January Books

 Hi everyone.  Hope your weekend is starting off or going well.

Time for my monthly book post today.  

As I write every month, this list is really for me, but  I know many of you like book recommendations. 

January was a good book month. I was definitely on a mystery kick with many of my books. Mysteries are  my favorite type of book to read, so for me that makes it a good month. 

The first book I listened to is actually more of a historical fiction piece about Agatha Christie.  

Marie Benedict did a great job with this book. The story is about how the  murder mystery author disappeared for 11 days in 1926. I like how it was set in 2 times periods,  beginning when Agatha Miller met her first husband  Archie Christie up until her disappearance, and then during those 11 days when she goes missing. In this time period the story focuses on Archie Christie in the midst of his wife's disappearance. No one knows exactly what happened during those 11 days, so writing about Archie Christie was smart (in my thoughts) . YET the ending is quite surprising and a perfect wrap up of this story.

Double-Blind was a good read. I loved the research into  Icelandic life and customs (customs may not be quite the right word), and I also loved the DNA connection. The author is actually a biotech scientist, and I found that information really relevant to the story as well as fascinating. It was not easy to figure out the murderer either. (That's always a good thing.) I enjoyed the read, although I found there were a few gaps in the writing. Sara Winokur is a  good writer, but not yet a very artful writer. As this was her first novel I would expect that will improve.

How can you go wrong reading a Louise Penny book?  Especially this one! I loved it. This one is the best of them all, so far, for me.  I've been wanting to read this since it came out last September. Unfortunately my copy ended up buried in the pile of books next to my bed, and I forgot about it for a bit. I really like how this story was set in Paris, and how Reine-Marie, Inspector Gamache's wife also played a bigger than normal role in the story. As well as the whole Gamache  family. Louise Penny is still in her prime writing form with this 16th book in the series.  A highly recommended read.

The Book of Eels was a change of pace.

I can't say eels are my favorite fish in any way or form, but this was a fascinating little volume. Some parts were really interesting and some parts were not so much. Who knew eels were such a misunderstood and much studied creatures?   The parallel story of the author and his father was very touching  and worked well with the natural history part of the story.  I'd recommend this book if you like non-fiction about nature.

Back in November I read the first murder mystery in this series, Murder at Melrose Place. This book, The Black Cat Murders, is book 2. I really enjoyed book 1 of this series, set in the 1920's England.  Major Lennox is a WWI flying ace, and now that the war is over he is filling his time detecting murders.

If you like classic British style mysteries, this series is a good one. In the first story we got to meet Mr. Fogg the dog, and this time we not only have Mr. Fogg but also Mr. Tubbs the cat. It was lots of fun, and  the story had enough depth to make it a good read. I am hoping the rest of the series is as good because I do plan on reading (or listening as the narrator, Sam Dewhurst-Phillips, has a great voice for this time period) more of them.

This book, The Chalk Circle Man, is quirky. I can see why some people would love it and some wouldn't like it. I enjoyed it, but it took me awhile to get  into the groove of this story. The characters, including the detective, have some unique personalities, and the author didn't follow lots of straight line thinking, going from  a to b to c logic to solve the mystery. That is a good thing though, and once I got going with this book, I  enjoyed it quite a bit. It is mostly set in Paris, as the author, is a French historian, archeologist and writer. What surprised me most was that Fred is actually Frederique. I looked up the author once I finished the book, and I guess naively,  expected it to be written by a male Fred.  It was a nice change from many mysteries, and I want to know more about  these characters that are,  in this first of this series, introduced.

A Wrinkle in Time was one of my favorite childhood books. I read it several times back in the day, although it has probably been close to 50 years since I have reread it. As a child I only read this first book, but later on the author added more books to make this a 5 book series. My daughter had left her set of these behind, and I found this one and the third book in the attic that I use as book overflow storage. I need to go look for book 2 when it warms up a bit, because I would like to see what else the author did with these characters. 

This story stars Meg, Calvin and Charles-Wallace. They travel to other planets in search of Meg's and Charles-Wallace's father. It is  a somewhat complex  older child's book, and it has a sci-fi theme.   I really enjoyed reading it again.

To balance out the quick read book above, I decided to give a a very long book a listen. At  39 1/2 hours, Don Quixote is not the longest book I have ever listened to, but a very close second.

I'm not sure about why I am  curious to listen to this story. I know the general story from Man of La Mancha (some of the songs pop into my head now), and it's not like I ever studied Spanish. 

This book was first published in 1605 in Spain. I'm not sure about other translations, but this one is certainly easy listening. I'm actually amazed how easy.  I read this story was first published as a comedy, and I can't say I find it laugh out  loud funny, but humor changes over time. Poor Don Quixote. Today we would say he has some kind of dementia going off and having these wonky adventures.  And the poor Spanish women of this time period. The story  is definitely a fascinating glimpse into a different time in a far away place.

I'm not sure if I will listen to this in one complete listen or if I will break it up with some other books in between. I'm about 12 hours in right now, but I will admit that although some days I love listening, some days it seems a bit repetitive. If it was a 20 hours book I would go for finishing it before I started something else, for at just under 40 hours, my attention may start to wane a bit. We will see after another few hours of listening. I will however finish it as I am enjoying it.

Finally to wrap up this month with lots of mysteries, I read this first book in the Longmore series. 

The hubby and I watched all 6 seasons of the Longmire series on Netflix last fall, and I really enjoyed it. The TV show was based on this book series. Since I'm actually missing the characters and  crime adventures from  show (especially the later seasons when the show became more complex), I decided to give the first book a try.

This story is well written and shares many details with the show (but not all), and it is definitely  more complex than an hour show can possibly be. I really enjoyed this book. If you're not familiar with Longmire, he is a modern day sheriff in Wyoming solving crimes. There is also a strong Native American role in the book and TV show, which makes it  more unique and adds lots of depth in many ways.  I can say that as usually happens, this book is better than the show, but I also love hearing the voices of the TV characters as I read. I do  also recommend the show if you like western and detective genres. I also plan on reading more in this series too.

That's all for my January books. 

Happy reading to you.

 

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