Monday, November 27, 2023 ~~ Books and More
THOUGHTS
I miss our big, annual family and friends Thanksgiving gathering. We had our last family Thanksgiving in 2019 and didn't even know it would be our last. What I don't miss is the drive home and back in the holiday traffic! Barely on the highway and a voice from the back seat is already asking, "are we there yet?" No idea how hubby ended up in the back seat. We made that awful 'Boston to Philadelphia straight through NYC' drive for 40 years. I don't miss it. I just miss the fun part of being home with the family and I miss that my grandson is not learning the joy of extended family.
TICKETS
Nothing until December 17.
THE BOOKS
Starting with this week's books. I'm ending the year with a quest to level Mt. TBR -- so I can buy more books. Looks like November will be a record setting month, even if it has been a feast of "necessary roughage." My record month was April, 2020, when I read 28 books and I'm already into book 28 with 4 more reading days to go.
Field of Thirteen by Dick Francis
A lovely but mixed bag of short stories from one of my favorite authors. Each story was prefaced with why it was written and who had commissioned it. They span almost his entire career.
3.5 stars
Evan's Gate by Rhys Bowen
Evan Blessed by Rhys Bowen
Evanly Bodies by Rhys Bowen
Finishing the series and leveling TBR. I'm sorry this is the end but she stopped writing the series when she started the "Her Royal Spyness" series. Definitely filed under "necessary roughage" but still a well written, well crafted cozy series.
On average, 3.5 stars
Great Courses: 10 Big Questions of the American Civil War by Caroline Janney
American History Lite -- or so I thought as I started the lecture series. Turns out I was wrong. In barely four hours, Janney gives us a birds-eye view of the Civil War (a war that, imo, continues to be fought today, 168 years later). She covers the big issues of why the war was fought and its lasting effects on our nation (conscription, income taxes, women's rights to name a few). She doesn't take sides and she doesn't apologize; she just explains the war in over-arching terms -- something I really needed. This is not about the battles and war strategy. It doesn't cover the big what-ifs.
3.75 stars
The Alchemist of Fire and Fortune by Gigi Pandian
The Alchemist of Riddle and Ruin by Gigi Pandian
Continuing to hack away at Mt. TBR. I started the series in 2015 and have been reading it in fits and starts. The first few books were definitely better and I will continue to read as long as I can get the books for free. I also tried the author's Jaya Jones series but walked away after 3 books.
3.25 stars
ENDNOTE
Well, so much for leveling Mt. TBR. Audible's site-wide sale started early Sunday morning and I've added 22 books so far (all stuff I can't get at the library and all less than $5, my self-imposed limit).
Thanksgiving turkey. Thanksgiving casseroles. Thanksgiving meat balls. Thanksgiving football. Thanksgiving shopping. Thanksgiving cooking. Black Friday. Thanksgiving leftovers!
Chicago came to town Tuesday night and we got tickets. Have loved the band for years now but the concert was a bust. We were never ones for rock concerts, so why we thought this one would be any different, I have no idea. It was just too loud -- even my husband was complaining.
Actually from last week's reads. Another interesting outing with Australian detective Napoleon 'Boney' Bonaparte. A dying lake is about to divulge its secrets. 
I love Professor Ellis. I can understand what he is saying and he doesn't get lost in the minutiae. His field is American History, particularly The Revolutionary War and the writing of the US Constitution. He knows the plays and the players and he is very good at writing books that focus on smaller pieces of the puzzle rather than trying to write the whole history in one go. The theme of this book is the how and why we end up with a single nation and not the loose confederation of states that was actually envisioned by the gentlemen sitting in congress in Philadelphia in 1776 and agreed to in the Articles of Confederation. The Quartet refers to and focuses on the 4 men who worked the hardest to promulgate the constitution and shepherd the former colonies into nationhood-- James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and George Washington. 
Color me a little disappointed. Enjoyable but not quite as satisfying as the first two of the series. Still, I will continue with this author.
To read the newly-released Arcadia, I had to go back and re-read the first two (because I did not remember them at all after 5 years). The two day binge was most enjoyable. Grainger is good at damaged main characters, strong-minded characters who have walked through Hell, bear the scars yet remain undaunted. Nonetheless, while Summer Lane is a compelling character, I think that Grainger has done a better job with the DC Smith series; the stories are stronger, the writing is edgier.
From the moment I read Leah's review and the publisher's blurb, I was curious but dubious; is this my kind of book? Still I put it on my wish list and then on hold at the library in hopes I might get it before the end of Halloween Bingo (didn't happen -- and how would I have fit it onto my card?). Even after I had the book in hand, I was still harboring doubts. And then I started the book and with the first sentence it was, "Oh, my! this is new territory; we have never read a book like this before. I hope it holds up to the promise it has just made." The author had just cannonballed into the middle of the story. No slow build up; no explanations. Just bang, this is it, hang on to your hat.
I can't say why but I have always been a bit fascinated by the idea of the great epic poems, literature that began its life not as the work of one person but as the creative output of a community singing its stories to life over generations. Before mankind could write things down, we told stories and we sang songs. (Strange to think that maybe we came hard-wired to be storytellers**). Anyhow, the book is actually a biography of an early 20th century classical lit scholar by the name of Milman Parry. He died tragically at the age of 33 but in his short life he was able to set the world of classical scholarship on its end by setting out to show that The Illiad and The Odyessy were not the work of one man known as Homer but the product of a pre-literate (i.e. before writing) custom of storytelling and song. Parry died before he could prove his point but others took up his baton. By the time I met the Homeric epics in the 1960s, they were already teaching us that Homer was not the author. So, this is the biography of Parry, of his scholarship and how his insights were preserved and explored after his death. 
Yes, I'm having a bit of a JJE festival -- but only because the Audible was sale was a 2 for 1 credit sale and this is the other book I bought and because I am trying to read all of the books in the Audible library TBR. I am amazed at how many times he can tell the same stories about the same events, each time coming at the same set of facts from a slightly different point of view, shedding new light and new insight on old stories.
DD1 moves in Thursday night and will be here until the end of the year, her annual visit while she works "A Christmas Carol" at the local theater (and her day job as well!). All the stuff that I rescued from my parents' apartment when they moved in March went into her room. I'm halfway through re-arranging the deck chairs. The bed is clear. I've set up a scanning station outside the upstairs bedroom to start scanning rescued photos and documents; a lot of boxes are now tucked under the table. Other boxes have been stacked higher to clear floor space in the bedroom. A bit more and the room will be ready for her.
I've decided that it's time to clean up my Audible TBR and read all of those books I bought. Upfield is on the list. As I said last week, he just keeps getting better and better. Why must murder wait? Because Boney was sent there to investigate a series of baby-snatchings and while that there is any hope that the infants are still alive, the murders connected to those snatching must wait until the babies are found. 
Poor Maigret! Finally takes a holiday and his wife ends up in hospital recuperating from an appendicitis. In those days, the nuns ran most of the hospitals in the smaller towns. In those days recuperation was slow; they didn't let you out of bed for a week. Not like today when they get you up and walking as soon as possible. In those days it wards with rows of beds with a few double rooms and even fewer private rooms. Poor Maigret! He was allowed to visit his missus once a day for half an hour. Hell of a way to spend one's holiday. Until one of the nursing sisters gives Maigret a note urging him to start asking questions about the death of one of the patients. Poor Maigret, no more. 
This one has been on hold since August 23. On Monday, it turned up as an Audible Daily Deal. With another few months to wait at the library, I snatched it up dirt cheap.
OMG! What an unlikeable, self-centered, self-important, self-deluded, short-sighted, fuddy-duddy of a main character. One of those early 20th century colonial types who thought that the sun shone out of his own ass but who, in truth, couldn't even see the world beyond the end of his nose. And Ishiguro chose to hang his whole book on this guy?? Well, he did and he had me listening right through to the very last page. Usually I don't have the patience to read about such obnoxious people. 
Please, Audible, stop lumping Patricia Wentworth in the cozies. Her work is too old to be considered part of the more recently carved out genre of "Cozy Mysteries." Wentworth is pure Golden Age.
I needed something light and dependable. I took a gander at the cover and couldn't pass it up. Don't let the cover fool you; this one is set in summer with no holiday connections at all.
I decided I need to read some Sir Terry and this one arrived in my "mind like the unexpected limbo dancer under the lavatory door of life." I didn't want to choose one I hadn't read already and I decided that I'm not a huge fan of the newly released recordings. So, I happily settled with what I think may be my favorite of them all.
Now that I set up a "scanning station" I ought to be scanning and not playing computer games -- in between cleaning out the bedroom for DD1's annual 6 week visit, which I also ought to be doing!
