July Books

    Hi everyone. Happy Sunday.  I had my book post ready so I thought I'd share it for those of you who like to read about books. 

    This month's reading choices were all over the place.

   Book number one for July was The Nightingale by Kristen Hannah.  I actually started listening to this novel back in late June. It's been a big hit since it was published in 2015 (with 4.7 in reviews on Amazon and a number 1 NY Times ranking); my daughter and some of my friends were talking about it, and I even saw a 10th anniversary edition had been released of this book. I figured I should probably check it out and see what it was that everyone seemed to have loved. I decided to listen to it rather than actually read it.

    I thought this book started off a bit predictable, but before I knew it I was into this story about 2 sisters in France during the Second World War. One sister is much older than the other, one sister is more adventurous than the other, one sister is married with a child and the other is still single. Because of the war, they are thrown together in Vichy, France, which, if you've read about the time, is basically German occupied and controlled France even though it is supposedly free France. 

     Then one  sister gets involved with the French Resistance,  The other sister opens her mouth about the arrest of a fellow teacher at her school and is unwilling dragged into another form of resistance.  This story definitely hits a lot of what the French had to endure during the war under occupation.

    I liked this book. I will say that parts of this story were a bit predictable and a bit romancy (is that a real word?).  I think Kristen Hannah's writing is even better  now than it was when she wrote this book because her book The Women was definitely overall edgier than this novel. Actually, as I write the word edgier I think that is what I wish this book overall had a bit more of, even though it did have some very scary, dramatic, and even edgy parts. This was especially true in  the second half of this novel when events all came to a head. Overall, it tells an interesting story, and it made a good listen. Plus, (and this is just my opinion), I could see  how Kristen Hannah was evolving into an author who just wasn't writing straight women's romantic-historical fiction. 

    Even though I wouldn't give The Nightingale  a 5 out of 5, I would give it a very solid 4+. It was NOT a waste of my time to listen to, and it's a very good story.

     

    David over at Travels with Birds blog occasionally does book reviews of this PEDIA series. He recently reviewed one about bees, which I was very interested in, and when I went online looking for it, I also found  this one about dogs. (I believe David also reviewed this book.) I decided to read the dog one first.

    This book is set up with topics arranged  alphabetically. The topics include many things that relate to dogs in the areas of biology, history, behavior, evolution, how dogs and people relate to each other as well as other areas. I also like how there's lots of data and science to back up so many of the discoveries about dogs. 

    Being a dog lover, I really enjoyed this info. Much of it was new to me or more updated than what I already knew. For example, I always thought the scientific name for dogs was Canis familiaris and I learned that  now, because 80% of their DNA is shared with wolves, it is Canis lupus familiaris. (The scientific name of wolves is Canis lupus.) Some of the info in this book I knew but I didn't know specifics. An example of this is the percentage of the brain that dogs use when smelling. I knew how much dogs rely on their sense of smell and how much better it was than we humans have, but I didn't know that dogs use 30% of their brain and we only use 5% when it comes to a good sniff.

    This book was also an easy and enjoyable read.  At times I wished topics were put together more, but overall I liked the alphabetical set up and how the author wrote each section. Some topics had long entries, and some were short. The nice thing about the topics being listed alphabetically is that they are easy to go back to if you need or want to reread a section. And even the long topics were not treatises on their topic.

    Now I'm looking forward to reading about bees, and I'm hoping that book is as good as this one.

    

  My First Murder is a Finnish murder mystery published originally in 1993, and it is book 1 of the Maria Kallio mystery series. It didn't get the highest reviews on Amazon, but I actually liked it quite a bit.

   A group of friends from a choir are having a weekend at one of their member's summer homes. Tommi, the member whose summer house they are hanging out at, is found dead in the ocean at the beach. At first it looks like his death has to be because of one of the choir members, but as this book progresses  and you learn more about Tommi, the list of suspects becomes bigger.

    There were a couple of points that stood out to me. First of all, there is a lot of drinking in this book, but then almost all of the characters, including Maria Kallio, are under 30. Perhaps Finnish society does drink a lot or perhaps it was because most of the characters are 20 somethings. Secondly, the main police officer in charge of the case (Maria) happens to be friends with a few of the choir members who were at the house when the murder occurred. I'm not sure in reality she would be assigned the case due to conflicts of interest, but I like how that worked in this story. This story was also in first person, I liked how Maria told the story from her own perspective. 

    I definitely will be reading more of this series as I thought the clues were all nicely laid out, and the story progressed into something with  decent depth. Plus, with so many suspects I never did figure out who the murderer was. 👍

   With my next book it was time to give the cats their due.  Back in the 1990’s I read several of Elizabeth Marshall Thomas’ books, and I remembered I quite enjoyed them.   I’ve been meaning to reread some of them, so I pulled this one, Tribe of the Tiger which was published in 1993, off my bookshelf. 

   The first part of this book is about cats of all kinds. The author talks about cat behavior and cat evolution. I like how she talks about wild cats (pumas, cheetahs, lions, bobcat, lynx, etc.) in relation to house cats too. She even discusses how they are  social animals in a way we don't usually think about social animals being, and it makes a lot of sense. 

   Back in the 1950's, the author and her family spent some time in the Kalahari Desert of Africa. Her parents were studying the Bush people that lived there (Ju/wasi), and she and her brother went with them. What are experience.  Back in the 1950's the area was remote and the wildlife you found there was more spread out than it would be today (since the wildlife is mostly relegated to national parks). These Bush people had a relationship with lions, and in part 2 of this book she discusses this along with more recent visits she had taken to areas where lions live wild.  Wow.  I'd forgotten about most of the events in this part of the book, but I'm not sure how I could have since some of these lion encounters were very dramatic.

    Part 3 wraps up the book. In this part the authors writes about bigger cats and their situation in the 1990’s.  One part I found very interesting even though the stories are from 30 years ago was about pumas/cougars/mountain lions in New Hampshire, which is where the author lived and still lives.  We had some incidents in our town several years ago that suggested a mountain lion was in the area, and even though this book was published years before these events happened, the author gives credence that a big cat could have been here.

    I really enjoyed this reread. I like how it's a story about the cat family, and how the author backs up her writings. I also like her style of writing this is full of information and personal stories. I think I may have to read some of the other books I have of hers sooner rather than later. 

   

     My next book is something I came across on Book Bub that sounded and ended up being an interesting read.

    The author, Hallgrimur Helgason, is an Icelandic fiction writer, and his book, Woman at 1,000 Degrees, is definitely unique and not boring.  It is about a dying woman looking back on her life. But this woman's life was certainly not average.  Let's just say that this fictional person was unconventional, and even though her grandfather became Iceland's first president, the main character was not exactly someone who'd you'd  use the words "politically correct" to describe. 

   Herbjorg, otherwise known as Herra, is the main character of this novel. She was born in 1929. The book jumps back and forth between Herra's earlier life and then to 2009,  when she is basically spending her last days  bedridden in a converted garage. Quite a bit of the book (but not all) is about Herras childhood when her father (the son of a future Icelandic president) thought Hitler had the best political ideas ever.  He took his family to Denmark where his future-father-president was ambassador and then, when that country was invaded, left his family to join  the Nazi's. Because of a series of  events, Herra ends up alone in Germany for much of the war, and then later unexpectedly meets back  up with her father.

   Although much of this story is set during the Second World War, not all of it is. There are also parts about her life in Argentina after the war with her father and  parts about her life in Iceland. This book jumps around a bit, just like memories tend to. All the characters in this novel are definitely eccentric, and this story is definitely not your typical  war story. The chapters are relatively short and the events  seem a bit twisted. But on the other hand, you could see them actually happening.

   I liked this book. I liked that it was nothing like The Nightingale (my first book this month) since it had a completely different vibe and style.  I liked that reading this book gave me a different view of the war.  And I liked that I didn't end up reading 2 similar style books so close to each other.  

   When the author wrapped the story up he wrote an interesting afterword, which I will give a little bit away now. The author explains how his character of  Herra was loosely modeled on a woman he spoke with on the phone one day while he was making political phone calls. The woman who inspired him was spending her last days in a converted garage and that her father,  the son of the first Icelandic president, did join the Nazi's during the war. He explains more about this, but I'll let you read the book if you're curious.

   

    I've been spreading out these Simon Serrailler  mysteries by Susan Hill because it's good to have a series that you look forward to reading (well in my case listening to)  the next book. This volume, The Betrayal of Trust, is #6. This time there is flooding in downtown Lafferton (the town where these stories are set) and during these floods, the skeletons of a teenager  as well as another woman who disappeared  20 years earlier are exposed. 

    It you've read any of these books you also know that there are "other" stories besides the murder mysteries going on; some of them revolve around Simon's sister Kat who is a doctor and also a main character in this series  One of those stories involves a woman who, when she is diagnosed with a serious disease, contemplates going to Switzerland where medical induced suicide is legal. This character named Jocelyn is also one of Kat's patients. Plus Simon meets someone who steals his heart, and I'm curious where that situation will lead in future stories. 

     This is a very good mystery series, and as always, these stories are a bit dark and intense. They're definitely not cozy style mysteries.  They need to be read in order because the story often mentions moments from previous books.  For me, the part about the story of the medical suicide took up a little too much of the book, and I would rather have seen more focus on the murder mystery. It doesn't seem like that medical suicide story is quite over yet and may continue in a future book. I'll have to read on to figure that out.  As the book wound on the author also started giving some clues about who killed the 2 women whose skeletons were found after the flooding. By reading on to the ending  it isn't exactly a surprise, but I didn't expect the ending earlier in the book. 

   This is another worthwhile story in the series, and I will be reading the next book hopefully sooner rather than later. 

    Since Agatha Christie died in 1976,  after her last Hercule Poirot mystery Curtain was published, there were no more new  mysteries with this detective. That is until Sophie Hannah came along and picked up the character in 2014.  This is her first "new" Hercule Poirot mystery, although not the first one I have read. 

     This time Poirot is on holiday, but since he really just wanted to rest and clear his mind, he's moved into a boarding house practically right across the street from his home. This way he can relax but keep tabs on his actual home. While eating dinner one night in a nearby cafe, a woman named Jennie comes in who is very upset. She is convinced that she is to be murdered, and when she is, she doesn't want her killer to be chased down and punished.

    On the same evening, Poirot is consulted by a New Scotland Yard detective who lives in the boardinghouse where he is staying during his holiday. Edward Catchpool has just been to a triple murder scene. Three people in 3 different rooms of a London upscale hotel have been poisoned and then the bodies were laid out in a similar position. All 3 of them have  the same initialed cuff link in their mouths (1 per body). Of course since Catchpool and Poirot are friends, Poirot joins in on the investigation, even if Catchpool really doesn't seem very enthused to have his help.

     It takes until about the middle of the book to make the connections between the murder victims, Jennie and a few other characters, but it is cleverly done. It’s a convoluted trail to get to the actual murder  story, and at times it seemed  like I was in a maze where I thought I knew the story, but then I turned a page and that story was reconfigured  again. But overall it's a decently executed plot. 

   I liked this book, and the story behind the murders had some horrifying moments. The author also does a great job of capturing the times (1929) and particularly Poirot's persnickety personality.  I will definitely read some more from this series , and this was a great start to bring Poirot back into some  new mysteries.

   

     I've been trying to shorten the book pile next to my bed (OK, I'll be honest, book piles plural), and this paperback, White House By The Sea,  was sitting in one of them. I'd picked it up  a couple of summers ago, so it was time to read it. Sometimes I wonder why I wait so long to read something because they often turn out to be interesting books. Like this one was.

    This book is all about the Kennedy family. If you're looking for a political story, this isn't really one. Of course when you bring up the Kennedy family, politics are part of their persona, but this is really a story of a family and the house the family still owns in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. There are only snippets about individual lives, but mostly this is a family history.  I grew up in Massachusetts, so there were always bits in the news about things going on at the Kennedy family compound. It was one of those places I knew of, but didn't really know all that much about.

    For me this book  was like visiting a well known landmark and learning its story. The book starts with the house and the Kennedy family buying it. It then follows through several generations right up to around 2020. You don't get to know many of the characters all that well, but you get to be the fly on the wall looking in. Of course since the family bought the house in 1928 (they did rent it during an earlier summer), you would have to be a very old fly on the wall to watch this entire story play out.

    Since the family has gotten so large through all the time the house has been associated with them, the earlier part of the book is more in-depth than the ending. The author also focuses more on the original owners, Joseph and Rose Kennedy and their children. However, she does mention many of the good times and tragedies that happened in the grandchildren's generation too.

    I enjoyed this book. It was not a difficult nor overly long read, and it is well indexed. Plus, since this house  (as well as the others bought by the family in the area) was a summer home, as a reader you can definitely see how the author focused on the family having fun and relaxing, even when times were difficult. 

    

     Home Before Dark is a stand alone mystery by Icelandic author Eva Bjorg Aegisdottir.  I very much like this author's writing style,  and even though I did miss Detective Elma from her Forbidden Iceland series, this is a well constructed twisty story that I enjoyed quite a bit.

     The story in this book  goes back and forth between 2 sisters. Kristen, known as Stina, writes in her voice in 1967, and then Marsibil voices her part in 1977. The reason these 2 sections are 10 years apart is that Stina disappears in 1967, and ten years after that, Marsibil, now a woman in her 20's, tries to figure out why.

     As the story progresses you learn more about the family and reasons why Kristen could have disappeared. There are also friends and boyfriends, but are they involved in her disappearance? Plus Marsibil had a pen pal; that part is just another puzzle piece. Of course the big question is, did Kristen die, or did she take off to make her own life away from her family? That is a definite possibility since the family gets more and more dysfunctional as you read on.

    There are lots of surprises along the way, including the ending. Of all the reasons and people I thought could have played a role in Stina's disappearance, I didn't suspect the actual ending.  

    

     My final book for July was James by Percival Everett This book was excellent, although I am glad I listened to it rather than reading it because in parts the author used  the dialect that an uneducated slave would/might  have spoken. For me it was easier to listen to that and follow along rather than it would have been to read it, although now that I have gotten through the story, I wouldn't mind reading it either.

     This book is the retelling of Mark Twain's novel Huckleberry Finn but with a twist.  The author tells this story through the eyes of the original story's slave named Jim. In this book the character only goes by Jim when he is in the presence of white folks. Otherwise goes by James, because he is a really smart man who can read and only speaks in the dialect that Twain and others used because he doesn't want to draw suspicion to himself.  

    James goes through lots of adventures, many with Huckleberry Finn. It's been decades since I read Twain's novel (was it high school or a college American Lit class?), so I can't tell you how close this story is to Huckcleberry Finn.  However, if memory serves me right, many of the general events in James are events from Twain's novel.  But there is a unique twist in this book that I never suspected. 

    I think the author also does more than tell the story of Jim from Jim's perspective. Without preaching, he portrays the life that slaves had to endure. He also does a good job of bringing home the point of being free to live your life as you chose.  I really liked the main character James, and  also his story.

     If you made it all the way to the end, thanks for reading that far.  I think I've written more than enough with all these books, so that's it for my July reading post. 👍😏 Here's hoping we all find at least one great book to read in August.