy it new.

Cover Art - This is a deceptive cover. If the person depicted is supposed to be Jeremy Poldark - and I believe it is - this is certainly not the book where it should appear as JP does not show up until the end of the book and certainly not in this form. This is surely one of the drawbacks of a cover that comes from a movie or - in this case - a mini-series. The publisher wants to lure people into buying the book with the familiar looking cover because they've already seen the actor on the mini-series, but I really don't think that this cover is the right one for this book. Thinking about it further, it is very likely that, given the title of this particular book, none of the covers in the series should have been of people. Super plain with nice lettering would have been the best choice for all. At least that way, anal idiots like me would be spared wasting so much time and thought over the wrongness of this cover.

2 of 10 for this cover - and that's stretching it.

Quite warm here today. Think I should have just taken a nap instead of ranting and raving over this cover.

2022 Book Number 21/Lifetime Book Number 1,791 - The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides - borrowed from the library

Read this for the RL Book Club. It was billed as a thriller, but suspenseful novel would be a better description.

Alicia - a working artist - has been in a patient in a psychiatric facility since the murder of her husband, Gabriel, some years before. She is believed to be Gabriel's killer and has never spoken a single word since the murder. Her new therapist, Theo, who has left his previous position at Broadmoor in hopes of becoming involved in her treatment, is determined to get her to speak again.

This is one of those novels where the author slots in a seemingly contemporaneous, additional storyline. When i finally caught on to what Michaelides was doing, it seemed as it was a bit of cheat, but it was, perhaps, the only way that the story could be made to work.

Thought the diary hidden under the floorboards was an overused device. And given the fact that Alicia is supposed to have killed her husband, I wondered how she got hold of this diary that was written in the time period just before the murder. Wouldn't it have been part of the evidence collected at the time of the killing? Can't really see the police giving it back to her.

Not the worst book I have had to read for Book Club. Nothing I'd want to add to my shelves, though.

The title is kind of average. Nothing ear-catching here.

Cover Art - a six of ten. Kind of like the way it has been made to look like a canvas in progress.

What I am reading now -

Still reading Citizens by Simon Schama. Have reached the time period just after the fall of the Bastille.

Have given up on In a Dark Wood Wandering and The Rape of Europa. They are headed into exile from the house.

Still reading The Origin of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt. It's slow going in these hot summer days, but that's okay.

Have nothing on audio going right now, although I have Moby Dick on hold. Guess I am in competition with some poor school kids working their way through their summer reading lists.

Am also close to the end of A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende which a customer loaned to me. The first 60 or so pages were a little slow, but then it kind of took off. Then I will return to The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell for RL Book Club (my choice) and The Postmistress by Sarah Blake which I had HUGE issues with, right off the bat.

So not looking forward to this work week. Am coming off of a two week plus bout of the common cold and everyone wants me to come clean for them this week. They are always messing with my schedule and it has become completely lopsided. And the temperatures are crawling up into the stratosphere along with the humdiity which is at about a jillion percent right now.

Is it autumn yet???

>52 Fourpawz2: This was one of the first audiobooks I ever tried, and I remember thinking pretty much the same: entertaining and fun, but not much beneath the surface. That's definitely okay, though, and I appreciate you reminding me that I should try more of her stuff!

>55 scaifea: - Hey Amber! Yup - she's pretty consistent, I have found. And I think she's probably just right for reading in the kind of hot weather that turns your brain to mush. I find that I don't have to think too hard, she's clever enough and she doesn't make me want to poke my eyes out. I don't know about you but right about now that is almost all I can take. I am hungering for one of those rainy-all-day kinds of days that I remember from the dim, distant past. Not a hard rain; just a nice soft rain that only adds up to about an inch, total, by the end of the day. The kind of day where there is no point to doing much of anything but read in a comfy place with a compact little stack of books by one's side. If there is a heaven, I want it to be just like that. With cats and a well-behaved dog.

2022 Book Number 22 /Lifetime Book Number 1,792 - An Ugly Truth by Sheera Frenkel - Audio Book borrowed through Overdrive

This one was about what I thought it would be. I am not on Facebook and have never been, but it has been virtually impossible, over the many years that FB has been in existence to avoid news about it and Zuckerberg. Z seems very much very impressed with himself and his creation (if it is indeed his), but does not seem to have realized or cared about the harm FB has done to society. It's all about the money and his own puffed up pride.

This audio book was good, but not great. Held my interest and confirmed much of what I thought about FB. Gave it a rating of 3.25 stars.

The title did not entice me into listening to this book.

Cover Art - a 5 out of 10 for this, although I am tempted to drop it to a 4 of 10, as just the sight of him tends to irritate me.

2022 Book Number 23/Lifetime Book Number 1,793 - Passing by Nella Larsen - Audio Book borrowed from Overdrive

Irene is an upper-class African-American woman, in the early 20th century, married with children who meets her friend Clare again after a separation of many years. Clare has been passing for white in the years since they last saw one another. Clare is married to a white man who has no idea as to his wife's true race and they have a child. Clare's husband was an odious character - a bigot who enjoys cracking race-based jokes. ("N' word is his pet name for his wife and to him it is a funny name because it never occurs to him that his wife could be anything but white.) Clare has to put up with his behavior; to do anything else would perhaps make this oaf she is married to, really think about her and realize the truth and Clare has always been unwilling to risk that.

The two women spend a lot of time together after their unexpected reunion - Clare is only in town for a short while and will soon be gone back to her home. She seems to be tired of the lie she has been living for so many years and is envious of the life Irene has achieved.

In the end there occurs a shocking event which kind of pulled me up short. I read/listen to all audio books while I'm at work and because my attention is being taken up by the dusting, the vacuuming, and the toilet cleaning, (I do focus on this aspect a lot - must quit that) every now and again something occurs that takes me by surprise. This was one of those times.

The title grabbed my attention when I was scrolling and scrolling and scrolling through the available audio books on Overdrive, so I guess that means it is a good title.

Gave this one 3.5 stars and I would really like to get a physical copy of this short novel in order to focus a bit more. I suspect that I might give it a higher rating after a second reading.

Cover Art - A 4 of 10 for this one. There are a number of other covers - very 1920s/1930s in flavor - that I like better than this one.

2022 Book Number 24/Lifetime Book Number 1,794 - The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling - from my bookshelves

Found this book, that upset so many of Rowling's fans, to be really good. she was in complete control of her characters and their storylines. Yes, it is a grim story with some terrible outcomes, but she handled it well. Very different from Harry Potter, of course (and that was what got her all of the negative attention), but so what? Did she sign up to write nothing other than juvenile fantasy books for the rest of her life? I think not.

Gave this 4.5 stars

A definite keeper.

The title? Well, it's not the best I've ever seen. I kept thinking that it must involve vacant apartments, somehow.

Cover Art - a paltry 2 of 10. A really bad choice for a cover and in a bookstore I would never have taken it off a bookshelf for a gander. Luckily it was the author's name and the fact that it was in a library book sale that drew my attention.

2022 Book Number 25/Lifetime Book Number 1,795 - Bird Box by Joseph Malerman - Audio Book borrowed from Overdrive

This was a last second choice after lots of searching at the last minute for something to listen to. Never saw the movie and don't care to. This sort of movie does not appeal to me; I have outgrown my liking for creepy, super violent or horror movies. But I thought I could bear to listen to it.

As I recall, the whole world saw this movie back in the first pandemic year, and it struck me, when I was listening to the book, that it was an odd choice for such a time period. Surely there was more than enough horror out there in the real world; why would one want more of the same in one's reading?

As for the story itself, it was okay. It was easy for me to turn my attention away from it and to the task at hand and find that I had not missed much of anything when my mind was somewhere else.

Gave this one 3 stars because I finished the book.

The title did not do anything for me.

Cover Art - Not bad. Birds shown against a full moon gets a six out of 10 from me.

Hmmmm. Now where was I?



2022 Book Number 26/Lifetime Book Number 1,796 - Maus by Art Spiegelman - borrowed from the New Bedford Free Public Library

A rare Graphic Novel for me. Since my original attempt at one I have never, ever, ever, ever done another GNs, but a friend from Book Club whose opinion regarding books I value very much recommended and even pushed this one a little itty bit my way, so I got it from the library.

Half-memoir of Spiegelman's father, Vladek's WW2 experiences and the rest is about Art and Vladek's very difficult relationship - what there is of it. Born in America, Art has no memories of the war, of course; it doesn't seem as if the two of them have ever spoken of it. Vladek does not talk to his son about those years and Art does not seem to have been in the least curious about his father's life before the advent of Art.

To be fair to Art, Vladek has to have been hard to be around. His experiences left him with many idiosyncracies that will never change. All the same, though, Art seems rather spoiled and self-centered.

Maus was better than the small number of other GNs I have tried. But to me it is still a comic book. Heck, Spielgelman, himself, refers to his book as such at least twice, so I feel that I can be forgiven for seeing it that way.

Gave this one 4 stars.

The title is appropriate and very ear-catching. Spiegelman draws his characters as different animals - Jews are mice, Germans are cats, Poles are pigs, Swedes, reindeer (which seems weird to me), Gypsies are moths and Americans are dogs.

COVER ART - Very striking. Gave this cover a 10 of 10

2022 Book Number 27/Lifetime Book Number 1,797 - Faithful Place by Tana French - from my kindle

Faithful Place by Tana French - Another entry in the Dublin Murder Squad series. This time the murder in question is very, very close to home. Frank Mackey's girlfriend, Rosie, from his long ago past didn't dump him and run off to England - as he had always believed. An old suitcase has been found in the basement of a ruined house on Faithful Place - the street where they both grew up - and it might hold a clue as to what became of Rosie.

It is the story of the destruction of the Mackey family - a process that began the moment Frank's parents married. Things are not helped any by the feud that has raged between Frank and Rosie's families since forever. And of course the Mackey children have always found it hard to get along with their parents as well. Frank thought he was done with them forever. But, reluctantly, Frank returns home - he hasn't been there for a very long time - to see what might be learned from old suitcase. It is the last place he wants to be as he and his parents don't talk. He'd thought when he left Faithful Place that he was done with all of them forever. Wrong.

Really liked this book. French has a real knack for keeping this series fresh. Probably she's done with the series by now, but it does take me a long time to get to the end of all series in general. No telling how many series I've begun and not finished yet.

Gave this one 3.5 stars.

A keeper.

COVER ART - Only gave this one a 4 of 10. Guess it is supposed to be the door of the wreck of a house where the suitcase has been found, and gets positive marks for that, but I can't help being somewhat depressed by it.

>63 Fourpawz2: You thought Swedes as reindeer was weird? I thought it was very appropriate and laughed because it felt obvious.

Hey Cousin!
For some reason I think Finns when I think of reindeer. Shows what I know, I guess.

2022 Book Number 28/Lifetime Book Number 1,798 - One, Two, Buckle My Shoe by Agatha Christie - from my shelves

Hercule Poirot goes to the dentist and the dentist dies shortly thereafter.

There is a plethora of characters and several suspects and Christie muddies the waters by dragging spies on board. (Oh, how I dislike spies in her novels and pretty much generally.) Got confusing toward the end when Poirot was explaining all to his suspect and for me, I find that Poirot is often confusing at this point in his cases.

I figured out what the deal was with Sainsbury Seale, but Christie's web of suspicion and duplicity was dense indeed and I could hardly claw my way out of it. The title makes sense, but has nothing to do with the old nursery rhyme.

Gave this one 3.25 stars. Not my favorite Christie novel, but better than some.

COVER ART - 6 out of 10. The cover is goodish, but the dentist's chair was ultimately clunky.

Thank you as always for books, thank you for this group and thanks for you. Have a lovely day, Charlotte.

2022 Book Number 29/Lifetime Book Number 1,799 - If Cats Disappeared From the World by Genki Kawamura - audiobook borrowed from Overdrive

A Faustian tale.

A man gets a diagnosis of imminent death via cancer. The devil shows up in a Hawaiian shirt. (This guy is definitely not your grandfather's idea of the Devil.) He has a proposition for the Man. He proposes to give the Man a reprieve from his cancer death sentence, for one day, in exchange for the elimination of one thing from the world; the choice of thing is up to the Man. If he chooses, say, toasters - all of the toasters in the world will immediately disappear. Not even the memory of it will be left to anyone, with the exception of the Man. And the Devil, of course.

Of course this means that every day - if he wants to keep on living - the Man will have to pick out some other thing to be done away with forever. For a while he does pretty well with this arrangement. (One of the early things he got rid of, if I am recalling correctly, was all the cellphones. Kind of liked that.) Eventually, however, the Devil gets sick of the Man trying to get away with some pretty low-level choices and he begins pressuring the Man to up the ante or else risk the Devil becoming bored with the whole idea and withdrawing his offer which, of course, means the Man will die. If the Man wants to continue living he is going to have to get serious about vanishing something that is important to him - such as getting rid of all the cats.

The Man, in the course of the story, has been reflecting on his life and recounting memories of his father, his ex-girlfriend and - especially - memories of his mother. His mother loved cats. Lettuce, her cat who died during her lifetime, was precious to her as was Cabbage, the successor to Lettuce, who is still alive. This is a major stumbling block for the Man. Cabbage cannot die. But he really wants to live. He got rid of movies and he loved the movies. But to remove all the cats....

This was a pleasant read. Uncomplicated, in its way.

Gave it 3.5 stars.

COVER ART - 7 of 10. A man and a cat on a bench. A nice, simple cover.

2022 Book Number 30/Lifetime Book Number 1,800 - Gilead by Marilynne Robinson - from my shelves

This may be the best book that I will have read in my entire lifetime. From the first to the last it seemed that every word - every thought - was perfectly chosen and perfectly expressed.

To say that it is about an elderly minister, with a young wife and son, reflecting upon his life - his past - in the pages of a reminiscence written for his son to read one day, does not convey how sublime, tragic and rich this book is. I was amazed.

I cried at the end - 'nuff said.

A keeper without a doubt.

COVER ART - Gave this a 6 of 10 rating - once I realized what I was looking at.

2022 Book Number 31/Lifetime Book Number 1,801 - The Postscript Murders by Elly Griffiths - audiobook borrowed from Overdrive

This was okay. By that I mean that I finished it, though it was touch and go at some points.

Not as good as I had hoped it would be. Found it disconcerting that Griffiths provided two murderers. For a long time I have kind of thought it would be entertaining to have a murder mystery with multiple murderers, but now that I've experienced it I found that I did not really like that very much.

Took a long time for Griffiths to finally bring matters to a close. It just seemed to go on and on. And on. I did like the idea of a murder consultant - someone who writers, in need of help with the writing of their novels, could turn to for help. (Is there such a thing?) But I really wished for more emphasis on the murder victim's occupation rather than the spy angle (Gak! Yes, there is a spy angle.)

As for this audio version of the book, I must admit to frequent confusion. Harbinder Kaur is a police detective of Indian (Pakistani? Can't recall which now.) extraction and there is also an amateur detective/health care aide (whose name I don't recall at this distance) who is a Ukranian national and the reader seemed to be using the same accent for both of them. Maybe it was just me and my untutored ear, but lots of the time I was unsure of which character it was that was speaking.

Gave this one a bare 3.25 stars - mostly because I made it to the end.

COVER ART - Only a 3 of 10. Did not like anything about this very unappealing cover. Not the disembodied hand perched on the pages of the open book, the rose or any of the rest of it and especially not the colors. So bleah!

2022 Book Number 32/Lifetime Book Number 1,802 - Murder in an English Village by Jessica Ellicott - borrowed from the Westport (MA) Public Library

This historical mystery takes place in the 1920s (or maybe it is the 1930s). Edwina (English) and Beryl (American), friends from boarding school days are reunited when Edwina needs a boarder and Beryl needs a refuge.

Found this to be a 'meh' first book to the series. Both Edwina and Beryl are stock characters. Edwina is retiring and and timid by nature who pretty much never leaves the village while Beryl is a brash globe-trotting American actress who apparently can't stay out of the newspapers or keep from tearing around the village in her fancy car.

For me the mystery was hard to care about after Ellicott reveals that one of the village girls who is thought to be missing (and possibly dead) has only skedaddled to London. This revelation takes place quite a while after Edwina and Beryl have gotten the wind up about the 'missing' girl and I found myself not caring much about the other possible victim by that time. Maybe it was because the secondary characters were not very interesting to me. Yes, secondary characters are lesser than primary ones, but they aren't coat racks. They do need to be at least a little bit intriguing. (Yes - I'm being mean again and I apologize. But it was July and very, very hot and humid. I don't like visiting the Land of Meh in horrible summer weather.)

There was a likeable dog though.

COVER ART - i did like this cover, however. Very 1920s/1930s, I thought. Gave it an 8 of 10.

>65 Fourpawz2: I think the amount of reindeer in Sweden and Finland (and Norway) is about the same. Maybe you’re connecting reindeer with Finland because that’s where Santa lives (Rovaniemi)? Although “our” Santa doesn’t have reindeer.

That makes perfect sense - both the parts about reindeer not being deterred by borders and also the part about Santa. Was watching an episode of Nova last week about wildlife above the Arctic Circle and several times quick peeks of a Santa-like figure flashed in the background while the narrator kept on talking about musk oxen and wolves and - of course - reindeer.

By the way - what does your Santa have - transportation-wise?

2022 Book Number 33/Lifetime Book Number 1,803 - A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende - borrowed from a friend

Better than expected. Did not like the only other book I've read by Allende.

A brother-in-law and sister-in-law, survivors of the Spanish Civil War end up marrying in order to immigrate to Chile from Europe after the war. It is only supposed to be a temporary marriage; Being married will make it easier to emigrate to Chile and in order to live in their new home and hammer out the best life they can, being married will make it easier for them (and for her child by her first husband). Chile in the middle of the 20th century is a very conservative place and frowns on arrangements such as theirs.

It was easy to see that they are never returning home and that the first husband is quite dead. And when Salvador Allende becomes President - well it is even easier to know that things are going to be getting very bad for the family. In fact it gets really bad, but Roser and her husband soldier on - some of the time in Chile and sometimes in exile in Venezuela.

It was a good read. I have read, very, very few South American novels. Could probably count them on the fingers of one hand and still have a few leftover fingers. I liked the Pablo Neruda quotes and the beginning of the chapters and I am not a poetry person.

Probably will try another of Allende's books one day.

Gave this one 3.5 stars

COVER ART - Liked this simple cover. Made me think of Greek art for some reason. Even with all the overly large lettering I am giving it a 7 of 10.

>73 Fourpawz2: He walks! Might hitch a ride with someone if it’s far between houses, but usually just walks with a sack thrown over his shoulder, or pulling it behind him on a small sled.

2022 Book Number 34/Lifetime Book Number 1,804 - The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell - from my shelves

Chose this book for my RL Book Club to read back in July. Strictly speaking they chose it, as I gave them the power of choice. It was this book, In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick or The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey and they picked TWK. I wouldn't call the choice a rousing success as one member flat-out stopped reading after a short while and another one bowed out on the night of the meeting because she was sick. She definitely could have been sick, but she is suspected of actually being “sick”. Well, I still love Cornwell's first book in his Arthurian series. And the other two book club members liked it too. There was discussion of the three of us having a Secret Book Club, but it may be that there was just a little too much wine being had.

Once again, I gave this the 5 stars I've always given it.

COVER ART - Have always liked this cover, but never rated it before. Giving it 8 of 10. It still has bookshelf pluckability as far as I am concerned.

>75 PawsforThought: - He walks. Obviously the Swedish Santa is the toughest Santa of all!



2022 Book Number 36/Lifetime Book Number 1,806 - Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell by Tim Miller - borrowed from the Mansfield Public Library

Interesting.

Have been wanting to know the why of Trump's mysterious support and now I do - sort of. This book enlightened me as to the support he had from the PR people, the invisible big money backers and the professional Republican Party people. But at the time that I finished this book (8/3/22) I still wanted to know what motivated the ordinary civilians. In the time since then I have almost accepted the idea that there is no sensible or thoughtful reason that even one of them can articulate. But it is still possible that there might still be such a person or people out there; I just haven't read what it is or heard them speak about it.

I think this might be a getter at some point as I'd like to re-read it.

Gave this one 3.5 stars

COVER ART - Oddly I liked this cover. On a shelf it would have gotten a second look from me. The creepy, tiny, picture of DT from the back is especially eye-catching.

2022 Book Number 35/Lifetime Book Number 1,805 - The Postmistress by Sarah Blake - from my shelves

From the new Why, Oh Why? category, I now address the subject of this book.

Why, oh why, did the author do what she did? I am not talking about the story itself. That was relatively okay. Not great and not even memorable. It was a passable book about WWII, taking place on both sides of the Atlantic. I read it and it didn't kill me.

But what caught my attention about this book was the absolutely idiotic choice of where this book took place stateside. I read on the back cover that it was set in Franklin, MA and thought that that was interesting as one of the book club members was born and raised in Franklin. She might enjoy reading about a fictional treatment of her home town during WWII. Might it be a good choice for Book Club? I know I would like reading about my city in fiction. But I would not enjoy this book if it were written about my home. And why is that? It's because for no reason that I can understand, the author chose to move the city of Franklin, Massachusetts from its actual location in Norfolk County to Cape Cod - approximately 100 miles away.

Now why, in hell did she do that? If she could not use an actual town on the Cape, why, oh why, did she not just make up a town??? There's no rule against that. The whole time I was reading this okay book, that question was in the back of my mind. I have absolutely no clue as to why she did this. Unwillingness to check Wikipedia for the existence of an actual town with that name? Laziness? Checking to see if her readers are actually paying attention? Don't know. Maybe I am being overly persnickety. I have been in the past. But more than three months later this thing that she did is still driving me nuts.

I am just glad I did not present a previously unread book to the Book Club. And I will feel 100% vindicated from hereon in for always reading my book choice beforehand.

Gave this one 3.5 stars. And I am now, penalizing this book 3 stars for making me so crazy ever since I cracked the cover.

COVER ART - Who cares?! Wish I could return this book to the store where I bought it new (*sob*!), but they are long out of business.

2022 Book Number 38/Lifetime Book Number 1,808 - Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison - from my shelves

The story of the Dead family, a wealthy black family in the state of Michigan(?), Pennsylvania (?). Not sure which it is, but I am pretty sure it is one of the two.

The Patriarch - Macon - lives for the acquisition of money. He loathes his wife, Ruth, and seems to pour all of his efforts and interest into his son, who is also named Macon, but among friends he is known as Milkman. Macon, Sr. tried to kill his son before he was born, but after the baby's birth, he is the only person that Macon cares about.

All of the relationships in this book are extremely complicated and the writing is amazing.

Sometimes I look at the list of books that Morrison has written and wish there were many more of them. Every time I read one that is new to me I am a little bit sad as, inevitably, someday I will have read them all and will then only have re-reading to look forward to. Re-reading is a good thing, but given the choice I would rather have an endless number of her books ahead of me.

Gave this one 5 stars.

A definite keeper. Wouldn't mind having a better copy of this book. Mine is verging a bit onto the tattered side.

COVER ART - This is a lovely cover and it gets an 8 of 10 rating from me.

2022 Book Number 39/Lifetime Book Number 1,809 - The Children Act by Ian McEwan - audiobook borrowed from Libby

Judge Fiona Maye, 60 years old, is handling a number of tough cases at the same time that her marriage to Jack is coming unglued. Her weasel of a husband wants her to cut him loose, to a degree, so that he can pursue a younger woman who he is lusting after. He believes that she should do this because it may be his last chance to enjoy the adventure of sex with a younger woman. He does not want to end their marriage, but thinks that because she is somewhat past her expiration date she ought to be amenable to this new and presumably temporary change to said marriage.

This crops up just when Fiona is wrestling with the problem of a 17 (very nearly 18) year old boy who is hospitalized with leukemia. The boy is hospitalized because he is a Jehovah's Witness who has rejected a life-saving procedure that requires transfusing. His parents - also Jehovah's Witnesses - are entirely supportive of their son's refusal. It is Fiona's job to rule in the matter - either supporting him in his refusal on the grounds that he is virtually 18 (the age of consent) or standing with the hospital which wants to go ahead with the procedure against his will on the grounds that he is not legally entitled to refuse the life-saving operation.

I liked this book quite a bit - in particular the parts involving the case before Fiona and the way she worked through matters. The trouble with Jack was less interesting to me, but not entirely without interest.

Gave this 4 stars. Wouldn't mind adding a physical copy to my library.

Not a great fan of the title. I understand why it is called The Children Act, but it is just awkward sounding to my ears.

COVER ART - Gave this a paltry 4 out of 10 rating as it seems terribly blah to me. Not anything I would pull off a shelf for a closer look.

At about this time in the reading year - late August - I gave up, for all time, any attempt to read Moby Dick. I kind of read it in high school - it was a 'thing' in my school system at the time - but I know I only skimmed it and - I presume - I was successful enough to get by. And this summer - decades after my original - required - attempt, I took a crack at the audio book rendition and failed to make significant progress in reaching the book's end. But truthfully, I lost all interest way back in Ms.C's English class and again in 2022 at the point where Ishmael pushed off to sea, leaving my hometown behind. So - buh-bye forever, Moby Dick! I will not be bothering with you again.



2022 Book Number 40/Lifetime Book Number 1,810 - Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns - from my shelves

Burns' only published novel (in her lifetime) is a fictional rendering concerning the people from her hometown of Commerce, GA in 1906-1907 - a town that she named Cold Sassy Tree for the book.

Tons of dialect in this book with only marginal attention paid to the African-American population. (Possibly 5 people total?) The focus is on Grandpa Blakeslee, owner of the General Store and apparently the most prominent character in the town, his grandson, Will Tweedy (and the book's narrator), and Grandpa's sudden marriage to Love Simpson (milliner in the store.)

Many amusing stories. Very down-home. Not sure how I feel about the ending.

Gave it 3.5 stars

COVER ART - 7 of 10 for the appropriate, old-timey picture on the cover.
A Keeper - for now.

>79 Fourpawz2: That is a great cover, Charlotte. Don't think I have seen it before.

Nice to see you back and posting.

>82 PaulCranswick: - Thank you Paul. It was definitely high time for me to stop being so bloody lazy and tend to business even if it has been my worst reading year for a long time. Still have a number of posts to go before I am caught up, though. Have been fortunate to have had a number of entirely free days this past week.

Whoops! - I missed a title a few books back - totally missing from my journal. I didn't even say anything about it in my book notes and only discovered it by accident when sorting out said notes while preparing to cast them into the basket beneath my reading chair for further organization. Story of my life - not the best organized person in the world. I am sure that there is a gene for organization and I did not get my father's. My genes seem to be mostly made up of the less desirable ones running rampant in my family.

Have corrected the numbers of affected books (3 in total) and will insert the one that I missed, here. To wit:-



2022 Book Number 38/Lifetime Book Number 1,808 - Secrets on Saturday by Ann Purser - from my shelves

Another Lois Meade mystery. This series is generally spoken of as a cozy series, but I wonder. Long Farndon - the village where Lois Meade and her family have lived since Book 2 - is without a doubt the quintessential cozy village. But there are certainly elements there and in the neighboring large community to which Lois has recently expanded her cleaning business, who are certainly seriously sketchy. Am thinking that this calls for a sub-category of cozy which probably should be called Real World Cozy or maybe Seriously Bent Cozy Villagers. Or something better that I have not come up with yet.

This time Lois has a customer who is supposed to be looking after his dear old uncle's property because Unc is not doing so well and is now closeted in a nearby retirement/nursing home whose location (as I recall at the distance of 4 months) Nephew does not reveal to anyone. None of the villagers know where he is and the people who know him are worried for him and his little dog. Everything about the nephew, Reg Althorpe, screams super-untrustworthy-guy-who-is-up-to-something-really-nasty and Lois' is on alert (but not as soon as, I am thinking, she should have been).

Coupled with this is a related story of animal abuse and another elderly character who is close-mouthed about what, exactly, is going on, on his property. Something not good is the only conclusion that can be reasonably drawn.

The animal abuse story is where Purser veers away from pure Cozy and that seems to have shocked and angered some of her readers. I hate to read about animals being hurt, but in cozies I always think the missing little white dogs and the like will be okay in the end. But bad things happening to animals is most definitely going to leave the cozy writer in a precarious position with the readers. I can forgive Purser - mostly - for dragging the Real World into Long Farndon; just hope she doesn't make a worsening habit of it.

And I wish she'd deal with the problem of Lois' police inspector admirer; to me. he gets creepier and creepier with every book.

Gave this one 3 stars - on account of the anxiety of the missing little dog.

A keeper.

COVER ART - 7 of 10 - has all the elements of the story within. Except for the animal abuse which most definitely would have turned away a legion of potential readers - including me.

2022 Book Number 41/Lifetime Book Number 1,811 - Father's Day by Simon Van Booy - audio book

A well done story about a little girl, by the name of Harvey, who loses her parents early in life. Through the efforts of an empathetic and hard working social worker, she is placed with her paternal uncle, Jason. Jason is not an obvious choice as a foster parent; he is definitely rough around the edges and Wanda, the social worker, spends a lot of time training him to be an exemplary parent to Harvey. Niece and uncle become very close and step easily, after not too long a time, into the seemingly natural roles of father and daughter.

The story is told in a series of flashbacks - back and forth between Harvey's early years with Jason and her present life as an adult living in Paris. I could see where Van Booy was going with the story and even though I was about 95% sure that I knew what was coming it did not lessen my enjoyment.

Bronson Pinchot, my favorite Reader did his usual great job.

Gave this one 3.25 stars. I know this seems a little on the low side for a book that I enjoyed, but that was all due to the choice of Harvey as a name for a little girl. I never could get used to it and almost every time Pinchot said her name, for just a split second I thought he was talking about the uncle. It was distracting and I did not enjoy ratcheting back and forth in confusion for all those split seconds. There was no reason for the author to have called the little girl Harvey and it seemed solely like an attempt to be different for different's sake.

COVER ART - This cover gets a 6 of 10 from me. Liked it much better than the one that appears on the physical book.

2022 Book Number 42/Lifetime Book Number 1,812 - A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny - from my shelves

My annual reading of the next Three Pines novel. I have a friend who seems to be in need of a Three Pines 12-Step Program - she just cannot restrain herself whenever a new one is published, whereas I am the opposite and have not been letting myself read more than one a year.

Clara Morrow has her first one-woman show in Montreal and afterward there is a party back at the Morrows' house in Three Pines. The place is mobbed with invited and uninvited guests; the show was a huge hit and anyone and everyone from the art world wants to celebrate the occasion. Unfortunately one of the guests turns up dead in the garden.

Gamache is there of course; he is crazy about art and is a friend of Clara's and cannot keep away either. The dead woman turns out to have been a childhood friend of Clara's and the fact that she and Clara quarreled out many years ago is not a good thing for Clara. Gamache has lots of suspects, but no obvious motive.

He and Jean Guy Beauvoir are still not over the trauma of recent events (the police operation that occurred prior to the previous book).

And Olivier, of the Three Pines B&B - who went to jail two books previously - has not forgiven Gamache as yet. It's going to be a while before things return to normal.

As per usual Penny does a great job in this latest (to me) book. Multiple suspects, many twists and turns and I didn't even come close to singling out the real culprit. Can't wait until next summer when I can allow myself to read to the next in the series.

Gave this one 4.5 stars A definite keeper, natch.

COVER ART - a 7 out of 10. A very woodsy cover that I found attractive and enticing.

2022 Book Number 43/Lifetime Book Number 1,813 - Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel - audio book

An audio book with multiple narrators - which is never my favorite - but the book rose above it.

Time travel in a future century. At this time humans are living on other planets. Our moon has been home to humans for a long time. The primary character goes to work at the time travel agency and it is easy to know that he will quickly break the rules there. At a pretty late point there is a suggestion that everyone is living in a simulation.

Wish it had been a bit longer and that more attention had been paid to the simulation possibility.

Gave this one 3.5 stars.

COVER ART - 9 of 10. For me the full moon is the epitome of tranquility.

Very cold on the Southcoast this morning and not likely to change until overnight. Trying very hard not to pay any attention to the furnace and focusing instead on how toasty my feet are, thanks to Jane who has curled up there. Makes me think of my grandfather who was constantly checking the thermostat and stressing over the heat. Too bad he believed that animals do not belong in the house; at least his feet would have been warm.



2022 Book Number 44/Lifetime Book Number 1,814 - Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie - from my shelves

Poirot on vacation at the Jolly Roger Hotel with a wide cast of characters."Evil" is a woman - Alana Marshall - an actress who retires early because she has married a wealthy man. She is at the Jolly Roger in the company of her husband and step-daughter, but this does not keep her from carrying on with a younger man who is also there with his wife. Eventually Alana ends up strangled.

Quite a number of potential killers and Poirot's solution is very convoluted. In the obligatory Scene of Revelation, I thought he was pointing the finger at Mr. Marshall and his daughter, but, in the next breath, he settles on another person entirely. Typical Poirot mystery - overpopulated with likely suspects.

A Keeper, but only because I've bought so many of these books that I don't want to set any of them free. Who knows? I may decide to fill in the very few holes in the collection some day.

The title seemed a little overwrought to me. Would have given that title a pass on the shelf.

COVER ART - Basically there is no art here so I gave it a 1 of 10. Coupled with the title that I did not care for I would never have acquired this book except for the fact that it was the next one in line.

2022 Book Number 45/Lifetime Book Number 1,815 - The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman - audio book

A group of retired people living in a retirement village have a club - The Thursday Murder Club. Up until a real murder occurs they make-do with the old, real-life, murder records that a retired policewoman (and member of the club) provided.

There are many varied and interesting characters and more than one murder. Elizabeth is the head of the club, and seems to have quite a past in espionage. And I loved Bogdan, Polish immigrant and man-of-all-work and chess partner to Elizabeth's husband.

I thought the title was great and could not resist it. Really want these books, but right now even the used ones are pretty expensive, so will have to wait a bit before reading the next one.

Gave this one 4.5 stars.

COVER ART - a bare 6 of 10. Don't understand the purpose of the fox.

Supposed to be lots of rain here - all day today and much of tomorrow. Lots better than snow!



2022 Book Number 46/Lifetime Book Number 1,816 - Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village by Ronald Blythe - borrowed from a friend

This book dates back to the early 1960s and is full of very enjoyable stories about rural and village life in Suffolk County in the UK. As it turns out there is no actual village of that name. Blythe did collect the stories from villagers in three different locations in Suffolk and then, for the book, gathers them together under the name of Akenfield - a made up name that replaced the name of a little village called Akenham in Suffolk. Why this was done, I do not know and it takes away from the book a little bit, threatening its standing as a non-fiction book; it seems neither one thing nor the other.

However, I did enjoy these stories very much. They had the ring of truth to me. Put me in mind of my grandfather and his farming acquaintances - the last generation but one in the agricultural business in the place where my ancestors lived.

In spite of the drawbacks, I gave this one 4 stars.

My friend offered to give the book to me when I was finished, but as she had told me previously that it was her favorite book, I could not take it.

COVER ART - The edition I read had no cover art, so I picked this cover for it because I liked the way it looked and would likely have picked this one off a shelf in a store. But of course I can't rate it.

I send wishes for a special holiday season!

Malaysia's branch of the 75er's wishes you and yours a happy holiday season, Charlotte.

Last day of the year on the south coast and in complete contrast to the sunny and comfortable day we had yesterday, it was super foggy this morning and now a hideous cold rain has kicked in. I'll take it, though, as it is a huge improvement over the deep freeze of Christmas weekend.



2022 Book Number 47/Lifetime Book Number 1,817 - Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas - for RL Book Club

This memoir, picked by a member of my Real Life Book Club for November, was actually kind of funny. Not rolling-on-the-floor funny, but laughing out loud a few times funny. Good stories about the author's many family members (and herself) and great ones about her father, Kazem. Loved his attempts at home repair, his tight-fistedness, his generosity toward people back home who are strangers to him. And then there was this whole custom concerning weddings and lambs in Iran. I would read another by Dumas.

Gave this one 4 stars.

COVER ART - a mere 3 of 10. It's pretty lame and not enticing at all.

2022 Book Number 49/Lifetime Book Number 1,818 - Citizens by Simon Schama - from my shelves

A comprehensive account of the French Revolution, starting well before 1789 and progressing through to the final squeak. I learned a lot about how it happened, what happened as well as about the multitudinous players. I've long been wanting to get to this 976 page, 3.44 pound book and last winter my goofy method of choosing non-fiction books for reading brought this one to the fore.

Loved it and I recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about the subject. I've never quite understood what happened in France toward the end of the 18th century - the why and who of it all - but now I feel a bit clearer on the whole thing and am looking forward to reading a lot more about it - including some other books that I have started in the past and abandoned because I was hopelessly confused.

Gave this one 5 well-deserved stars

COVER ART - a 6 of 10 rating for this good, but not fantastic cover. The black and red elements would have been eye-catching for me and, for once, the inclusion of the sub-title - "A Chronicle of the French Revolution" - would have clinched the deal.

2022 Book Number 49/Lifetime Book Number 1,819 - Hold the Line by Michael Fanone - borrowed from the Wareham Free Public Library

The author of this book was forced into the public arena by the January 6th insurrection in 2021. Up until that point he was a dedicated cop for the Metropolitan Police force in Washington, DC; a regular guy from the mid-Atlantic Coast area who loved his job. Then the insurrection rolled into town and Fanone responded when the Capitol was invaded.

He seemed honest to me and very passionate. Once upon a time Fanone had been a Trump supporter, but it did not take him long to suss out the things that were wrong there.

He seems to be that rare individual - someone capable of sorting out the truth from the crap and making the appropriate changes to his way of thinking. He seems to have good ideas about ways to improve policing nationally. I was really pretty impressed by him.

I was kind of shocked by his revelation of the support Trump has among police officers - both way back when and currently - and then I was kind of shocked by myself thinking that things might not be that way.

He is no longer a cop - driven out of his job by this disturbing attitude of many in law enforcement - and has moved on to CNN where he is a reporter. A shame that policing has lost this man.

Giving this memoir 4 stars and might be moved to buy a copy for myself one day.

COVER ART - a 5 of 10 - my customary rating for a cover featuring a photo of a memoir or bio.

2022 Book Number 50/Lifetime Book Number 1,820 - The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver - Audio Book borrowed from Libby

Kingsolver's first book, as I understand it, a Southern, rural novel about women and a kind that I am very familiar with.

Two women, unknown to one another, but with a good deal in common - they are from the same state and come from poor backgrounds - meet in Arizona. Lee Ann has an infant (Dwayne Ray) and a broken marrriage. Taylor, single, has a Native American child she acquired when driving through "The Cherokee Nation" in Oklahoma. (The little girl's aunt gave her to Taylor and then took off.) Taylor continued on her way and ends up in Arizona where she eventually meets Lee Ann. The four of them become a kind of 'family' and decide to live together in order to support each other and help one another. I have to admit at this distance that I don't remember what Taylor's reason was for just continuing on after being gifted with Turtle (the name she has given the child as the aunt did not tell her the little girl's name or, really anything else) without doing anything to get in touch with the authorities. She did have a reason as I recall and it seemed like a good enough one at the time; it just didn't stick with me.

There is a Guatemalan couple - Esteban and Esperanza - who are in the country illegally, but understandably. They were forced to flee for political reasons and are in touch with people in the US who are helping them. Taylor becomes friendly with them and they in turn, serve a pivotal role in helping her with the problem of Turtle.

A pleasant enough story and was perfect for listening to while working, but not memorable.

Gave it a solid 3.5 stars though. Good enough, but I don't think I would purchase it for re-reading.

COVER ART - a 4 of 10 rating. It didn't really do anything for me.

2022 Book Number 51/Lifetime Book Number 1,821 - Baggage by Alan Cumming - Audio Book borrowed through Libby

Part 2 of Alan Cumming's memoir - essentially. His tortured relationship with his father in the previous book was such a big subject that there was no way that the Baggage portions of his life could have or should have been contained in the same book.

Although Cumming's love life was a mess for years and drug use was a huge part of his life, he is a lucky man. It is good to see that happiness found him. A more cheerful book than Not My Father's Son from this talented actor with a crazy penchant for outrageous things.

Gave this one 3.5 stars.

COVER ART - a 5 of 10 for this memoir. (Although maybe it should have a 6 of 10 rating as he does appear to be levitating. You don't see that every day.)

2022 Book Number 52/Lifetime Book Number 1,822 - Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz - from my shelves

So clever! A murder mystery book inside a murder mystery book.

A truly unlikable writer of murder mysteries - Alan Conway - has hated his creation (the Atticus Pund murder mysteries) almost from the moment he put pen to paper and now, in the 9th book of the series, he kills off his detective, putting closed to the series and causing havoc with his publisher. Even worse, - the end chapters - have gone missing and Conway has been murdered. Susan, Conway's editor, is on the trail of the missing chapters and is drawn into finding Alan's killer.

Having to deal with a full slate of potential killers from two murders (one from the 'real' world and the other from the 'unreal' real world) was a bit much to handle, but I got through it without going nuts.

Gave this one 3.75 stars.

A definite keeper.

COVER ART - this cover is an 8 out of 10 for me. Red and black with a lovely black bird - it is just the kind of cover I like.

2022 Book Number 53/Lifetime Book Number 1,823 - The Maid by Nita Prose - Audio Book borrowed from Libby

Quirky tale of Molly the Maid and her involvement in the death of Mr. Black, guest in the hotel where Molly works.

Molly is hugely gullible and at first I thought that she was on the autism spectrum (and am still not quite sure that she wasn't), but it may be that she acquired all of her habits and manner of thinking and speaking from her late grandmother, who raised her when Molly's mother ran off. Molly was a sponge for all of Gran's sayings, behaviors, philosophies and outdated standards. Molly seems odd to most of the world and to make things worse, her money situation is very bad as shortly before Gran's final illness, she lost all of Gran's savings to her first boyfriend - a consummate louse. Molly cannot bear to tell Gran what happened and Gran dies never knowing that the money she worked so hard to save for Molly's future is gone forever.

After Gran is gone, Molly continues on at the hotel where she has always worked. She is a wonderful employee, but some of the employees do not like her because she works like a dog and makes some of them look bad. And her oddities don't help one bit to make them like her. But Molly doesn't mind because she has the consolation of knowing that Mrs. Giselle Black is her friend and that the hotel bartender is her boyfriend. Poor Molly.

The attention of the police focuses almost immediately on Molly and it is not long before she is under suspicion and then arrest. It was easy to see that coming, but a lot harder to see how Molly was going to keep from going to prison.

I thought Prose (what a great name!) did a really good job. The Molly character is perfect and Prose never loses control of her. And the reader (whose name - once again - I failed to note) was very, very good.

Might be that I will buy a copy of the book at some point.

Gave this one 4 stars.

COVER ART - 7 of 10 - yet another black and red cover. Really liked the partial figure of the maid seen through the big keyhole.

2022 Book Number 54/Lifetime Book Number 1,824 - Silesian Station by David Downing - from my shelves

The second book in this series, it takes place between Spring 1939 and goes through the summer to the beginning of World War II in September. Returning to Germany from a trip to the US to settle the matter of his American citizenship, Russell now finds himself working for the Americans, as well as the Russians (again) and pretend-working for the Nazis (still). In all cases he is doing his work for favors. And this time he is searching for Miriam, a missing Jewish girl as well as recruiting three different people to work against the Nazis. The looming war is still in the background - impossible to ignore or escape.

Once again I enjoyed this book in spite of my lack of fondness for capers and spy novels. Like sports books they only have one way to go; it's either win or lose. No other ending is possible. But Downing, so far, has transcended that for me.

A definite keeper. Going to have to get the next book in the series quickly as I will want to get it read by summertime at the latest.

Gave this one 4.5 stars

COVER ART - a mere 5 of 10. I did not like this cover as well as the first. And the photo of the bombed out building in the upper left-hand corner bugs me.

Very cloudy day here, but at least the temperature was pretty good - especially for the start of January. I'm happy to take it as, a week ago, it was the third day of below freezing temps. After listening to my furnace run constantly Christmas weekend and beyond, I figure that I am owed something more moderate.



2022 Book Number 55/Lifetime Book Number 1,825 - Lord High Executioner by Howard Engel - from my shelves

Non-fiction book about executioners and the history of legally-sanctioned killings - mostly in England with a good deal about France, Canada, and the US and a sprinkling of other countries.

I found it to be only mildly grisly; it is about deliberate state killings after all. By the end, in his chapters about modern executions and the newer methods of death, Engel slides in some words against the death penalty and it was no wonder. If I weren't already against capital punishment I would be now.

I did learn what a bunch of disrespected rapscallions many of these people were. This was not surprising as they were very frequently recruited from the ranks of criminals, many centuries ago. (However, even when time moved on and executioners no longer came from among the criminal class, executioners were still given no credit for the difficulty of the job they did.) Most of them seemed to develop drinking problems and more than one of them was suicidal. And then there were the collections of dead people's hair, clothes and the gallows ropes that the executioners kept from the executions they conducted. I could sort of understand why they did that in the time when they were able to make money selling such things to people with a taste for such creepy items, but I am not really able to understand wanting to keep such mementos for oneself, which was common. Definitely a step too weird for me.

Generally informative and interesting to me and a definite keeper.

Gave this one 3.5 stars.

COVER ART - Dramatic and eye-catching. This painting of the execution of Lady Jane Grey gets a 7 of 10 rating. I always found Lady Jane's execution particularly sad. She was so young and was pushed into claiming the crown to satisfy her family's ambitions. What vile people they must have been.

2022 Book Number 56/Lifetime Book Number 1,826 - The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse Kindle from my shelves, read for the RL Book Club

This book is about Bertie Wooster and his mostly simple-minded pals (including his twin cousins, Claude and Eustace) gambling and drinking their way through life.With the exception of Bertie's friend Bingo Little, none of them have worked (or ever will work) a day in their lives and, in Bingo's case, he only works - periodically - because he is constantly being cut off by his wealthy uncle (who supports him) because uncle disapproves of Bingo's choices in females. Only Jeeves - Bertie's valet - has any ideas of value; he is much more clever than his employer, his relatives and his friends, combined. I wondered if Wodehouse wrote primarily for his American audience. You know - pandering to their notions of silly, over-indulged members of the British upper-class.

It was not a great book, by any means, but it was better than My Man Jeeves which I read a few years ago.

Gave this one 3 stars.

COVER ART - a 6 of 10 rating. Somehow I have never pictured Jeeves as being that old.

2022 Book Number 57/Lifetime Book Number 1,827 - The Moonlight Child by Karen McQuestion - Audio Book borrowed from Libby

Vaguely improbable tale of Mia, a little girl who was taken by a passing stranger (Mrs. Fleming) at the age of 2 or so and eventually pressed into servitude in Mrs. F's home.

It's an okay story and right for my purposes - I could pay the necessary amount of attention to the story and never lose the thread of things while working. Nothing truly horrific happens to Mia; she was so young when M'am (as she calls Mrs. F) took her away that she accepted everything in her life as being normal. She had no idea that her life was at all unusual. There was a dog who loved her and Jason, the son of the household (who had been a child when Mia was taken), was very like a brother to her. Indeed Jason and his father actually suffered more under the conditions all were forced to live in than Mia did, as they certainly knew the jeopardy they were in all of the time on account of what their mother/wife had done. I know this seems an odd thing to say, but Mrs. F was way, way over the top almost all of the time, pretty much holding her family in thrall by the use of the threats of what she would do to them should Mia be discovered.

Gave this one 3.25 stars

COVER ART - Should have gotten a 7 of 10 rating, but I'm dropping it to a 6 of 10. Mrs. F's house of cards begins to fall apart when a neighbor sees Mia washing dishes very late at night in the lighted kitchen (with Mrs. F harrying her while she works). Only thing is, the cover shows the lighted room as being on the front of the house and the story makes it plain that the kitchen is on the back of the property. It's an important point in the story; Mia might have gone on living in that house for a lot longer if the neighbor had not noticed and gotten involved. It wouldn't have been that difficult to get this element right.

And yes, I know I am being ridiculously picky on this point.

2022 Book Number 58/Lifetime Book Number 1,828 - The Buffalo Hunters: The Story of the Hide Men by Mari Sandoz - from my shelves

I just lovethe American bison. It is my favorite large, wild animal of all time. I still remember - oh, so clearly - going to the zoo in the center of the city, which, truthfully, was not a really great zoo, as zoos go, to see the animals there. There were black bears (who absolutely reeked) and lots of deer. And some lions; couldn't have a zoo in the 50s and 60s without a lion or two. Toby the wolf who got loose and run over on his way back to the zoo - the only home he knew - and lots of random birds. Of course Emily the elephant was a big draw when I was older. But the buffalo - probably five of them - they were the best. Even standing around with these great clumps of old hair on them that had yet to be shed and looking a little ratty - to me they were the best animal in the zoo. So majestic. So huge! I could never understand why they weren't the national symbol instead of the bald eagle. To me there was nothing special about eagles. But buffaloes were creatures of legend.

So, of course, I just loved this book written by Mari Sandoz (one of my favorite American writers). Yes, there's a lot in it concerning the monstrous and very near successful attempts to exterminate the buffalo and the intentional effect on the Native Americans of the 19th century was beyond repulsive, but there is also a lot of beautiful bits and information about buffaloes and I learned a lot. A cow always led the herd. (The males never led and apparently had neither the ability nor the will to do so.) If something happened to the lead cow the herd wandered as if lost. Buffaloes always "feed into the wind"; cattle run away from a storm, but buffaloes face it, which was why there were always high cattle death rates in a raging blizzard. And grazing buffaloes had this quirky thing that they did when confronted with a train traveling on the tracks. If they were feeding to the north of the tracks, traveling trains did not bother them, even when they got as close as a 100 yards, but if the buffalo were south of the tracks, an approaching train that was as much as a mile or two away could make them stampede toward the tracks, trying to beat the train there. And if they didn't win the race they would still try to get across even if it meant going between cars. Engineers learned to stop the train so the herd could cross first.

Sandoz covers her subjects well, the well-known and infamous - Custer, Sheridan, Hickock, Buffalo Bill Cody and the much less well-known characters, the complete story of the systematic murder of the great herds as a despicable means to Native American genocide that is one of the most shameful things done in this country and, of course everything about buffaloes. It is a great story. Not meaning, of course, that it is a story of good things, but that it is a story of fascinating subjects told very well. At least it was to me.

Gave this one 5+ stars - one of the best reads of 2022.

Most definitely a keeper.

COVER ART - 2 of 10 - hate this cover. So ugly.

2022 Book Number 59/Lifetime Book Number 1,829 - Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart by Tim Butcher - from my shelves

In the early 2000s reporter, Tim Butcher, sets out to travel the same route across the Democratic Republic of the Congo via the Congo River, as the one traveled by the explorer/reporter Stanley in the 1870s. Stanley's trip took a lot longer; Butcher's was a lot more dangerous. The state of the DRC in the 2000s was apalling. It may even be the same now as it was when he set out, but my ignorance concerning the current state of things in the various African countries is likewise apalling.

Learned a great deal from this book - the shocking things caused by Stanley's exploit, what King Leopold did to the Congo, the subsequent imperialism that occurred all over Africa once the king showed various nations how lucrative such behavior was, the terrible fate of Lumumba that can only be laid at the feet of the Belgians and the US and the faceless, nameless, greedy folk who have been busy raping the Congo decade after decade. Shameful.

I was impressed by all that Butcher saw and really surprised that he completed his trip, pretty much in one piece. Quite an accomplishment. It was all very fascinating in a horrible way.

Gave this one 5 stars

A keeper for sure. Must read more African history.

COVER ART - Meh. A mere 5 of 10. To me the title was a lot more eye-catching than this cover.

2022 Book Number 60/Lifetime Book Number 1,830 - Why Read Moby-Dick? by Nathaniel Philbrick - Audio Book borrowed from Libby

Nathaniel Philbrick clearly loves Herman Melville and is a firm believer in the idea that Moby Dick is the Great American Novel. That's fine. But I am still not one of those people.

Overall, I liked this short work. Philbrick read it well and sincerely. I learned some things that I did not know about - in particular Melville's slavish admiration for Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Still don't like Moby Dick, though.

Gave this one 3.5 stars

COVER ART - This one gets an 8 out of 10 rating. I thought it was very attractive and I know that I would have taken a look at this one if I had seen it in a bookstore - especially if I had not seen the dreaded words "Moby Dick" in the title.

2022 Book Number 61/Lifetime Book Number 1,831 - The Mask of Apollo by Mary Renault - from my shelves

Historical fiction novel about Ancient Greece, the world of ancient Greek theater, the philosophy of Plato (and his followers), the political struggles in ancient Syracuse between Dion and Dionysios the Younger as seen through the eyes of the Nikeratos, a fictional Greek actor.

Kind of a plod for me until close to the end. I am just not a theater person - especially not an ancient Greek theater person.

Published in 1966, this book is a famous work because it features openly gay characters. Things like that did not happen then.

Gave this one 3 stars

A keeper.

COVER ART - Only a 4 out of 10 rating for me. Neither the figure of the actor, nor the mask were appealing. Likewise all that medium brown color.

Finis.

The number of books read this year was a disappointment to me. Hope to do better in 2023.