March's Books

      Hi everyone. It's my monthly book-post day.  I've noticed I've gotten  a bit long with some of my written reviews today at least compared to earlier book posts, and hopefully that won't make you click off right away. 😏  I'm also guessing people read about titles that interest them and skip those that don't. And as always, I write these reviews for myself, but I welcome your comments and book recommendations too.  It was a good reading month overall.

March started with a bit of mystery reading.

     I started 2 books at basically the same time in early  March. This one, The Floating Admiral, was  a paperback  and was my old used copy that I found  on my bookshelves. The other book I read was on my Kindle and you can read about that book below.

    You may remember that last month I read a book (The Queens of Crime)  that referenced the Detection Club, a 1930's group of established British mystery writers who came together to form this "mystery writing business" club. The Floating Admiral was a book that this group wrote together and published in 1931, with different members each writing a chapter. The "rule" about this novel was that the chapters had to flow together to form a cohesive story. 

    Retired Admiral Penistone was found stabbed through the heart in the bottom of a small row boat floating on a tidal river. He was found in the very early morning by a man fishing. He lived along this  river in a large home with his niece and some servants. The evening before he was murdered, he and his niece dined with the vicar who lived across the river, and he also visited a hotel down river  to see if his niece's fiance had check in. Then, right after her uncle's murder, his niece abruptly runs off to get married and the vicar needs to leave town on business. Later there another murder in this small community. 

     I was really enjoying this story, and then there were a couple of authors/chapters that were rather wordy and that (I thought) didn't really seem to advance the story much. After that the chapters got back on track, and Inspector Rudge moved forward with the case, although now he seemed to be less in charge than he had been. There was a twist at the end, and it was a satisfactory ending in the final chapter by Anthony Berkeley. One thing I found interesting was that even though the book ended, many of the authors each wrote how they would end in the story in an appendix in the back. There was also a second appendix with some notes about details like tides, but  I didn't feel the need or want to read that one.

     Funny, but I didn't recognize  many of the names of the chapter authors. I don't know if that says  many of these writers have become not as well known in 2025, or if I'm just not up on 1930's British mystery writers. Probably both points are true.

    I enjoyed this book, but I will say those couple of over wordy chapters almost made me put the book aside. There  was enough suspense that I did want to know who the killer was, so I plowed through the not so great chapters and got back into the better chapters to finish the book.

 

    My other first reading book of the month was this one, Black Out by Ragnar Jonasson. I read this one on my Kindle, and it is book 2 in the Dark Iceland series. I say it is my other first book because of the tiny  print size in The Floating Admiral and the fact that it had some very detailed chapters made it hard to read in bed at night. Therefore I would read this Icelandic mystery before bed on my Kindle. The 2 books were different enough not to be confusing, and this book, Black Out, had a very straightforward  and easy to read style.

     This story mostly takes place in northern Iceland in a town called Siglufjordur as well as in the area around this town. The main character is Ari Thor, who works for this small town's police force. In book one Ari had some adjustment issues since he had moved to this town from Reykjavik, but this story is set a couple of summers later and Ari has now become used to living and working in a tiny town.  In this book a tourist discovered a man who had been gruesomely murdered in the nearby area but who was most recently living in Siglufjordur. That means Ari is working along with another police department on this case.

    This book follows the murder investigation through the eyes of Ari Thor and also through the eyes of a television reporter Isrun.  There  are 4 main story-lines going on and several characters. Besides the murder there is the story of the reporter, a human trafficking story as well as someone with some mental health issues.  The author  cleverly managed to pull all the story lines together into 1 by the end of the book. 

    This was a good mystery, and I enjoyed the look into Icelandic culture and the scenery. You'll  be reading about  a few more of these mysteries because once again, the author ended the book with a bit of an Easter egg and lots of questions about Ari Thor's life. And for those who might be interested, you could pick up and read this book without reading book #1 in the series, but I would image it is a richer read having read book one.

    My first listen for March was this reissued, at least somewhat rewritten and retitled version of a 1998 book by Louise Erdrich. Originally the book was titled Antelope Wife, but now it is called Antelope Woman. The author reads this novel, and in a preface she explains why the title has been changed. According to Erdrich, when she writes she only stops a story because  at that moment the story is finished.  But in her mind the story goes on even after the book is in print. With this re-release she was able to add to and perhaps change the original story. I have read a bit of Louise Erdrich, but I know I had never read this book with either title, so I can't compare this book to the original Antelope Wife version.

    This book is about family over many generations. Like the author's family, some members of this family are Native American, and a few are not. The book starts out in the days when Native Americans were still being moved to reservations and Indian wars were occurring. Then it moves forward to a present time. This present time might be now or it might be the late 1900's because the date doesn't really matter in the context of the story. What matters is that the story moves through time as the family changes over generations.

   The story weaves its way between "real" life and the mythology and stories of the Objiwe culture. The Antelope Woman  in this story is a mythical being who leads people to where they need to be, and she is magical, speaking to people in their minds.  Some of this book's story is even told from the  point of view of a family of dogs who are connected to this human family right from the very start of the book. 

    This book is very poetic. Erdrich uses very visual descriptions as well as a written rhythm to describe scenes, people and time. She doesn't go for long explanations, and the writing, as I said,  is poetry. Don't get me wrong, this book is a novel, and it is not a long poem. It's just that Erdich is a fantastic wordsmith. My only complaint (?) about listening to it was that I was swept up into so many strong images that I wish I had a paper copy of the book to ground the story. I don't know if that makes sense, but sometimes seeing the words in print anchors the story and makes it less ephemeral. To me, having only listened to this book, it is like a movie playing in my head, and there are no letters or sentence structure to hold it together. 

    I am also curious how this book compares to the original Antelope Wife. I've now added that to my wish list for some future read. This book was an excellent literary style read.

     

     My next book was something I "found" on my bookshelves as I reorganized them and gave them a quick cleaning. I like to do this every few years because I discover things I forgot I had and are able to weed out some books I can't see rereading in the future. This time I didn't do a whole lot of purging, but I did find this 2010 biography. 

    Writing a biography of Cleopatra must have been difficult since I learned that there are few actual and time specific Egyptian sources. Much of what there is has a Roman perspective. The author, Stacy Schiff,  describes how much of the information about Cleopatra is from later sources, including how many people even referred back to Shakespeare's play Anthony and Cleopatra. However, even with limited primary sources, Schiff wrote a fantastic biography. 

     Since the author didn't have volumes of contemporary or even first person sources, she wrote about the times using available  information.  One chapter is all about life in opulent Alexandria, and because this is what life was like in the city at that time, most likely Cleopatra's life was like that too. What Cleopatra had for clothing or jewelry no one knows, but since many women wore colorful cotton clothing and were able to have lots of rights (like owning property or a business,  even being able to divorce their husbands), Cleopatra must have shared those rights and even more being the Pharaoh. It is known Cleopatra went to Rome with her young son Cesarean, and there are sources that show she did, but little is known how she actually spent her time there. But what is known is how conservative life in Rome was compared to Alexandria, and how Rome was nowhere near as rich as that Egyptian city. The author focuses on this, and she drew conclusions from that. These are just a couple of examples from this approximately 300 page biography. 

    One thing I discovered with this biography is that to learn about Cleopatra you also have to make the connection to  Roman history. Most everyone has probably heard about Cleopatra's relationships with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. Not having known a lot about ancient Rome, now I see how  that story all fits in together. I also liked how the author presented this story including  the big view of the world at that time at least how it related to Cleopatra and her Roman lovers.

     This was an excellent book, and although not the fastest read, I definitely enjoyed it.  And the story about Cleopatra being killed when an asp bit her, is, at least in the author's opinion, probably all Roman myth.

    When I finished Antelope Woman, I then went on  to listen to this longer (36 hour) book,  Edge of Eternity by Ken Follett. This is book 3 in his Century Trilogy. I had listened to book 1 and 2 last year, and I didn't want to wait too long before finishing up the series.  In book 1 you follow the families through the First World War and in book 2 you follow the same families through the Second World War. In this book you pick up with them again in 1961.

      This time the author takes us to Khrushchev's and  Breshnev's times as leaders in the USSR, to the building of the Berlin Wall, to the Bay of Pigs in Cuba as well as other parts of the Kennedy administration. There's also the US civil rights movement including brief moments with Martin Luther King, Kennedy's assassination,  the 1960's music scene, the summer of love in San Francisco, Vietnam, woman's rights, Watergate, and many other events. As you can imagine  there's lots of time to tell  many stories in a 36 hour book.

     I really enjoyed seeing where the characters from the other 2 books ended up as the 20th century moved forward, although not all of them made it this far into this series. Follett has his characters not only be present or part of historic events, but to be living their life in the same way the rest of us live our lives. I also enjoyed how Follett set up this series, with a family in Russia, a family in England, another in Germany and another in the US. The interconnection between them is also well done. The series as a whole was over 90 hours of listening through almost an entire century. Saying all that, I very much enjoyed this book as much as the other 2.  I liked how he wrapped up the story too.

    All of these 3 books were amazing to listen to and I highly recommend them all if you like historical fiction. My favorite  was book 1 because I enjoyed the World War 1 story, mainly because I really didn't know as much about life at that time.  But otherwise all 3 of them are well researched, well composed and excellent stories.

    I was then back to reading another Dark Iceland book; this one, Rupture, is book 3 in the series. This book was originally published in 2016 in Iceland and then in a translated version in 2019. It is a fairly quick and easy read, plus an enjoyable mystery too.

  This time there is a  terrible disease in Siglufjordur, and people are staying isolated so the unknown disease doesn't make them sick nor spread to other places. Ari Thor needs to go into the police station to work, but with little going on, he gets involved in a 50 year old event. Two couples and one couple's child were living at an isolated farm near Siglufjordur. One of the women died, but  was that death murder or suicide? Before this woman's death there was a photo of the 2 families with a young man  who the child, now an older man, doesn't recognize. Ari decides to discover who this man was, and while doing that, opens up a whole mystery about the woman's death.

 Isrun, the reporter we met in book 2 (see above) helps him from a far, but she is also wrapped up in a couple of big cases including the kidnapping of an infant as well as a murder that has ties back to the head of the coalition government. 

  This was another good mystery, now with 2 main characters, Ari Thor in the police  and Isrun the reporter. And as in the last book, the author pulls all the threads together at the end. This time I thought the ending was a bit weaker than the overall story, but it was still satisfactory. And once again, he ends the book with a question that will hopefully bring you back for book 4. I think it will bring me back. 😉

    My next book, Driving Over Lemons by Chris Stewart, was one I pulled off my bookshelves while doing my spring reorganization (at the same time I pulled off the Cleopatra biography).  This is book one of a trilogy about the author and his wife moving to a rustic farm in Spain, specifically Andalucia/Andalusia. I read this book many years ago, but since I  couldn't remember  the whole story,  it seemed like a good time to reread it. 

   Chris Stewart  and his wife Ana gave up their life in England and moved to a farm in the hills of southern Spain. At first the farm had no running water, septic and not even a road up  to the house.  Plus they had to cross a river to get there. The original owner took months to finally move out so the Stewart's actually moved in with him still living in the house. 

    This book follows the couple from when they bought the house all the way until the couple had a baby and that baby turned into a young child. During this time they take up farming, fix up the house and become part of the community. This book tells some good stories not only about  those events and their life, but about some of their new friends and about life in that area. As a writer Stewart has a good sense of humor, and there were plenty of times I chuckled and smiled while reading. It was interesting to read (among other things) about keeping a herd of sheep, customs in that area, foods they prepared, other animals they had, and how the farm went from a  rather ramshackled place to their home. 

    I enjoyed this book. It was light and interesting reading, and in many ways, a different kind of travel story, as was my next book for March.

     This next book, The Accidental Detectorist, was a fun discovery that I made one day while browsing through Barnes and Nobel early in March. It was  on the shelf with staff recommendations, and even though I didn't buy it, I added it to my wish list. When checking out my wish list on Amazon, I found the Kindle version of the book was $2.99 and decided it was just the thing to read on a dreary icy weekend.

      Nigel Richardson, the author, was/is a travel reporter in the UK. When the pandemic hit it meant he couldn't do his job, so he looked for something different to write about. What he discovered was a form of time travel  using a metal detector to scour the land for glimpses of the past. Since he was new to using a metal detector, he starts off telling the reader about his adventures with his new toy.

    From there he goes on to write about his experiences metal detecting as well as the people he met and made friends with while  on the hunt for treasure. The treasure stories he shares are fascinating and also take the reader on a journey into bits of British  and British Roman history and well as stories of legal and illegal finds.  

    I really enjoyed this book. It reminded me in many ways of Mudlarking by Lara Maiklem which is a book I read a few years back and was thinking of when this metal detecting author referenced it in a chapter. The Mudlarking book talks about discovering pieces from the past in Thames and was a fascinating read. This book is as interesting and tells a similar yet very different story of finding history in the ground and connecting the author to his home.

 

   My last book for March was  recommended by a friend. How To Read a Book had been recommended to her, and she loved it so she sent out a text saying we should read it for our book group.  Only, it was a different book with the same title that she was recommended. Dummy me I didn't check that there are 2 books with this title but by different authors. 😬 😩🙀

    I had already started reading this book, which was actually kind of interesting anyhow. At least the first part of the book that is about the 4 steps to becoming a really proficient reader.  I found out about my mistake when I was almost through this section, but I wanted to finish that section anyhow. However, I didn't finish the entire book. Part of the book is all about how to read different types of books, which didn't really seem necessary. 

    According to this book, there are 4 types of reading and then the book goes through what each is and how to read that way.    1) Elementary Reading-learning to read at an adult level,  2) Inspectional Reading-figuring out what the book is about, reading it quickly, perhaps light reading where you read it once and get the general "info/story" down, 3)Analytical Reading- getting in depth in the book and making sense of what it is actually about, 4) Syntopical Reading- comparing and contrasting books on the same topic.  

    Overall chapters in this book  did the following: a) they were spot on about what skills you should develop to be a good reader, b) they put into words some parts of reading that can be a bit elusive, c) they discussed the many ways these same skills would apply to being a better writer as well a better reader,  d) they clarified lots of  skills  that good readers do unconsciously and e) they indirectly made the distinction in fiction between literature and light reading (also true for other types of books too). My favorite paraphrased quote from the book: "Writers put muscle and meat on the skeleton of their books, and readers take those off to get to the skeleton of the book. A good writer does that seamlessly. A poor writer has so much fat on the skeleton that the reader has a hard time removing it."

    Back when I was teaching I spent a couple of years on a literacy team. I took several literacy courses at that time, and so this topic wasn't that uninteresting to me. This book is a bit wordy, and even though I'd had some training in literacy, I did learn a few things from the parts that I read in this book.

  This book was original published in 1940 and then updated in 1972. I'd recommend it if you want to learn about reading and/or how to be a better reader. But I also learned that next time when I wonder why someone picks a textbook book style book for book club, I had better  do some double checking before I start to read the book. (grin)

     That's it for my March reading. I had a few books I had hoped to get to, but I didn't have as much listening time as I expected and the How to Read a Book book took me longer to get through than I thought it would. Oh well, there's still lots of reading time after March ended. 😏