February AlphaKIT: F and E

Welcome to the 2024 AlphaKIT.
This is an unofficial challenge for the 2024 Category Challenge Group. Each month has two letters selected for you to use however you choose.

There are no rules. Have fun and enjoy reading. February letters are: F and E

and

If You like, update the wiki with your reading: February Wiki

I'm not sure yet, but maybe "The Essex Serpent" by Sarah Perry for E and Headlong by Michael Frayn for F

I'm planning on Fallen Dragon and Europe in Autumn. Probably others as well.

I am thinking of reading The Solace of Open Spaces by Gretel Ehrlich and A Winter Away by Elizabeth Fair for the February AlphaKit.

Planning to kill two Alphas with one stone by finally getting around to Julia Spencer-Fleming's Hid From Our Eyes.

Not sure about E yet, but one I might read for CalendarCAT fits F:
- The Paris Apartment / Lucy Foley

I'm planning on Free People's Village for my 'F' book and Envy the Night for my 'E' book.

I've got a few

Can't Wait to Get to Heaven by Fanny Flagg
Dead Man's Folly✅
Everlasting
Fatal Folio ✅
Final Reveille ✅
Final Tap ✅
Final Vow ✅
Five Furry Familiars ✅
Four-Alarm Homicide ✅
I Heard a Fly Buzz when I died
A Medium Fate✅

I'll be reading one of Fiona Davis's historical novels...probably The Masterpiece.

I'll be doing a reread of The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, so that could be my E. I may choose another as well.

I have Offshore be Penelope FitzGerald on the go and plan to read The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown, but we all know what plans are...

I've got a couple double KITs on my list to read this month:

Hard Trail to Follow by Elmer Kelton
From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg (Newbery Medal 1968)

That second book is one I'm reading as part of a memorial to @rosalita.

I'm reading When Mckinsey Comes to Town by Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe.

Also, just picked We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler for the PrizeCAT.

I just completed The Golden Age of Murder by Martin Edwards.

I read A House for Hermit Crab by Eric Carle and A Summer at Sea by Katie Fforde.

I am reading Emily Dickinson Selected Poems. A Dover Publication.

I've finished Look Alive Twenty-Five by Janet Evanovich.

I've also just started The Devastating Boys by Elizabeth Taylor.

I'm reading The Essex Serpent.

I read Uhtred’s Feast: Inside the World of the Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell, with Suzanne Pollak. The book contains a brief history of England, fascinating facts about food in the Anglo-Saxon world with recipes, and three short stories, a fitting end to Uhtred’s adventures and the fabulous series.

E & F : Hope for Christmas by Elizabeth Maddrey

I read The Murder on the Enriqueta by Molly Thynne as my first E read.

I completed Pairing Off by Elizabeth Harmon.

Just started reading Beyond These Walls: Escaping the Warsaw Ghetto - A Young Girl's Story.

For E - Extraordinary Birds by Sandy Stark-McGinnis

For both E and F, I read So Big by Edna Ferber. I can’t believe I’ve lived my whole life without reading this marvelous story. Story-telling at its finest.

>25 marell: It's a great book, isn't it? And inspired by a real person, too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antje_Paarlberg

>26 kac522: Thanks for the reference. I didn’t know that. I really loved that book.

>27 marell: Another Ferber book I loved is The Girls, about 3 generations of women named Charlotte, also set in Chicago, but a little later (early 1920s, I think). It was recently re-published by Belt Publishing, a small Midwest group.

>28 kac522: Thank you. I’ve only read So Big and Buttered Side Down. I want to read more of her books, so I really appreciate the recommendation.

I finished Eagle Drums, a middle grade retelling of an Iñupiaq legend.

I read Tricky Twenty Two by Janet Evanovich for E.

Finished another E, Egg: A Dozen Ovatures by Lizzie Stark.

For both E & F I've read Between Five Eyes. It was a bit too fact-dense for my liking (almost read like an official report) so I may see if I can get another couple of books in to cover instead (on the basis that I'd prefer if I enjoyed my reads)

I finished Beyond These Walls: Escaping the Warsaw Ghetto - A Young Girl's Story, which was very good. I have a couple more books planned for this month that will fit E & F.

I read My Sweet Folly by Laura Kinsale for F and really enjoyed it!

Just finished The Lions of Fifth Avenue by Fiona Davis for F
Split between 1913 and 1993, this is a mystery set in New York city, and features the New York Public Library and its rare books collection. It was difficult to keep track of all the characters and their relationships. As well, the details are flawed in both timelines and left me disappointed.

The Lake of Dreams / Kim Edwards
3.25 stars

Lucy has been living abroad for a number of years, but when her mother is injured and in hospital, she decides to come home. Her partner, Yoshi, will join her later. Lucy’s family has had some quarrels (particularly her father (died a while back) and his brother/Lucy’s uncle Art), mostly over the family business and inheritance. Now, her brother is working for Art, and her mom is considering selling the house and land to Art. The land sits on an ecologically sensitive lake that Art wants to develop.

While Lucy is helping clean out the house, she comes across some paperwork that mentions Rose. It sounds like Rose is someone in the family, but Lucy has never heard of her, so she does some research to try to find out who Rose was. And uncovers other secrets along the way.

Through the first 2/3 or so of the book, I would have rated it 3 stars (ok), but I increased it just a touch, as I got much more interested in the last 1/3. I did skim parts of the first of the book, so I did miss a few things. I liked that Lucy went back to Yoshi, rather than falling in love (again) with Keegan. So many novels would go the other way. I think I liked it because the author made sure that the reader could see how much Lucy still loves and misses Yoshi via their conversations, whereas so many other books wouldn’t go into that. I also liked the ecological slant to the story (though that wasn’t explored in a lot of detail, but it still appealed to me).

I finished Little Deaths by Emma Flint, covering both letters.

Another E : The Echo by Minette Walters

Just finished We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler.

A Fever in the Heartland by Timothy Egan covered both letters.

Finished the first of two double-KITS, From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg, and have started the second, Hard Trail to Follow by Elmer Kelton. I'll update the wiki shortly.

What Strange Paradise / Omar El Akkad
4 stars

Amir is a 9-year old Syrian boy who survives a shipwreck. Everyone else to be seen has washed up on shore, dead. He is on an island, but doesn’t know where he is, nor does he understand the language. When two men see him and point and shout, Amir gets scared and runs. He runs into Vanna, 15-years old and though they are unable to communicate verbally, she hides him.

The story then shifts to “Before”, which brings us up to date on how Amir got where he is. We go back and forth between Amir’s before and “After”. Much of after is told from Vanna’s POV, but occasionally we switch to the POV of a colonial who is dead set on finding Amir, the little boy who ran away.

Given that it’s (primarily) from a 9-year old’s POV, it took a bit to figure out what was going on through much of the story. I am still not sure I understand the ending. But it was a “good” (powerful) story, even so.

I read Marry Me By Midnight by Felicia Grossman for another F.

I have finished Das Feuerschiff, a famous story by Siegfried Lenz.

March is Up.

I have completed both my February AlphaKit reads with The Solace of Open Spaces by Gretel Ehrlich and A Winter Away by Elizabeth Fair.

Currently reading The Burial Circle by Kate Ellis

Finished Hid From Our Eyes by Julia Spencer-Fleming, which gets both letters.

I've finished three Fs so far:
Don't Fear the Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones, 3.5*
The Beauty of Dusk by Frank Bruni, 3*
The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley, 4*

Finished Beginnings, Middles, and Ends for another E.

Just finished The Devastating Boys by Elizabeth Taylor. Still working on my McKinsey book, for another F.

Finished Eyes of the Void and starting Eversion

I finished Der tote Rittmeister by Elsa Dix for another E.

...and also Maeshowe and the Heart of Neolithic Orkney by Sally Foster for another F.

>49 KeithChaffee: I read Hid From Our Eyes as well.

...and Huda F Cares by Huda Fahmy for another F.

I have finished Die Purpurlinie by Wolfram Fleischhauer for F.

Finished When McKinsey Comes to Town by Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe for another F.

The Paris Apartment / Lucy Foley
4 stars

Jess is headed to Paris to visit her half-brother Ben in his new apartment. When he isn’t there to pick her up, she makes her way to his place, but he’s not there. He knew she was coming and when and said he’d be there. What’s going on? Once she finally manages to get into the apartment, no one is around, but something feels “off”.

Wealthy Sophie and Jacques live in the penthouse; introverted 19-year old Mimi and her outgoing roommate Camille are on the 4th floor; Ben’s apartment is on the 3rd; Ben’s friend Nick lives on the 2nd floor, and alcoholic Antoine and his wife, Dominique are on the 1st floor. An older woman, the concierge, lives in a shack on the property.

POV switches between many of the different characters. The book “grabbed” me from the start. It was hard to tell who was telling the truth and who wasn’t, as well as who might be an unreliable narrator. Everyone had a secret. Had a twist at the end, as well as one about half-way through. As with Foley’s other books that I’ve read, I really liked this.

Another one for E: The Monk of Mokha by Dave Eggers. Bringing Yemeni coffee to the world and escaping the country by the skin of your teeth to do it.

FINALLY updated the Wiki!

Last night I read Emil und die drei Zwillinge by Erich Kästner, in honour of his 125th birthday. Which has an E both in the name and the title.

Followed this up with another re-read, this time Der kleine Mann by Erich Kästner.

I completed another F: Summer in February by Jonathan Smith.

I read Turn a Blind Eye by Jeffrey Archer for E.
This series is getting better as it progresses. I particularly enjoyed the courtroom drama that Archer can do so well. The cliffhanger ending didn’t have me rushing to the shelves to retrieve the next book, but I will certainly look forward to it sooner rather than later.

>63 MissWatson: oh, wow. I loved Emil and the Detectives as a child and as an adult reread, but somehow forgot that the author wrote more books about Emil.

::muttering about book bullets::

Finished another F, an E and an E/F combo:

The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson, 3.5*
Book Lovers by Emily Henry, 3*
Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Franz de Waal, 3.5*

Squeezing in "Why Is Sex Fun?: The Evolution of Human Sexuality by Jared Diamond as a twofer.

>67 fuzzi: There's just the one with the three twins, so it's not a very big commitment.

>70 MissWatson: I'm looking for it, in English.

I managed to squeeze in one last F book, a reread of The Flatshare by Beth O'Leary. Enjoyed it just as much as I did the first time!

"E" books/authors this month:

Evil Under the Sun, Agatha Christie (1941)
Angel, Elizabeth Taylor (1957)
The Blush and Other Stories, Elizabeth Taylor (1958)

Only 1 title/author with "F", which I am still reading:
The Ladies of Seneca Falls: the Birth of the Woman's Rights Movement, Miriam Gurko (1974)

I managed to finish La femme de trente ans in time for this month.

I finished one more E for the month, Lois the Witch, and Other Gothic Tales by Elizabeth Gaskell.

Managed one E book (not ebook) this month: Elevator Pitch, by Linwood Barclay

I *finally* got around to reviewing The Free People's Village by Sim Kern, which I read in two sittings in February absolutely loved. One of those rare books which left me feeling as if everyone should be reading and passing this one on, and so actually reviewing it was an incredible struggle! But it was a five-star read for me, so I hope some of you will look it up and give it a chance!