2010: My Reading Year in Review

I love to take some time in December or January to look back and think about the past 12 months. That includes the books I've read over the past year. 2010 was a particularly good year for me, readingwise. I'm not thinking of numbers (although I did read over 90 books this year! which may be a record for me) but in terms of quality and enjoyment.

For some reason, I really made an effort to expand the type of books I read this year; instead of mostly escapist mystery novels, I read lots more fiction (contemporary & classic), some memoirs, nonfiction, even some science fiction/fantasy stuff....and I found that reading a wider variety made me enjoy everything more. Note to self: don't get stuck in a rut.

I also made an attempt to read some of the books that I'd been meaning to read for a while but never did, for no apparent reason. Again, I found this very satisfying. The vast majority of them were books I really enjoyed -- books like My Antonia, Cold Comfort Farm, Wolf Hall, and Fahrenheit 451, to name a few. (Interestingly, a few that I thought I'd enjoy -- The Time Traveller's Wife, and The Glass Castle come to mind -- left me cold. You never know.) Note to self: stop procrastinating.

I also learned to keep an open mind about books that I didn't think I'd like. The Hunger Games trilogy comes to mind; I really didn't find the premise of the books appealing, but once I started them, I raced through them and heartily enjoyed them. Ditto for The Graveyard Book and Olive Kitteridge. Note to self: don't judge a book by its cover.

One development which I enjoyed a great deal was bookswapping with Elvis, my thirteen-year-old. When his English class read The Outsiders, I decided to read it myself on a whim. It was excellent, and it was fun to have that point of commonality with my kid. He read The Graveyard Book and highly recommended it, and I loved it, so when he assured me that The Hunger Games wasn't too bloodthirsty for me, I followed his advice and, again, really enjoyed it. Note to self: the kid's got good taste in books.

Having had such a good book year, and being the kind of person who thinks too much, I started wondering what influenced me to pick this crop of books to read, and to finish and enjoy so many of them. I got a Kindle for Christmas last year, and perhaps the novelty of reading books on it gave my reading a kickstart; I also believe that being part of the Amazon Vine program (where Amazon sends you free advance reader's copies in exchange for doing reviews of the book on its site) gave me the luxury of picking books that I might not have purchased for myself (i.e., books by authors I wasn't familiar with, or with topics/plots I wasn't sure I'd get into). Finally, I think that belonging to Goodreads.com helped. It provided lots of suggestions for books from friends, and keeping public track of what I was reading encouraged me to stick with books and finish them (unless I absolutely loathed them). Who knows: maybe knowing that other people would see what I read also provided a subconscious boost to expand my reading choices.

We're well into January now, and I'm keeping the lessons I learned last year in mind as I pick books to dive into. Just this week, in fact, I read a young adult novel that my kid read and liked, on his recommendation -- and once again, I heartily enjoyed it.

Here's to another year of good reading. I'll keep doing my monthly book reports and I hope you'll keep chiming in with your opinions, suggestions and recommendations.

December Book Report

It was a slow finish to the year, so I've got only a couple of titles to report for December. First up was Mr. Toppit by Charles Elton, which I received from the Amazon Vine program. The novel has an interesting premise: "Mr. Toppit" is a character in a series of children's books written by Arthur Hayman. The books didn't become popular until after Arthur's sudden death -- after which, through a series of odd coincidences, they became a sensation in the UK and USA. The book is written from the perspective of Hayman's son Luke, for whom the protagonist in the books was named. Luke has an uneasy relationship with his father's fame and legacy. The book explores how the success and fame that ensue after Arthur's death affect his widow and two children -- as well as other people more or less tangential in Arthur's life. Elton also addresses issues like the LA celebrity scene, the publishing world, family secrets & dysfunction, substance abuse and more. But the tone is darkly comic and there are all sorts of quirky characters to keep the reader amused. I have since read that Elton was inspired to write the book when he represented the A.A. Milne estate:

Fifteen years ago I began writing Mr. Toppit when I was a literary agent representing the estate of A.A. Milne, author of Winnie-the-Pooh. I learned the story of Milne’s son, Christopher Robin Milne, who grew to hate the fame his father's books brought him. To reshape that idea in a modern context was the single idea that was the genesis of my novel.

During the years I spent writing, another phenomenon occurred in the world of children's book publishing that made Winnie-the-Pooh's fame seem parochial: Harry Potter. Suddenly, my idea of a modern series of children's stories that take over the world did not seem so far-fetched. What had originally been conceived as a small story about my boy hero, Luke Hayman, suddenly made famous by his dead father's books widened into both an examination of the mechanics of fame and a strange journey towards a literary tipping point that has devastating consequences for the characters in my book.

(from Amazon.com's website)

The second book I read was graciously lent to me by Ms. Kathy M.: The Truth-Teller's Lie, by Sophie Hannah. This was a combination of psychological suspense (think Ruth Rendell) combined with a police procedural. The chapters alternate between the first-person account of a woman who is a rape victim, and reports her married lover missing when he breaks all contact with her and disappears; and the third-person account of the police detectives investigating her missing-persons report. It's hard to review this one without giving too much away, but I thought the first-person chapters didn't work as well as the third-person ones, although it was a suspenseful and creepy tale.

Last was Gone to Ground by John Harvey, in which a Cambridge lecturer is found murdered in his house. At the time of his death, he was working on a biography of a 50s movie star, but it isn't at all clear that this has anything to do with his murder. This was a decent mystery, but not as well-done as some other John Harvey books I've read.

Since it's been a bit crazy here, with the end of the holidays, the kids home on break and some knitting deadlines approaching, I'm unlikely to read much more before the New Year, but I'll do a year-end summary soon, along with some reading resolutions for 2011. As always, please leave your suggestions or comments -- I try to respond to them in the comments section.

Check out the WEBS podcast, Ready Set Knit, this weekend, as I join Kathy and Steve to opine about 2010: The Knitting (and Crochet) Year That Was....

November Book Report

We are careening through December and that means it's time for the penultimate book report of the year. Here's what I read:

Faithful Place by Tana French. I discovered Tana French a few years ago; she's an Irish writer and I really liked her last two mysteries. "Faithful Place" was another enjoyable read. Once I got past the rather unlikely premise (in which a detective basically abandons his current life to immerse himself in the dysfunctional family he's estranged from once the suitcase of a high school girlfriend is found, suggesting she was murdered) I got into the mystery, the characters and the setting. I think this writer has special resonance for me since her characters came of age in the 80s, right around the time that I did.

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption* by Laura Hillebrand. Hillebrand previously wrote the very successful story of Seabiscuit. While researching the Seabiscuit story, she encountered references to a man named Louis Zamperini, and telling his remarkable story became her next nonfiction project. Zamperini's life is nearly unbelievable and fascinating on so many levels. He grew up in California as, well, pretty much a juvenile delinquent, taking up smoking at age 3 and drinking in elementary school, followed by all sorts of theft and mayhem. He turned his life around in high school, channeling his energy into becoming a world-class runner. He ended up qualifying for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin along with Jesse Owens. His athletic career was interrupted by World War II, and Zamperini became a pilot flying missions in the Pacific. His already-colorful life took an unbelievable turn when he was shot down over the Pacific. He survived over 40 days on a flimsy raft floating on the ocean, and this part of his story will leave you amazed at the human instinct for survival as he and his companions fought off sharks, dodged Japanese snipers and ate raw birds and fish -- only to wash up on the shores of a Japanese-occupied island. The next chapter of Zamperini's story is equally remarkable as he and his fellow POWs struggled to stay alive and to keep even a scrap of human dignity while being treated abominably by their captors.

Zamperini's story is amazing, inspiring, and often heartbreaking but never boring. A terrific read in which you feel like you have to keep reading to find out what happens next even as you dread hearing what happens next.

More Than You Know by Beth Gutcheon. I stumbled across this novel, and really liked it. It shifts back and forth between the stories of two young couples with doomed romances, set in Maine. Elderly Hannah reminisces about the summer she fell in love with the unsuitable but charming Conary, while the story of Claris --a young woman from the 1850s who defied her family to marry a neighboring man -- is interspersed and provides stark parallels, as well as supernatural ties to the present. Ghostly and suspenseful.

An Academic Question by Barbara Pym. This was a less typical Pym novel, since it was not really finished by the author and was cobbled together after her death by combining two existing versions of the manuscript, but I still found it a very enjoyable look at 1970s British academia.

The Last Will of Moira Leahy by Therese Walsh. Another book I stumbled over, this is also set in Maine and tells the story of twins Moira and Maeve. As the book opens, Moira is a professor at a small New York college. She discovers an antique dagger which is the catalyst for all sorts of strange things that happen in her life: anonymous notes on her office door, a spur-of-the-moment trip to Rome, and most significantly the unleashing of Moira's buried memories about her past. Another ghostly and suspenseful book that I enjoyed reading.

Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian* I wanted to like this memoir, written by a young Harvard grad who becomes librarian at a Massachusetts prison, but after a hundred pages or so, I bailed. I thought the book was slow and needed some ruthless editing, but I also just didn't take to the author's voice. I found him self-indulgent and self-pitying, and his attitude toward those around him, both prisoners and others in his life, was rather condescending. Your mileage may vary.

Hunger Games Trilogy Boxset I resisted picking up "The Hunger Games" for a long time, finding the subject matter -- a dystopian North American country that represses dissent and subjugates its people in part by conducting annual games in which teenage children from each province fight to the death -- so dark and violent that I wasn't sure I'd want to read it. But so many people have recommended this to me that I was wavering. Until my middle-schooler read the first book of the trilogy and really liked it. So as he began the second installment, "Catching Fire," I started "The Hunger Games." I wasn't prepared for how quickly the book would suck me in, or the imaginative power of the world the author creates. Although the subject matter is violent, it's presented not gratuitously, but as a lesson against oppression and brutality. My kid raced through the second and third books and I wasn't far behind. A terrific, brilliantly-imagined, vivid set of books that had me captivated.

Pastiche

P.S. If you're more in the mood for yarn than books, I just updated the BBF website with some glorious cashmerino yarn in a DK weight.

Gold Leaf

One skein will make a hat with plenty leftover; two would be a beautiful scarf or baby jacket. . .

Seraglio

* means I got a free review copy of the book from the Amazon Vine program.

October Book Report

Another month rushes by; here's what I read.

The Countess by Rebecca Johns. This was a free review copy from the Amazon Vine program, and I probably wouldn't have read the book if I hadn't come across it that way. The book is a fictionalized biography of an actual historical figure, a 16th century Hungarian countess named Erzebet Bathory. Bathory was the daughter of a prominent and wealthy family who married another Hungarian royal. After she was widowed, she continued to control her husband's property but over time rumors began to swirl that she was systematically abusing and killing young girls -- maids, housekeepers, cooks -- in her employ. There is some question whether she actually did all the horrible things she was accused of, or whether she was the victim of a kind of conspiracy on the part of other nobles to steal her property and wealth. I had mixed feelings about the book. It definitely fell into the historical fiction category rather than the biography category, and because it was written from the perspective of Bathory herself, it didn't do a great job of giving any objective sense of the backstory, so that at the end, I didn't have any feel for whether Bathory really was a kind of serial killer or whether she was the victim of men greedy for her riches.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. I had never read this, considered one of the classics of post-war literature, but I'm really glad I finally got to it. I don't gravitate toward dystopian books, maybe because I feel they have the potential for looking like a rejected script of a Twilight Zone episode, and not many authors have the ability to transcend that. But Bradbury does, and his vision of a post-USA North America is chilling -- for me, especially chilling because there are so many parallels with today's mass culture. Bradbury imagines a world where people watch reality shows on huge tee-vee screens, where literature and ideas are outmoded because they are just too hard to think about. (Sound familiar?) His protagonist, Guy Montag, is a bookburner: his job is to respond to reports of books, report to the scene and use a flamethrower to burn up all the books. But one day, Montag has the urge to read what's inside one of the books he's burning. His actions lead to a series of consequences that will change his life forever.

Dark Road to Darjeeling by Deanna Raybourn, was the latest entry in the lightweight but enjoyable Lady Julia Grey mystery series. This installment sees Lady Julia at the end of her honeymoon, traveling to India to take a closer look at the death of an old friend's husband: was it murder? I enjoyed this one, especially after the previous two books I read this month, which were a bit on the grim side.

Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff. Another free advance reader's copy from Amazon, this is a biography of the famed Egyptian monarch. Although there were times when the reading got a bit bogged down in detail, Cleopatra's story is fascinating reading. Schiff does a good job mythbusting, too.

Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett. I guess I'm in a noir mood, because this is a mystery from the master of noir detective fiction. I'd never read Hammett before, but I can see why his spare, staccato style is considered groundbreaking. A good mystery, and the slang and culture is so dated (i.e., the detective gets "slugged in the noodle") that it ends up being amusing. I will look for more Hammett.

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. It's interesting; of all the "classics" or "great books" I've read this past year, I would guess that I really liked about 80 or 90 percent of them. This, however, was one I wasn't crazy about. The book is, loosely, focused on the life of Billy Pilgrim, travelling back and forth through time as he lives or relives various episodes of his life. The book includes both realistic, gritty memories of Billy's time in Dresden in WW2, but also fantastic ones, like his kidnapping by space aliens who take Billy to their planet and put him in a zoo. I definitely see why this is considered a classic of absurdist fiction, a powerful anti-war book and a satire on American (human?) culture, and it went fast. But it just didn't capture me and draw me in. Which is fine; I'm glad I read it, although I suspect I will not pick up another Vonnegut for quite a while.

Tug of War by Barbara Cleverly. After Vonnegut, I wanted a book I knew I'd probably like, that was easy to read. "Tug of War" is another installment in the Joe Sandilands mystery series that I've been reading. Sandilands is a Scotland Yard commander who, in this episode, is sent to French wine country to help with a curious case of amnesia. A WW1 solder has been repatriated, but has no memory of who is he and is in a kind of catatonic state. Because under French law, the soldier (or more accurately here, his next-of-kin) is entitled to a handsome pension, several different families lay claim to him. Sandilands is sent to assist the French police in determining the soldier's true identity, and uncovers an old murder in the process. It was a good read and hit the spot.

What are you reading? Anything good lately? Chime in on the comments.

September Book Report

And another month flies by. Here's what I read:

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann, was an interesting look at a British explorer named Percy Fawcett who made extensive trips mapping the Amazon of South America. Fawcett was a colorful character, and at the age of 57 -- a bit old for the physical hardships of trekking into the jungle in 1925 -- he began what would be his last expedition: a search for a lost city of gold that he was convinced lay hidden in the rainforest. Fawcett sent bulletins updating his family (and the public) on his progress, but then one day, the bulletins stopped coming. Fawcett was such a larger-than-life figure and had survived many dangerous treks before, so it was some time before his family and friends began to truly worry. He was never seen again, and exactly what happened to him remained a mystery.

Fawcett's disappearance led many subsequent explorers to attempt to follow his trail and either "rescue" him or discover exactly what happened to his expedition. None were successful, and over time, many others disappeared too. "The Lost City of X" is the attempt by the author, a New Yorker writer, to follow in Fawcett's footsteps and conclusively answer the questions surrounding Fawcett's disappearance.

I enjoyed reading this book, not the least because I knew nothing about Fawcett, and am completely ignorant about trekking through the Amazon. Grann alternates in the book between telling Fawcett's story and telling of Grann's own journey in Fawcett's footsteps. An interesting read, especially if you are interested in explorers, the Amazon, or man-against-nature struggles in general.

A few weeks ago, my oldest kid was looking for some new books to read. He was flying through the Lemony Snicket series and wanted some other books to intersperse with the various books in the Snicket series. He'd read many of the books I remembered loving as a kid, although some of them were less appealing to him since they featured girl protagonists ("Anne of Green Gables"?). So I started looking around for more recent preteen and young adult books that he might like. One of the books that kept coming up again and again was Inkheart by Cornelia Funke. I love reading and rereading children's books and had never read any of this series, so I decided to give it a go. "Inkheart" tells the story of a book repairer who is able to read books to life. By reading a book aloud, a character in the book may appear in the real world, or an inanimate object from the story may appear. The book repairer and his daughter embark on a series of adventurers when a villain from a book who has been released into the world seeks out the book repairer, wanting him to call forth riches and other powerful things by reading them out of books. I really enjoyed the book, and am giving it to my kid for his to-read list; in the meantime, I'll probably tackle the sequel (Inkspell) at some point soon.

An Impartial Witness by Charles Todd. Regular readers know that I've read pretty much every book in Charles Todd's Ian Rutledge series of mystery novels, set in post-WWI England. Todd has begun a second series featuring a woman detective named Bess Crawford. I scored a free review copy of this book from Amazon Vine, and very much enjoyed this police procedural. Bess Crawford is a nurse on the front lines of France in WWI; while on leave, she sees a woman involved in an emotional scene at a train station. A week later, she sees the woman's photo in the newspaper; the woman has been murdered. It turns out that Bess has a more personal connection to the victim; Bess nursed the victim's husband on the battlefield, where he clutched a photo of his wife while in hospital. A quick read and although maybe not quite as intense as the Rutledge series, it was nice to enjoy a somewhat less angst-y read (although given the WWI setting, it isn't exactly Carnivale).

Charmed by "The Graveyard Book," I decided to read another Neil Gaiman book, and chose Neverwhere. This is a fascinating read, full of colorful characters with a real breadth of imagination. Gaiman creates a parallel world that exists in the underground of London -- the underground meaning "under the ground," in tunnels and sewers, but also in the London Underground as in the subway. Once again, I heartily enjoyed the book. Gaiman has amazing creativity in creating this underground world; I loved the numerous puns he created from various Tube station names, as well as his very direct and engaging style of writing.

Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout, won the Pultizer Prize for fiction, and I know Ms. Bridget Clancy enjoyed reading it a while back. This is another book that bridges the novel form with short stories, but it does so beautifully. Each story focuses on a different period of time, in which the main character, Olive Kitteridge, appears, either as a main character or occasionally as a minor character. Either way, we see a new side of Olive and learn more about what makes her tick. At the beginning of the book, I wasn't sure I liked Olive very much, but the book was so well-written that it kept drawing me back to read another chapter. By the end, I'd found that Olive had grown on me. Definitely worth checking out.

My kid's language arts class began their fall reading with The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. Oddly, I'd never read the book, so I decided to give it a go and read it along with my kid's class. I dutifully read the first few chapters in tandem with him, but got quickly sucked into the story and ended up finishing the rest of it all in one night. The book is about a group of "greasers" in the 1960s who are picked on by the "socs" (the preppy rich kids), but it really touches on a lot of things -- adolescent yearning, family ties, bullying, social class, appearances vs. substance, what is heroism, the essential unfairness of life -- and I was shocked to learn that the author was only around sixteen years old when she wrote it. While the slang and certain aspects of the book feel a little dated (had to explain to my kid what a drive-in movie was!), the book still manages to have a lot to say.

An Advancement of Learning by Reginald Hill, is the second Dalziel and Pascoe mystery in the venerable British police procedural series. Again, I liked the book but didn't love it; I suspect the series will continue to grow on me and since it's so well-regarded, I'm going to continue on as soon as I can find No. 3. This particular murder mystery takes place at a college in England. When a statue is dug up to be moved as part of a construction project, the old corpse of a former headmistress is discovered underneath it. The book was written in the early 70s and does feel a bit dated with its look at the 70s counterculture.

So that's what I read this month; you know the drill: tell me what you thought of these books, or recommend some to me, or tell me what you've been reading lately.

August Book Report

This past month, assisted by a week of vacation, I tackled three books that have been recommended to me numerous times, which left me feeling somewhat virtuous.

First up was The Glass Castle, the bestselling memoir by Jeanette Walls. This was a difficult book for me to read. Walls describes a childhood in which individualism and eccentricity cross over into abuse, neglect and chaos. Rex Walls' alcoholism and eccentricity caused him to lose job after job. Rose Mary Walls fancied herself an artist and although she was certified to teach, refused to do so most of the time -- even when her children were starving and clad in rags -- simply because she didn't want to. The Walls siblings were used to moving in the middle of the night, piling into whatever wreck of a car they had so Mom and Dad could avoid bill collectors, or a bench warrant.

You can already sense my frustration. There are heart-wrenching scenes: kids eating margarine because it's the only thing for dinner and they're starving; a mother who doesn't comfort or stand up for her daughter when a relative tries to sexually abuse her; a father who steals the money his teenage daughters bust their butts earning so he can buy booze; a little girl whose mother resists getting her eyeglasses because that would be mollycoddling weak eyes that should be working harder (the scene where Lori Walls gets her first pair of glasses, and walks around struck by the beauty of the objects she can now see made me want to cry).

But what frustrated me so much about these awful scenes were the needlessness of them all. Rex Walls needed to go to AA and dry out, but if he didn't, Rose Mary Walls was able to teach school and could have supported her children adequately, if not luxuriously, on a teacher's salary if she'd kept working. She had assets she could have sold to provide for her kids -- land in Texas, valuable jewelry -- but refused to for no good reason. The selfishness, the lack of maturity, the refusal to put one's own needs second behind that of one's little children, it all just infuriated me. I had to pick up and put this book down, since reading it in large portions was just too upsetting.

I can't say I enjoyed the book. Walls' childhood was fascinating in that it was so far removed from what most people experience, and I was left with tremendous admiration for her ability to stay focused on getting away from her family and creating her own life. I also admired Walls' generosity of spirit in that she writes her memoir in a matter-of-fact tone, without any whining or self-pity, no small feat given what she experienced. I can't decide if Walls just came to expect so little from her parents that they no longer had the ability to disappoint her, or if she consciously chose to trim her anger and other negative feelings from the book and deal with them privately.

After such a bleak story, I turned to some escapism. First up was The Bee's Kiss by Barbara Cleverly, another Joe Sandilands mystery set in 1920s London. Lots of nightclubs and flappers and British nobles and stiff martinis as Joe Sandilands -- back from India -- solves the murder of a pillar of society who is found dead in her hotel suite.

Bad Boy by Peter Robinson, is the latest entry in his Inspector Banks series of mysteries set in Yorkshire. In this installment, Inspector Banks is away on vacation when the action starts, and his able sidekick Annie Cabot gets to take over. While the case lacked some of the mystery and complexity of past Banks novels, it was still an enjoyable read if you like the characters. This was an Amazon Vine pick that I scored for free.

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffennegger was the second book that was recommended to me. It's the story of Henry, a man who travels back and forth in time to different parts of his life. During each episode of time travel, the current Henry meets the Henry of whatever time he's traveled to. Much of the book revolves around Henry's love for his wife Clare. It took me a little while to get drawn into the story; the beginning is a bit jarring and the frequent chronological shifts were hard for me to get used to. Overall,I enjoyed the book more than I expected to, although it was a bit melodramatic and breathless at times. Several of the plot elements were a bit too clever by half, particularly Henry's death and several scenes involving his daughter. I probably would have liked the book more if I'd seen fewer gushing reviews of it. I wasn't terribly impressed with the quality of the writing: the strength of the book lies more in the originality of the plot rather than the skill of the writer.

Dark Mirror by Barry Maitland was another Kolla and Brock mystery set in London. Another enjoyable read for fans of that series.

Bruno, Chief of Police by Martin Walker was a book I happened upon and ended up enjoying a lot. The main character is the "chief" (only) police officer of a small rural French community. The village's first murder case is politically charged and complex. Part of the charm of the book was the backdrop of French country life and the unconventional hero Bruno. I will look for the sequel which came out this summer.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. The last book that has been recommended to me; I resisted because I am a bit leery of a lot of fantasy fiction -- so much of it seems like a bad Star Trek episode. This book appeared on Elvis's summer reading list as a possible choice, and after he enjoyed it, I decided to give it a go. I was knocked out by how much I enjoyed it. The story sounds odd -- an orphaned toddler is "adopted" by the residents of a graveyard -- but Gaiman's imagination and skill made this enjoyable and exciting reading. There is a certain timelessness to this book that I think will make it a classic. I might even pick up one of Gaiman's other novels....

Tell me what you're reading in the comments, or share some recommendations with me! I try to respond in the comments when people ask whether I've read something, and I do really enjoy hearing your suggestions.

July Book Report

Having had some vacation time, I read a bunch of stuff in July -- a lot even given my quick-reading pace. Here's what I read; don't forget to post suggestions in the comments or your reactions to these books.

The Taken by Inger Ashe Wolf, is the second installment in a series set in rural Ontario. It features Hazel Micallef, who is a middle-aged divorced police inspector, recovering from serious back surgery. Micallef's sick leave is interrupted when a strange new case intrigues her. I enjoyed this book in part because the characters are well-drawn, but the puzzle that Micallef and her detectives have to untangle was offbeat enough to hold my interest, even if there were times when it was all a bit convoluted.

False Mermaid by Erin Hart, was a Vine book (meaning I got it for free so long as I post a review on Amazon). I mention this because I'm not sure I would have read it otherwise. It's a very soapy detective story in which forensic specialist Nora Gavin returns to her hometown of St. Paul, MN to try to figure out who killed her younger sister, a crime that remains unsolved after five years. Good beach reading; very Lifetime TV movie.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rachel Skloot, is a nonfiction book that combines biomedical history with social history. Medical researchers all over the world use human cells called the "HeLa" line in their work, and this book looks at the woman, Henrietta Lacks, from whose body those cells were originally taken. I liked the way that the book explained the biomedical issues relating to the HeLa cells (how they were taken from a cancerous growth in Lacks' body and cultured in labs due to their astonishingly fast growth rate; use of the HeLa cells is credited with major medical advances including the development of the polio vaccine) and contrasted it with the biography of Lacks herself (Lacks lived a hard life, growing up in a tobacco town in the south, and later moving to Baltimore, where her children grew up with a legacy of poverty, lack of education and other social ills). I found the end of the book a bit less engrossing, as it focused on the survivors of Lacks and their messed-up lives. Definitely worth a read if you are interested in biomedical issues.

Out of the Blackout by Robert Barnard. Sometimes a book benefits from its complete obscurity. I picked this one up for fifty cents at the library book sale and so I felt like I just couldn't go wrong in reading it, with so little at stake, but I ended up enjoying it. The plot is creative: Simon was a child sent from London to the British countryside during WWII to escape the dangers of the Blitz. After the war, Simon remained in the country village to which he was evacuated, and was essentially adopted by his host family. But Simon is vaguely aware that there is something odd about his departure from London; he half-remembers things which make him wonder who his parents were and under what circumstances he was placed on a train heading out of London. The book traces Simon's attempts to remember who he was and why he was sent away. As is often the case, Simon starts to wonder if he really wants to know the truth about his origins, given how much he loves his adopted family.

The Promised World, by Lisa Tucker, was another Vine selection that caught my eye because the main character, Lily, has a twin brother. (Regular readers know that I have boy-girl twins who are eight.) I thought it might be interesting to read a book that touched on the relationship between fraternal twins. In the opening scenes of the book, Lily gets word that her beloved twin brother has committed suicide by cop. Overwhelmed by grief, she tries to figure out what about Billy's current life could have led him to that point, and delves into their shared past, full of secrets, abuse and regrets. Lots of suspense and a quick read.

The Art of Deception by Elizabeth Ironside. Nicholas is a London art historian who runs into a woman being mugged. It turns out that she's a neighbor of his, and the two begin a somewhat unlikely romance. As Nicholas stirs up controversy in the art world by suggesting that a famous Vermeer is a fake, he gets further enmeshed in his neighbor's strange world. Although I really enjoyed a previous book by this author, this one didn't hold my interest as well. I wasn't that interested in the Russian mafia story line, and a good bit of the action seemed a little far-fetched. It did get better toward the end, though; maybe part of the problem was that the middle of the book is devoted to too much exposition.

A Clubbable Woman by Reginald Hill. This series of British police procedurals (currently with over 20 novels in the series) has been repeatedly recommended to me. Being an anal-retentive, I had to wait until I got hold of the very first in the series to try it out. (Because you HAVE to read them all IN ORDER!!!) Set in Yorkshire, the main characters are Inspector Dalziel and his sergeant Pascoe. The two are a sort of "Odd Couple" of detecting: Dalziel is big, sloppy, vulgar, working-class and old school, while Pascoe is young, dapper, college-educated and decidedly in the modern copper camp. The conflict between the two forms a good part of the backdrop to the action. The mystery itself involves the death of a middle-aged woman who is found bludgeoned in her living room chair, still staring vacantly at the TV screen. Her husband is suspect number one but the village in which she lives is full of gossip, intrigue and deceit.

An engaging book but not top-notch compared to some of the other British police procedurals I've read. However, I'm interested enough to try the next couple in the series to see how the author develops over time, especially in light of the excellent reviews his later books have received.

Lucy Gayheart by Willa Cather. A friend who is a college English professor seemed a bit dismayed that I was reading "Lucy Gayheart" so early in my exploration of Willa Cather but I really enjoyed reading it, even though it's a book with a very melancholy feel.

Lucy Gayheart is the main character of the book, a lovely and naive girl who grows up in a small prairie town. Her father teaches music in his spare time and sends Lucy to Chicago to study piano there. Lucy meets an older musician there, a singer who in modern parlance might be having something of a mid-life crisis. Lucy is hired to serve as his accompanist, and falls in love. Without giving too much of the plot away, it's safe to say that Lucy's love does not meet with a happy ending. Book One of the novel tells Lucy's story from her viewpoint; she's portrayed as a happy, innocent, sweet prairie maiden chasing her dream in the big city. Books Two and Three, however, paint a picture of a different Lucy -- spoiled, a bit petulant, narcissistic even beyond what's normal for the young.

While I can understand why it's considered a less important work than, say, "My Antonia," I still enjoyed "Lucy" for many of the qualities it had in common with "My Antonia": strong sense of place, beautiful descriptive passages, a clarity and elegance of style based in simplicity.

One for the Money by Janet Evanovich, is the first in the series of Stephanie Plum mysteries. The series has been recommended to me by so many people and I had the first paperback sitting around, but never read it for no apparent reason. I read this at the beach, and it was perfect for that. Stephanie Plum, laid off from her job, begins working as a bounty hunter tracing Trenton, NJ felons who skip out on their bail. I love the author's voice and her down-to-earth characters. Will definitely be reading more in this series.

Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Having read so many beach-type books, I decided to stretch a little and read some Literature-with-a-capital-L. It was interesting reading Fitzgerald so close on the heels of Willa Cather. While I like Fitzgerald, his style seems so compressed and turgid compared to Cather's elegant simplicity.

"Tender is the Night" begins from the perspective of Rosemary Hoyt, an 18-year-old American starlet recovering from a bout of pneumonia at the French Riviera. She encounters a group of witty, wealthy Americans at the resort, but her attention is most drawn by Nicole and Dick Diver. To Rosemary, the Divers are just perfect: good-looking, glamorous and full of charisma. Rosemary declares herself in love with them. The perspective then shifts, mainly to Dick Diver, and although he is intrigued by Rosemary -- the first sign of a crack in his seemingly-wonderful marriage -- he holds back. Rosemary learns that there is something wrong with Nicole Diver, and as the book hits its stride, we find out Nicole battles from some form of mental illness (schizophrenic breaks? bipolar?).

As the rest of the plot unfolds, we are given flashbacks that explain the Divers' backgrounds; it turns out (and this is a pretty well-known piece of the plot, so I don't think it's really a spoiler) that Dick Diver is a psychiatrist and Nicole Diver was a psychiatric patient at a friend's clinic when they first met. The novel tracks the crash and burn of the Divers' marriage, the consummation of Rosemary's infatuation with Dick, and the fates of the small group that the reader first encountered on the beach in the opening scene.

Fitzgerald is a good writer, albeit a dark one, and "Tender is the Night" is said to be his most autobiographical novel. It's hard not to see pieces of Fitzgerald in Diver himself (Fitzgerald struggled with alcoholism, and married a woman who developed severe mental illness) and maybe also Abe North, and Zelda obviously inspired Nicole. Perhaps that is part of what is so moving about the book, that Fitzgerald tried to wring something grander out of the pain and frustration of his own troubled life.

Broken by Karin Fossum. Fossum is one of those brooding Scandinavian mystery writers of which I've become so fond. She is best-known for her Inspecter Sejer series of books. This was a stand-alone book that did not feature Inspector Sejer. I was glad I got it as part of the Vine Program, because I would have been pissed if I had paid for it. It was really rather dreadful. As the book begins, we see a middle-aged author wake in the night to discover a man is standing in her bedroom. It turns out she recognizes the man, and he is a fictional character waiting for her to use him in a book. The rest of the book alternates between the character interacting with the author about what she's written about him, and the chapters that tell the character's story. Feh. No mystery, not very interesting, the characters aren't really likeable. Felt too much like Fossum was mailing this one in, or reworking a short story she'd written years ago just to put out another book.

The Palace Tiger and The Damascened Blade were two more installments in Barbara Cleverly's Joe Sandilands series of mysteries set in the 1920s British empire. These two installments took place in colonial India and were great escapist mystery reading.

June Book Report

Here's what I read in June:

The Last Kashmiri Rose by Barbara Cleverly, is the first in a series of mysteries set in colonial India. The detective is Joe Sandilands, a WWI veteran who now works for Scotland Yard. Sandilands has been asked to look into a series of deaths that look like accidents, but may actually be a series of murders. I liked the unusual (for mysteries) setting of 1920s India, and the characters were interesting. In fact, I liked this one so much I went on to read the second book in the series, Ragtime in Simla. In this book, Sandilands is travelling north to Simla, a northern provincial city, in order to vacation at a friend's guesthouse. While riding to Simla, the man sitting next to him is shot by a sniper. Sandilands is asked to figure out why. Another good mystery which takes advantage of the exotic setting.

Babel by Barry Maitland is another in the Kolla/Brock series of mysteries. This one, I thought, was weaker than some of the earlier ones in the series. As the book begins, Kathy Kolla is still shaky and suffering PTSD from being held captive at the end of the previous book. She's debating whether to pack it all in and start a new career, when Brock is called in to investigate the very public murder of a controversial professor at a London university. The story, which was written before 9/11, features a look at Islamofascism, but unfortunately, the plot just didn't resonate as well in a post-9/11 world.

Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin by Hampton Sides. A fascinating look at the assassination of MLK Jr and the search for his assassin, James Earl Ray. The book very tightly focuses on the period immediately before the assassination, beginning with Ray's escape from the Missouri penitentiary in which he was serving time, tracking him to Memphis, describing the murder in detail, then following the path he took attempting to avoid capture. Sides doesn't really seem to spend much time on any of the conspiracy theories that abound regarding King's death, but the depth of his research into this time period gives plenty of compelling reasons to reject them.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson. I think it was the weakest of the three, but I still enjoyed it and liked finding resolution of sorts to the series. There was a bit more about Swedish political history in here (maybe could have used an edit) but you'll find out what happens to all your favorites characters (and un-favorites) from the first two books. How sad that the author died at an incredibly young age and won't be around to write more.

So that's my June summary. You know the drill: feel free to leave comments telling me what you're reading or what you thought of any of the above. . .