November Books

 Hi everyone. Happy weekend.

It is already time once again for my monthly book post. As I write every month, this is my way of keeping track of books. I know some of you are book post readers, so please read on if you are interested. I understand if book posts aren't your thing.

Today's book post is a short one. November was not my biggest reading month. Between being busy with getting outside chores done before snow, getting used to the time change, a 10 day trip, and then the Thanksgiving holiday, the amount of reading I did dropped off a lot. 

Much of my reading was finishing up books I had already started.

I did finish this Ken Follett book I started in late October and mentioned in my last book post. I had just under half of the book to read when November rolled around, but since the book was 900+ pages, that was still a lot of read.  It was very well worth the time!   I only wish I had finished it before we flew to California because this was way too big of a book to carry with me, so I had to wait until I came home to finish it.

As I mentioned  last month, this book is the prequel to The Pillars of the Earth. This book is set at around the turn of the first to the second millennium, starting in 997 CE. 

 I also finished listening to this book that I started in October. I  really enjoyed this story. This was one of the best books I listened to/read in 2021. I haven't really read all that many World War 2 books, but I think I need to read more. This book was historical fiction "starring" Nancy Wake, an actual Australian who  ended up working with the British against the Nazis in World War 2. At the end of the novel the author gives a fact versus fiction chapter which I found very interesting and informative. I highly recommend this story. I am now very interested in reading Nancy Wake's autobiography as she was one extremely interesting woman.

Then it was onto another older mystery, a new series for me. I seem to be on a historical mystery kick lately.

I believe Jeanie was the one who mentioned this series a few months back. I wrote it down on a to-check-out list, and I'm sorry if I have the wrong person who mentioned it.  I looked for an inexpensive copy and found one on eBay. This book was originally published in 1940.

Mr. and Mrs. North live in the Greenwich Village apartment, and they discover a dead body in  the empty apartment above them. Of course the police are called and come to the crime scene. The Norths befriend police detective Weigand and his side kick Mullens early on in this book.  I expected the book to be a little more about the Norths investigating the murder, but I did like the detective and his side kick, and I did like this book. I just found an inexpensive used copy of book 2 on eBay so that has been added to my to-be- read pile.

This book, The Norths Meet Murder,  made a great on the plane read. On the way to California, I read the first half. On the way home, I read the next quarter, and then, being tired since we had a 6 AM flight home, I decided to sleep the rest of the way.  When I got home I was able to finish it in one sitting.

I decided I also needed to shake up my reading choices a bit, so  after listening to Code Name Helene, I thought I would give this Cold War espionage story a try.

I've tried to find out how much of this story is actual history with little success, but it was still an interesting listen. In this book there are twin sisters. One of them, Ruth, works in NY in a publishing house. The other sister, Iris, defects with her husband and children to the Soviet Union in the late 1940's. Iris's husband worked for the US state department and acted as a double agent. This book is basically set between 1940 and the early 1950's.

Iris then needs to be rescued from the Soviet Union. I won't say any more, but I did enjoy this story. It was inspired by  some actual British double agents who defected to the Soviet Union. I read some place that the author, Beatriz Williams, uses these same characters at different points in their lives in some of her earlier books. As this is the first book by this author I have read, I can't say for certain, but it would be interesting to see what she has them doing in her other novels.

And my last book wasn't really a reading book. I did read one pattern from it though!

I saw the Hufflepuff hat on the front and thought it would be great for my daughter.  I was able to check out the book and decided there were lots of patterns I would be interested in knitting. I ended up buying the book and also a couple of hanks of yarn, and now that I have rolled them into balls,  I can start knitting the hat. If you aren't familiar with hufflepuff from Harry Potter, I am referring to the black(ish) and yellow hat on the cover.

More about that at a later time.

That's all the reading for me for November.  As you can see, (for me) it dropped off a lot. I'm hoping December will be a bigger book month, as my to-be-read pile is getting rather tall. I hope you had some interesting reading, and if so, if anything excited you, I'd love to hear about it in your comment.

Have a great rest of your weekend.