Spell the Month in Books - July 2024

Spell the Month in Books is hosted by Reviews From the Stacks and occurs on or near the first Saturday of each month, so I am quite late this month - and it took some finagling! But here goes:

Six Degrees of Separation – from Kairos to Season of Storms

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place as other readers, add six books, and see where you end up.  The starting book this month is Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck, winner of the 2024 International Booker Prize, which is described as a German novel about a tortured love affair.

Six Degrees of Separation – from The Anniversary to A Killing of Innocents

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place as other readers, add six books, and see where you end up. This month’s starting point is The Anniversary by Stephanie Bishop (2023), a mystery in which the protagonist’s husband falls overboard while they are on a cruise celebrating their wedding anniversary (hello, I can sense an unreliable narrator from a distance).

My July 2023 Reads

Summer days drifting away . . . even if you can’t take time off to sit on the beach in July, it seems appropriate to read lighter fiction, which I needed after I finished Middlemarch (despite enjoying it).

A Killing of Innocents by Deborah Crombie

Title: A Killing of Innocents
Author: Deborah Crombie
Publication: William Morrow, hardcover, 2023
Genre: Mystery
Setting: Present-day London

Description: When Sasha Johnson, a young doctor just leaving a pub in Bloomsbury as Duncan Kincaid and Doug Cullen are meeting for a drink, is murdered nearby, the men are called to the scene quickly.

Six Degrees of Separation – from Time Shelter to Memory Man

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place, add six books, and see where we end up. This month’s starting point is Time Shelter by Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov and translated by Angela Rodel. According to the Guardian, “A mysterious therapist, Gaustine, founds a clinic that treats patients with Alzheimer's by recreating the pasts in which they felt most secure.”

20 Books of Summer 2023

This is my second time participating in the 20 Books of Summer Reading Challenge, which is hosted by Cathy at 746 Books. This year, 20 Books of Summer starts June 1st and ends September 1st. When I participated two years ago, I completed 16 of 20 books.

This challenge is very flexible. You can aim for 15 Books of Summer or 10 Books of Summer if 20 is more than you want to commit to.

Spell the Month in Books — April

Spell the Month in Books is hosted by Reviews From the Stacks and occurs on the second Saturday of each month. This month I chose from books I read in 2013:

Day 12 – Notting Hill

Friday was a free day but it was again very hot so I tried to think of something leisurely to do – Notting Hill and Portobello Road! Notting Hill is interesting because of the movie and also because Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James in Deborah Crombie’s mystery series live there (I wished I had checked my books for the street before I left Boston).

Bookshelf Traveling - December 20, 2020

Time for another round of Bookshelf Traveling in Insane Times which was created by Judith at Reader in the Wilderness and is currently hosted by Katrina at Pining for the West. Today I am looking at a bookcase in my bedroom which includes some really random titles along with some mystery authors I like.

Favorite Reads of 2014 (somewhat belated)

Fiction

Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid (2014)

The Austen Project, in which Jane Austen was retold by 21st-­century authors, was commissioned (I assume) by HarperCollins, and here Northanger Abbey is reimagined in modern-day Scotland during the Edinburgh Festival, which sounds like so much fun.  Young Catherine Morland is obsessed with Twilight and imagines everyone is a vampire, which seemed an inspired tribute to the original character’s gothic imaginings.

What to Read During a Pandemic

While some people are compiling recommendations of dystopian angst or Stephen King-like disaster, my rules are different. The book can’t be depressing (of course, depressing is in the eye of the beholder), it has to be worth reading more than once, and it needs to be available as an eBook or from Project Gutenberg.  It would be diabolical to make you long for something you cannot get quickly and I am rarely so cruel!  Also, remember that your library owns many eBooks and may be willing to purchase more.  Download Libby, if you haven't already!

Fiction

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson: Major Ernest Pettigrew is perfectly content to lead a quiet life in the sleepy village of Edgecombe St Mary, away from the meddling of the locals and his overbearing son.  Then an unexpected friendship between the crusty, retired military officer and Mrs. Jasmina Ali, the Pakistani shopkeeper from the village, scandalizes everyone.

The Inn at Lake Devine by Elinor Lipman: Natalie’s family is stunned when the Vermont resort they want to visit answers their inquiry, “Our guests who feel most comfortable here, and return year after year, are Gentiles."  She is determined to go anyway and it becomes a mission.

A Bitter Feast by Deborah Crombie

Title: A Bitter Feast
Author:  Deborah Crombie
Publication: William Morrow, hardcover, October 2019
Genre: Mystery/Suspense/Series

Plot: Melody Talbot’s parents are hosting a benefit at their home in the Cotswolds, and when Melody invites her boss, Detective Inspector Gemma James, Gemma’s husband Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid, and their three children for the weekend, everyone expects a relaxing sojourn in a picturesque part of England. 

Favorite Reads of 2017

2017 was full of outstanding books! I read about 166 books, of which 18 were audio books and 19 were ebooks (a higher percentage than usual due to more electronic review copies and because I did more reading at the gym using a Kindle). Here is a link to my Goodreads year in review which shows everything I read. All but three books were fiction, but two of those made the favorites list listed by genre below:

Historical Fiction
The Black Madonna and Lords of Misrule – The Black Madonna is the first novel in Stella Riley’s Roundheads and Cavaliers series, and Lords of Misrule is the fourth. I had to go back to reread The Black Madonna after reading Lords of Misrule (not because I had forgotten anything, I just missed the characters). Set in the 17th century during the English Civil War, the primary male character is a true anti-hero, a sharp-tongued goldsmith trying to redeem his family’s honor while dodging the partisans on both sides of the English Civil War, most of whom look down on him but seek to borrow money from him. He comes into contact with red-headed Kate Maxwell and her warmhearted family, but has no time for friendship or romance or anything that will distract him from vengeance. You’ll see how that works out! Lords of Misrule is the long awaited story of Kate’s brother Eden but please don’t read out of order!  Fans of Stella Riley will be delighted her books are all in print.

Favorite Reads of 2013

In 2013, I read about 185 books of which two were rereads and 152 were from the library or otherwise borrowed.  I'd like to do better in 2014 reading books I already own, many of which are in piles on windowsills and on the floor, and thus need rescuing.

Top Picks

The Firebird                SusannaKearsley                     Fiction/Historical Fiction

(As many of you know, I have been an evangelist for Kearsley since I worked at Bantam in the early 90s.  I am delighted that Sourcebooks is publishing her in the US and doing so much to promote her work.  This book follows The Winter Sea, and also involves 18th century Jacobites, a weakness of mine)

A Share in Death (Book Review)

Title: A Share in Death: a Mystery Introducing Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James
Author: Deborah Crombie
Publication Information: Scribner’s, Hardcover, 1993; Sound Library Audio CD, 2004.
Genre: Mystery

Plot: In the first of a now prolific series, Scotland Yard detective Duncan Kincaid goes on holiday to a time share in Yorkshire where the discovery of first one body and then a second lands him in the middle of a murder investigation.* Despite not wanting to offend the local police force, his proximity to the crimes makes him a witness and his inquiries annoy both the residents and Detective Chief Inspector Bill Nash. He begins with discreet questions but needs to summon his determined sergeant, single mother Gemma James, to help him investigate the guests – a clever variation on the closed circle of suspects of a traditional house party mystery (I love those English classics from the Golden Age of mysteries).