My February Book Post

Hi everyone.  Happy Friday. 

February flew by, and it is already March so it's time for my next monthly book post. This post is about my February reads and listens. I usually have one actual book I'm reading and one book I'm listening to going on at the same time. Sometimes I even juggle 2 actual books, but never more than 1 listen.  With one book and one listen, I can get through a lot of books during a month. 

Here's my February book list.

 My last listen in January was the book Giant by Edna Ferber.  That book was set on the Texas plains starting in the 1920's. Coincidentally, my book club book (for our early March meeting) was this 2021 novel by Kristen Hannah, The Four Winds.  It is set in same time period as Giant.  This time instead of cattle ranching and drilling for oil, this story focuses in on life on a Texas farm in the 1920's and into  the Dust Bowl in the 1930's. One thing I liked was how this listen made a great follow up to the Ferber book.

Elsa Wolcott is  a very sheltered "old maid" of the whopping old age of 25 when she meets teenager Raphael Martinelli.  When they end up married, Elsa's life changes, and she becomes attached to the land. The Depression and the Dust Bowl  have hit the family hard, as have Elsa's feelings of never having been really loved for who she is.  This book takes you through the family's struggles and resilience as life gets more and more difficult. The descriptions of the dust storms and the devastation made me realize why so many people packed up what they had and left for the west coast, which is what happens in this story. 

I've seen Ken Burn's Dust Bowl Documentary, and it was definitely  not an easy time  or place to live. This book really brought it home though, as I became involved with the characters.  I enjoyed this book, and I definitely recommend it if you like historical fiction.

The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji was first published in Japan in 1987 and was first published in English in 2017. I learned about this book from Jeanie at the Marmalade Gypsy blog, and I enjoyed the read. (Thanks Jeanie.)

Some of K-University's Mystery Club members have gone to spend a week on a deserted island where 4 people are known to have been murdered. As those murders have never been solved, these Mystery Club members hope use their own detective skills to gain some insight. However, that is not what happens. 

 The book goes back and forth between the island's Mystery Club visitors and  some amateur sleuths on the mainland. Those sleuths on the mainland are trying to solve the question who sent some anonymous letters that also deal with the island's  murders.  Add to that there are new deaths. This novel, a takeoff of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None story, is an enjoyable and a bit of a suspenseful read. Although there were a few things that I questioned about the ending, there is an interesting twist that wraps up the story nicely.  

You are probably familiar with the story of Anne Frank and the diary she wrote while in hiding during World War 2. 

This book, The Betrayal of Anne Frank,  is written by award winning Canadian biographer Rosemary Sullivan. This is the story of an investigation that began in the Netherlands in 2016 to answer one of the last remaining questions about the Frank family, as well as the other people who went into hiding with them. Eight people managed to stay hidden in an annex in Amsterdam for 25 months during the Second World War. The question that still needed an answer was who turned them in to the Nazi's. That betrayal lead to them being captured and sent to concentration camps.

I saw a segment about this investigation on 60 Minutes .  (For those unfamiliar with this show, 60 Minutes is an American news TV show.) After watching this segment and finding out there was a book about this investigation, I decided this would be probably be a very interesting read.  Part one of the book talks about the Frank family, and what became of the father Otto after the war, as he was the only one to survive. Part two takes you into the investigation,  lead by a retired FBI agent (American) Vince Pankoke. Pankoke did not start the investigation, but the role was offered to him by the Dutch team who had been working on it when they realized they needed someone with experience handling big investigations.

This book is not so much a "who done it" mystery, but it  follows the steps of a real life detective  to come up with an answer to a very real question. Although there were a lot of names to try to keep track of, most of those ended up being dead end leads. It was a fascinating story.  I also learned a lot about life in Amsterdam during the Second World War, as well as how people tried to survive under Nazi rule. 

For my next book, I wanted a light listen, so I chose Cooking For Picasso by Camille Aubray.  I'm not sure if it was really as light a story as I expected it to be, but it was an enjoyable listen. I also liked it as it was different from my usual fiction read. I even learned a few things about Picasso too.  This novel is partially based on an interlude in Picasso's life he spent in the Cote D'Azur in southern France, even though Picasso was not a main character in this story. 

This books jumps back and forth between the past, starting in 1936, and the present.  In 1936 we meet a young Ondine who cooks and delivers lunch to Picasso.   The fact that Picasso lived in this area during that time was  the springboard (the author's words) for this fictional story. The other part of the book that jumps ahead to present day is about Ondine's granddaughter, Celine. 

Celine finds out her grandmother's connection with Picasso, and she if off to discover more, including a trip back to France to take a cooking class. A lot of reviews said that you shouldn't read this book if you are hungry with all the food references. I agreed there were lots of food references, but I didn't find the food described enough to make me want to rush out and eat. They were necessary to this story however as it wove its way through these women's  lives. The lesson behind this book (for me) is that you might never know the secrets of your family's the past, but then again, you might be surprised.

The other mystery I read (or I should say reread) this month was book 4 of the Amelia Peabody series. The Lion in the Valley sees Amelia Peabody, her husband Emerson, their 8 years son Rames and well as Bastet their cat back on another archaeological dig in Egypt during the winter of 1895-1896.  Of course, murder, mayhem and even some romantic suspense follows them, in the most enjoyable way. Amelia is a one of kind lady. 

I listened to books 1-3, narrated by Barbara Rosenblat, as I don't  have these actual books any longer. I did happen to have this book (#4 in the series), so I couldn't seeing using a credit to buy the book. However, the narrator did such a fantastic job  with her voices in the other volumes that I pretended it was her voice in my head as I read. Ha-ha. I guess you can say I really love a good narrator reading to me.

As I haven't visited with Amelia since last May, this book was a really enjoyable way to spend some time, and I can recommend this series if you haven't discovered it.

(And look Iris, if you're reading this, there's even a Henry on the cover.)

My final listen for the month was this book by Deborah Cadbury about some of Queen Victoria's grandchildren.  Queen Victoria had 9 children, 42 grandchildren, and as I found out doing some internet research, a lot of great, great-great, and presently, all the way up to 6 greats before the word grandchildren, leaving a total of 1238 descents in total. There are over 900 of them still alive.   (Fun facts: The descendant that lived the longest (to date) was Prince Philip, followed by the still living Queen Elizabeth, both of whom are great-great grandchildren.)  

The Queen's husband, Prince Albert, believed that by marrying off their children to various dynasties in Europe, a new progressive and modern order could be achieved that would stop all the in-fighting between European nations. 

That of course didn't end up working, but the Queen did marrying off, or I should say help broker or influence many of the marriages of her grandchildren to various European dynasties. That's not to say she always got her way. This book doesn't talk about all of her grandchildren, but it is a fascinating look into a few of the major ruling marriages. Even though I've read/listened to a few books about this Queen and her family, there was still new things to learn from this book.  I enjoyed it very much.

Those are my books for February.  It was a good month book wise for me. Did you read anything good to recommend? 

Have a great weekend.