February's Books

    Hi everyone. Today I'm here with my book choices from February. This past month  was filled with  a couple of rereads, some mysteries, a biography and a vintage travel book.  There was one other volume I wanted to reread but didn't get to. It was a geology themed book  that is still sitting on the coffee table waiting for me to pick it up. I guess that's what happens when I get  distracted by some other good stories. 😉

     My first read for February was actually a reread of this 1970 time travel story, Time and Again by Jack Finney.  I’d read this book and the its sequel (From Time to Time) many years ago for my book club. All I remembered before this reread  was the general gist of this story, and that I liked it. 

    Si is an artist working for an advertising agency and living in New York City when he is asked to join a secret government project. This project is where time travel happens. He is skeptical, but after being shown the training facilities and learning more about this time travel adventure, he agrees. He's offered to be sent to San Francisco just before the 1906 earthquake, but Si has his own idea. He wanted to be sent to New York City in  January of 1882. He wants to see a letter being mailed. 

   The letter is something that Si's girlfriend Kate has in her possession. It belonged to her adopted father, and it had been sent to his relative named Andrew Carmody who happened to be living in 1882.  Kate's father kept the letter which predicted the world would be on fire, and it was passed onto his family when he committed suicide in Montana. Andrew Carmody also had an unusual grave stone. Both the letter and gravestone appear in this story when Si and also his girlfriend Kate (who also time traveled) visit January of 1882. Then they keep reappearing. These 2 things create a little mystery that makes you want to read on.

  When I got to this part of the book I thought I had a vague recollection of what this letter showed. Of course, when I got to the ending I realized I didn't have a clue.  Besides the fact that this story is well written and really interesting, seeing 1882 NYC through the character's eyes was an amazing  adventure in itself.  I remember liking the views of New York City in 1882, and this time, I might have even liked those views even more. Finney's modern day characters are so excited to see even the smallest differences that time has made, and that enthusiasm was definitely contagious to me as a reader.

    And how did I not remember the ending? It was quite exciting, and the story jumps to a whole different level here. Plus  I didn't remember the twist either. I didn't even remember the story about the letter and gravestone. It was a good connection. I'm glad I kept this book, and I'm glad I reread it. ❤

  I really enjoy Susan Hill's Simon Serrailler mysteries. They are set in England in a small town called Lafferton, and they should be read in order as there are a lot of changes to all the main characters between each book. Since I seem to only be able to find up to book 11 here in the US, (but I find a mention of book 12 online...perhaps it is only sold elsewhere?), I am pacing myself as I read through them. This one, The Soul of Discretion, is book #8. It was my first listen for February. 

   This time DCI Simon Serrailler is asked to be part of a covert mission to help break up a child pornography ring. The higher ups want him to go undercover into a prison where  only one of the people involved (the only one caught) is serving time. They hope Simon can find out about others involved in this crime. In this story Simon's father also is becoming aggressive. His sister Cat is struggling with money. Although these stories are never sugary or light, this one started off very much on the dark side. 

   The dark events that start this story made me wonder if I would like this volume in the series.  However as I got into it I found this was quite a gripping story, especially the ending. I couldn't turn it off for the last hour. I usually need to be busy (making art, cooking, driving) when I listen to a book because I  find it difficult to just sit and listen. It's a good thing I  read this story after  book 9 was published because I would have thought  this could be the end of  the series. Instead, there are hints of a new relationship and lots of questions about what will happen to Simon Serrailler in the future.

    As often happens when I listen to this series, I have a hard time not going on to the next book. Therefore you will notice that book 9, The Comfort of Home, is listed below. I do hope to finish through book 11 this year, but we shall see whether that happens even though I now only have 2 to go.  I imagine I will be ready for something else when book 9 is finished. 

    I haven’t read this book in ages so I pulled it off my shelf as it’s a fast read. The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie is the first book with Miss Marple.  She is not a detective, but she is a shrewd observer and judge of character.  This book was originally published in 1930. 

     Miss Jane Marple is a resident of St. Mary's Mead, a small village where Colonel Protheroe lived. He was not anyone's favorite person. He was invited for dinner one night to the village's Vicarage where the Vicar (Leonard Clement), his much younger wife Griselda  and Clement's nephew live. As an off the cuff comment before a couple of days before this dinner, the Vicar says that if Colonel Protheroe were to die, no one would be too upset. Then, when the Vicar returns home for  dinner with Protheroe after a busy afternoon with parish duties, he finds the Colonel slumped over and dead at a desk in his home. 

    Who killed Colonel Protheroe? Was it is Protheroe's wife?  Was it another man, an artist,  the one his wife was in love with? Was it is daughter Lettice, who didn't really want to be with her father? Or maybe it was the Vicar? Or was there someone else who was annoyed enough with the Colonel to do him in?

   Plus there's a couple of other mysteries in the village that might connect to the murder. Who was the archaeologist Dr. Stone? And what was Mrs. Lestrange's relationship with the dead man? She and the dead man had had quite row one day.

   If it seems like I read a lot of Agatha Christie, it's because I have so many of her books sitting on my bookshelf. I used to read a lot of them  when I was a teenager and in my 20's, and I have never gotten rid of that collection because I've always enjoyed her stories. One of my goals a few years back was to read through my stack again since I don't remember exact details for many of her mysteries. They are all pretty fast reads too. Some months I'm inspired to read Christie, and some months I'm not. I haven't reread a lot of Miss Marple books, so it was time to read the first one she "stars" in. Miss Marple is so different from Hercule Poirot, but as always, this book has several strands that wrap up together in the end. And it was a very enjoyable read.

    This book, The Comforts of Home, is book 9 in the Simon Serrailler mystery series. It picks up where book 8 left off, and then after it wraps that up, it jumps several years ahead. Simon has yet to go back to policing after the serious injuries that happened at the end book 8, although the job is still open for him. His father is living in France at the beginning of this story.  His sister Cat has remarried. 

     The new story really begins when  Simon arrives at his favorite isolated island for some more recovery. Since he now has an amputated arm, his life has gone through a lot of changes. There is the old Simon, before the serious injuries occurred, and now the new Simon. He doesn't know whether he can be a policeman again or what he wants from his life. 

     Then his nephew Sam shows up at his door. Sam is now  older, finished with all his pre-university schooling and more independent than he was in book 8. Sam's gotten a ride to Simon's rental from a woman who has then gone missing and is later found dead. It seems Sam was the last person to see her alive. While Sam is appearing at Simon's door, Simon and Cat's Dad, Richard Serrailler, shows up at Cat's door. 

    There's also a serial arsonist in Lafferton. Plus there's a woman who can't get past the fact that her daughter was murdered by a man who is now in prison, but not for her daughter's murder. When Simon returns to Lafferton, he gets involved with that cold case. This story just kind of rolls onward compared to how book 8 ended, and it seems like the author is doing some setting up for the next volume. I wonder if some of these events are going to continue into book 10. When I read it, I can let you know. 😉

  After reading so many mysteries, I needed something different. Plus, I would have loved to have gone away someplace in February since, as many of you know, it hasn't been a very easy winter. I'd seen Richard Halliburton's books mentioned on a few people's blogs over the years, and I had a couple of titles on my wish list. It was time to try one for myself. This book, Seven League's Boots, was the author's final book  (or so I read  this online) and was published in 1935. 

   I knew these were vintage travel and adventure books, but I didn't realize they also contained so much history. That was a good thing. In this book Halliburton takes the reader to some Caribbean Islands in search of Christopher Columbus. He also takes readers on 2 attempts to recreate Hannibal's crossing over the Alps on an elephant. He goes to Russia in search of the murderers of the  Czar and his family, to Moscow and Leningrad to find out about Bolshevism, to Turkey, and to Greece  to visit some monasteries, to see some ancient sights as well as a few other places like a leper colony. He also visited the Holy Land, tried to sneak into Mecca and goes to Ethiopia too. In Saudi Arabia he meets the king, and in Ethipoia he meets Haile Selassi. 

   In a time before TV and before travel shows, reading this book must have been like watching one of those adventure shows. At first there were a few things that I couldn't believe were actually true. This included Halliburton interviewing  one of the 3 men responsible for murdering the Czar Nicolas, his wife, children and a few close associates. He also interviewed Vladimir Lenin's wife. I looked them up online, and yes, he did actually do those things. They were fascinating to read about. 

   Halliburton had a bit of a bravado about him, but like how he writes. I like how he tells you the story behind the stories. I wonder if he wrote in our present time if his style would be any different, or if that was his just personality coming through. He does jump around a bit though, and as you could tell from what I wrote above, this is a travel book that just follows the author's interest.

   This book is vintage travel with some historic connections. It was well written and quite interesting. I will definitely be reading some other books by this author. However, I don't know if it cured my travel urges. It might have made them worse. 😉

     My other listen for February was this book, The Little Princesses by Marion Crawford. Crawford was the governess to Princesses Elizabeth (Lillibet) and  Margaret. She started at this job in 1933 and continued in that position until 1949 when she retired. This book was published in 1950, and it bothered the royal family so much that they never spoke to Marion Crawford ever again. However, even though at the time it was not well looked up on by the royal family, compared to some of the present day publications, this book isn't very scandalous at all.  In fact, it's quite charming in some spots and a great historical look at the royal family before and when George VI became king of England. 

   In some ways I can see why this book bothered the royal family. Usually children are left out of public eye. Since this book is about the 2 princesses as children, it exposed typical children events like temper tantrums and fights as well as the sweet things they did. Since King  George and  his wife Queen Elizabeth (the Queen mother) were traditional and private people, they might have felt that this wasn't something people needed to read about and that the children ought to have their right to privacy. 

   Plus there was the trust issue. Marion Crawford broke that when she published this book, even though she did go to the family about doing it. They didn't want it published, and she published it. 

   The back story about publishing this book, even though it was just a small part of the introduction, was actually very interesting. It put a different spin on this story. I also enjoyed the book. I'm not sure it was really filled with any wild new information since by our time so much from this book has made its way into other TV, film and publications, but it was still an enjoyable story. It was interesting to read about what it was like  working for the royal family, what living in a couple of the palaces was like, and to be able to  hear ( I listened to this book) some childhood stories about the former Queen and her sister.  It also struck me that those 2 girls had such a happy childhood, and maybe that's why Elizabeth was such strong and much loved Queen. Even though she was royal, and even though parts of her childhood were different that the average persons, the strength of that family life made her more relatable to us non-royals. It was also interesting to learn that the adults Elizabeth and Margaret grew into were really just grown up versions of the personalities they had as children. 

   One day I was in a blue kind of mood, and  to cheer myself up I thought I'd  go through my bookshelf to see what I'd forgotten I'd owned and what I might be able to purge. That activity didn’t help my blue mood (in fact it was leaving me feeling worse-so many good books, how could I purge any of them?), so I grabbed this book off the shelf (the title was how I was feeling) and crashed on the couch with it. 

   I read this book  when it came out in 2018, but strangely I remembered one chapter quite clearly and not much else from the book. This book is part memoir, part travel story, part thoughts about writing, part philosophy, and overall a look at the art of doing nothing "productive". 

   I like the idea of giving up lists and  daily goals, but I'm not sure I could. I'm not sure the author can either, but like me she enjoys the thought of it.  At the time of this book's publication, the author was a busy woman working at the University of Minnesota and teaching writing. This book is an essay or maybe better described as a collection of essays. Hampl throws out writers names, many but not all  which I knew. She also writes a lot about Michel de Montaigne, who was a 16th  century French philosopher and essayist.  I didn't know anything about him. Hampl even goes and visits his home which she writes about later in the book. The author feels connected to him, and she quotes him frequently. That's  because Montaigne wrote a lot about not planning out your life and letting it come to you as it will.

  The big question that the author tosses around in this book is "Is there such a thing as a wasted day?". As a society we are so ingrained in having to get something done each day.  Maybe that's just my take on life since I like to accomplish things, even  small things. We also are a society that requires us to make appointments in the future, to do certain things on certain days (like trash day), and even plan our get aways and other relaxing events. Although the author doesn't preach or even directly argue her points, she tells the reader stories to describe her point, sometimes even about days that don't go as planned but still work out in the end. 

   Parts of this book were thoroughly enjoyable, and parts I skimmed through. It was not a particularly hard or long read. I liked some of the "wisdom" I gained as I read it. I also liked  many of the ways the author described not only her life, but life in general. Now the question comes down to whether I should put this book back on the shelf, so in another 8 years I can pull it off and realize I don't probably remember most of it (grin), or do I pass it on to someone else.  I  think it was the perfect book to help me toss aside the February blues I was fighting the day I started it. It certainly worked much better than going through my bookshelf did. 

   

    My last book for February was this book, Past Caring, by the new to me British author Robert Goddard. It was originally published in 1986,  and it was recommended to me by Lisca over at Scrapping Cave Woman. She had read my review (from last September) of the book Precipice by Robert Harris. That book takes place during the first world war and one of the main characters was Prime Minister HH Asquith. This book by Goddard, although not "starring" Asquith in quite the same way, includes him, but spins a mystery around  a fictitious minister in  Asquith's cabinet named Edwin Strafford. 

   The main character is Martin Radford. He is an historian, but is (at the beginning of the novel) unemployed. Most of the book is set in the late 1970's. Radford is invited by a friend to come down to Madeira, and when he gets there, he's introduced to his friend's business associate. That associate is a wealthy South African who lives in the former home of the fictitious former cabinet secretary Edwin Strafford. The mystery begins when Martin is handed Stafford's autobiography which was hidden away at this Madeira home. 

  Early in the book  you get to read Strafford's autobiography. This part of the novel sets the stage for Martin Radford's search for answers about this man's life. The autobiography goes into Strafford's  time in politics (1908-1910) and then his relationship with a woman named  Elizabeth Latimer who was a suffragette. That relationship doesn't work out, but there is some kind of event, seemingly unknown to even Strafford himself, why she must leave him. He is never given an explanation. During this time, Strafford resigns from parliament and his life falls apart.  From reading this autobiography part of the novel, there are a lot of hints that something was going on in the background with Strafford's political  cronies that not only ruined his relationship but also ruined his political career.

   As Martin starts investigating Strafford's life, you know something is up, but the author leaves you guessing by dropping hints. Martin is  naive and a bit gullible, which you as the reader can see, but he cannot see. It was a good writing technique though, because it made me more interested in what was going to happen. Along the way there are some good twists to the story, not only about Strafford's life but also about the narrator  Martin Radford. The ending could have been just a bit more condensed, but it still had a few surprises. This was a very enjoyable read, and through most of the story, it was even hard to put down .  I enjoyed following Radford's trail as he learned about Strafford. I'm also glad (Thanks Lisca) I was introduced to this author and will most likely read some other of his works. 

    There you have my February books. It ended up a good month for reading with all the winter weather even if it was a shorter month. And I hope March, for everyone, is a good book month too.☘