It feels like a long time since we’ve had a Show Us Your Books! It seems like I would have had some extra time for by-the-fireplace reading and under-the-Christmas-tree reading but the holiday flurry of activity actually made it harder for me to carve out good reading time. Still, I had a couple of good ‘uns.

Without further ado:
The Revolution of Marina M. by Janet Fitch was a whomper in terms of sheer length and you know, anytime you get into the Russian revolution it’s going to be weighty subject matter. A blurb described it as a female Dr. Zhivago and I can see that (we actually re-watched “Dr. Zhivago” while I was reading this book and it was immensely satisfying). Marina is the daughter of a wealthy Russian family before the 1917 revolution and as the events unfold, she makes several choices that put her at odds with her family and friends, and set her on a dangerous yet liberating path through the political upheaval. I actually picked this up because the sequel is on the New Book shelf at the library and it interested me, but I thought I should read the first one first. I liked the characters and found this very engaging and well-written and led to many discussions about Russian history with Brandon, who went there in the 1980’s.

The Year of Less: How I Stopped Shopping, Gave Away My Belongings, and Discovered Life Is Worth More Than Anything You Can Buy In A Store by Cait Flanders wins the award for book with a title longer than the book itself. The subject matter is pretty self-explanatory – I thought this was okay. It wasn’t what I expected, and was maybe more self-indulgent than it could have been, but it’s nice to read about people coming to the same conclusions about consumption and excess that I am. It’s impressive that Ms. Flanders did so at such a young age and I wish that I’d been as self-aware as she is when I was her age.

obligatory cat picture featuring pot roast!

The Chalk Pit by Elly Griffiths (Ruth Galloway #9) yep, still on the Ruth Galloway kick although I have just one more in the series to read. This one wasn’t as absorbing for me as her previous contributions but I still love Ruth and her friends, colleagues, neighbors and nemeses and have #10 sitting on my desk at home waiting to start.

City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert was also not what I expected. It took me awhile to get caught up in this one, although the time period is interesting, and the characters and the writing in general were well done. I didn’t start to really connect with the story and feel involved until about halfway through, and I’m glad I hung in there, because the main character as a grown woman was more intriguing than her young self. I wished there had been more detail in the second half of the story rather than the first. Set before, during, and after WWII in New York, in a rattletrap theater full of fascinating female characters and few raffish men, this story is somewhat thematically similar to Revolution of Marina M. as it also traces a young woman’s liberation and independence through a charged social & political time, and we share her coming of age as major cultural shifts take place around her.

Big Sky by Kate Atkinson caused me to drop everything else while I was reading it because I LOVE Kate Atkinson and I LOVE Jackson Brodie (and his estranged soulmate Julia). This contribution to Jackson’s arc didn’t appeal to me as much as his past endeavors but I still couldn’t put it down, despite the distasteful plot (spoiler: there is human trafficking). As always, there are several seemingly unrelated threads and characters that wander in and out and then are brought together expertly by Atkinson in the climax. I will always love Jackson and I will always love Kate Atkinson, and it’s a toss up as to which of her book styles I like better – her mysteries or her more experimental themes such as she explored in “God In Ruins” and “Life After Life”. Either way, she is an absolute winner in my book and this one is no different. I look forward to seeing where Jackson goes next.

No audiobooks this month since I was listening mostly to Josh and Chuck on the “Stuff You Should Know” podcast and also our Local 4 WDIV podcast “Shattered” Season 4 about Jimmy Hoffa.

Look forward to checking out everyone else’s reads this month!