February Books

      Hi everyone. I hope you've been having a good week so far. I'm back today for my book post with last month's reading. As February was another wintery month, I had some good reading, and that reading still included a bit of armchair travel like January did.  It also included a bit of science, some mystery, some literature as well as some "sort of" history. 

      My first listen for February took me back to the Simon Serrailler mystery series written by Susan Hill. This is book 5. This series is set in Lafferton, England, and Simon is a lead Detective Inspector on the force. He's also a talented artist, and as this novel starts, Serrailler is taking some time away in Scotland after a tough case.

     In this story some prostitutes have gone missing and are found murdered. Abby, one of the prostitutes  who is hoping her life can be improved so she can get out of that business, becomes one of the characters you get to follow. In this series you also get to know Serrailer's sister Cat. Serrailler is one of a set of triplets, and although you don't get to know one of the triplets, you do get to know his other triplet, this sister. Cat was widowed a year earlier and is struggling with her new situation. Through her you also get to meet one of the other women who goes missing.

     This story doesn't just deal with prostitution, but also with family, the church and bi-polar syndrome. In parts, it's a pretty intense story. 

     These books  need to be read in order since the story develops over time and throughout the books. And they are not a cozy series, but they are  really well written and a bit dark.  And the narrator of this series, Steven Pacey, does a great job and has great voice inflections. I did have an ah-ha moment towards the end of the book when I knew who the murderer was. I also could have immediately listened to more of this series, but I have some other books I  want to check out. You'll certainly see more of this series in my book reports eventually, that is unless  book 6 calls to me loudly. 😏

    The Secret War of Julia Child  by Diana R. Chambers is a fictional novel based on  Julia Child's life during the Second World War years. (If you aren't familiar with Julia Child, she went on to become a food celebrity by introducing French cooking to the American public in the early 1960's.) At that time in her life she worked in American intelligence and was stationed in parts of Asia. It is also where she met Paul Child, the man who was to become her husband. 

     When I started reading this book, I began to wonder if this story was pure fiction with no historical merit, since I've read quite a few biographies about Julia Child and I didn't remember ever reading some of the details the author used. I knew the general setting was where Child was stationed, but the actual events made me curious  because it seemed like Julia was present at too many big moments.  I'm OK with using a real character in a fictional setting or creating fictional events, but I do think the author needs to come clean about that so they don't appear to be trying to fool their readers that their story is really biographical based fiction.  Anyhow, I wasn't too far in when I jumped to the end of the book and read the author's post script. 

     In the postscript the author makes it very clear that many of the events in this book are fiction or if not, maybe happened to Julia Child. Child claims she was just a file clerk at this time, but I was happy to see that the author wasn't claiming to write 100% true historical fiction. That info (strangely) made me ready to move on and read the rest of the book.

     Chambers wrote a really atmospheric book. You can tell she had spent time in the places she used in her novel as they were vivid and colorful. She also captured Julia Child's personality. Not that I was ever personally acquainted with Julia Child to know her personality, but this is the Julia that  always seems to come through in books, films and her TV cooking shows.  And one other bonus for me was that my Dad was stationed in many of the same areas that Julia Child was during the Second World War, and since this book  has such vivid details, I feel like I can now see a little bit of his war experiences. 

    Saying that, a few parts of this novel still seemed a little too made up. Not for a war zone, but to picture Julia Child in. As the author states, there are gaps in what people know about Julia McWilliam's life during the war years so anything can go.   I'm glad I read the book. I enjoyed it. If you like a loosely biographical, fictional adventure story, this is a good one.

     My next book was by Susan Hill, the author of the Simon Serrailer mysteries (see my first book mentioned in this post). She's a  good writer, and I've been looking into some of her other writings. This book, Howard's End of on the Landing: A Year of Reading from Home,  is autobiographical in many ways and about books in a lot of ways. 

      I didn't realize that as well as being a writer, Susan Hill is/was a publisher and an interviewer  who  met and even got to know  so many writers. Besides that, she is obviously a big reader, and this book is about her book problem. It's the same book problem I and many of you who read a lot probably also have. She went to find a book, and instead of finding that book, found many that she had never read and many that had been sitting too long since last being read. To quote her "A book on the shelf is a dead thing but it is also a chrysalis, an inanimate object with the potential to burst into new life."

     Although she starts in the fall rather than in January, Hill decides to spend the next year going through her books, reading and rereading many of them instead of getting any new books. She writes about it here. There were authors I recognized and many I did not. There were stories of what books Hill and her husband actually own. There were stories of organization,  printing,  publishing and genres. There were also stories about the author.

     I really enjoyed this 236 page volume. There were parts that were very interesting as well as parts  that were not as interesting. I didn't always agree with her choices, but then this is her book, not mine. But she always explained herself, and I appreciated that. I enjoyed reading about authors I've read, and I enjoyed meeting new authors. I added some more titles to my wish list, which is both good and bad. In the end, she lists 40 books which she could not part with (although I don't think she did a lot of purging in this project). This book made me think about my own reading at different points in my life, which might make a good blog post in itself. (Well only if you like to read about books.) 😏

     My next book was actually something I listened to for pure entertainment. Plus my daughter was reading it, and whenever my daughter wants to do something with me, even having a book talk, I'll do it. I already had this book in my Audible account, and since I am trying to read and listen to some of the books I've collected, it was a win-win situation.

      Monique Grant works for a top magazine in New York, and when the now 79 year old famed actress Evelyn Hugo decides to share her life for a biography, she insists on Monique secretly writing it. The magazine thinks Monique is writing an article on some movie dresses to be donated to an auction, so Monique is  stuck right away because she doesn't quite know how to handle her boss. Never mind she's not sure how to handle the aging movie star either, but she definitely wants to write this biography.

      This book sucked me in and had a good pace.  At first I thought it was on the  light  side, and I thought it was a typical story of a woman who wanted to be an actress. But after finishing the story and thinking about it,  I'm not sure it's all that light. This book shows the ruthlessness of someone who goes for what they want, even if they have to hide parts of themselves or leave other behind for success. I also knew early on in the story there had to be a twist, and there was. I didn't see this one coming at all.   

     If you asked me in the first half of the book to rate it, I would have said it was good. Like a 4-ish out of 5. If you asked me after I finished the book to rate it, I would have rated it higher, like a 4.5 out of 5. The end of the book was really the best part, but of course, you can't just jump to the end and fully appreciate the story.

     

     The Susan Hill book about books (Howard's End is on the Landing), talked about many good books. One writer this author loves is Virginia Woolf. In fact, both this book,  To The Lighthouse, and her novel Mrs. Dalloway are ones Hill added to her 40 books she could never-part-with list. 

    I haven't read either of these books in decades, but I still have my old  paperback editions of them both. And I didn't even need to do a lot of searching for them on my bookshelf either. 👍 Eeny-meeny-miny-mo, I ended up with To The Lighthouse for my next book. 

    It's been so long since I read any Virginia Woolf. I forgot about her somewhat/controlled stream of conscientiousness style of writing. I also forgot about her eye for details and how she uses those details with her style to tell the story. The story starts with the Ramsey's and their 8 children, as well as some friends, spending some time in Hebrides during the late summer/ early autumn. Part 2 goes on to the empty house and part 3 brings some of the family back to the house. There is a lighthouse which takes on both literal and symbolic meaning, and the story starts with the youngest child wanting to visit the lighthouse but being told that the weather probably won't cooperate. The story ends with him finally getting there, even though many years have passed.  

I really enjoyed Woolf’s imagery and part 2 of the story really touched me. This was a book I needed to focus on while reading, but it wasn’t the longest of books so it went fairly fast.   This novel also made me think of  a comment in the Susan Hill book I mentioned at the beginning of this review. She wrote about working one’s way slowly through a book, to absorb and become a part of it. I think that is the right approach to this novel. I could say a lot more about this book, but I’m trying to keep my write ups on the shorter side.   I need to reread the other  Virginia Woolf book off my shelf sometime soon, to see if I enjoy that story as much as I did this one. 

     

     Snow Blind  is the first book in the Dark Iceland Series by Ragnar Jonasson.  The story is set in 2008/2009, when Iceland had a big financial crisis. Ari Thor, who is finishing up his police/criminology degrees in Reykijavik, is offered a job in a small town in far northern Iceland called Siglufjordur. Since jobs are scarce because of the  financial crisis, he decides to take it.

     When Ari arrives in Siglufjordur, he not only has to learn to deal with small town life, but there is a once famous author who suspiciously dies from a  fall down some stairs and also a woman found unconscious and bleeding in the snow. Ari is a new police officer, so as you read the book you learn with him about being a police officer and also adjusting to life in such a small town. Ari's a likable person, and Jonasson does a great job at describing the tough winter that Ari now has to learn to deal with. This all goes along with the 2 crimes that the police team (including Ari) needs to solve.

    This was a pretty good mystery, and there were some surprises near the end. The author has a rather plain style of writing, which I thought worked well for this story. Plus there's a bit of an Easter egg for the next book in the series too. When I finished this book I was ready to read more from this series.

      

     Whatever Happened to Margo is the only book ever written and published by Margo Durrell, sister to animal lover Gerald Durrell and to literary writer Lawrence Durrell.  Margo wrote this book in the 1960's, and then it was tucked away in a box in the attic. It was discovered by her granddaughter and published in the 1990's. If you've read  or watched the TV series set in Corfu that is titled My Family and Other Animals (by younger brother Gerald Durrell), you've met Margo, the only sister  of the 4 Durrell children.

     This book is set in 1947 after the Corfu days of her brother's books.  Back in England and newly divorced, Margo buys and opens a Guest House  in Bournemouth. She moves in with her 2 school aged sons (Gerry and Nicholas). Her marriage to an RAF pilot in 1940 and its subsequent ending is not much mentioned in this story. Instead you meet  Margo starting her new guest house running career. Plus, you meet a lot of characters who come to stay in the house, and you even get visits from her mother, 2 of her brothers (Gerald- who drops off some monkeys,  and Leslie- who brings a dog named Johnny to the family as a gift) as well as some of her aunts. 

    My one question is is this book more or less fictional,  based on when Margo ran a Guest House or is autobiographical? Perhaps it is a bit of both.

     I enjoyed this book. It is just a tad  bit dated, but on the other hand, it was written 60-ish years ago and  is set in 1947.  The characters are people you could still know. Maybe they are a bit stereotypical, and maybe this book has the same  general "feel" of one of Gerald Durrell's Corfu books without the excitement of a beautiful Greek Island.  It's great to get a glimpse of the family after most of them returned to England.  It even made me smile several times too. 

    When I finished Snowblind I went onto this novel, The Queens of Crime. I enjoy Marie Benedict's historical fiction stories, and this one was no exception.  

      In 1931 several British mystery authors decided to create a club called the Detection Club. The club had rules for keeping mysteries "genuine", and members had to swear to keep to these rules. Out of all of the people in the Detection Club, only 2 were women. One was Agatha Christie and the other was Dorothy Sawyers. These 2 women decided to 'force" the hand of the men by inviting some other successful women authors: Margery Allingham, Ngaio March, and Baroness Emma Orczy.  These 5 women decided they wanted to be called the Queens of Crime.

   The men don't quite take these women seriously, so to prove themselves, these ladies decide to investigate a real murder. Dorothy Sawyers, who is the main character and who tells this story, is married to a reporter. An English woman had gone missing over the Channel in France, and her body had just been located after several months. Sawyers finds out about this crime from her reporter husband, and since the police seem to be hopeless, she organizes all Queens of Crime women to head to France in order to see if they can solve this case through their mystery writer eyes.

     The story bounces between France, London and other parts of England. It's actually a well written classic style mystery with some historical truth thrown in.  I'd love to see the author write more stories with these 5 sleuths. The author explains that the skeleton of this story is true, but most of the events are  fiction. And even though  the book doesn't pass for a true story, there are enough true parts to it to make it seem like it could all be true.

     My last book for February, The Light Eaters by Zoe Schlanger, was one that won lots of accolades and awards for 2024 including in the top 10 best books for 2024 by the New Yorker, Boston Globe, Smithsonian, and Washington Post, just to name a few. After listening to it, I can see why. I learned a lot about plants, and I can say plant biology has definitely changed since my college botany class. This book was really well written and tells a fascinating story about how plants came (and are still coming) to be seen as more interactive and "intelligent" than they've been seen by most people for centuries.  You don't have to be a scientist to follow it either. 

    The author begins by explaining how she got onto this topic in the first place. Zoe Schlanger started off as an environmental writer, but as she researched stories, that topic ended up depressing her after a while.  When she was on an assignment that really was bringing her down, she'd either walk in a wooded area or take care of her plants in her home. That's what got her interested in investigating some plant questions, and from there this book took shape. 

   I thought where this book then goes is mind blowing.  Schlanger talks about how plants sense gravity. Can plants hear? Yes, although maybe not what we think of hearing. Do plants like to be touched? Yes. And touch often stimulates more growth. Does that mean you need to go stroke your plants, no. Plants evolved traits right along with organisms they share the world with, especially insects. It makes sense that if an insect is crawling on a plant it might react by growing more because if 1 insect turns into 100 insects the plant has a better survival chance. 

    And of course there's all kinds of pheromones and hormones that plants communicate to each other with. Then there's plant memory, which may not be remembering a moment or an incident (but might be remembering a moment).  The part about plant mimicry is fascinating too. Schlanger discusses the genetic side to these things as well as cellular memory. As well as organism ecology and many other topics. Basically, plants are much more complex than people have ever looked at them, but then, in the last 100 years or so people have started to look to animals as being much more complex and intelligent than people ever saw them being. 

    The author ends the book with some thought provoking questions and her own answers to them. I know I can't look at any plant the same way after reading this.  I'm assuming this book is indexed, but since I listened to it, I can't tell you for certain.  Plus I like how she threw in a bit of botanical history and interviewed  many scientists who are making these latest discoveries. 

    I didn't know quite what to expect from this book, but it has exceeded my expectations. I suspect this might be one of my best books for 2025, and time will tell if that is true. 

   

    Whether you're a fan of book posts or not, if you made it this far, thanks for getting through this post.