Hi everyone. Happy Saturday. And if you're living somewhere where Labor or Labour Day is happening this upcoming Monday, I hope you enjoy your holiday weekend. I'm not posting tomorrow (for Sunday in the Art Room and Sunday Smiles) since I feel like I've already had a lot of posts this past week and need a mini blogging break.
Since it's a new month it's time for my monthly reading post. Last month, thanks to resting my sore shoulder and having some fantastic hammock lounging weather, I out-read even my own average reading amount. ❤👍😏 There were several mysteries, an autobiography, a couple of fiction stories, a garden themed book, a cookbook with stories, along with some local New England history too. All I can say is FYI, this is a bit of LONG post.
My first book for August was a reread of this Dr. Ruth Galloway mystery, number 11 out of the 15 in the series. Funny, but other than remembering about one character (Michelle) who had her baby in this story, I didn't remember much else about this book. I was surprised since I didn't read this book all that many years ago, back in 2020. But then with the way 2020 went, I shouldn't be surprised.
This mystery in many ways revisits book one in this series. There is a Bronze Age hendge found along the shore, and in it is the body of a missing child. The tall Viking, who at first scares everyone thinking he is a character named Erik who has come back from the grave, ends up being Erik's son. Also, Nelson and Ruth get letters much like the threatening letters they received in the first book. However, this is NOT a retelling of book one. There is another murdered missing child, a murder of a 70 year old man and a kidnapped baby.
Ruth's big question in this book is should she leave King's Lynn and move to Cambridge with Frank. Nelson decides he is going to tell his daughters that they have a sister named Kate, and they, at least to start with, have a hard time with the news. Of course there's the rest of the regular characters too, including Judy who figures out who murdered the child, and there is a car accident that leaves Ruth with a concussion.
I enjoyed this book. A few things came back to me while I read it. I like how this book had some interesting archaeology and how by this point in the series the characters are like old friends. I feel like Griffiths seemed to get a new jolt of inspiration after her last couple of books too. I enjoyed the last couple of books, but some of the dialogue in this book seemed to start pointing the way to the ending of this series in book 15.
For my next book I read this 2003 non-fiction book about the hurricane of 1938 called Sudden Sea The Great Hurricane of 1938 by RA Scotti. I chose this book for 2 main reasons. One, I was feeling like I was slacking off and reading too many mysteries (could I really be thinking this- it's not like I'm in school and shouldn't be reading for enjoyment, right?), but also mainly because I grew up hearing a lot about this storm from my father. He was 14 at the time it hit, and his family was impacted by it.
The Hurricane of 1938 hit Long Island and New England. All 6 states in New England were impacted to the cost of millions of dollars in 1938 values. Maine was least impacted, but the most impacted was Southern New England in places like eastern Connecticut and Rhode Island. Providence, Rhode Island was especially hit hard. However, the effects of this storm were felt even further inland with flooding in parts of New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Vermont as well as a lot of timber being knocked down. It took 5 years to clear the timber for lumber and it was used to build 20,000 homes, and if I remember correctly (? as I wrote this a few days later), that was just in New Hampshire. But before this book got around to the damage and the actual storm, it brought you back to life in these areas. Being a native New Englander, I loved reading about this time period. Some of this sounded like one of my parents or my grandmother telling me about the time. And when the author described a typical New Englander, I must say at least in my generation, many of those traits are still true.
The book also brought you back to the early days of hurricane weather watching back in 1938. It had some history about weather prediction and discussed a bit about a few other horrible hurricanes. It also discussed how hurricanes form and how they travel in the Northern Atlantic Ocean. This particular storm was thought to go out to sea by a majority of men at the Washington DC weather bureau, and no hurricane warnings were put up for where the storm hit. Since no one expected it, there was a large loss of lives due to mostly, but not only, a deadly storm surge.
I enjoyed reading this book. It was fascinating to read about the full power of a huge storm that historically impacted my home area. I think the author could have been a bit less dramatic in places, but then the storm was quite a dramatic event for people in its wake. I think unless you enjoy reading about storms and weather or unless you have some connection, this book may not be top of your reading list. This book did have me searching online for photos from that September storm, and it was really devastating. I do recommend this book if it sounds interesting to you.
My first listen for August was book 11, the final book (to date that I know of), in the Simon Serrailer series. I've been spreading these out for too long, and it was time finish it up with this volume from 2022, A Change of Circumstance .
This time there is a heroin issue in Lafferton, and the book starts with an overdose death. It also deals with children being "runners" in the drug trade. The police force is down in numbers mainly because it's winter and the flu has knocked out so many of the police force. Cat, Simon's doctor sister, is still a main character too. She's dealing with bad hospital care and an injured dog, while Simon is dealing with a child's suicide and a family who is killed. Plus there are the side stories with this family (Sam, Hannah, Simon and Cat's father), which are as interesting as the police investigations.
The question is, will there be or is there a book 12? I was looking and noticed some short stories I haven't read, but from what I discovered Hill is now in her 80's, and even though I see that one was published, I wonder if it ever actually was. This book ends with Simon on the phone past midnight with the last woman (Rachel) in his life, asking her a serious personal question. She doesn't answer. Perhaps if there will be no more books in this series, this is not a bad place to end the series. But it is such a good series I hope there is a book 12 at some point sooner rather than later.
I was then debating whether to read something "new" or continue on with this "new-to-me series" by Sue Grafton. However, with the heat we had the day I was picking out my next book, I decided to continue with the alphabet series and the 1989 next letter book, F is for Fugitive .
This time Kinsey is hired by a father to check out his son. His son had some petty teenage convictions, and then, on a plea deal, ended up going to jail for killing his girlfriend which he claimed he did not do. He was in jail for a while, and then he escaped. After being a good citizen with a false name, he was then arrested in confusion over this false name, and that's when the police realized he was the convict who had escaped many years earlier. The dad, who is not in good health and thought his son was no longer alive, is trying at this point to help as best he can.
This book was moving along when at about page 55, there was a big twist. One thing I enjoy about these stories is that Grafton totally surprises you when you least expect it. If you've read this book, you might remember the courtroom scene (not to spoil this for anyone who might later read it) which changed the whole flow of the story.
Floral Beach, where this story is set, is not a big town, and Kinsey seems to meet just about everyone who could have something to do with the murder. The characters this time were interesting. I guessed who the murderer was, not that it was really obvious, and there were a few other suspects. But I definitely did not put the whole 2+2 together and figure out the whole story. F is for Fugitive is another good book in this series with another exciting ending.
I swear I read this autobiography of Katharine Hepburn at some point years ago since this book was published in 1991. At some point I probably did. However, when I recently read the book about the Hurricane of 1938, Hepburn's experiences in the storm were mentioned. I knew Hepburn was originally from Connecticut, but I did not remember anything about the hurricane. And I did not remember anything much about this book either, if I even actually read it. The hurricane story inspired me to read this book, and perhaps I'm reading it again for the second time. But that's still a question because I didn't have any big moments of remembering while I read.
I like Hepburn the actress, and I like a lot of the movies she made. I'm glad she wrote this book, because her writing style sounds just like her. I like how she didn't get too in depth into any topic; she just stated what was what and added in a few details. And because she wrote this book later in her life, she was able to look back at her own flaws, like (her words) how she was "a pig" to her husband Luddy, who she married while young when she was really trying to just get her career started and not focus on being married. They divorced, and she decided never to marry again, but she remained good friends with Luddy until his death.
Hepburn was a strong family person too, even though it would be easy to think she wasn't, especially after divorcing Luddy and not remarrying. But she had her parents and her siblings, and then she had her nieces and nephews. And her Connecticut home, the one rebuilt after the first one washed away after the Hurricane of 1938. It was actually a Hepburn family home. It was where she died and spent much of her time, especially in her older years after the love of her life, Spencer Tracy died. She also had her friends, and lots of Hollywood stories, but as she said many times, she didn't like to "go out" all that much and she liked to go to bed early so her Hollywood stories were not really all that glamorous.
I enjoyed reading this book. There were a couple of chapters that I skimmed through because they just weren't speaking to me, and their format was different from the rest of the book which kind of threw me off. I think after reading this book Hepburn fits the New England character that I mentioned in my Hurricane book review. And I did like that this story wasn't a tell-all story either about Hepburn or others she knew. There is just enough though to get the picture. I also loved the huge number of photos that went along with her life's story. Those photos helped illustrate her tale.
This next book is not a science book, but definitely an interesting garden book. When I say gardening, it's not a book about how to garden. Soil is by Camille T Dungy, and Dungy is a literature professor and poet at the University of Colorado, Fort Collins campus. In very general and broad terms this book is the story of when Dungy and her husband bought a house in Colorado, and how she went about making her mono-culture yard into a pollinator friendly garden.
In specific terms, this book is more than just about gardening, although that is the basic focus. It's not just the author's gardening, but family gardening and also Black Gardeners in general. You also read about being a Black woman in a White community, about being multi-cultural, about being an author, about being a mother, and (along with a few other things) about the author herself as a person. Because she is a literature professor, she also mentions books about the wilderness and about gardening.
This book is in some ways biographical and in some ways about self discovery through gardening. It's book that is hard to label. I noticed it in the Nature section one day in Barnes and Nobel bookstore, but in many ways it isn't really a good fit for the nature section. It is also about culture, Black history and art. In some ways it reminded me of the Penelope Lively book I read back in March (Life in the Garden) where it referred to gardening in various books and other types of art. This book is looking at Black culture and gardening. Even though it is not just about gardening, I enjoy reading it however you want to label it.
I was still sticking with local New England history for my next listen. As you can tell from the image, in 1919 there was a HUGE flood in Boston, not from water, but from molasses bursting from a leaking tank. This is definitely one of those under-recorded events, perhaps because it sounds (although it wasn't) a bit underwhelming. I learned about the molasses flood several years ago while taking a Duck Boat tour of the city, but I had never heard of it otherwise. Until this book that is.
I like the narrator of this book, Grover Gardner. He was the narrator I listened to a few months back when I listened to John Jakes's pre-Civil War long novel, North and South. I had to remind myself that this wasn't a continuation of North and South though, and that this book was not a fictional story. The fact that a huge tank could break open and not only flood an area, but take 21 lives, does sound more like fiction than actual history.
This book is about the molasses flood and a lot more too. The author really sets the background and the times of the whole event. It's a story of Boston and about New England too. Topics cover the molasses business all the way back to slave days. There's also a short history of Boston's North End, and what it was like to be an Italian immigrant living there back during the early parts of the 20th century. (For those of you unfamiliar, Boston's North End was and still is an area filled with people of Italian descent.) The book also covers the anarchist movement before and during the years of the First World War, why molasses was so important and big business during this war, and how the area actually reacted to the war. There's corruption, people who want to do good, and then a court battle after the event.
The court battle was interesting because the company that owned the tank tried to blame the event on anarchists and a bomb, not their own failings. It took a long time to collect all the evidence needed. I liked how the author also continued the history of the times as he proceeded with the court case.
I very much enjoyed this book. It was a well written history. Like the Hurricane of 1938 book, this is something that may not jump to the top of your reading list, but if you're interested, then I do recommend it.
I'd seen Rex Stout books in stores while growing up, but I had never read anything. In fact, I was surprised he's been writing his Nero Wolfe mysteries since the 1930's. I always thought he was more of a 1950's or 1960's author. In all there are 33 complete novels and 44 novellas plus some short stories starring his detective Nero Wolfe. Stout published these between 1934-1975. (Info according to Wikipedia) This book, Fer-de-Lance, is the first Nero Wolfe mystery, and it was published in 1934.
Nero Wolfe is a wealthy New York recluse who likes to solve murders and care for his orchids. His assistant, secretary and chauffeur is Archie Goodwin, who does all the leg work and information collecting. This time a young woman comes to the pair asking if they would help find her missing brother. The brother had borrowed money from her, and his ultimate plan was to return to Italy. However, he has disappeared and not taken any of his belongings, nor said goodbye. The missing brother is found dead on the side of the road a short time later.
Then there is a well respected college professor who fell over dead on the golf course one day. A doctor claims he died of a heart attack. However, Nero Wolfe finds a connection between the him and the missing brother by reading the newspaper. It was not a heart attack, but a poison filled needle that jabbed him when he went to swing his golf club. The question I had as I read the book was the needle actually meant for who it stabbed and killed.
I enjoyed reading this book. I liked Archie's investigation, although if this book was written today, some of this might have been more condensed that it was here. Nero Wolfe was an interesting character who drank a lot of beer and could be kind of cranky. I'm not sure I really liked him, but I did like this story and the events along the way. I especially didn't expect the snake scene, even though the book is named after a venomous one. Although not a long book (just about 200 pages), it seemed to take me awhile to get through it; it moved along but the writing style wasn't the fluffiest. It also took a bit to get back to connecting the 2 deaths which are the heart of this story.
I will most probably read another book in this series at some point. It was good to learn that all the books are set in the same time period, and they don't progress so you can pick up any Nero Wolfe book at any point in the series without having missed anything.
I haven't read any Doris Lessing since college, and my next book was her first novel, published in 1950 called The Grass is Singing . If you haven't read any Lessing, she was a British novelist who spent her early years first in Iran, and then in colonial British Africa where her father tried to become a rich and successful farmer in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). After that she moved to England.
This short novel opens with a woman named Mary Turner's death. She lives with her husband Dick on a poor farm in Southern Rhodesia. Right after her death, when the police arrive, Mary's Native servant Moses admits to killing her and is arrested.
Mary isn't a happy well adjusted person, and her marriage to Dick was more for convenience. I wouldn't say they fell in love with each other, and they didn't even know each other all that well when they married. Dick lived on a farm out in the wilderness, and Mary seemed to thrive in the city. But they each wanted to get married for their own reasons, and so they did.
However, Mary was not a likable lady, and she certainly didn't win any points with the local workers on their farm. As the story progresses, Mary falls apart. I'm sure there were many farm women, not just in Africa, who could not cope with the isolation and the lack of money from living out of town on a dirt poor farm. If this story had been written by someone who didn't write as well as Lessing did, it probably would not have been so compelling to keep reading it, especially since you know right at the start that Mary dies at the end. Overall, I liked this book because it was very well written, although I didn't like Mary, and her story was ultimately very sad.
My other listen for August was this fictional story, The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, that a friend recommended to me. It's from 2020, and my friend loved it. I was looking for something different to read, and usually I like this friend's recommendations, so I decided I'd make it my next book.
I had been reading reviews for this book, and one said how they almost stopped reading after 5 or 6 chapters, but to stick with it because it was a really good book. That's exactly where I was after 5 or 6 chapters. OK, I stuck with it. And glad I did.
Nora Seed feels like her life is a failure. She could have been a world class swimmer. She could have been a rock star. She could have been a glaciologist. She could have been married to a man whose dream it was to open his own pub in the English countryside. However, she ends up being in her thirties, let go from her job at a guitar store, her cat recently being hit by a car, no boy friend, her best friend in Australia (who she could have gone with), and now she is back feeling lost in her hometown. Since then, she hasn't gone anywhere she thought she should be. One night, Nora tries to kill herself, and she ends up in this library where each book is one of the roads she could have taken in life if she'd made a different decision at that point.
I agree with that reviewer who said stick with the book. I suddenly found myself quite into this story. It had a slightly predictable ending, but it was a feel good ending. It was interesting to see and then think about how picking a different choice would have changed our lives, which for Nora was being a giant rock star, a glaciologist, and (among others) a philosophy professor. But it was also interesting how the choices and events really led to the life that was meant to be lived.
Although my friend loved this story, I wouldn't use the word love to describe how I felt about this book. I would say I liked it quite a bit and wanted to know how the story would end. If you're looking for something not fluffy but lighter and enjoyable to read (or listen to), then you might enjoy this book.
I don't usually list cookbooks in my monthly reading post, but this book, In the Kitchen with a Good Appetite by Melissa Clark was different. Clark writes for the New York Times food section, and so this cookbook, although it does contain recipes, has interesting prequels for each recipe. Whereas many cookbooks have a paragraph or 2 before a recipe, the blurbs here are more like short stories. Many cookbooks also have a (sometimes long) introduction tell you all about things you should have in your kitchen and a list of how to's for certain cooking techniques, this book had a wonderful story about how, when the author was child, she, her sister and her parents would travel through France every summer trying out Michelin starred restaurants.
I think some of the difference is because Clark is someone who loves cooking, but who has an MFA rather than a background in a restaurant. That doesn't mean the recipes are boring or lacking. Or don't seem to be at least. I guess shouldn't write about a cookbook where I haven't tried any of the recipes YET! However, I really enjoyed reading all the bits and pieces of this particular cookbook, and I have marked a few recipes to try, once we get past the summer "lighter fair" cooking.
Here's a few recipes that sound good to me: The Mysterious David Dares Pancake, Creme Brule French Toast, Max's Artcic Char with Egg Lemon Dragon Sauce, Sausages with Sweet Pepper and Onion Stew and Fried Croutons, Easy Stove-top Macaroni, Peas, Bacon and Cheese A LA Jamie Oliver, and for dessert. Honey-Glazed Pear Upside-Down Cake. Plus several others.
This isn't a new book as it was published in 2010. The section on Holiday Recipes also includes Jewish holidays as well as non-Jewish ones like Christmas. This book was a pleasure to read and think about about the food in the recipes. If anyone is interested, I can report back once I actually try some. The Mysterious David Dares pancake is the first one I want to try. 😊
After I finished reading the Doris Lessing novel, I wanted something "lighter", so I went back to the Dr. Ruth Galloway mysteries series that I've been slowly rereading. I know the mystery isn't exactly light and fluffy, but it is a nice feeling to know the main characters. This is book 12 of the 15 in this series.
Ruth, Kate and Flint the cat are now living in Cambridge with Frank. Nelson's infant son George, who was just born in book 11, is now 2 and a half years old. Nelson's latest police case, a man who is a serial killer of tall blonde women, has been found guilty, but there are still a few other missing women. From jail, the murdered says he tell Nelson where those bodies are, but only if Ruth is the forensic archaeologist on the case. She agrees and commutes back to King's Lynn to do the dig.
This jailed man (who Cathbad claims could not be the murderer) once lived in a commune style building for a while with his ex-wife as well as his now wife. They also both claim he is not guilty. And to tie things in, Ruth had just spent a week doing a writing retreat in the building with the ex-wife in charge.
This book progresses by introducing some other characters connected to the commune style building and finally a bike race that takes Ruth back to the salt marsh. Of course, it isn't all peaceful back there, as a text that takes her there is from the murderer of the other women who wants to make Ruth the next victim.
This was a very enjoyable reread. As I mentioned in my review above of The Stone Circle, I think at this point the author (Elly Griffiths) knew where she was heading with the last few books. It's interesting to do a reread and realize how many clues about that ending are peppered throughout the story.
If you like book posts, I hope you found something interesting in my list. As for the number of books, yes there's a lot, but I think this month (September), I'll be lucky to read half as many since I'll be gone for almost 2 weeks at the end of the month. Happy reading!
