May, 2022 Reads

 

 

YTD:  102 Books Read, 1019 Hours Spent
Goal: 100 books and 1500 hours

This Month: 17 Books Read, 190 Hours Spent
 

 

 

 

“I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day. When it’s cold outside, I’ve got the month of May.” – Smokey Robinson

For some strange reason, such as lack of an original thought, I decided to use a quote for the header this month. I found a website offering 100 quotes for me to choose from and started skimming. It was no contest. The background music to my high school years was Beatles and Motown and "My Girl" was top of the charts; they always bring a smile to my heart -- and a worm to my ear.

I can't believe just how quickly May flew by. I spent a good part of the month bingeing on Louise Penny and the rest of the month trying to figure out what I did want to read. My reads took me all over the place -- Canada, Wyoming, London, Japan, Morocco and even Cloud Cuckoo Land. I finished every book I started. I do note, however, that there was absolutely no non-fiction in the mix this month, not even a few lectures from the Egypt series I started back in February. All in all, it was a good month and I am looking forward to June, with absolutely no idea where my reading adventures will be taking me.

 

Favorite reads: The Bartender's Tale & The Lyre of Orpheus
Least favorite: Mrs. Pollifax and the Whirling Dervish & The Library of the Unwritten

 

 

Cards on the Table --  Agatha Christie  --  NEW75
The Thin Man  --  Dashiell Hammett  --  Re-read
The Nature of the Beast  --  Louise Penny  --  NEW76
The Great Reckoning  --  Louise Penny  --  NEW77
Glass Houses  --  Louise Penny  --  NEW78
The Kingdom of the Blind  --  Louise Penny  --  NEW79
A Better Man  --  Louise Penny  --  NEW80
All the Devils Are Here  --  Louise Penny  --  NEW81
The Madness of Crowds  --  Louise Penny  --  NEW82
Mrs. Polifax and the Whirling Dervish  --  Dorothy Gilman  --  NEW83
The Library of the Unwritten  --  A.J. Hackwith  --  NEW84
Cloud Cuckoo Land  --  Anthony Doerr  --  NEW85
The Bartender's Tale  --  Ivan Doig  --  NEW86
The Anodyne Necklace   --  Martha Grimes  --  NEW87
The Cat Who Saved Books  --  Sosuke Natsukawa  --  NEW88
Tales from the Folly  --  Ben Aaronovitch  --  NEW89
The Lyre of Orpheus  --  Robertson Davies  --  NEW90

Taking Out the Trash: May Edition

 

Before I get down to the books, I have a couple of bookish milestones to celebrate:

• At the end of May, I celebrate 20 years as an Audible reader.  I am not holding my breath that Audible will be sending me any sort of congratulatory e-mail.
• This morning, I started book 101 of the year. Seven months left in the year and I am halfway to my goal. If continue to average 20 books per month I will finish the year with an astonishing 240 books. Inconceivable! And highly improbable.
   

 

Best of the Batch

 

 

 

 
What's Bred in the Bone
 
by Robertson Davies
Read by Frederick Davidson
c. 1985
 
 
Thank you to Wanda and other members of the Dead Writers Society for introducing me to this author.
 
What a hoot! Yes it was satire and irreverence but I loved it. This is the kind of storytelling that I want more of,  surgical, without violence but not without tension, with quirky characters who don't spend the book crying in their beer over whatever problems they seem to have.  So, yes, there will be more Robertson Davies in my life.
 
Four stars
 
 
Mrs. Pollifax and the Whirling Dervish
 
by Dorothy Gilman
Read by Barbara Rosenblat
c. 1990
 
I love Mrs. Pollifax. She was old fart fiction before it was a genre. Of course, the whole premise is absurd -- 60-ish widow walks into the CIA asking to be a spy -- but  the stories are a delight to read and to listen to. I read a lot of them when I was still eyeballing books and they are still on my bookshelf (they survived the down-sizing purge).
 
However, Mrs. P and Whirling Dervish was flat, recycled and completely predictable.  It is not the best book in the series.
 
Three stars
 
 
The Library of the Unwritten
 
by A.J. Hackwith
 
This is book one of the Hell's Library series. I added it to my wishlist after reading Elentarri's review of the series.
 
I'm sad to say that this one didn't work for me. I was distracted by other things and the story was very slow to grab me, if it ever did.
 
Three stars
 
 
Cloud Cuckoo Land
 
 

by Anthony Doerr
Read by Marin Ireland and Simon Jones
c. 1921
 
On the other hand, this one grabbed me. I don't usually read 'literary fiction' but this one was recommended by daughter. There were multiple story threads going and it jumped from thread to thread and somehow I managed to keep up with what was happening. It held my attention.  I kept reading because I wanted to see how all of the threads connected and to do that I would have to read the whole book.
 
Four stars and a bit more
 
The Bartender's Tale
 
by Ivan Doig
Read by David Aaron Baker
c. 2012
 
 
Another coming of age story from a master of storytelling.  This is the kind of book I like to read. Books about good people trying to do their best no matter what curveballs life serves them. There will be more Ivan Doig in my future!
 
Four stars
 
The Anodyne Necklace
 
 

by Martha Grimes
Read by Steve West
c. 1983
 
Read it! Enjoy it! You will love the kick in the pants ending.
 
Not quite 4 stars
 
 
 
 
The Cat Who Saved Books
 
 

by Sosuke Natsukawa
Translated from the Japanese by Louise Heal Kawai. c. 1921
Read by Kevin Shen
 
"Empathy. That is the power of books."
 
SRR cat lovers I bought this one for you!
 
I found this one dirt cheaper in the latest Audible sale pile and could not pass it by. I fell in love with the cover.  Then I read the blurb and it was a done deal. The book starts out cute and simple but before you know it, it hits you that it is actually more complicated than you gave it credit for. It is short and thought provoking -- and it features a talking cat.
 
Three and a half stars
 
 
 
Tales from the Folly
 
by Ben Aaronovitch
Read by Ben Aaronovitch , Ben Elliot , Felix Grainger , Kobna Holdbrook-Smith , Sam Peter Jackson , Alex Kingston , Shvorne Marks , Penelope Rawlins
 
I like the Rivers of London series but I wasn't particularly impressed by Ben Aaronovitch's ability to write short stories. It is not his metier. The stories were fun but, except for two, they didn't really bowl me over.  The two I liked were "The Domestic" where he nailed the ending and "The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Granny" because Granny had moxie.
 
Three and a quarter stars.
 
 

The Disappointments

 

 

Chief Inspector Gamache/Three Pines: The Whole Series

 

By Louise Penny
Read by Ralph Cosham (Books 1-10) and Robert Bathurst (Books 11-17)
First book in the series was published in 2005. Book 18 is due for publication at the end of 2022

 

Audible Summary

 

A man of deep intellect, quiet  courage, and integrity, Québec Inspector Armand Gamache defies the  stereotype of a macho cop - brilliantly!

 
Chief Inspector  of the Surêté du Québec, Armand Gamache leads a team of investigators  in the Three Pines, a rural village south of Montreal rich in natural  beauty and eccentric residents. In this idyllic setting, Gamache is  continually challenged with baffling murders that demand the full force  of his deductive erudition, and insight into the individuals involved.  Whether taking place in a monastery, an art gallery, or the forest, each  mystery reveals more layers to the people of Three Pines, as well as  Inspector Gamache, his deputy Jean-Guy Beauvoir, and other series  regulars.

 
Author Louise Penny chose two brilliant narrators  to match her thoughtful detective. Ralph Cosham offers a deep reading of  Inspector Gamache, opening the hero’s mind, heart, and soul for  listeners to experience on a visceral level. As one avid listener  declares: “I don’t think I would ever be able to read Louise Penny’s  books as long as I can listen to the wonder Ralph Cosham narrate, since  he IS Inspector Gamache!” Robert Bathurst, Cosham’s successor after his  death, captures the complex personality of the perceptive Chief  Inspector, emphasizing his humanity, compassion, and wit along with his  erudition. Both narrators excel at character studies of the various  players in each case, from an elderly Anglo librarian to a spirited  nine-year-old boy.

 

"I don't know." "I need help." "I'm sorry." "I was wrong."

When I started reading this series (April, 2020), I was not in a rush to finish the series or even to read the books in order. I did start with book #1 and I fell in love with the book, the writing, the characters and the village of Three Pines.  I slowly started acquiring other entries in the series. Audible has them all but I was hoping to get as many as possible on sale, so it would be a slow, slow process. It became a lot easier when I rejoined the Boston Public Library. But, I was not in a rush because I so enjoyed the books that I had already read.

 

Suddenly, this April, I decided that this was one series that really had to be read in order.  The series has an over-arching storyline that is some ways is more important than the individual murders. So I went back not quite to the beginning and I read them all in order, one after another -- like a bag of M&Ms. And it had to be a binge so that I could keep the storyline fresh in my mind. By the time I reached  Book 17,  The Madness of Crowds, I decided that  I was tired of the hell that the author was putting her MC through. She used the same "Mighty Mouse" plot intrigue over and over again -- you know, "Here I am to save the day" -- to the point where it just no longer was plausible.  Mighty Mouse should have exited the scene with book 10 and after that, she needed to take the Gamache arc in an entirely different direction (just don't ask what it should have been, because if I had that answer, I would spend my time writing books, not reading them). 

I kept reading right through to the end of the series, for a couple of reasons. I like the author's writing style. The whole idea of this Brigadoon-like  village and refuge for injured souls is intriguing.  But, mostly, I think it is the secondary characters that keep me coming back, especially the quirky villagers.  These are people I enjoy spending time with, even if we are in the middle of solving yet another murder that somehow or another involves one or more of these people.

 

All that said, book 18 is due out in November. Still no title and no hint as to who will be narrating but I will be on the library wait-list just as soon as I find out it is taking names.

April, 2022 Reads

 

 

YTD:  85 Books Read, 829 Hours Spent
Goal: 100 books and 1500 hours

This Month: 22 Books Read, 210 Hours Spent
 

 

 

 Another bookishly indulgent month!
 
My ears were very busy this month with lots of mysteries, series and other delights, mostly keeping my brain occupied while I did the million things around the house that had to be done in the first two weeks of April.  I re-read a perennial favorite or two, spent a lot of time with Armand Gamache and his Canadian Brigadoon, found a couple of new authors to explore (Peter Lovesey and Robertson Davies) and suffered through a couple of real bombs, neither of which were the two books I actually marked DNF. I'm looking forward to an equally as fun-filled month of May. 

BEST BOOK OF THE MONTH: What's Bred in the Bone

WoRST BoOK OF THE MoNTH:  Who Thought This was a Good Idea?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Last Detective --  Peter Lovesey  --  NEW58
Murder in Mesopotamia  --  Agatha Christie  --  NEW59
Diamond Solitaire  --  Peter Lovesey  --  NEW60
Under the Covers and Between the Sheets   --  NEW61
Skeleton Hill   --  Peter Lovesey   --  NEW62
Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?  --  Alyssa Mastromonaco  --  NEW63
Upon a Dark Night  --  Peter Lovesey  --  NEW64
The Code Breakers  --  Walter Isaacson  --  NEW65  DNF
A Long Shadow  --  Charles Todd  --  NEW66
A Rule Against Murder  --  Louise Penny  --  Re-read
The Brutal Telling  --  Louise Penny  --  Re-read
Mountain Time   --  Ivan Doig  --  NEW68   DNF
Edward R. Murrow and the Birth of Broadcast Journalism  --  Bob Edwards  --  Re-read
Bury Your Dead  --  Louise Penny  --  NEW69
Silent Voices  --  Ann Cleeves  --  NEW70
10 Lb. Penalty  --  Dick Francis  --  Re-read
The Long Call  --  Ann Cleeves --  Re-read
What's Bred in the Bone  --  Robertson Davies  --  NEW71
A Trick of the Light  --  Louise Penny  --  NEW72
The Beautiful Mystery  --  Louise Penny  --  NEW73
How the Light Gets In  --  Louise Penny  --  NEW74
The Long Way Home  --  Louise Penny  --  NEW75