As always, joining up with our hosts Life According to Steph and Jana Says for this link up!

Before the Stay Home Stay Safe order came down, I rushed to the library to stock up on books. There was a reserve waiting for me, but nothing I wanted in New Arrivals (it was my first experience with a shelf picked bare due to quarantine) so I stormed the Mystery section and pulled several titles off the shelves. Fortunately, I enjoyed all of them, and I present:

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow – a young girl in the early 1900’s embarks on a fantastic journey via a strange book and a series of magical doors to find her family and her own identity. Despite the promising premise, I would say this just passed the time for me. It had some shiny moments but ultimately fell flat.

The Return (Inspector Van Veeteren #3) by Hakan Nesser. (modeled by Sarge in the pic above.) Love a good gloomy Nordic mystery. When kids find a headless, legless, footless corpse (always a great set up), Inspector Van Veeteren, scheduled for surgery, becomes embroiled. Told in many flashbacks as the Inspector comes to suspect that a notorious double murderer may actually have been innocent. Not the best Van Veeteren I’ve read but it was solid.

The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware. A girl seeking a new opportunity answers an ad for a live-in nanny position. Suspense ensues. Gah. I can usually tolerate Ruth Ware but this one felt like a slog. The twist felt completely unbelievable and the ending was irritating.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (Flavia de Luce #1) by Alan Bradley. In the summer of 1950, precocious chemist and amateur investigator Flavia de Luce – age 11 – stumbles across a series of alarming events, including a man breathing his last in the cucumber patch. Flavia sets out to solve the crime and vindicate her father AND torment her older sisters. Although this series could get overly saccharine, I liked this book a lot and found it a great antidote to quarantine. I’d love to see Flavia as a young adult.

A Bitter Truth and A Casualty of War (Bess Crawfords #3 and #9), by Charles Todd – I’m reviewing these together because no need to go into a lot of detail on the plot points. A WWI nurse from a good family solves crimes against the backdrop of the war. Enjoyed – I like Bess as a heroine and that time period is very interesting to me, the plots were a little more forgettable.

The Ship of Brides by JoJo Moyes. Now that I’ve plowed through the library hoard, I’m falling back on Kindle deals. Never read anything by JoJo Moyes but got sucked into this one, set in 1946, about a bunch of Australian brides sailing to England on a decommissioned war ship to meet the men they wed in wartime. I liked the characters and the descriptions of them taking over the war ship like a raging bunch of old-timey sorority girls.

And that’s my offering for this April Tuesday, still in quarantine. Take what you’d like and leave the rest. I look forward to seeing what you’ve all been reading during this crazy month. Be well and see you next month. xo

It feels like I’ve had a lot of books in the fire this month (that was a strange half-metaphor that I should probably go back and delete and reword but I’m guessing you guys know what I mean) but my stats are disappointingly low when I go back to recap. Never mind. There were a couple of good ones that I can’t wait to tell you about!

The Chestnut Man by Søren Sveistrup was a Nordic thriller and I love a good Nordic thriller especially in the middle of winter. Sveistrup is the man behind the Danish show “The Killing” – I didn’t watch the Danish original, but I really enjoyed the American version starring Mireille Enos and Joel Kinnaman. Chestnut Man follows two seemingly mismatched detectives tracking a serial killer and although I didn’t like it quite as much as other thrillers I’ve read, I was hooked until the big reveal at the end (which I didn’t see coming). I would definitely read more by this author about these characters.

The Dark Angel by Elly Griffiths – yes, yes, another Ruth Galloway mystery but now I’m caught up in the series with no more to read or write about until there’s a new offering. In this most recent, Ruth takes a trip to Italy to help consult with a colleague about some Roman remains (and temporarily escape her complicated relationship with local police officer DCI Nelson who is her daughter Kate’s father). As always, the mix of history, archaeology, a charming protagonist in Dr Ruth Galloway, and a thorny love story makes this series a total winner in my book.

The Five by Hallie Rubenhold is my starred review this month. I confess to being a bit of a Ripperologist so when I bought this on my Kindle I thought I was in for another assessment of Jack and yet another opinion on his identity. However, Jack the Ripper is really a marginal character, as much as he can be – the book is an intensely researched, thorough, and sympathetic deep dive into the lives of his canonical five victims. These women are rarely considered, but reading about their tragic lives in Victorian England and how they have been viewed (and disparaged) made me realize they aren’t simply the victims of a deranged serial killer, they are truly victims of the society in which they were born women. Rubenhold reconstructs the terrible reality of misogyny, poverty, domestic abuse and addiction that these women experienced, in most cases trying to take care of an ever-growing number of children (see below) on paltry earnings. It can be no surprise that these demands resulted in alcoholism, divorce or death, and left them and their children at risk, in and out of slums and workhouses. Although the press coverage (both then and now) describes them as prostitutes, except for one, they were not in fact sex workers by trade. What they were was poor, abused, homeless, and addicted. History has done these women a grievous disservice and Rubenhold’s book is a long overdue revelation about our collective instinct to blame and forget the victim while turning the perpetrator into a celebrity.

“A woman’s entire function was to support men, and if the roles of their male family members were to support the roles and needs of men wealthier than them, then the women at the bottom were driven like piles deeper and harder into the ground in order to bear the weight of everyone else’s demands. A woman’s role was to produce children and to raise them, but because rudimentary contraception and published information about birth control was made virtually unavailable to the poor, they…had no real means of managing the size of their families or preventing an inevitable backslide into financial hardship. The inability to break this cycle – and to better their own prospects and those of their children – would have been soul crushing, but borne with resignation.” – Hallie Rubenhold, “The Five”

Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again by Rachel Held Evans may have been my starred review if I hadn’t read The Five. Brandon and I have divergent belief systems – he is a committed Christian and I am an agnostic – and we frequently discuss the nature of faith. I am perplexed by his ability to see the Bible as a sacred text and believe, unquestioningly, in it (at least, the New Testament); he is perplexed and somewhat sad that I can’t, although he is very non-judgmental. This book really brought me closer to understanding the upside of Christianity. Rachel Held Evans was born into a conservative Christian family but left the evangelical church after years of struggling with what she saw as its exclusionary and judgemental views. The very reasons that she left the church are the reasons why I am not a Christian. Sadly, Ms. Evans died at age 37 from illness but left behind several works questioning and researching Christianity. From the New York Times: “Her congregation was online, and her Twitter feed became her church, a gathering place for thousands to question, find safety in their doubts and learn to believe in new ways. Her work became the hub for a diaspora. She brought together once-disparate progressive, post-evangelical groups and hosted conferences to try to include nonwhite and sexual minorities, many of whom felt ostracized by the churches of their youth. She wrote four popular books, which wrestled with evangelicalism and the patriarchy of her conservative Christian upbringing, and documented her transition to a mainline Christian identity, which moved away from biblical literalism toward affirmation of L.G.B.T. people.”

And this month I have a bonus audiobook- The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. I read a lot of criticism about this book, with many reviewers disliking it as meandering and incomprehensible and at worst, pointless. While I don’t think I totally understood it all, and it could have benefited from some editing, I enjoyed listening to it. Her writing is so detailed and the worlds she builds so compelling that I could see myself in every scene even if it was a dollhouse full of bees the size of cats on a sea of confetti. I wish there could have been more from my favorite character Kat – knitter, secret-diary-writer – but all in all it made my dark wintry commutes fly by.

Whew!! Kind of a deep SUYB this month but all good stuff. Can’t wait to see what you’ve gotten into!

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!

I can’t believe we are already here for Show Us Your Books! In between Thanksgiving preparations, a quick work trip to Indiana, knitting and soap making, I had a solid month of reading and am pleased to share at least one recommendation from a fellow reader and linker from last month!

There’s no bad season for reading, but we are fast approaching what I consider to be THE BEST SEASON for reading – when you can do it in front of a fireplace, with a blankie, and your choice of beverage.

To support my claim that this time is nigh upon us, I present two pieces of evidence:

Submission 1: First Snow (in southeast Michigan at least)

Submission 2: Happy Cat Feet from Nap-Drunk Cat During First Snow Fall

And now on to the books!

I didn’t get as much reading done this month as I usually do, but that’s primarily because I started the month with a nonfiction selection (which usually takes me a bit longer).

The Castle on Sunset: Life, Death, Love, Art, and Scandal at Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont by Shawn Levy was, if you are interested in old Hollywood, an interesting history of one of the most famous hotels in the US. I’ve listened to all of Karina Longworth’s “You Must Remember This” podcast (which I can highly recommend) so this book was a fun read, apart from where it occasionally bogged down in (albeit necessary) details about real estate and construction.

Knitlandia & A Stash of One’s Own, both by Clara Parkes, were, as the titles may suggest, books about knitting – the first, Ms Parkes’ personal essays about her travels for knitting (as someone who has written six books about it and also founded a popular online knitting magazine). I liked Knitlandia and I loved the descriptions of the conventions and fiber festivals, as well as her love of finding a good bowl of pho wherever she travels. Reading these probably did nothing to speed up my overall reading for the month because I kept wanting to pick up knitting projects while I was reading.

I continue to devour The Ruth Galloway Series by Elly Griffiths and this month rampaged up through #8. The character continues to develop and the cast of friends, family, and colleagues expands and deepens – I keep reading not just for the cool mystery themes (plots and subplots include druids, King Arthur’s remains, threats made against women priests, excavated WWII planes, Victorian child killers and visions of the Virgin Mary, among others – and let’s not forget the most captivating subplot of all – Ruth’s relationship with DCI Nelson and the child they had out of wedlock). I still have not gotten bored or slowed down and every one I read just makes me want to read the next.

Lastly, my favorite read of October was The Book of Dust by Philip Pullman. I read the His Dark Materials trilogy years ago and really enjoyed it (didn’t love the Daniel Craig / Nicole Kidman film so much, but I see they’re making another go of it on HBO). I liked Dust even better. I found Malcolm, the main character, to be endearing and the plot was quick moving and adventurous – as a prequel to the Golden Compass, it answered questions from Dark Materials and seeing many of the characters before the dark clouds of Dark Materials begin to form was fun – like old friends. I picked up the second in the trilogy in hard cover at one of my fave bookshops – Horizon Books – when I was on holiday up there at my folks’ house, but haven’t cracked it yet. I would guess, though, that it will show up in my next installment of Show Us Your Books.

As one last note, on the topic of books and bookstores, my one regret about my Savannah trip was missing out when Brandon and his dad went to a bookshop near our flat – E Shaver Books. It looked so charming from the outside but I was simply too tired to walk there. There are apparently three resident cats!! Which hearkens me to my favorite used bookstore of all time, The Haunted Bookshop of Iowa City, where I got to pet the two resident cat managers (one of whom was NOT thrilled by the attention).

Until next time, I look forward to checking out the recommendations from others in the meetup, and feel free to comment with your favorite recent reads!