November Books

 Hi everyone. I hope your first December weekend is going well.

It's time again for another once a month book post. With the shorter, colder days I had hoped to read a lot of books last month, but between issues with my mom, the busy Thanksgiving holiday weekend, losing my reading mojo for a couple of weeks and one very long book, that didn't happen. It was still a very good reading month, just fewer books, so if you like book posts, I hope you'll read on.

My first listen for November was this interesting nonfiction book about Boris Pasternak  and the woman, Olga Ivinskaya, who was his love. She was also his muse for the character of Lara in his classic novel.  This particular biography is written by Pasternak's great niece Anna Pasternak. The author's grandmother and Boris Pasternak were siblings.

You might wonder what interested me to listen to this biography. Back in the fall of 2019, I listened to this book.

The Secrets We Kept was a light fictional book that had 2 parts. First there was the story of how the CIA used Dr. Zhivago as an espionage weapon. The other part of this book was a fictionalized  account of Boris Pasternak's life  with Olga during the  writing and publication of his novel. I especially enjoyed this part of that book, as I  found the details of Pasternak’s and Olga's lives interesting. It's taken me awhile to get to this month's biography from my wish list.

Lara was very well written and quite fascinating to read. Although Stalin had put Pasternak on his do not touch list, the author still could not get his novel published under the regime. Living in Stalin's Soviet Union was not easy for either of these people, but especially for Olga. She ended up  in  Soviet work camps because the authorities, when they couldn't touch Pasternak, thought they could get to him through her.  She remained loyal to Pasternak, even after spending 4 years in a  soviet work camp during Stalin's era and even though Pasternak never divorced his second wife. Pasternak himself was an interesting enigma, if not at times more interested in his writing than in the people who supported him. Olga must have truly loved him to put up with everything that happened to her in regards to him.

I am glad the author added a postscript with her thoughts to the end of the book, as she echoes some of the thoughts I had while reading. 

I enjoyed this book Lara. It was in many ways a tragic story, but as an outsider to the situation, it was also really interesting to read about. Lara looked into not only 2 people's lives, but also at their time and place, as well as Pasternak's writing process  and the publication of his novel. All novels tell stories, but in this case the story behind the novel might just be even more interesting that the novel itself. 

My first actual book for November was the third novel in the Thursday Murder Club mystery series. Ron, Ebrahim, Joyce and Elizabeth are back again. Hurrah! If you haven't read this fun series, these 4 folks are residents at a senior living complex in England and have a club called the Thursday Murder Club which meets at 11 in the Jigsaw (puzzle) Room every Thursday. (Well,except once, so far.) These 4 friends have befriended Chris and Donna who are police detectives, and the Thursday Murder club gets help from these 2 detectives.

In this book, Elizabeth is kidnapped and given a job by her kidnapper before she is released.   This occurs while the Thursday Murder Club is looking into the death of an investigative reporter. This series being what it is, there are many twists and turns as the story moves along. There are new characters introduced as life goes on for the characters we know, and of course, there's a couple of "bad" guys too. It's another really good story to read. Richard Osman is a very clever writer the way he constructs this.  I couldn't put the second half of this book down, and that was true for the first half also until I was interrupted with other sad things in life to deal with.  I am looking forward to book 4, but it sounds like I might have to wait until later in 2023 for that.

Murder at Government House by Elspeth Huxley is a 1937 book set in Chania, an imaginary African colony of Great Britain. The author (Huxley) grew up in East Africa during colonial times, and you might have read the book or seen the film of her childhood autobiography, The Flame Trees of Thika. This book that I read is a vintage fictional mystery story.  It brings you (as a reader) back to days and a place long gone by.

Mark Beaton discovers the Governor of Chania slumped dead on his desk just after 11 PM as a dinner party starts to wind down. Also at this dinner party is a visiting anthropologist Olivia Brandeis. The local police detective assigned to the case is Inspector Vachell. Vachells is a recent immigrant from Canada, as he's been trying out jobs in various places around the world.  He and Olivia are acquaintances from earlier in their lives when they both worked at the Grand Canyon in Arizona, and the 2 of them in a way work together to solve the crime.

This book is definitely a classic style mystery. It is well written, and although I didn't love it, I liked it. I would have liked it more if it wasn't centered so much  among the government  officials and was  more centered around local culture. ( Of course it  is set among government officials Erika-look at the title.) The parts not set around the government officials were fascinating.  I found 3 of this author's mysteries while cleaning out some of my books, and as I wanted to read them in publication order, this was the first.

Although this story is set in East Africa, it is Africa of 1937. I had to remind myself of that a few times during the novel. I did like how this story introduced some fictional African local culture, and I thought using an anthropologist with the police inspector was a smart way to tell the story.  I know I read all 3 of these set in  Africa mysteries  back in the 1980's when I bought them, but since I don't remember them, I am curious if Vachell is the inspector in the others also. (OK,I  looked at the backs of my books, and he is). I liked his character. I also hope Olivia Brandeis is back in the other 2 books, even better if she was in a bigger role. (The covers didn't tell me this.)  I'll let you know if she is a main character once I read them.

My other listen for November was a long one. One of my favorite writers is Charles Dickens, and  I was reminded while reading one of Mae's somewhat recent posts that it's been awhile since I read or listened to any of his books. I was going to re-listen to Great Expectations, which is my favorite Dickens, but then I noticed I already had David Copperfield in my Audible account. I last listened to Great Expectations a couple of years ago, but I hadn't read David Copperfield for close to 40 years, so I decided it was time to take the plunge. 

This novel is a 36+ hours listen, which  is  a lot of time. Even though it seemed like this book was all I listened to in November, it was still definitely worth my time. Dickens is such an excellent writer. In an often used Dickens technique, he first takes us back to David Copperfield's childhood. That time period was  idyllic and then not so idyllic. From childhood we travel forward through Copperfield's life. We meet new characters and get to visit some from earlier in the book as they intersect back into Copperfield's life. 

 I love all the "characters" one is introduced to in a Dickens novel. They are colorful and from many walks of life. You like some, with others you can see trouble coming, but with all of them, you become connected, especially in such a long book.

 Dickens is also a master with language and with storytelling. This book is sad , funny, hopeful and definitely relatable even though it was serialized in 1849. It is also a great look back to life in Victorian England,  albeit through the eyes of Charles Dicken. 

Back in college I took a literature class on Dickens, and this was the book I was assigned to do my final project on. I won't rewrite my thesis (especially since I can't actually remember what it was about-smile). This Audible version was read by Richard Armitage, who did a fantastic job with all the voices.  This novel is not autobiographical, but if my memory serves me right, this book does incorporate some  parts of the author's life. Although long, this book went quickly as it is so easy to get involved in the story. It even kept my focus while being preoccupied with other issues in life. I might have been able to listen to a couple of other books in place of this one, but it was worth the time to listen to David Copperfield. 

And that's all for this month's reading. I'm at 81 books to date this year, which means I most likely won't hit my goal of 100 books. That's not the end of the world for certain. There are more important goals to meet, and  it is better to really get into a book rather than just  get through a whole lot of them to meet a goal. Maybe next year I'll actually make it 100-smile. (And if I don't, oh well.)

Thanks for visiting my blog. I'd love to hear any comments on these books and also, if you have any recommendations, please pass them my way. My books-to-read list is long, but I keep plodding along at it.