Threadnsong's Various Reading, 2019 ed.

Each year I learn something new about tracking and reading, and this year I'm going to simplify how I keep track of things. Kudos to various friends on this site who have instilled the idea of going month-by-month into my brain. I will also keep it to one listing/challenge to save on time and mental energy.

Because they work for me, I'm going to keep the same general categories:

Category 1 - Where am I again? (longtime reading pile)
Category 2 - Longtime TBR pile
Category 3 - New book pile
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series

I was able to finish a book that took years to complete, First Feminists by posting whatever essays/chapters I had read onto my listing, and I hope that I can complete both Volume I of Les Miserables and complete 6-8 more chapters of The Great Shame. Oh, and heck, I'm halfway through the first volume of HME, The Book of Lost Tales, Vol. 1, and I really could not have made this kind of progress if it were not for this group. So thank you for indulging my quirkiness of reading choices and categories and postings!

Of course, whatever books I finish, and there are going to be those that do not fit into any of these categories, I will also track.




On a more personal note, the "song" in my name took on a larger role and gave me the reality of being a performing musician, something I had not realized was a lifetime dream. From busking, to my first public performance, to studying with some very gifted teachers I realized that a) I'm a better musician than I give myself credit for and b) the right musical community will open its doors wide when it's time. So my postings will continue to be intermittent and on weekends, and again, I beg your indulgence for this aspect of my on-line presence. I may be a few weeks late when I read your reading lists so that's my excuse for engaging you in conversation after you read and posted about a book!

January reading log

Category 1 - Where am I again? (currently reading pile)
Category 2 - Longtime TBR pile Lord of Emperors by Guy Gavriel Kay
Category 3 - New book pile Imaginary Companions and the Children Who Create Them by Marjorie Taylor
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series - Chapter IX, "The Hiding of Valinor"

January current count 3
Yearly count 3

*Note: Still in the midst of "Lord of Emperors" and hope to have it finished by 1/31.

*Note 2: Yes! Yes it is finished by 1/29. Snow days are a wonderful thing!

1) Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Not a bad start for the year! I'm quite impressed with this book. By this point in Dickens' writing career, he is less intrigued with cartoonish, humorous caricatures of people and more involved in the depth of their personalities. Joe, the simple but loving blacksmith who is unhappily married to Pip's sister, the ward Estelle, and Miss Havisham have all finally received reasons and intrigue and a backstory to explain themselves. Strangely, though, Pip's good friend Herbert does not have as much intrigue in his backstory as the other more quirky characters.

What gives this book its depth is that Pip has "great expectations" about where his new-found fortune originates, how much more richly he can live, and yet nothing becomes as it seems. The odd Herbert and he become fast friends when they are older; Herbert relates the backstory for Miss Havisham and it is a tragic one; Pip's finds that his personal lawyer, Mr. Wemmick, is a different person at home and at the office; and finally Pip's personal benefactor becomes a central character. There were sections where I just kept reading because there was a bit of a mystery to the plot and I wanted to find out what was happening.

2) The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack by Mark Hodder

What a fantastic book! I was not sure if I would like it or if it would be one of these gadget-driven steampunk books, but holy cow! It's part detective fiction, part time travel, all steampunk, and all while keeping the germ of the story ticking away. With goggles :)

In the mid-1800's, it is not Victorian England. Edward Oxford has a whole different role. As do the above-mentioned famous architects of British history who at this time have different pasts. And different futures.

And then the strange adventure of Spring-Heeled Jack comes to life as an overheard story, told by one Henry de la Poer Beresford, to the ears of Sir Richard Francis Burton, investigator of His Majesty, when Burton tries to find where this mysterious creature comes from. And is he at all connected with the "loup-garous" who are taking young chimney-sweeps away? Algernon Charles Swinburne is his Second in this endeavor, which begins shortly after John Hanning Speke has accidentally (?) shot himself. And the ending? Not quite what you'd expect!

January Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series - Chapter X, "The Hiding of Valinor"

This is another chapter that is altered greatly by the time it arrives at its form in The Silmarillion. It also contains the most extensive notes by Christopher Tolkien about the differences between this chapter and the earlier one, "The Sun and the Moon." As Christopher explains in this commentary, the Hiding of Valinor "it is most curious to observe that the action of the Valar here sprang essentially from indolence mixed with fear." The Hiding also includes much steeper mountains on the eastern edge of Valinor so that they are unclimable (giving some problems to the Teleri, the fisher-folk of the Noldor) and hiding from sight the Sun and the Moon.

It's for insights like these that I am grateful to all the work Christopher Tolkien did to bring his father's earliest writings to life. I am left to speculate why he made such drastic changes, as the history of his creation is much richer with these added developments of the plot, and could have provided a deeper mythology than the surface mythology that is the published "Silmarillion."

3) January Category 2 - Lord of Emperors by Guy Gavriel Kay

I think this is the fastest I've ever read a book by Guy Gavriel Kay, and I'm very glad that I did. I become so enamored of his language and his turns of phrase that when I pick up and put down one of his books over a span of several months, the half sentences he adds can sometimes get lost over time.

A continuation to his earlier "Sailing to Sarantium," this book explores the Byzantine Empire from its center, from its Eastern edge, and from its Western beginnings in an alternate Rome. The cast of characters includes Caius Crispus, the mosaicist, though life in the Court of the Emperor of Sarantium, Valerius, is explored with greater depth. And the fact that it is an alternate history means that Kay can play with paths and characters that are composites of historical personae. The Bassanid Doctor, for example, sent from his King of Kings to study in Sarantium after saving his ruler's life, may not have existed but his life's details are well-drawn. The medicine and the rituals of the time are close to those of the desert tribes in what will become Arabia. It is also through his eyes that most of the action takes place.

Chariot racers, Senators and their spoiled sons, military leaders, eunuchs, and rigid secretaries are all beautifully drawn and their lives are explored in this remarkable, intense volume.

February reading log

Category 1 - Where am I again? The Great Shame by Thomas Keneally - Chapter 19
Category 2 - Longtime TBR pile Alphabet of Thorn by Patricia A. McKillip (postponed till March). Instead, substituted Persuasion by Jane Austen
Category 3 - New book pile Imaginary Companions and the Children Who Create Them by Marjorie Taylor
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series

February current count 4
Yearly count 7

I can't believe I finished 4 books this month! One was a SFFKit challenge that was a re-read, I read through another chapter of Thomas Keneally's excellent work, and I finished an informative book that was not written for the general audience. More info to follow.

4) February Category 3 - Imaginary Companions and the Children Who Create Them

It is a well-researched book that is not written for a general audience. I read it to gain insight into my own family dynamics and it worked. Not all children create imaginary companions, and imaginary companions come in all different styles and species. Sometimes they are part of a family, and sometimes they remain hidden. I was older than the majority of children covered in this book when I created mine, but even that bit of research was fascinating. Taylor also covers children who create imaginary worlds, rather than just imaginary companions and discussed the movie Heavenly Creatures as an example, extreme though it is. She also found research that shows that while most children give up an imaginary companion, not all do and some adults either continue or remember with fondness their childhood imaginary companion.

It's fascinating and well-researched, but it is also written for an audience of either a parent or a child/family therapist. Being neither, the in-depth portions of the chapters were less engaging for me.

5) February Category 2 - Persuasion by Jane Austen

Added to my "Classics" challenge for November, 2018 and finally finished in February. But I finished it in February!

A lively, short read that is Jane Austen's final complete work. Anne Elliott is older than the norm for marriage, and eight years before this novel begins she was engaged to young Wentworth. Sadly, her best friend (her only friend, let's face it) and the person who stands between Anne and her loveless family has "persuaded" Anne to break off the engagement.

Neither party fully recovers and when Sir Elliott finds himself in straightened circumstances and forced to rent out the family estate, Anne finds herself with a larger group of adults in the town of Bath. And who should show up but (now) Captain Wentworth??

So while manners must be followed and Empire-era protocols must be observed, Anne is able to thwart the intrusive attentions of Mr. Elliott, save her school friend Mrs. Smith, calm her never-quiet sister Mary, and find herself accepted back into Captain Wentworth's heart. While there are some persons whose later mention I had forgotten from earlier in the book, I was much more easily able to grasp the threads of this story than I had with earlier stories.

6) The House Between the Worlds by Marion Zimmer Bradley

No particular category; I think it was a self-challenge from last year and I dedicated the month of February to finishing books. This was my weekend reading book that I had started in October so yeah, it was time to finish it.

This is an alright book. Not as engaging as Mists of Avalon but not so dull I wanted to put it down and walk away. This is also the first book of hers I've read/re-read since her daughter's revelations of childhood abuse and I needed to know where Bradley stands for me on the spectrum of my reading list.

The basic story is that Cameron Fenton is a participant in ESP experiments in the (fictional) Department of Parapsychology of Berkley College in California. He finds himself able to travel to a world of Faerie where there are horrible Ironfolk who attack the party of the Queen of the Faerie, Kerridis. In this first adventure Fenton finds out that he is a "'tweenman" in the world of Faerie, insubstantial but able to be wounded by tripping over rocks. His body is somewhere in Berkley, and so far, a good premise.

But the book falls apart in much the same way that Mists becomes a bit much: the repetition of an unchanging theme. In this book, it's that Fenton needs/wants to go back to Faerie and help them, but no one will believe him. And the idea of a House Between Worlds is a good one but the quest of Fenton finding this House becomes frustrating rather than an exciting plot twist.

The premise is good, the characters are pretty well-developed, the world-building is logical, but the constant re-iteration of the same themes brings any excitement down. The action resolves itself in the last few chapters and is pretty exciting. And the descriptions of changelings, including one that Fenton falls for in Faerie, are quite well done. I kind of liked at the end how Dungeons and Dragons becomes a playboard for the different worlds.

7) Grass by Sherri S. Tepper

Where to begin? This is just a fantastic book that operates on so many levels. There is the feminist bent of overpopulation on Terra but abortion is illegal and poverty is rampant that then becomes a theme towards the world of Grass where it's only the women who disappear from the Hunt. There is the futuristic theme of Terra (here called Sanctity) populating other worlds, and the mind-numbingness of overzealous religious authority. And the world of Grass that Tepper has created is brilliant.

There is a plague threatening to wipe out all of humanity on all worlds, except for the world of Grass. Rigo Yrarier, an Old Catholic, is sent to this world with his wife, Marjorie, and their two older children, Stella and Tony, as ambassadors from Sanctity. Their mission is to find out whether plague is on Grass without letting the inhabitants know about plague.

They are caught up in the high society of the bons and their Hunt, though the Hippae in no way resemble the horses Marjorie and Rigo have brought with them, and the Hounds are slavering monsters. The foxen are the prey, as on Earth, and the politics of the hunt are as questionable. But there is something more to the Hunt on Grass: a mind-numbing quality among all the men and great disappearance of the young girls.

By about halfway through the explanations end and the action begins, though there are still elements of the world of Grass that need to be explained along with the action. It is a testament to the maturity of a writer who comes to her craft later in life.

February Category 1 - The Great Shame by Thomas Keneally
Chapter 19

This is a long, dense book and it's been since last summer since I've read any of it.

This chapter details the "Faugh-a-Ballagh" phrase meaning "Clear the Way" in Irish, and an explanation of the Wild Geese who were brigades of Irish exiles who fought for the French (and later armies) starting in the late 1600's. So those explanations are cleared up for me.

Most of this chapter deals with the ranks of the Irish soldiers in the Union Army in the early part of the Civil War, up through about Christmas of that year. Meagher of the Young Irelanders is a correspondent of General James Shields from Tyrone, who had commanded Irish Catholic troops in the Mexican War and due to their abuse by their Commanding Officers they fled the US troops. Shields is rightfully worried about using an Irish Brigade in something as important as the Union troops.

Keneally points out how vital it was for the Union not to be defeated in this War, as it would bring back "European royalty and knaves" to the new United States. Meagher spoke during a recruitment rally for the 69th brigade, the all-Irish brigade, in New York that bucked all of the Democratic New York power brokers, including Tamminy Hall. In addition, Meagher toured Boston and Philadelphia to bring in additional Irish troops for the 69th brigade; the problem was that they would be headquartered in New York and the respective governors were not fond of that plan.

These explorations into the politics within the Irish brigades and the Union troops is totally new, having grown up in Atlanta and its view of the Civil War. An awareness of the larger picture shows how vital winning the War was for the Union, and political parties needed to be cast aside in order to make a cause for the greater good.

Several people are mentioned by name whose lives come into this part of history, including a young fiddler, Johnny Flaherty (14 years old and playing for the troops), General Shields, and Captain Lyons who had visited Meagher in his cell at Clonmel. As with my previous long book exploration, the knowing these names reminds us all that these individuals lived and were not lost to history.

March reading log

Category 1 - Where am I again? The Great Shame by Thomas Keneally - Chapter 20
Category 2 - Longtime TBR pile Alphabet of Thorn by Patricia A. McKillip
Category 3 - New book pile Skinwalker by Faith Hunter
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series - I almost had time for a coffee shop to read the next chapter, but alas.

March current count 4
Yearly count 11

I know, I know! All 3 books I set out to read plus a re-read of Guy Gavriel Kay! I'm definitely enjoying the discipline of this challenge and seeing my TBR list going down, as well as re-visiting old friends. And I found that reading GGK in a short period of time is a very good idea: he has so much going on in his books that it can be hard to keep up over months instead of over days.

March Category 1 - The Great Shame by Thomas Keneally
Chapter 20

Hmm. Well. It's well-written and well-researched, as one would expect from the remainder of this author's work. The title of this chapter is "The Chickahominy Steeplechase" and describes, in short, an early attempt of the Union (Northern) army during the US Civil War to attack and destroy Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederate States. (Spoiler alert - it finally happened towards the end of the War.)

This battle takes place, then, along parts of the Shenandoah Valley, which separates Virginia from Washington, D.C., and the peninsula near Richmond. McClellan and Meagher, two Generals of the Union Army who were also former Young Irelanders, lead their troops through swampy areas and along on night marches and on the banks of the York River, all while trying to keep as many of their men and horses alive during this time. And that's basically what this chapter encompasses.

For Keneally's research, it sheds great light on what these two men became once they were out of Van Dieman's Land and Irish prison. The detail in troop movements and landscapes is extraordinary; it is difficult for me to envision these details because there are no maps of this area in this book. Other maps are in this book, but the detail for this set of battles is best left to individual historical research.

8) March Category 2 - Alphabet of Thorn by Patricia A. McKillip

OK, so this one was an extraordinary adventure. No matter what Patricia A. McKillip writes, it seems as though I am in her enjoyment of the world/subject with her. This book is no exception.

It takes place in the library of a castle, buried so deep in the caverns beneath this castle (and the castle is on a cliffside, so dark and damp are two active words here), with a scribe who is part of the library staff. When the new Queen is crowned, she begins the translation of a book of fishes, but surprise! a new book, this one of thorns, is surreptitiously given to her. Just the idea of alphabets written in thorns, in fishes, is pure creative genius. And the interweaving of the story of Axis and his beloved Kane, including the mystery of their kingdom, is an extraordinary mark of genius.

Also blended in is Nepenthe's love interest, a student at the magic school that seems to hover or be invisible, depending on the tasks set out for the students; a new Queen who does not seem equal to the task; twelve Crowns who may go to war for the chance to overthrow this new Queen; and a loving pair of older wizards just to remind us that wisdom is earned and adventures don't only come to the young.

9) March Category 3 - Skinwalker by Faith Hunter

Jane Yellowrock has a past though she doesn't know quite what it is. But she knows she can shapeshift into a cougar and that she has skill at hunting vampires. And she loves bikes and comes fully armed to any party. Her latest client is a brothel in New Orleans run by a vampire a couple hundred of years old which immediately sets up a bit of confusion on Jane's part. But she's tough and she's smart, and it's her job to catch the rogue vampire that is killing humans and vampires alike in New Orleans.

Faith Hunter does a good job creating a vampire culture, one with attraction between people and without the constant sexing that take up so many other vampire novels. (And we're not even speaking about the sparkly ones!) Instead, the humans behave like adults and admire without seducing, and Jane herself turns down the Prime Noce attentions of the head vampire of New Orleans. And he doesn't like that very much.

Jane's ability to transform into her Beast is explained as is the Cherokee ritual that created her shape shifting, the mass that has to be used to shape shift into another animal, and the "snake" that is within each living creature. Several dreams/visions show Jane more of her past and it's not always a positive one.

I'll definitely be on the lookout for more of these novels and hope they are as good as this one.

Going well! 👏

>17 Andrew-theQM: Thank you!

10) The Lions of al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay

This book of an alternate history of medieval Spain, complete with desert warriors and persecuted outsiders, is a seat at the most sumptuous dinner served by robed desert warriors whose careful eyes show above their face scarves. The characters are well-drawn out, the plot line is full of twists and turns, and as with "Song for Arbonne," this is a piece of medieval history that almost could have been. The Kaddith are the persecuted religious minority who also possess great medical knowledge, the courts of the kings are sumptuous gardens with streams down their centers, and the two central fighters are tense springs, ready for action. The religious tension between the Asharites and the Jaddites is never far from the overall story in the book, as it was in Spain (and so often is when the priests begin to rule the rulers).

As with a feast or other books by this extraordinary author, it is sometimes just enough to sample a bit of his writing with its richness and poetry. Sometimes, just sometimes, a sample of richness is just enough. But then you find the offerings have grabbed your interest, once you've sampled the characters and begin to follow their paths, and you find that you are gorging yourself on the imagery and plotline. Not to mention the richness of the language and the poetic-ness that it brings to your soul. And then you have to put the book down to let the many flavors digest for a while.

A must-read for anyone who prefers their authors treat them as intelligent readers, or for those who enjoy some poetry with their prose, or even just because you long for a feast of words, no matter the genre.

11) The Tower at Stony Wood by Patricia A. McKillip

I found it hard to believe, but I'm giving this book by Patricia A. McKillip only 4 stars. It's a re-read for me, and one that includes the intricate, extensive language that she is known for. Like Guy Gavriel Kay, reading a book by Ms. McKillip is like sampling rich chocolate with a fine, deep red wine. And because this was a re-read challenge for me, I read through it more quickly than I have read her books in the past. And that's still all good.

The dedication says it all: "For Dave, who gave me Loreena McKennitt's 'The Visit,' an album that includes the song "The Lady of Shalott" based on the poem by Longfellow. So not only is there a king's champion in quest of the lady trapped in a tower, there is also the king's son of a neighboring (and warring) kingdom who is in quest for the tower of gold guarded by the dragon. And then there are the women we get to know, who are in their own tower near the sea, watching the trapped woman at her needlework and sewing their own scenes of embroidery.

I just love the descriptions of embroidery: the threads, the colors, choosing a color and letting it guide one's stitching, the revealing of the picture color by color on linen. They give the reader a viewpoint of why we who do needlework are so drawn to it, and there is a delightful scene where the bard corrects a questing knight about the difference between "weaving" and "embroidery."

But at some point the story becomes convoluted. I like the tale within a tale, the mirror within a mirror, but when Thayne of Ysse begins to fight with Cyan Dag in the tower of the dragon, Thayne shifts into something of light. Part of the dragon? A separate entity? The story of mother Sel, who remains drawn to the sea and embroiders a cloak of browns and greys that look like the sea, is a well-known shape-shifting motif. But in an effort to bring the mountains called The Three Sisters into the story of three towers, the story shifts into the un-reality of fantasy.

Still, it is a glorious book for all of its constant shifting, and probably reading the last hundred pages helped clear up a lot that would otherwise have been too confusing.

April Reading Log

Category 1 - Where am I again? (currently reading pile)
Category 2 - Longtime TBR pile The Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore, Swords and Deviltry by Fritz Leiber
Category 3 - New book pile
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series - Chapter X, "Gilfanon's Tale: The Travail of the Noldoli and the Coming of Mankind" (and that is the final chapter of this book!!!)

April current count = 4
Yearly count = 15

Well, there are a couple of extra books that I had set out to read that fell into these categories, and I finished (I can't believe it, either!) Volume 1 of Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series. Now all I have to do is update all of these lists and I'll be in shape to read more.

And while it didn't fit into these categories, I included The Riddle of the Wren in my book count since it fit into my TBRR category challenge.

12) April Category 2 - The Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore

OK, well, this one's done. I thought I had started it years ago, but when I went to pick it back up I couldn't find where I put the place holder in so I just started it from the beginning.

It's fun. It's not high humor, not Monty Python-esque, but has humorous takes on peoples' quirks from all over the town of Pine Cove, California. What held this book back for me was the Moore seems to need to make a humorous, satirical, or biting observation about all of his characters. All the time. On every page. Which may work for some folks, and I'm certainly cynical enough to find biting social commentary a good thing, but . . . there was just . . . almost too much of his need to bite for me to fully engage myself in this story and characters.

Maybe there are angels this stupid, and certainly Christmas celebrations in small towns can take a turn for the worst. And the ending was terrific and worth working towards, but it just left me flat. But at least now I understand people talking about Christopher Moore's sense of humor.

13) April Category 4 - The Book of Lost Tales by J.R.R. Tolkien, Chapter X, "Gilfanon's Tale"

Aside from this chapter being the final one in this volume, it also gives a bit of bittersweet insight into an author's work. The chapter is unfinished, discusses characters in the original manuscripts who are inserted and replace other characters, a Tale-fire that is allowed to continue to burn, and a tale that is started but never told.

Christopher Tolkien describes how this tale and its resultant formation would have fit into the larger tales of Turambar, the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, and the Awakening of Men. Several key personages disappear from this version of the mythology, but it does describe Tolkien's ability to describe people and firelight and Earth in a way that we have all become accustomed to know through his works. C. Tolkien goes into great depth of the different versions of his father's tales and where they fit into the larger scope of his mythology.

And yes, with this chapter, I have completed Volume 1 of the "History of Middle Earth" series, made more wonderful by visiting the Tolkien Exhibit at the Morgan Museum in New York last month. So amazing to see the pages in person, such as the transformative page where Bladorthin becomes Gandalf, Gandalf becomes Thorin, and the characters we know from childhood achieve their current identities. I am so grateful to Christopher who has spent his lifetime bringing his father's work in all its originality and basic starts to the world at large.

14) The Riddle of the Wren by Charles de Lint

A good early book of Charles de Lint's, and one that is in contrast to his later works, including the ones like "Moonheart" set in modern-day Toronto and early Britain and his more established Newford works.

It pulls much from Celtic mythology, with the Erlkin standing in for Elves, tall menhir, gates to travel between the worlds, and a version of the Tuatha de Danaan who are the undiminished Good Folk. Young Minda is living with a man she knows as her father who is an innkeeper and a mean, abusive dolt. Fortunately she has friends and support, and when her dreams are keeping her from going to sleep she learns that it is time for her to move on. Her adventure takes her to a menhir where Jan, trapped inside, gives her a protective talisman and a new name, "Talenyn" meaning "Little Wren."

Her flight from Ildran, the Dream Master who has been sending these nightmares, takes her to other worlds and a slew of new people, including a scholar, Huorn the Hunter, a talking badger, and a mischievous tinker. She learns to believe in herself and her own strength by the very end, and the worlds are better for it.

It is obviously an early work of de Lint's, with a slew of almost-Celtic terms abounding (almost too many) and a female protagonist whom he treats with respect and dignity, and creates a place where her story can grow. The idea of taw comes in here, as does an elder race and the idea of a world that is not-quite-ours. Our world is richer for this book.

15) April Category 2 - Swords and Deviltry by Fritz Leiber

Oh my. Just, oh. My. I read it as a book challenge and I really, really can't recommend it. Unless you are doing research into old sword-and-sorcery fantasy worlds and their relevance to the culture in which they were written.

Basic story is one of two guys, both put out and put upon by the women in their lives who are strong, smart, and deceitful, and our poor heroes have to go out and seek their fortune while Leiber seems to wonder what to do with them. The men seem impossibly strong/cunning and good, the women are caricatures and deceitful/evil or devoted and sexy. The three chapters of the first book (which is as far as I want to get) were published in 1970, 1962, and 1970 so they are definitely products of their time. Comparing the writing and impossible deeds of the men and view of women to the works of Charles de Lint, for example, shows that there are men who see women as "Other" and are therefore not to be trusted making men the real heroes, and men who see women as "Other" and are fascinating and worth caring about and growing into real human beings and heroes as well. Just wow.

May Reading Log

Category 1 - Where am I again? (currently reading pile)
Category 2 - Longtime TBR pile Eyes Like Leaves by Charles de Lint
Category 3 - New book pile
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series

May current count = 2
Yearly count = 17

So I finished at least one book as part of the SFFKit challenge for May, Charles de Lint's Eyes Like Leaves. I also re-read one of my all time favorites The Day of the Jackal for the Century of Books challenge (written in the 1970's), and started another 1970's book The Crystal Cave which is absolutely extraordinary.

"Jackal" also brought me to decide on a personal challenge of reading in June: mysteries. I think I finished in early June (and here it is mid-June) a murder mystery I saw at the library that I will count in my June count. More postings will be on the June 3 x 3 challenge about this challenge.

Getting there!

16) The Day of the Jackal by Frederik Forsyth

This is the third time I've read this book, and really, it is incredible. I know, I know, coming from a sci-fi and fantasy background, and preferring women's stories, this book just is so well-researched and well-written that it holds up well over the decades. The details, including streets in Paris and motivations and how the Jackal gets his guns and identities, is impeccable, and it's very hard to wrap my head around this fictional part of the story. Because the Google verified what was real and what was not in this book.

What also gives this book its police-procedural reality is the depth of detail that Forsyth uses to describe politics, interdepartmental cooperation (and not), those who seek a rise to power, those who kill for a living, and those who do the "grunt" work in their search for a cold-blooded killer with very few clues to go by. And the revenge that some felt was needed when de Gaulle chose to withdraw from Algeria and the chaos that resulted.

17) May Category 2 - Eyes Like Leaves by Charles de Lint

In this early written work of Charles de Lint, now published, he details how this book became a later publication. He had written it around the same time as "Riddle of the Wren" and his publisher gave him a choice of what to publish next. He chose the vein of modern, urban fantasy and he has succeeded well in that vein.

Which is not to say that this is not a bad book. It's a well-detailed book with elements of Vikings and Druids and Celtic mythology. And a hero who has self-doubts and a young woman who begins to know herself and come into her own. But it's one of many fantasy books which use these elements of mythology and really, I'm glad de Lint became an author of the new genre of urban fantasy.

The downside of this book is one that I've seen in other new authors: there's just too much, too many threads, too many stories that have to be interwoven and while they all rely on one another, there's just too many. And honestly, I don't know which story I would want to leave out, but he was able to get all of them included here and it is at last published. And I love his musical dedications, too. It was one of the reasons I am so attracted to his work, is his love and inclusion of music.

>27 threadnsong: A great book!

>29 Andrew-theQM: OMG isn't it??? This time through, I jumped on the internet to find out what was truth and what was fiction. I was amazed when I found out, and then to read that Forsyth only wrote it in a matter of weeks!! Wow.

June Reading Log

Category 1 - Where am I again? (currently reading pile)
Category 2 - Longtime TBR pile (several are in consideration for this one)
Category 3 - New book pile A Death of No Importance by Mariah Fredericks, Out of the Blues by Trudy Nan Boyce, The A.B.C. Murders
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series

June current count = 3 (with one more almost finished)
Yearly count = 21 (same as above)

I decided after reading Day of the Jackal that I would continue my own yearly tradition of a 3 x 3 in June. So the first one was a book I picked up at the library and found excellent. Two more books are in the currently-reading stack and I will hopefully finish them and be able to update my June pages in June this time!

Ed. - yup, finished both murder mysteries to close out my 3 x 3 murder mystery theme for June. And here it is June 30!

18) June Category 3 - A Death of No Importance by Mariah Fredericks

A really, really good book from an author of YA novels who has gone into the adult genre instead. It's told with superb style and detail about early 20th Century New York (Empire though still with the Victorian influence) with its class distinctions, new money, servants, and who will marry whom. Jane Prescott is brought into the household of the newly moneyed Benchley family to help their two daughters as a lady's maid navigate this new world of gossip and intrigue and class distinctions.

The attractive and flighty daughter desperately wants to marry the son of the wealthy scion Newsome family; she is innocent (stubborn?) enough that she ignores the danger signs of dislike and contempt. Jane is on hand when a Christmas party/engagement party becomes a murder scene and through her wits and knowledge of her "place" is able to put together the pieces. And they are surprising!

19) The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

There is always something more I discover when I read this series. This time, surprisingly, it was the Barrow Downs and the time spent at the Inn of the Prancing Pony. And I say that "surprisingly" because I'm of the camp that is not a fan of Tom Bombadil and the whole lead-up to the Prancing Pony. And this time through was no exception; there have been times where I've actually skipped those chapters with no detriment to my reading pleasure.

This time through I was struck with Tolkien's descriptions of place and made sure I understood what was where and where the hill or stream or trees when. It helped to have seen the maps he created when I made my pilgrimage to the Morgan Museum this spring. Those maps are detailed, the paintings are also detailed, I can understand how the landscapes he created are more than just rock here, tree there.

Tolkien changed archetypes, he brought fantasy out of the nursery and made it a thing of pride and scholarship, and it is a rare fantasy author who is not compared to his work. And let's not forget the body of work that became RPGs and hard rock with their references to Middle Earth throughout their own work. And this is the book where he made the voyage from simple little Hobbit tales to dark, malevolent forces and an ultimate good vs. evil battle to come.

20) June Category 3 - The A.B.C. Murders by Agatha Christie

It's a very good enjoyable Hercule Poirot mystery. It is written like a memoir, after Poirot and Hastings have retired, and describes a real-time challenge to M. Poirot's sleuthing ability via some quite personal letters. Along with the letters come murders in alphabetical order on the date mentioned, and train travels that form an integral part of the plot.

The final pulling together of who dunnit vs. who dunnot did it was a bit more placid. The interview that M. Poirot does is the dull part, though I will say I was surprised by who the killer was. And Dame Christie pulls that part off in great Dame Christie fashion!

21) June Category 3 - Out of the Blues by Trudy Nan Boyce

It's so refreshing to read a murder mystery set in Atlanta! Like Karin Slaughter and Kathy Hogan Trocheck, Trudy Nan Boyce's newly minted detective travels streets that have a long and strange history. And these streets in this novel lead into the seedy underbelly of drug deals and strip clubs, with some blues players added for a strong emotional pull.

The details of a cop's life, especially a woman cop are tough; fortunately in Sarah Alt's world, she has enough of a reputation and enough contacts from her beat cop days to at least start to get some stories told to help lead her to a suspect. But the information does not come easy and Sarah "Salt" Alt has to deal with the ghosts of her past as well as demons in the present. Great detecting, great details, and a gritty crime drama.

July reading log

Category 1 - Where am I again? (currently reading pile) The Great Shame by Thomas Keneally, Chapter 21
Category 2 - Longtime TBR pile The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart
Category 3 - New book pile Old Bones by Trudy Nan Boyce
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series

July current count = 6 whole books read just this month, and a re-read that I'll complete tonight (I hope!)! Woo-hoo!
Total for this year = 27

One of these is part of the Century of Books: Mary Stewart's "The Crystal Cave." It was interesting reading this one while at the same time re-reading Irene Radford's "Merlin's Descendants" series starting with "Guardian of the Balance" since they tell a similar Merlin/Vortigern/Uther sequence before we even get to Arthur. They're also both set in the same post-Roman timeframe.

22) Beyond Reach by Karin Slaughter

Hmmm. While a gripping book and police drama with characters we've grown to know and to love, I'm beginning to see some not-so-great parallels between Slaughter's stories and Patricia Cornwall's story-telling. This book starts with Sara Linton in court being sued for malpractice by parents of a child she was treating. While the childlessness of both the late boy's parents and Sara and Jeffrey become part of Sara's inner dialogue, the court case does not have any mention again until the end of the book. I saw a similar trend in several of the middle Cornwall series, of a series of events at the beginning being only a lead-in to the book and pretty much superfluous.

Nevertheless, the look at drug addiction in rural Georgia is certainly timely and how it gets started is quite accurate. The devastation to the community and to families is well-written, and it becomes part of Lena's troubled self-assessment. Much of her character is determined by the actions of her uncle and her mother (the former who raised her, the latter whose mysterious death Lena begins to uncover) and in true Karin Slaughter fashion, those inner discussions play a part in the mystery that Jeffrey Tolliver and Sara Linton set out to solve.

23) July Category 3 - Old Bones by Trudy Nan Boyce

Another good and solid Sarah Alt (Salt) novel by this retired Atlanta policewoman and detective turned author. There are a combination of story lines here: a young Spelman student is murdered and people take to the streets; the body of a young woman from Salt's former beat is found; and the relationship between Old South and New is examined.

As Salt is called on to be part of the APD riot squad, the reader learns about the training that goes into being part of that team as well as the physical and mental demands on the officers. When rioting does break out, Salt encounters another of her young charges from The Homes, brother to the body of the young girl she finds (the "Old Bones" of the title), and when the POV of Lil D begins, a side of life opens for the reader. In addition, the home life of young Mary is explored, including her grandmother's abuse which led to Mary seeking what she saw as glamorous in the women who dance at strip clubs.

In an understated and still engrossing way, the relationship with Salt and Wills begins to deepen, leading to the decision about whose house they will live in and how they will keep their relationship secret from their bosses and co-workers. And Salt finds a box in the attic that contains a listing for her great-grandfather's slaves in the pre-Civil War era.

24) Daughter of the Forest by Juiliet Marillier

This is the third time I've read this book and I was blown away by it as much as the first two times I read it. While I didn't stay up until 1:00 am this time through, I did spend some holiday time in the mornings doing nothing but reading it. It still holds up after all this time.

The first two times I read it, I didn't want there to be any more to it, and it really does stand up as a sole book on its own. Since then, though, I found the sequel and decided to buy it. Not read it, mind, just buy it.

When I was setting out my 2019 Category Challenge, I decided I could use that challenge as my basis to a) re-read this book and b) start the second book after I had finished the first one. Because, you know, holidays give lots of time for reading. So I did. And the second one is as good as the first.

My review is on the book's page, one of 110 reviews on this book.

25) July Category 2 - The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart

Oh. Wow. It is truly an amazing book, a groundbreaking look at Arthur through the eyes of Merlin, and one that acknowledges the disparate bits of history that are traceable as well as Geoffrey of Monmouth's legends. The historical bits are the post-Roman Britons who are struggling to hold onto their lands amidst the constant invasions of the Saxons and the perceived betrayal of the Lord/King Vortigern in his alliances with the Saxons.

In this re-telling, Merlin is the bastard son to a noblewoman, whose father is Ambrosius Aurelianus, exiled to Brittany. Ambrosius is brother to Uther who will later be the Pendragon and father to Arthur, but until then, Ambrosius must claim his crown and train his retainers in fierce fighting and moveable military camps. Merlin's upbringing, his servants, his journey, and his education are well-told and full of an appropriate combination of speculation and research. And also in this book is an embrace of the element of magic through the Sight as well as an intelligent mind. And darkness and mist.

I can see why it was better that I read it at an older age instead of in the "Arthur must be medieval!" thinking of my teens. The historical Arthur was of a certain time period and the court customs of the Middle Ages were definitely anachronistic to his history. On the other hand, there is quite a thrill to see "Excalibur" or to read the poetry of Mallory. I highly recommend this book for students of this legend; it is probably the foundation of modern Arthurian tales.

26) Guardian of the Balance by Irene Radford

In all my readings of the Arthurian mythos, the sole representation of the women of that era has been "The Mists of Avalon." Now, there is this book, bringing a character into the warp and weft who is the sole daughter of Merlin. Unlike Bradley's Merlin, but more in the Mary Stewart aspect, Merlin here is allowed one night's liaison with Deirdre, the Lady of Avalon, as long as he swears to all the Dieties that he will raise her in the traditions of ancient Britain. He does, and when his daughter is born, he and Wren travel the length and breadth of this land, keeping an eye on Curyll, the future Arthur, and the other fosterlings of Ector while teaching his daughter the various magicks of his craft.

This book relies heavily on magick (with a k) and ritual and the change of seasons, as well as fairies and the religious change in the world. The overarching theme is balance: balance of the elements, the king balancing the land, humans balancing their needs with the good of their folk, and so forth. Interwoven into this re-telling are the characters of Nimue, Ygraine, and Morgaine (here not a sympathetic character). While Merlin's voice is one of several POV, his is the only male voice that tells a story; the others are given to the women of the time with the exception of Ygraine and Guinevere. Radford also choose to make Lancelot a contemporary since boyhood of Arthur's and yes, he does fall in love with Guinevere. But Wren and Arthur also share a profound love since childhood, and Radford is able to make that love part of the tragedy that befalls the Arthurian legend.

July Category 1 - The Great Shame by Thomas Keneally - Chapter 21, "Woefully Cut Up"

This chapter discusses the Civil War battles fought by the Irish Brigade under General Thomas Francis Meagher for the Union and how very decimated their numbers were. At this time in the conflict, Washington, D.C. is being threatened by Confederate troops; it was at Sharpsburg that much of the chapter takes place, in and around Antietam. The Irish Brigade marched up the Sunken Road and the standard bearers fell a number of times. Keneally estimates that several New York troops may have lost 60 percent of their numbers in this battle. He goes on to describe an officer and a 19-year-old enlisted man who had "no family in America to mourn him." But the leadership in Washington was thrilled with the final success of the battle.

Also presented is the story of John Mitchel's family back home in Tipperary, and their support for the Rebel cause. Mitchel and one of his sons sought transport to the Southern US to meet up with son Willy in military training, and how the news reaches them of this same battle. What to the Union troops was a victory was to this family mere Northern propaganda.

A noteworthy section back in western Maryland describes how Lincoln rode down to meet the remnants of the Irish Brigade, stating that he "was grateful to an army which had enabled him to issue his Emancipation Proclamation," a notable event in this terrible time.

27) Gossamer Axe by Gael Baudino

It's one of the books that changed the way I look at life, and I wanted to pick it up and re-read it for the umpteenth time. I had a break in between one road trip involving music and another, also involving music, and so I decided this was the perfect book to read in this interim. It gave me an insight, way back in 1990, into music that is still with me.

So the premise is that a young woman with a harp lives in Denver in the 1980's teaching harp lessons, but she is really from 6th Century Ireland and her harp is from the immortal lands of the Sidh. She took it with her when she escaped their lands, but sadly, her lover, Suidb (Judith) did not get out with her. Chairste has been living an immortal life of despair, wondering how to bring Judith back when the gates between our world and the Lands of the Sidh are growing ever more fragile. (The harp grants her the immortality, and her despair is for Judith.)

Enter one of Chairiste's students, a bass player, who introduces her to the world of the hair bands of the 80's, and guitar teacher Kevin, and Chairiste finds out how she can open up the gates, rescue her lover, and overcome the Master Harper who would keep Judith enchanted forever. Gael Baudino does a masterful job telling this story, interweaving threads of the dark side of Catholicism, women's efforts to make their mark in rock music, and how men can come to revere women as Goddess. The interweaving of music and magick is extraordinary, as are the glimpses into all of these worlds.

August reading log

Category 1 - Where am I again? (currently reading pile)
Category 2 - Longtime TBR pile Son of the Shadows by Juliet Marillier
Category 3 - New book pile Thanks a Lot, Mr. Kibblewhite by Roger Daltrey
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series

August current count = 2 so far

Total count = 29

Son of the Shadows was a book I held off reading for a long, long time given my reader-girl crush on Sorcha from Daughter of the Forest. But after reading the latter for the third time, I saw where the story could, in fact, continue in a good direction. And it did, with as much love for this set of characters and their well-being as one could hope.

And Daltrey's autobiography is immanently readable. He is honest about his life in the band, growing up in post-war England, and the impact his music had on his life as well as on the world. And he does not sweeten the tales about working in an asbestos-ridden welding factory after being kicked out of Secondary School, nor the lack of glamour of life on the road.

28) August Category 2 - Son of the Shadows by Juliet Marillier

It took me several years to even contemplate buying this book, and several more to read it. I have such a reader-girl crush on Sorcha from the previous book, "Daughter of the Forest," that I didn't want anything to change that story.

And this book brings a new story into the Sevenwaters part of Ireland, partial setting of "Daughter" and the touchpoint for where this family is part of the land. It begins with the younger daughter, a twin, of Sorcha and Red and her path that she has determined for herself: to live at Sevenwaters, perhaps marry, but continue her mother's healing tradition for the people. Of course events transpire that change her view of this life, and also included are the continuations of the stories of Conor and Liam and even Padraig and Finbar. And of course Sorcha.

This book also deals with a child's trauma and how it affects him as an adult, a young woman's trauma when she is given to a man she does not wish as her husband, and the choice to follow what the Old Ones say or to make one's own determination about one's path. Those are the overarching themes; the most immediate ones are the threat of the Painted Man and his band of hired mercenaries who can appear, kill, and disappear, and the role of the Druids and how they control the world around them.

Excellent writing, well-created characters, and a good continuation of the Sevenwaters story.

29) August Category 3 - Thanks a Lot Mr. Kibblewhite by Roger Daltrey

Full disclosure: I had a huge crush on Tommy. Not necessarily on Roger Daltrey himself, but the character he played on the big screen, with that hair and that voice and the story itself. So when I made a second pilgrimage to New York this year, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the "Play It Loud" Exhibit, it seemed fitting that I bring this book with me. The Who's stage set-up was on display as was Pete Townshend's smashed guitar from a photo shoot.

And fortunately, this is a really enjoyable, well-written, honest autobiography. Roger Daltrey, like Greg Lake, grew up in a working-class, asbestos-infused neighborhood with many alternatives in his life that could have led to his working in a welding factory all his life, rather than becoming that distinctive voice in rock and roll music.

Daltrey brings in observations on his life (the shortened stature of children born in 1944 due to war-time food shortages) and music (the University of Sheffield's paper from 2005 on music and marginalized populations) as well as his family growing up in Shepherd's Bush, London, and their love for one another. And there is plenty of humor as well: he starts the book with a fainting episode that leads to his wondering how on earth he broke his back. The hospital had the X-Rays to prove it, and he had no memory of which of three falls might have done it!

There are also keen observations on his late bandmates, especially the self-destructive drive that led Keith Moon to an early, tragic death, and how John Entwistle died the way he would have wanted to. And there are the humanizing stories about life on the road in the early days, how their management team were so addicted to their own drugs that many of The Who's millions went up their noses, and the smaller venues where the band first played. And like Lake, Daltrey has been married to the same woman for decades.

The style is humanizing, there are plenty of slang terms, and it is easy to read without getting bogged down in self-effacement or band drama. And I am very, very glad that the Muses saw fit to bring Daltrey his first idea for a guitar (another humorous story) that led to a better guitar and finally to being a front-man for an iconic rock band.

30) The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell
2**

I know this is a classic, and perhaps without this book later mythological studies would not have been so world-encompassing, and I know Campbell was a product of his time. But having to read such a deep book with so much now-disputed scholastic inquiry is a slog. Yes, it is what it is, and I think as more cultures begin to reclaim their own voices, the impact of this book will remain in the far-off footnotes of mythological research rather than at the vanguard of world mythologies.

Having to constantly read through Freud's theories, especially the Oedipal complex, as the reason for male circumcision, strong heroes who overcome the demon (because it's really his father), and the male obsession with wanting to return to the mother as reasons for the Goddess in some religions . . . I just couldn't do it any longer. But I guess that's what scholarship was and I'm very glad it has progressed in the past century.

Again, I know that we can say that without this book further research may not have been done, and times then are not what times are, but life is too short and books are too numerous for me to try to finish it all the way. I think I stopped at Part II, The Cosmogonic Cycle.

>47 threadnsong: Classics don’t alwAys score highly with me, tend to be hit or miss with little in between.

September reading log

Category 1 - Where am I again? (currently reading pile)
Category 2 - Longtime TBR pile
Category 3 - New book pile The Bone Reader by Mab Morris, Khyren by Aline Boucher Kaplan
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series

September current count = 1 so far, with Khyren near the back pages

Total count = 31

I gave up on Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces because it was a re-read and because its scholarship is so dated. And The Bone Reader is a book I started last summer but only finished this month.

Maybe there will be a weekend where I can spend time at the coffee shop starting on the second volume of Tolkien's HME series? Maybe??

>48 Andrew-theQM: Thank you! I almost feel like I need to beg for absolution with this review!

31) September Category 3 - The Bone Reader by Mab Morris
4****

This book probably shows on various sites as fantasy, as it takes place on another world that is pre-Industrial in technology, but at its heart it is a murder mystery. The young Queen, beloved by her King, has died suddenly and this has caused great turmoil for the court and for the kingdom.

Cemirowl, narrator and priestess of her people, is called a bone reader (hence the title). She advises people of their possible futures or their current turmoils through a basket of bones of animals, similar to how we look at Tarot cards or crystal balls. And while her mother went mad seeing the dead, Cemirowl is able to limit this talent to only seeing the ghosts of the animals whose bones she carries.

When Cemirowl is taken from her home in the countryside to the court of the King, to solve the mystery of his wife's death, the stakes suddenly becomes very, very high for her. She must navigate the life at court and is helped by a Caballier who has come to know her through a prior bone reading, as well as the servants and pages to whom she can relate much better.

The plot is strong, and while some parts fluctuate between over- and under-explained, the humanness of the characters and the delving into what lies beyond are foundational themes.

32) Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
3***

Well, it's Dickens, and I truly wonder after reading this last book in his corpus, what his writing could have been had he not been writing as a serialist. This book is deeper than most, and includes biting satire of the wealthy who inherit their monies as a matter of course. And it delves again into the role that poverty plays in family dysfunction. I guess Dickens saw these two extremes from his personal life and brought their realities to his vast group of readers.

Some of the more interesting characters are Betty Higden and poor Johnny, whose close and cloying relationship, well, Betty Higden describes why she has been withholding Johnny from an infirmary better than I ever will. And Dickens introduces a Jewish character, Mr. Riah, as a battered but ultimately good man. And Jenny Wren is a smart, resourceful young woman who shields those whom she loves and scolds her drunkard father as only a daughter can.

While there are elements of the plot that are a bit far-fetched, even for the times in which they were written, the character drawing that Dickens does here is still first-rate. And I can honestly say that I have read Dickens' entire corpus from The Old Curiousity Shop through to this, his last finished novel. Minus about 300 pages from Martin Chuzzlewit cuz ugh! But as a native English speaker, I felt it was important to read his works as a way to understand my own language, and to understand all of the cultural references.

33) Khyren by Aline Boucher Kaplan
4****

You know, this was a really good book. And it's sad that it's forgotten on this site; I picked it up at my local used book store, and the selection was worthwhile. The cover is "fantasy as cover art" but it's really so much more than the typical living in a pre-industrialized world kind of place.

Dara is a mid-1980's tech worker and suburban mom who is out for a run and suddenly finds herself on a very, very strange planet. It is very large, agricultural, and pre-technical in its societal structure. She is brought as a captured stranger to a large settlement where she is taught the native language, introduced to customs, and all the elements of "she's going to go back to her own space and time at some point." Except she doesn't.

What happens next is what distinguishes this book from other late 80's fantasy novels: she and her party are kidnapped then taken to an underground fortress where her predicament is explained to her by space travelers. Seems that the planet had once been heavily populated, until famine and disease took their toll, and now population is hard-pressed to recover. And the Brotherhood, who have taken Dara into their numbers as a spy, have the means to send Dara on a mission into space. And the results are quite unexpected.

Another aspect of the writer's craft was that the characters Kaplan brings into the story don't just disappear onto the previously-read pages. Dara befriends her beast of burden, even naming him Sandy, and Sandy's devotion to his human plays a pivotal role later on. The disgruntled Vethis, who helps in her kidnapping, shows up later as a vengeful sot (I'd like to use a stronger word here). So while this may have been a possible start of a series, it works well as a one-off and deserves some recognition on a book site.

October reading log

Category 1 - Where am I again? (currently reading pile) The Great Shame by Thomas Keneally, Chapter 22
Category 2 - Longtime TBR pile
Category 3 - New book pile The Race to Save the Romanovs by Helen Rappaport, and Murder She Meowed by Liz Mugavero
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series The Book of Lost Tales, Volume 2 First part of Chapter 1, "The Tale of Tinuviel"

October current count = 2 so far, with a cozy mystery lying in wait for me at the library (see #3 above) and some reading time this weekend where I can finish the first chapter of #4

Total count = 37

Oh, yes, and everything was kind of thrown off the track by a first edition copy of The Testaments by Margaret Atwood (which I do have to read in bits) and She Said which fits in nicely with Atwood's dystopia and gives me hope for the future. And it's hard to put down. And the other #3? Also lurking in wait for me at the library, causing some fines to come onto my account because it was good and worth reading.

October Category 1 - The Great Shame by Thomas Keneally - Chapter 22, "Let Me Have Idaho"

So, this was an interesting chapter. We all know that this book follows the attempts by the Young Irelanders to save their fellows from the ravages of the Famine, and to bring Ireland out from under the Crown of England. So far, so noble. But then, John Mitchel, editor of the Richmond Enquirer, goes on to extol the proud soldiers of the Confederacy, to advocate for other Irishmen to not enlist in the Army of Lincoln (Union/Northern forces), and then he joins the Ambulance Committee. One could call it irony, or hypocrisy, but there it is. Two of Mitchel's sons are killed in the war, one as the leader of (now-Confederate) Fort Sumter shortly after assuming his duties.

General Thomas Francis Meagher is dealing with a war wound and (probably) war neuroses/PTSD, and is still seeking the some relief for his troops from President Lincoln. He also resigns his Brigadier Generalship in light of the deaths of so many soldiers of the Irish Brigade, though his resignation is tempered with an appointment as an officer for the Convalescent armies (yes, really) who help the Union hold Knoxville and Chattanooga during Sherman's March to the Sea in 1864.

During this time period (up to and after Gettysburg), there are worker strikes in New York City that lead to arson and lynchings. Resisting the draft and better working conditions are the initial reasons, but mobs lynching black men, attacking brothels, setting fires, and tearing up railway lines were the end results.

William Smith O'Brien is traveling through Europe, visiting his Fenians in Hungary and Poland, and suffers a fatal heart attack. So ended one of the strongest lights in the Fenian Uprising of the mid-1800's.

And then back to Meagher. After the War, after Lincoln's assassination, the West was being "opened up" to settlers, and Meagher is offered the post of Military Secretaryship of Montana. He accepts and takes over this post from the previous governor, and writes how much of the land on the Flathead Indian Reservation was "not put to good use" and how much the white settlers could benefit from it. As though he himself had not fought for land rights in his youth.

34) The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
4****

Well, three times I've read it, and I guess I never reviewed it till now! The best part was that I've read much of Martin Chuzzlewit and finally, finally read Jane Eyre which brought much more depth to the story telling. And while I started this in August for the SFFKit challenge, it was only earlier this month that I finished.

This book is a fun romp through an alternate universe where books are held to the highest standards, where pub brawls erupt between the Francis Bacons vs. Shakespeare, and where people jump in and out of time, or in and out of books, with startling results. Oh, and the Crimean War is still going on, and the mode of long-distance transportation is the zeppelin.

So yeah, a world where the crimes investigated are based on literature and crimes against it. *sigh* Thursday Next is a literary genius in several senses of the word.

35) October Category 3 - The Race to Save the Romanovs by Helen Rappaport
4****

This is truly a fantastic book, and one that just "happened" to be sitting on display at the library when I went to pick up another book. And what kept me reading, and paying a library fine, and renewing this book was the enormous gift Ms. Rappaport has for explaining the relations between the descendants of Queen Victoria. It's not easy to do, but the consistency of using the same terms and explaining the same rulers in the same way, throughout the book ensures that the reader has a better understanding of who was related to whom, who married whom from what house, and why that all plays a role in the tragedy of Tsar Nicholas and his family.

And in the end, it was a tragedy. The murder of this family was not a clean, swift execution. And Rappaport also describes the feelings that Nicholas and Alexandra had towards their country; their loyalty to Russia meant that even if a quick rescue could have happened, they may not have wanted to leave. Which is an interesting and tragic thought.

Rappaport has access to diaries, letters, memoirs, cables, and recollections of the people who decided not to save them and why, or who tried to save them by urging other heads of state to do something, anything, despite the frozen bays and lakes and vast distances. Monarchist, spy, loyal Russians, family members, all failed and there is little evidence that few even tried.

October Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series The Book of Lost Tales, Volume 2, First part of Chapter 1, "The Tale of Tinuviel"

Yes! Yes, I did it! I found some afternoon time in a coffee shop and got to a logical stopping point in this chapter (the whole thing is 68 pages, and so are the rest of the chapters, so in order to post on a regular basis, it seemed best to read it in sections).

This first chapter is, in fact, the first draft of the famous "Beren and Luthien" saga that weaves itself through the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy and, really, all of his writings. The parts that exist that have been carried through into The Silmarillion are the enchanted forest where Luthien dwells with her mother, Queen Gwendeling, a Child of the Gods, and King Tinwelint, whose people went off to Tol Eressea with Orome the Hunter. So that part is intact in essence, if not in name; and they dwell in an enchanted forest.

Then when Beren is introduced, he is a Gnome and son of a forester rather than a man; again, the two kindreds is carried forward into Tolkien's later works. And Luthien dancing to pipes and tunes played which enchants Beren is part of the existing corpus, but her music player is her brother, Dairon, rather than a guard in her father's court.

Also mentioned here is her cloak of invisibility. But it is not her hair that she casts about herself to slip away from Daeron. No, it is her hair that she spins and weaves into a cloak while she is imprisoned in a little house in a mighty tree so that Beren does not take her away.

The journey that Beren and Luthien make to the Iron Hills and Angband is also different: Beren sneaks in to wrest a Silmaril from Melko's crown, but instead he is consigned by Tevildo, the Prince of Cats, to become a kitchen slave after he escapes capture by the Orcs around the Iron Hills. And that brings a whole new dimension into the story of Huan the Hound! Also differing in this original is the reason that Tinuviel gives to dance before Melko and his House: she wishes to stay in Angamar because she has fallen out of favor with her father. With her is the disguised Beren in the pelt of Oikeroi the cat, one of Tevildo's group.

Then the story goes into the familiar: Beren's hand is taken with the Silmaril by Karakas the wolf, they return the court of King Tinwelint, Beren dies, and Luthien begs for his release from the Halls of Mandos.

But it is very interesting to see the elements that Tolkien wrote originally in this story, and what stayed the same and what transformed into the current elements.

36) Guardian of the Trust by Irene Radford
3***

Somehow, this was not as bright and shining a book as her first, Guardian of the Balance. Set during the time of King John, after Richard the Lionheart has died, I will give Irene Radford a star for her research into this tumultuous time. But it is a convoluted book, with some characters who exist only to show how the Magna Carta came into being (she gives it in its entirety at the end of this book, complete with her references in this story). And her heroine is a far cry from Wren, and even her history is hard to piece together. I can see where a girl with magic in her blood is scared of that magic when there is such a strong Christian culture and the nuns have helped her pray against her magic. But to be so very bland? Unable to cope with her powers? Hoping they go away? Why Radford chose not to incorporate hedge witches or the nuns who really knew the Old Ways (and surely there were plenty of them??) into Ana's life as teachers sets back Ana as a worthy descendant for me.

The basic story is that King John of England is under the influence of his half-brother, Radburn Blakely, a descendant of a demon we first met in Balance. And Ana is a descendant of Wren, Merlin's daughter, who must be brought up in secret lest Blakely find her, kill her, and unleash Chaos on the whole of England. But the plot is less concerned with her finding her powers, finding her true love, and learning to live with who she is and more concerned with presenting this portion of English history and using these characters as the backstory for doing so.

While I would have liked to give it more stars, it just did not hold together cohesively enough, nor was Ana's character development one that I saw well done, even when she began to grow her strength.

37) October Category 3 - Murder, She Meowed by Liz Mugavero
2 1/2 **

Yes, I know it's a cozy mystery and it was a quick read and there are things I really like about that genre: the small town, people who have time to stop in and chat for a bit, have a cup of coffee, support a bookstore, and a single cop for the whole town. But.

The cast of characters was enormous, the relatives of one being roommates to another, and the confusion this created seemed independent of the plot. Plus, towards the end, there were details that the author wrote in that she didn't follow up on a few sentences later, and that always bugs me in any book. And people who work in the various small businesses (the pup patisserie and the pub) seemed to spend a lot of time out back on their cell phones! Totally a no-no in any work situation!

November Reading Log

Category 1 - Where am I again? (longtime reading pile)
Category 2 - Longtime TBR pile
Category 3 - New book pile Last Days of the Romanovs, She Said, and The Dreamstone
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series The Book of Lost Tales, Volume 2 Final part of Chapter 1, "The Tale of Tinuviel"

November count = 5!!

Total count = 42

After reading the first book on the Romanovs, I just had to get my hands on a copy of this other book by Helen Rappaport. And I finally finished She Said after hearing an interview with the authors. And there was just enough time in the coffee shop to finish the first chapter of Volume 2 of Tolkien's HME series. Plus a re-read of Oliver Sacks' Musicophilia and a quick read of Little House in the Big Woods. So my count is up for the month!

38) Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks
4****

A fascinating look into music and the brain. Both have many dimensions, and Sacks explores how music affects humans by helping save a life (including his own) by singing the same song to get to a place of safety; to not shutting off when the brain is injured; to that terrible condition for a musician called Musician's Dystonia. How some Parkinson's patients can communicate through music, or other musically-inclined people can see the colors of music and instruments. It is a fascinating look at both worlds, although maps of the human brain would have been helpful.

This book was a re-read for me, as I had initially read it for a presentation I wanted to give, and it fit in nicely with my goal of reading "good for the brain" books this summer.

39) November Category 3 - The Last Days of the Romanovs by Helen Rappaport
5*****

This is a fascinating book. It is tragic, it is depressing, it is informative, and it is extremely well-written. When I was adding Rappaport's earlier book to my LT page, The Race to Save the Romanovs, I realized I had to put this one on hold from my library because she is such a good writer.

We all know the story of the murder of Nicholas and Alexandra and their children, and the now-debunked mystery of Anna Anderson. What I didn't know were other particulars: how old the daughters were, what exactly happens to the human body with hemophilia, and what the final days of the Romanovs were like. Rappaport breaks down the final two weeks into separate dates, either what happened on that day within the Romanov household or on the decision-making by Stalin and the executioners, and that includes giving them a history and names. Her research is as meticulous as the information gleaned from credible sources yields.

The royals were daily humiliated by their guards, Alexandra was loathed by her royal family (the other crowned heads of Europe) and her subjects, and neither she nor Nicholas did anything to try to change how they ruled in the face of a changing world. And the young daughters who had no chance to be brought into society, and their spoiled younger brother are also discussed in great detail.

And the murders were horrific. Yes, I flipped to the back soon after I started because I already knew the ending, or at least I thought I did. What should have been a quick execution became a bloodbath, and the horror that the young women especially must have faced is unimaginable. Then came the disposal of the bodies, and the Romanovs were the lucky ones of the royal line. But it is a gripping and well-written account of this chapter of history.

40) November Category 3 - She Said by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey
5***** and a heart

Oh. My gosh. What a terrific (and difficult) book. It is equivalent to All the President's Men in its scope, its research, and its honesty. The details of what both authors did in order to elicit the trust with the women who appeared in their story is much of the book. It is painful and honest and unnerving that so many women were harmed, all in the same way, and yet none felt safe enough to speak out for years.

Kantor and Twohey also delve into the legal phenomenon of Non-Disclosure Agreements as a mainstay in keeping these deeds unpunished and unspoken. The women who were interviewed had been pressured to sign them so that yes, they got money for what they went through, but they were never, ever, able to tell anyone, not even a mother or a husband or a therapist, what happened to them. I would like to see some reckoning for the lawyers who pushed these NDAs, as they further harmed the women who had already been sexually abused.

Like "President's Men," the authors are terrific writers who know how to craft a longer story that makes this the only book to read (well, almost) until the end. And raising a toast to the women who spoke then and who are speaking now. You are making a difference in the world.

41) November Category 3 - The Dreamstone by C.J. Cherryh
4****

It was a good book that had language that just totally drew me into its world. I had read the second part of this duology first and had found the language descriptive but without story. The story in this first one is well-explained, through rich language, that says in a few words what a tableau is on the page.

It's a tableau of the Fae and humans, of lands guarded and not, of men and women farming and fighting and working and making their lives. And it also describes a time of transition in both Fae and human, where one last elf lives in her wood that is facing the ravages of time, and a kingdom has lost its king and its direction. And good things do happen as well as tragedies.

November Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series The Book of Lost Tales Part 2 Final part of Chapter 1 "The Tale of Tinuviel"

The second part of this chapter is almost as long as the first, and discusses similar parts that I discovered when I read the initial tale. These parts start with the intact texts of what is divergent between the initial tale and the typescript/edited second version. I found that way to help tie the two versions together, and I found myself getting lost in both versions.

For me, the most obvious was: Cats? Tolkien writes about cats? And then the cats become werewolves before they battle Huan. Beren working in the kitchens is written out of the second typescript; in the published works, Beren and Felagund and their men are held in Sauron's tower where they are eaten one by one. This element is not even hinted at in this second version. It's fascinating to watch Tolkien crafting Beren's story over and over till he gets it right.

Also, Beren is a Gnome as distinct from an Elf, and while he remains a mighty tracker, he and Luthien are not lovers until later versions of the story. There is great discussion as well in the commentary on a pivotal part of the Second Age history, The Battle of the Unnumbered Tears. Was Melko a participant in this battle before Beren came (like the extant wording in The Silmarillion) or had the Battle not yet happened? There are written versions, without cross-outs, of both possibilities.

42) Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
3 1/2 ***

This book and the whole series, really, was a mainstay for me from the age of 7. I loved reading about the inclusion of nature into their lives, how they lived so close to such lovely woods, the story of Grandpa and the panther, Pa riding into town, playing on stumps, and all the sumptuous food. And I was fascinated (now perhaps even more so) about how Ma made stuff, like cheese, and cleaned and washed the house and clothes, all with a well and snow.

Now, of course, I think of stumps in front of the little house and wonder, "What trees were there?" And, "Can panthers really chase a horse for that long distance?" and "Laura not wanting to do everything Mary or Ma told her to do could also mean she had a good sense of self." But the joy in the dance at Grandpas and the putting by of provisions and Pa's fiddle are still there and I do enjoy them much more than I used to.

December Reading Log

Category 1 - Where am I again? (longtime reading pile)
Category 2 - Longtime TBR pile Why Gods Persist
Category 3 - New book pile Norse Mythology, The Testaments, The Mystery of the Blue Train
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series

December count = 5 total! I love December!

Total count = 48!! I exceeded my goal of 45!!

Anticipate finishing both The Testaments and Norse Mythology this month, and recently finished Little House on the Prairie. And maybe, just maybe, a re-read of Irene Radford and definitely two more books to finish the Century of Books (1920 and 1960 are the only decades in which I haven't read anything yet). So I may surpass my goal of 45 books!

Ed. - Yes, yes I did surpass my goal. Finished a book from 1920 for the Century of Books challenge though I did miss the 1960's decade. And finished 3 new books plus the "good for my brain" book by Robert A. Hinde. Happy 2019!

43) Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
2 1/2 **

I had watched an author recently discuss her biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, and I also learned that the prize for children's literature has recently dropped reference to Laura Ingalls Wilder because she is writing as a product of her time. So when I finished "Big Woods" I eagerly jumped into "House on the Prairie" to see if this book also stood the test of time.

In a lot of ways, it does: Pa and Ma are able to navigate across the prairie to a part where there is accessible water, Pa shows a neighbor why a candle lowered into a well that you're digging is a good thing, and Laura watches all of the meadowlarks and sage grouse and is enchanted by the nature and the sky around her. Mr. Edwards and his song "Ol' Dan Tucker" were running through my head thanks to a recording by Bruce Springsteen.

But yes, there are the problematic parts: where is the prairie grass and where are the meadowlarks now? Tilling up the stiff roots to plant potatoes and peas is exactly what led to the Dustbowl, something not foreseen (or ignored) in 1870. And then there are the discussions about the Indians. I remembered the visits from the two Indian warriors to the little house, and admonishments to "wear your sunbonnets, girls, or else . . . " but those were the kinder ones. Yep, I know that Laura was recording a time period, and reading her descriptions and overheard conversations between adults does definitely show how far we've come (and how far we have to go). As a result, the beauty is outweighed by the attitudes and I have to give it this low rating.

44) December Category 3 - Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
5*****

This is an extraordinary book. It just is. The ability to transcend time and re-tell these tales as tales, or mini-adventure stories, is a skill that few writers have. And Neil Gaiman has that skill in abundance.

It is just that: a book with many of the different tall tales that make up the basics of Norse mythology told with reverence and honor, knowing full well that even a god like Thor would have a hard time eating a dozen sheep. And that giants living in the mountains are hard to find these days of motorized travel and Google Earth. But those very elements contribute to the deific status of the subjects Gaiman writes about: they are larger than life, they are not necessarily good or beneficent beings, but they have powers greater than those of we mortals. And they were the dieties of a peoples who lived quite different lives at a quite different time in very harsh circumstances.

AndrewtheQM read this book as his first book in 2018, so I thought I would add this to my nearly-last-book of 2019 as a nod to him and all his work with this LT group.

>70 threadnsong: Why thank you. 🙌 I enjoy all I do and spending time with great people discussing books. It was a good read.

45) December Category 3 - The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie
2 1/2 **

It is a good mystery with not just the incomparable Hercule Poirot helping solve the case, but also the intrepid Katherine whom he meets on the Blue Train (the one to the Cote d'Azur from Calais). There is a rich American heiress in a troubled marriage, her philandering husband, her doting and gruff father, along with the usual mix of household servants, rich and aging heiresses, and ne'er do wells.

Somehow, though, this book did not keep my attention. I could smile at some of the more dated references and personalities, including the dancer who throws fantastic tantrums, and the plot twist at the end is pure Agatha Christie . . . but there was something about the writing style that was frankly boring. On the up side, the plot was tight, the mystery a surprise, and the characters had some depth. Just didn't hold my attention much.

>71 Andrew-theQM: You're most welcome. i've been wanting to read it since i read your post. Just hesitated because while I trust your reading tastes, it was hard to believe Gaiman could pull it off. But he did!

>73 threadnsong: I keep meaning to try American Gods by Neil Gaiman.

>74 Andrew-theQM: Yeah, me too. It's sitting on my shelf. And it's b-i-g. And intimidating.

But, the kids of our friends have read it and I do want to be able to have an engaging conversation with them. So sometime.

46) December Category 2 - Why Gods Persist by Robert A. Hinde
3***

A good overall look at humanity's need for religion that is well-organized into chapters with logical headings and a summary. He incorporates what could be a strictly Church of England worldview into one that includes Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and even different sects of American Evangelism. And it is good to sometimes wonder what is it within humanity's journey that has created Diety as a necessary part of our lives. He cites various studies over the decades (including his own, which may not be entirely within the parameters of good science?) to make his conclusions.

While I read this book to gain an insight into the subject matter, I think it is geared more towards a classroom setting where discussion could happen and extended research could prove or argue or disprove points. Still, it was readable and well-organized.

47) Guardian of the Vision by Irene Radford
4****

In this third installment of Irene Radford's series, the descendants of Merlin are a pair of male twins, possibly because the inheritance laws had changed to male-only lines of primogeniture in Elizabethan times. So there is a lot of movement from one part of England, Scotland, and France to another that would have been denied a female of the time (though Roanna does somehow manage to traverse these lands, but usually in disguise as a man). And the number of characters in this book is much reduced from those in her previous book, making the action much more clear.

In the time prior to Elizabeth's ascendance to the throne, her half-sister Mary is sickly, Mary's husband has brought the Inquisition to England, and the Catholic church holds sway. In northern England, near the Scottish border, twins Donovan and Griffin wrestle with their consciences (Griffin is a Catholic priest who has inherited the Kirkenwood magic) and frustrations (Donovan inherits the title and lands but no magic). All of this is against the backdrop of religious and royal conflicts, as well as Griffin's studies in France before becoming a spy of the Bishop.

Great historic research, good plotlines, characters who are believable and wrestle with their inner questioning. Oh, and the descendant of Nimue? Smart and resourceful and malevolent and cunning. And also all too human.

48) December Category 3 - The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
5***** and a Heart

It is fantastic. It is also far too realistic. And it is a masterpiece of world-building and exploration of what could happen if. As with The Handmaid's Tale, this book ends with putting the three women's stories into a historical and academic setting. What Atwood builds upon is the story she began 30 years ago, and then develops three simultaneous characters who describe their experiences in 15 years of Gilead's rule. One young woman comes from Canada, one is Aunt Lydia who gives a glimpse of the day she was taken into custody by the new Kingdom of Gilead (and what it took for her to become an Aunt), and one is a young woman raised in a Commander's house in Gilead.

It's intense, it's horrifying, it's chilling, and it is a brilliant work by a gifted writer.