June Books

    Hi everyone. Happy Friday. Here in the US many people are celebrating  a long July 4th weekend. My husband has taken this whole past week off, so it's been a busy week for me.  I thought today I'd post my monthly reading report with my books from June because it makes an easy scheduled post. Once again I did a lot of reading, but it helps that I have a lot of reading time during my 10 hours  of "work" at the lake. 😏 I'll be back next week for Friday Face Off and Friday Lunch Break. 

    After posting about Corfu and it's connection to the Durrell's a few Friday's ago, I decided my first June listen would be book 2 in Gerald Durrell’s Corfu series. This book, Birds, Beasts and Other Relatives, is the sequel to  My Family and Othet Animals which book 1 of the trilogy. After Durrell's father passed away and the  family found themselves in tough financial straits, Mom Durrell moved herself and all the kids, including young Gerald, to the Greek island of Corfu. This  story begins in book 1 (which I reread a few years back), and in this book you get to see more of their life in Greece.

     Gerald is always collecting animal specimens. Much of the book is about his collecting, like going out with a fisherman one night or building a stone pond to put some of his collection in.  But Gerald also manages to write a lot about the people in Greece that his family lived among. These include Katrina who gives her baby donkey to Gerald because he really really wants one for his birthday, and then, when he goes to thank her, he accidentally manages to see her give birth to her first child.  And of course, he writes a lot about his mother, his brothers Lesley and Larry, as well as his sister Margo. They are each wonderful characters and have their own quirks. I loved reading about and then imagining life in Corfu before the Second World War. 

     You could read this book without having read the first in the series, but it is a much richer having read or listened to book 1. This second book was just under 6 hours so it went quickly, made me laugh a lot and was as charming as the first book in this series. In fact it was so charming, book 3 was my next listen. (You can see it further down in my post)

     My first actual book for June was another Agatha Christie. This book was first published in 1948 and was also published under the title There Is a Tide.

     Gordon Cloade is the wealthy head of a large extended family. He marries a much younger woman, and shortly after that, he is killed in a bomb blast during the London Blitz. The issue is that Gordon not only promised  but has always helped his family out financially. However now that he is dead, British law says his estate goes to his wife until her passing when it will then return to the family. You can imagine the trouble that has caused his many siblings and their children.

     Cloade's widow was married once before and believes she was widowed in that marriage after it ended, believe being the key word. And of course, Cloade's widow has a younger brother who has now taken a lot of interest in her affairs and is helping her deal with her late husband's family. Christie has once again created the perfect situation for a murder. 

     I thought this was one of the better Christie's I have read. She was a talented mystery writer, but like all writers,  some of her stories were more interesting than others.  And I love how she sucks you in and then twists everything around in the last 40 pages. It was a good twist too (except for one little part that might not work as well in our present time as it did in 1948.) 

    My next read was this thriller. The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides was a big hit awhile back, and it had good reviews too. A couple of months ago I read The Fury by this same author, which I think I actually liked better than this story. But if you like thrillers, this is still worth the read because it moves along quickly and doesn't take very much time to get through. Plus it's not a bad story. 

    Alicia Berenson is a rising star in the art world when she was accused of killing her husband, but since that time, she has stopped talking. She is in a psychiatric facility for people with violent pasts. Theo Faber is a therapist who wants to work with Alicia, which he ends up doing. He's also a guy who grew up with a tough family life and who likes to act like a detective.  He decides to pull together the story of Alicia's life because he wants to get her talking.

     This book has a few unexpected twists, and it was written so that I didn't put it all together until the book was getting close to the end. And it ended with a cliff hanger. I don't know if that was done because there is a part two of this story coming at another time, or if the author just wanted the reader to make their own ending.  This is a good beach/summer read type of book, and even though it's not the best book I ever read, it was hard to put down until I finished it. 

    Death in Tokyo is a classic style police mystery by Keigo Higashino and book 3 in the  Inspector Kyoichiro Kaga mysteries. A business man has been stabbed  and then wanders away from the site of his attack. He died on a bridge in Tokyo.  Another man is hit by a car in the same area where the stabbing is presumed to have occurred. This man just happens to have the victim's wallet on him. Does that make him the murderer?

     I really enjoy how this author changes up the overall "formula" for each of these Inspector Kaga mysteries. This time we meet the Inspector's cousin Matsumiya, who is also on the police force and is Kaga's partner in this mystery.  We also get to know the suspected murderer and the victim’s family quite well. Was the supposed murderer actually the murderer?  It takes a shrewd detective like Kaga to figure that one out.

     I liked this particular book the best of the 3 Inspector Kaga mysteries I've read to date. I never saw the ending coming, although I did suspect that things were not quite as they appeared earlier in the book. This book is a very good classic style mystery in this series, and you could read it without having read the first 2 books. 

     I was then back to the Maggie Hope series. The Prisoner in the Castle is Book 8 out of 11 books in this series. You really do need to read these books in order, as this story picks up where the last story ended.

     At the end of book 7, Maggie is back in London after a scary time in Paris. World War 2 is raging, and the German's are in the City of Lights. In fact, one of Maggie's friends was murdered by the Gestapo for spying, and Maggie along with another friend, barely escape the city. However, back in England, Maggie refuses to lie and certain people are worried she will spill the secrets she knows so she is "kidnapped" by some unscrupulous British authorities. She ends up imprisoned on an island off the Scottish coast along with  a few other people. There are no phones or other connections to the mainland, except for the supply boat which comes once a month.

     Then those few people on the island  start to die, and weird things happen, like a stag's head is found in the tub in Maggie's room. Back in London the trial for a "Jack the Ripper" style murderer is happening. That story was started in book 6,  and Maggie was the only one of his victim's that survived.   She is needed for this trial, but no one can find her because she  is locked away  in a scary  castle and no one was told where she was going.

    This is another good book in this series, and I liked how it is a very different story from the others so far. That’s a good thing about these Maggie Hope books; they have a nice variety of adventures. I think if you had read this book before book, 9, 10 and 11 were published it might have been more suspenseful because you wouldn't know if Maggie was going to make it off the island, but I still enjoyed it very much.

     As I mentioned  earlier in this post, for my second listen this month I continued Gerald Durrell's story of his and his family's life on the Greek Island of Corfu. There was a different narrator for this book from the other 2. The new narrator did a good job, BUT it took me a bit to get used to his voice and reading style.

     This book was not a long listen (as was book 2-Birds, Beasts and Relatives), and it was as enjoyable. Although the events were different from book 2, it was more of the same. I don't mean that as a criticism though, because Durrell's family's antics, visitors and life on Corfu are very enjoyable. In this volume the King is visiting the island, Durrell's sister Margo has a suitor she doesn't want, and a big birthday party for a good friend is planned. And a lot more too.

    My only comment is that this book seems to end suddenly without a real wrap up. Book 2 ends with the arrival of a telegram warning about how  it looks like war is looming in Europe (the Second World War),  and it is recommended that the family return to England. But book 3 just ends. That made it feel a little unfinished to me.

     I had picked up An Unfinished Love Story in my Audible account not long ago, and I was just waiting to listen to it when my actual book reading was on the lighter side.  Since that's true this month, I decided this would be my next listened to book. I love biographies when they are read by the author, as was true for this volume. Kearns-Goodwin is an accomplished historian who has taught at Harvard (which you might discover early in the book if you didn't already know this), and she has written many exceptional biographies.  This biography is not only about the 1950's and 1960’s, but it also about a person that was particularly sweet in Kearns-Goodwin's  life, her husband  This is as much  his story as it is history. 

      Dick Goodwin left boxes and boxes of memorabilia,  and this book is based on this collection.  The author and her husband made a project of going through the boxes when Dick Goodwin was in his 80's. He was quite an accomplished man.  He worked for JFK’s campaign, worked for JFK when he was president and also for Lyndon Johnson when he was in the White House. He was a presidential speechwriter and was also the person who brought to light the 1950’s quiz show scandal.  Among other things! I'm not a big political reader, but this book brought so many human elements into play that it was  a really interesting story. 

      Since I listened to this book, I also enjoyed how, in some of the historical quotes that the author used to back herself up,  there were actual recordings from the person who said them. I was a young child when many of the events in this book occurred, so I recognize names and times, but to be honest, it was too close to when I was in high school and little of this time period had made it into any of the history courses I took. I learned a lot and enjoyed this biography, and even though this book was 17 1/2 hours long, I had only 6 hours left when I first looked at the remaining time. (Not that I listened to it for 11 hours straight, but I never checked the time for several listens because I was very engrossed in the story.)

     The Eight is a reread for me. This book was first published in 1988. I pulled my old paperback off my shelf because I was in the mood for an adventure story. And since it had been many years since I read it, there were so many parts I didn't remember.

     Two connected stories are going on in this book. First  (and the one I don’t remember from the first time I read this book)there is the story of 2 cousins who lived in the  1790’s France. They were squirreled away in a Nunnery, but then during the French Revolution, the Nunnery had to be disbanded. This is because hidden in the Nunnery is a precious chess board and set that belonged to Charlemagne a thousand years earlier. There are people who want this chess set because  of the message encoded in it.   The only way to protect it is have the nuns disappear off into various places;  each of them with a piece from the set. 

 

     The second story jumps to the 1970's. Cat is a computer person for a Big 8 accounting firm. When she makes the Big Boss unhappy, she ends up being sent to Algeria.  On New Years Eve before she leaves a fortune teller informs her that something big is going to happen in her life. "You are in danger." are the words the fortuneteller speaks.  At the same time, an antique dealer acquaintance mentions that he is trying to get a hold of an antique chess set from that country. Perhaps Cat will help him find Charlemagne’s chess at which holds the formula for an unknown universal power. 

     This book was a fun read. I loved it, and it was hard to put down. I enjoyed the connection to the game of chess and some famous historical figures. This is a complex and eventful story which my simple description doesn’t fully capture. It wasn't a hard read but it took some time because  if you accidentally  skipped a line or even a word, it would be easy to miss something happening. The Eight  has some interesting characters, some scenes that are a bit unbelievable, and even some  romance. It all makes a good read though. And you have to wonder, if like the character Cat, our lives are all like a game of chess. 

And this, The Story of Evolution in 25 Discoveries, was my next book.

    I've read a couple other  Donald R. Prothero books .  With an expertise in paleontology and geology (having been a professor at several universities including Columbia and Caltech), Prothero writes about his subject in these "25" style books in a clear and concise way. What do I mean by 25 books? Prothero has written several books that are 25 chapters long, each chapter covering a topic. I've previously read The Story of Dinosaurs in 25 Discoveries and The Story of the Earth in 25 Rocks.  This time I'm reading his 25 book about Evolution.

      I like how the author combines not only the science, but with the story behind it. That story might include a bit of history, and it always talks about the person who discovered or noticed certain phenomena. The other good thing is that Prothero includes a lot of diagrams and photographs to add to each chapter. 

     This book is a well written introduction to Evolution. For me, with my biology background and having done a fair amount of reading about the subject already, much of this book was a very good  review. I don't mean that I am any expert in evolution, and I did learn many new things from this volume. It definitely was a worthwhile read.  If you aren't very familiar with a scientific area and want to read about it, I recommend these "25' style books because Prothero takes you on a well organized read through the subject. He has a couple of other 25 books I would also like to read, including his newest one on Earth's Climate.

     And finally, my last book for June is this thriller.

     This is the third  book ( to date) in the Housemaid series by Freida McFadden. I can't say these books are the best stories ever written, but they are a very fast and easy reads (at least for me).   I  figured since I read the first 2 books in the last few months, I should finish the series. Plus I was curious what the author was going to do in this volume. 

     This book was enjoyable. However, it really was just more of the same as the first 2 books. I like how the author brought in some of the older characters. She is also good at creating those stereotypical characters that everyone recognizes and doesn't really like. Until the twists happen that is. McFadden did a good job of leading my thinking in one direction and then taking me into  a totally new direction. I knew the twists were coming, and I was reading to see what they were.  I did want to see who the killer was because I had some suspicions, but I must admit I completely struck out on guessing this one.

     As I had an offer for Kindle Unlimited for free for 3 months and this book was a freebie read with this Kindle service, I'm glad I read this. It made a perfect hot weather read  because it was fun and didn't require a lot of reading effort. But I am also glad I didn't pay for it. If you haven't read any of this series I'd start with the first one though, since this book does refer back to other events in the series. And they are definitely worth the read.

     

    And if you are interested,  to finish off this post here’s my mid-year reading stats. I know some of you read more than I do, and some of you don't read as much as I do. These numbers are more for me than for those of you who read my book posts, just because I like to keep track of silly stats like this.  So far I've read 56 books this year. Any book that overlapped topics was only put into 1 area. 

Fiction

Mysteries: 15

Thrillers: 5

Classics/Literature: 5

Historical Fiction: 5

Other fiction including fantasy:8

Nonfiction

Art Related Books: 2

Cooking:2

Travel:1

Science/ Natural history: 2

Historical:4

Biography: 4

Other nonfiction:3

     If you've made it to the end of this post, thanks. And as I always say, I love recommendations.  Enjoy the start of your weekend.