October's Reading

   Hi everyone. Happy middle of the week to you. It's time for my October book post. The month started off with me not reading all that much, but then I managed to get past  the September reading slump I'd been in. I seemed to have buzzed through several books from that point onward.  Those books included a few new-ish releases, a novella in a  continued  series, 2 classics I reread, and I even managed to get through a couple of books from my next to the bed reading pile. 😊 

   I was excited to read the latest in Richard Osman's Thursday Murder Club mysteries. It was good to be back with Elizabeth, Ron, Joyce and Ibrahim at Cooper's Chase Retirement Village.  It's also good to see what's happening to  all of the secondary characters from this series too. 

   This time Joyce's daughter Joanna is getting married. Joanna and Joyce's son-in-law (Joyce is thrilled to use that phrase so I will use it also) take a bigger part in the story than they usually do. That is because because Nick, the best man at the wedding, notices there's a bomb planted under his car. He talks to Elizabeth, and of course she gets the whole Thursday Murder Club involved. 

   Then Nick disappears, and there's a murder.  Plus there's a Bitcoin  situation, and Ron's daughter wants her husband out of the picture which of course ends up involving Ron's whole family. Ebrahim is still doing his counseling with Connie the ex-con drug dealer. And Joyce, she is feeling a little bit left out but she has a son-in-law now which is a thrill for her.  This is another fast paced mystery which was fun to read, but I also think there's a tiny bit of sadness running through the story too. It's  just a thin edge of sadness, but I still enjoyed my read.

    My first listen this past month was this classic, The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. I originally read this book maybe 8 or 9 years ago. Then, when I read Lucy's Worsley's The Art of the English Murder last month,  she mentioned this book. Sadly, I was having a tough time remembering much of this story, so I decided to listen to it since I already had it in my Audible account. 

   Of course, once I started listening a lot of it came back to me.  I'm glad this novel was mentioned in Lucky Worsley's book because The Woman in White is a very good classic mystery/Victorian novel from 1860, and its a book that  (for me) needed to be read again. This audio version, narrated by Ian Holm, is particularly well done.

  William Hartright is a young drawing teacher who meets a woman dressed in white who has escaped from an asylum one evening while on he travels to new employment. Hartright has  been hired as a drawing teacher for a couple of young women who live with one of the woman's invalid uncles. While he's at this employment, he notices that the younger of the 2 women, Laura Fairlie, looks a lot like the woman in white that he met. He then discovers that this woman in white was also known to Laura's mother. Besides that he's fallen in love with Laura, who is already engaged to be married to Lord Percival Glyde. 

  The story then goes on to have other  characters who tell this story through their eyes. Through them we continue to learn not only about the woman in white, but also about Laura.  The story really focuses on Laura. Laura who has inherited a fortune from her father and who should inherit from her uncle when he dies since he has never married. Laura who married the same man (Lord Glyde) that the woman in white has come to warn her about. 

  There's a lot of suspense in this novel, and besides wanting to know how the woman in white fits in with Laura and her story, I really rooted for Laura as this book went on. She's in a bad marriage and  except for her sister Marion, so many of the people around her are using her. The author writes a rich story that stands up over all these years, even though it is set in 1860.  I also liked some of the ghost-like and slightly eerie  images that the author uses. I wouldn't call this a ghost story, but it's a well done story of evil versus  innocent. Plus there's a secret that gets carried through the bulk of the story and that comes out after several twists and turns at the end. This isn't the shortest of books, but definitely was worth my time. 

   My next book for October was a bit of a jump in this mystery series for me. Several years back I read a couple of Jimmy Perez Shetland mysteries by Ann Cleeves. However I never finished the series. Cleeves took a break from writing this series until recently, when in September of this year she released a new Jimmy Perez story. I decided to jump ahead and read it with the hopes that I could follow along. 🤞 I started the book with the thoughts that if I couldn't follow the story, I'd put it down and go back to the original series. But of course, it's Ann Cleeves writing so I was sucked right in by the end of chapter 1. And even though I didn't know some of the backstory, I was able to enjoy this excellent mystery.

   Perez now lives on Orkney with his partner Willow, their young son and also Cassie,  the daughter of Perez's former lover. Willow is pregnant with the couple's second child, and even though she is supposed to be on leave, she ends up getting involved in this case. That makes her Perez' boss. And this time the first victim is one of Perez's oldest friends, Archie Stout, making it hard for Perez to be in charge of the case. Stout  is killed at a local archaeological site. 

   Then there is another victim killed in another archaeological site. Ann Cleeves writes a good story, making it hard to put the book down. This series is rich in not only the investigation details but also in the atmosphere of the Orkney Islands (also known as the Northern Isles). It makes me want to visit the area. I was also proud of myself for figuring out who the murderer was, even though it wasn't very obvious. Now I need to go back and read more of the earlier Jimmy Perez mysteries to catch up between this one and the few I had read.

   Last year I listened to the first 3 of the novellas in this series by Catherine Coulter.  Greyson Sherbrooke lives in England during the 1840's, and he writes otherworldly stories. Not only does he write these stories, but he lives them.  These books aren't  meant to be spooky but are fun adventures with mythical and magical creatures. For me, they are perfect October reads, playful but something I can read before bed that won't give me nightmares. 😏

  This book, The Virgin Bride of Northcliffe Hall,  is book #4 in this series,  and  I think the title makes it sound like a bad romance. It's not a romance at all though. I had hoped to listen to it, but since I couldn't find it on Audible, I decided to read it. This story was under  2 hours and not a difficult read.  This time Greyson is visiting family at Northcliffe Hall along with his 5 year old son Pip, PC, the daughter of the woman Greyson is engaged too, and Barnaby, a "stray" child that Greyson has taken in. 

  At the hall there is a ghost who communicates through thoughts and who lets Greyson know that the tutor caring for the children might be evil. There's also a wild black stallion that Grayson meets.  And there's a fun take on time-travel, going back to the days of King Arthur. 

   I enjoyed this story and having a little bit of escape from realism. If you like a bit of  playful fantasy with kelpies, witches and ghosts, then this might be for you. If it is, then I suggest you read these books in order because even though the stories change, the characters develop through each of these stories with events that move the series forward. I like these characters  too. 

   

    Imagine you're a young woman who lives in 1707 France, but you don't want the traditional life that's expected of you. On the way to your wedding (to a widower who already has children), a wedding you don't want, you break free and escape into the woods. You're already familiar with the god of the light and the god of the dark thanks to a wild old woman who taught you about them, but the god of light hasn't helped you, no matter how hard you prayed. Instead, you pray to the god of the dark, and he makes a bargain with you. He'll help  you, BUT the deal is that you will continue through time like the breeze, with no one to burden you because they can't remember who you are as soon as you leave their sight.

    This is what happened to Addie. Until 2014, when she lives in New York City. She steals a book from a bookstore (which is easy for her to do since as soon as she walks away, no one remembers her ever being there), and when she goes back to see if she can trade that book for another one, the clerk remembers her. The clerk's name is Henry, and the question is why can he remember her when no one else in over 300 years can?

   Henry becomes another main character in this story. I liked this author's writing style. It's full of images and a bit poetic.  Plus it has short chapters, which is something I like especially when I read before bed since if I'm getting sleepy it's easy to find a stopping point. I liked following Addie through her life from 1707 on, but I particularly liked the modern part in 2014 in New York. This story has some fantasy as well as some realism, and it's not all about being happy. In fact, in some ways this book made me sad because who wants to go through an extra long life never being remembered as soon as you leave someone? However, even saying that,  I did enjoy this book. I was a little bit unhappy with the ending though, even if it did make perfect sense for this story.

   It's been a bit since I've done any science reading, and I have  several titles that are waiting to be read.  This book, Carbon, The Book of Life by Paul Hawken,  sounded like an interesting story because  I love the idea of approaching life through the lens of carbon.  After all, all life is carbon based. 

  This book captured my attention right away. Much of this book is environmentally focused, but saying that, there is a mix of scientific history, chemistry, biology, nutrition, mycology, botany, language, human culture and other things too. It's a big encompassing story that I had a hard time turning  off. If you're not all that familiar with carbon and the role it plays in the big picture of our planet, then reading this volume is a great place to start.

   But I also must add that even if you are familiar with carbon, biology and environmental science, then this book is not a waste of time. It is not a huge text book, but it is rich in information. Some of the info for me was review, some added to what I already knew and some was completely new to me. I especially enjoyed the chapters on fungi, language and soil. For example, I didn't know that the Mi'kmaq people of Atlantic Canada and Northern Maine name individual trees by the sounds that tree makes in the wind. That information, like in so many other cultures, gets passed on over time. Right now I believe that so much natural information is not being passed on, never mind so many people don't even interact much outdoors. I found that true back when I was teaching ecology.  

   The author does a great job of showing how everything interconnects, even when it doesn't seem like it should.  I listened to this book, narrated by Peter Coyote. Coyote does as good a job with this book as he does with many of the science shows that I watch here in the US on Public Television. I am also thinking I may need to get myself a physical copy of Carbon The Book of Life because I wouldn't mind actually reading this book so I can mark some things and use it for reference, which is not easy to do when you listen. 

    I read about this next book, Always Home Always Homesick  A Memoir, by Hannah Kent, on a couple of blogs. (Thank you Shari ( at A Wordy Woman) and also Melody (Melody Jacob) for mentioning it.) Hannah Kent wrote a book called Burial Rites  which I read back in 2016 after my first trip to Iceland. That book was all about an Icelandic woman who in 1829 was charged with murdering  the man she worked for and who, after being charged, was sent to a rural farm awaiting her execution. This was the last execution in the country. That novel was based on a true story.

    I didn't know that Hannah Kent was introduced to this murder story when she was an exchange student in Iceland. Kent's latest book is also about Iceland, but this time  is connected to a year she spent as an exchange student in that country as a teenager. I enjoyed reading about what she learned about Icelandic culture when she was there. I also enjoyed reading about how being there and recording her year made her want to become a writer. I think she was really brave to have left her family in Australia and go to Iceland for a year as a teenager before her college years. I had a hard enough time adjusting to college as a freshman being 5 hours away from home. 

   Kent is  a very good writer, and she seems to know what to put into the story and what not to put into it to make her experience complete.   After she writes about her exchange years, she jumps ahead to her writing life back in Australia and then later back in Iceland. She writes about how  she became permanently connected to Iceland and the people she met there. Plus, she shares many of her experiences  about writing Burial Rites. That's is an amazing story itself, but added to her Icelandic story it makes this book a really rich story.

    This is a really interesting memoir, including the creative way she set it up. I very much enjoyed reading it, and now I need to find my copy of Burial Rites so I can read it again.

     This book, Japanese Ghost Stories, is something I picked up on a markdown table a few years back. It's a collection of short stories each with some historical note. They are obviously fiction, but this is not a book where one author creates/writes  all of these stories. In fact, these stories are ones that have been around for a while and can't really be contributed to any one author. 

   They are creepy stories too, like the ghost of a woman who was not allowed to be with the man she loved before she died. She now visits her still living lover, and to him, she is not a dead woman. There is also a story about  a blind man thinking he is telling a samurai the story of a battle he witnessed when instead he is tell the ghosts in a cemetery that story, or the tale of a purple kimono being cursed and causing the death of it's owners.

    I also found the forward very interesting. I thought Japanese Ghost stories would be something shared in the autumn. However,  it is August, when the Japanese have a holiday believing that their dead relatives come back to see them, that ghost stories are most popular. In fact, the book mentions how before electricity and modern amenities were available, it was common on this August holiday for people to sit in the dark and tell these types of stories.

    Even though I didn't read this book in August, his book still made good late October reading, and of course, it's always interesting to  learn about cultural differences.

    My last book for October was when I listened to this American literature classic, from 1925, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.   I have seen a couple of films of this novel, and I remembered the general story, but since I hadn't seen any of the films for several years and since it had been many many years since I'd last read this book, I decided I would listen to it. I already had it in my Audible account since I've thought about listening for awhile now.

  Fitzgerald could write, and one thing about listening to a book, is I can really hear how the language sounds. And the gist of the story isn't bad either. Basically you have some young 20 and 30th somethings living on Long Island back in the 1920's. There is the narrator, Nick Carroway and his neighbor Jay Gatsby.  Jay is in love with Daisy Buchanan, who is a distant relative of Nick's and who is also married to Tom Buchanan. Daisy isn't in love with her husband, and she claims to always have been in love with Gatsby.

    However, I found most of these characters aren't really all that likable. And because the book was published in 1925, there are a lot of that time's prejudices embedded into the story.  The story is a tragedy,  because of how the characters react when they cause a car accident, how all of the character have flawed personalities and also because of the flaws of that generation and the times when this story was set.  

    I'm glad I listened to this story, but like when I listened to Brideshead Revisited last year, I can say that although the story was beautifully written and speaks of the times so well, I can't say I really liked the book all that much.  (And I read this book before Trump's big party with the same name, and all I can say is he's ignorant about the actual  story in this book. Sorry to get political.)

    That's it for me this month. Happy reading to you!