June 26, 2023 ~ Books &...
THOUGHTS
Not a single one! It has been a relatively quiet week. I've saved it all for a couple of book rants further down the page.
100 DAYS OF SUMMER
Book with a proper name in the title.
Agatha Christie by Lucy Worsley (performed by the author)
Pts: 10 RT: 91 Avg: 6.5
Book by an author born between 1900 and 1940.
Knockdown by Dick Francis (1920-2010)
Pts: 7 RT: 98 Avg.: 6.12
Book set in, or written by an author born in, Australia or Oceania.
Mr. Jelly's Business by Arthur W. Upfield
Pt: 8 RT: 106 Avg: 6.23
Magical realism.
The Miracles of the Namiya General Store by Keigo Higashino
Pt: 2 RT: 108 Avg: 6
Book title includes all of the letters in P-A-T-I-O or D-E-C-K.
The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George
Pt: 4 RT: 112 Avg: 5.8
Book written by an author born in the months of June, July or August.
Interpeter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (born July 11, 1967)
Pts: 12 RT: 124 Avg: 6.2
THE BOOKS
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Kahiri
I finally got around to checking out the work of British-born Bengali-American Jhumpa Lahiri. Loved it. Each story is a little slice of everyday life, the problems we all face. There will definitely be more JL on my reading list.
Four stars
Agatha Christie by Lucy Worsley (read by the author)
I was not impressed by her research, her writing or her reading of the script. Most of the time I thought I was watching one of those TV exposé shows, the kind that makes a big deal out of a lot of nothing. As narrator, she came across as disingenuous, that she was going for the hype, the big reveal that turned out to be nothing and whatever titillation she could find. I didn't like her tone and I didn't like her first person interruptions into the story; it all made me trust her research even less.
Barely 3 stars
Knockdown by Dick Francis
I've been buying Dick Francis novels on Audible since the mid-aughts and I am now one recording shy of all the novels he published through the year 2000 (and not including one novel that I read when it was published and do not wish to revisit ever). It was great to read a Dick Francis that I hadn't read at least 10 times in the last decade. DF remains my number one favorite writer of crime fiction.
Four stars.
Mr. Jelly's Business by Arthur W. Upfield
So much going on here. Set in Australia in the 1930s, featuring a bi-racial main character and rife with all the baggage that these days requires a trigger warning. Many thanks to the publisher for not bowdlerizing this edition. Besides the fact that the mystery is very well done, the last scene in the story is absolutely macabre.
Not quite 4 stars.
The Miracles of the Namiya General Store by Keigo Higashino
The guy is known for his mystery stories not for novels of magical realism and yet here we are. Multiple threads of interconnected stories that neatly braid themselves into a whole. Sorry, no spoilers, no hints, nothing given away. Put this one on your list for a cozy Halloween Bingo read.
The Little Paris Bookstore by Nina George
I can't believe that I actually stuck with this one to the very end. I was not impressed. Slow start. Slow narrator. Slow book. Too much introspection. Nothing new. No surprises. Maudlin. I'm the first to admit that sometimes a book is not about getting there but about what you see along way, but this time, even the scenery was not that enticing.
3 stars at best.
Though surrounded by trees, we live in a city. Not for the first time since moving in, this week we got an e-mail that a bear had been spotted on the condo property. Oh, great! We were told to eliminate all food sources and to take down our bird feeders. We also have bobcats, coyotes, foxes, deer, hawks -- and plenty of rabbits, squirrels, chippies and turkeys to keep them very well fed. I just wonder how long we have to wait for Fozzy Bear to move on.
Book between 250 and 500 pages in length.
Book with a cover image that would make a good post-card or appealing vacation destination.
MikeFinn's recent review of the book prompted a re-read. Oh, my goodness what an ending and what a twisted, twisted story. 
DD walked in today saying that she just finished reading a book I might like. She got the first two words out of her mouth; we had both been reading this very same title probably concurrently. Less sugar, more murder. So much potential in the characters but poorly constructed and executed mystery did not leave me begging for more.
The story behind the building of the dome of Duomo in Florence. Somewhere between ancient Rome and medieval Europe the art and science of the dome with no visible supports was lost. Brunelleschi found them. While the book is full of interesting details about life in Florence, it is not taxing and no knowledge of engineering is need. The dome was built between 1420 and 1436 and is still the largest masonry vault in the world.
It ain't over 'til it's over. This one has as many twists and turns as a bowl of spaghetti. I don't remember what got me started on this series but I am really glad that I did. I hope he keeps writing more Hawthorne & Horowitz stories because I love the main characters and I enjoy the mysteries they get involved in. You do need to read them in order because they refer back to previous key events.
Clickclickclickclick. Another Miss Silver mystery. I just bought a whole bunch of them in the Audible site-wide sale a few weeks ago. I'm getting used to the damned knitting needles. If it weren't for 100 Days of Summer, I think that I would be binge reading the whole stack of new books (37 titles in all). Not much else to say about the series. 
I can't believe that I sat through the whole Tony Awards ceremony just because I wanted to see if Sean Hayes would win a Tony. He did win. Would have loved to have seen him in the role. I used to watch Oscar Levant being interviewed on the talk shows and I knew even at that young age that he was not the ordinary talk show guest. 
20. Collection of short stories.
It was kind of strange reading Book One after having read so many others and I definitely need to go back and read this one again. I am definitely not a fan of the new recordings or at least this particular narrator; too much frou-frou. A different voice for the footnotes is helpful -- but does not make up for a lousy main narrator. 
I fell in love with Peter Lovesey writing on first sight. I can't even remember why I chose the book. Then, just a few months ago, I picked a collection of his short stories and fell in love again. I can't even pinpoint exactly what it is about his stories and his style that grabs me so -- but then again, I have always read with my gut, not my brain. His style reminds me of a short story that I read about 20 years ago, for a class I think. Two page long, where the narrator describes someone breaking into a house for some nefarious reason and in the final sentence we learn that the narrator is the victim. I really must find that story again. Every Lovesey short story ends with a twist.
So much to say about this one. This is the third Yokomizo that I have read. I had no idea whodunit but I don't read these stories for the mystery to be solved as much as I do for the setting, which to me is exotic, as in very different from my own world and in so many, many ways. While I liked the translation, I do have some issues with it -- which are issues based in my own ignorance because I don't speak Japanese and know very, very little about the language. On the one hand, I would have liked something that stuck closer to the Japanese, so that I could get a flavor of the language itself, while on the other, I understand the translator's need to create a tone similar to that of the original writing, which in this case is mass-market, serialized murder mystery, and not Emmanuel Kant. There are so many English idioms in the translation, that I kept wondering what metaphor was used in Japanese to express the same thought. For example, when we are being teased in English, we say "You are pulling my leg" but in Spanish, it is "You are pulling my hair;" so what is it Japanese? But, don't let my crazy fascinations about language lead you astray. It was a good translation. It put the story, tone and setting first.
I liked this one so much that I bought a bunch more in last week's site-wide sale on Audible; they are not available on audio from my library. However, anyone who needs a trigger-warning about outdated attitudes might have trouble with this author. This is also the Agatha Christie Centenary read side read for the quarter and until Audible put it sale, I thought I would be skipping it. So all is good.
This is one of the books in the Akashic Books "Noir" series and of course I can't remember who or how I got pointed in its direction. Had I listened to the introduction before I bought the book, I would not have bought it. This comes across much more noir than I'm likely to enjoy. So for now, it is DNF.
I can't believe that half a year has gone by and I haven't treated myself to a Ngaio Marsh. It was time for a palate cleanser and Inspector Alleyn was just what I was looking for. Delightful spending the day with a house full of actors and a surfeit of ego -- and a delicious murder. Four stars.
The 2022-23 concert and stage season ended on Sunday, or at least it did for us. The ticket drawer is empty for now, waiting to be filled with 2023-2024 delights and surprises. Trinity Rep is ending it's season with Stephen Sondheim's Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and we saw it Sunday afternoon. We saw it on Broadway 40 years ago with Angela Lansbury and Lou Cariou and really loved it.
94. Book that you checked out or borrowed.
2. Book set in a location that you would like to go on vacation.
18. Book that involves a road trip or other travel.
At last! I have been wanting to read this one for a long time but had trouble finding it on audio. Audible recently published a Tey containing all 6 of the Alan Grant series plus Miss Pym and Brat Farrar. I spent the credit solely to get my hands on Miss Pym. While the setting, an English girls' boarding school, was interesting in a Gaudy Night sort of way, I was not enamored of Miss Pym taking justice into her own hands. 
A romp through British murder both fiction and non-. Just the right length -- long enough to cover the subject, short enough to keep your attention. Looking forward to what she has to say about Aggie.
I read it but I can't remember anything about it.
OMG! I cannot wait to read the rest of the series! Set in Australia in the early 30s, between the World Wars. I don't know how much of the background to this historical novel is true but it was certainly food for thought, especially in light of what is going on in US politics today. Highly recommended. 
I LOVE THIS BOOK!!! This is one of my favorites by the author. I picked it up because I wanted something familiar to read that I did not have to rewind each night because I knew the story well enough to know what I had missed while I was sound asleep. A tale of 4 WWII veterans, a tale ahead of its time, The Chequer Board is four stories woven into one. 
I am going to have to re-read this one later in the month. I can't remember a thing about it and I just finished it.