What are we reading now?: November 1, 2025

Starting out the month with Paramilitarism in the Balkans, The Man Who Saw Tomorrow, and, hopefully, Dungeon Crawler Carl.

I just started We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson yesterday.

I finished listening to Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister this morning. It was okay, but it really dragged at times. Next up in audiobook land is The Great Divide by Cristina Henriquez.

In the land of paper books, I'm reading Richard Osman's latest Thursday Murder Club story, The Impossible Fortune.

I finished up Godel, Escher, Bach last night. The last two chapters are a bit dated. They are on the future of AI, and it was written in the 1970s. You would expect that.

I've started The Stolen Heart by Andrei Kurkov. It's the second book in the Kyiv Mystery series set right after the Russian Revolution when Ukraine declared independence and changed hands multiple times.

Enjoying this audio via Libby ~

Framed in Death (In Death/Eve Dallas series, #61)
by J. D. Robb

I am just past the halfway point of the very good Machine Dreams by Jayne Anne Phillips.

Currently reading Seashells and Murder by H.Y. Hanna a cute cozy mystery that takes place in Florida

Currently reading Tender is the Flesh by Agustine Bazterrica. Also nearly finished The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende which I am thoroughly enjoying.

A Perilous Undertaking – Deanna Raybourn
Digital audiobook performed by Angèle Masters
4****

Book two in the Veronica Speedwell series has our heroine taking on a case at the behest of Lady Sundridge, who begs Veronica to save a man from execution. Miles Ramsforth is accused of the brutal murder of his mistress, Artemisia, but Lady Sundridge is certain he was NOT the killer. Veronica and Stoker’s investigation takes them from a Bohemian artists’ colony to a royal palace to a subterranean grotto with a decadent history. They uncover more than one secret for their troubles.

I really like this series. Veronica is quite the strong heroine. She is a naturalist, studying butterflies, but she is also an astute observer and not prone to sit idly by when there is an injustice that needs correction. Her spats with Stoker are priceless, and I love the sexual tension between them. Veronica is NOT your typical Victorian lady!

I also find her opinions on sex refreshing. She knows what she likes and is not shy about seeking her own pleasure. She is also curious and nonjudgemental. Stoker certainly has met his match in Veronica!

Angèle Masters does a marvelous job narrating the audiobook. I really like the way she interprets Veronica and Stoker.

Starting to read A Great Marriage by Frances Mayes

Started: I Died for Beauty by Amanda Flower
Finale and 3rd novel in the "Emily Dickinson Mystery" series.
In January 1857, a snow storm has devastated much of the eastern seaboard. Emily and Willa (the housemaid in the Dickinson home) uncover a mystery in a house fire.

While You Were Out – Meg Kissinger
Digital audiobook read by the author.
5*****

Subtitle: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence

From the book jacket: Growing up in the 1960s in the suburbs of Chicago, Meg Kissinger’s family seemed to live a charmed life. With eight kids and two loving parents, the Kissingers radiated a warm, boisterous energy. Whether they were spending summer days on the shores of Lake Michigan, or navigating the trials of their Catholic school, the Kissingers always knew how to live large and play hard. But behind closed doors, a harsher reality was unfolding – a heavily medicated mother hospitalized for anxiety and depression, a manic father prone to violence, and children in the throes of bipolar disorder and depression, two of whom would take their own lives. Through it all, the Kissingers faced the world with their signature dark humor and the unspoken family rule: never talk about it.

My reaction
Meg Kissinger is a local journalist who wrote a series of articles for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about the state of Milwaukee County’s policies and programs for dealing with those suffering from mental illness. She further traveled around the nation looking into the ways that other communities dealt with these issues. Her articles made her a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and garnered many awards. Everyone in my book club had read those articles but this memoir is about Meg’s own family.

She is open and honest and doesn’t shy away from the hard truths. Yes, she had a loving family, but there were secrets and the message she and her siblings got from the way in which their parents, other relatives, and the Church responded to what was happening was that they should be ashamed and embarrassed about the illness that plagued them. The result is that few of them sought the professional help they needed until it was almost too late (and was too late for at least two of her siblings). She spent years researching this book, seeking medical and police records, talking to her siblings and other relatives / friends / neighbors. Everyone in the family gave consent for Meg to pull back the curtain and reveal all. What a brave and generous thing to do!

Meg reads the audiobook herself. I cannot imagine that anyone else would do a better job of it.

Our book club meeting was delighted that Meg came to our discussion and shared additional insights into the status of treatments and policies governing mental illness today.

The new thread is up over here.