Threadnsong Reads Again in 2024

Hello there!

I'm threadnsong, having talents and interest in both needlework and music. I grew up playing piano and found that I enjoy playing Irish music, both solo and in sessions. I work in Human Resources on the recruiting side of things which gives me great joy when I get to push "Hire" on my work screen.

My categories I used last year are going to see me through this year, and I'm already staring at a new Classics (or two) for 2024. I'm going to dispense with the animated tracker thing because even though it's fun, I was clicking too much.

So, for 2024, here are my categories and how I will keep this thread organized:

Category 1 - Quick Reads
Category 2 - Longer Reads
Category 3 - Book Group Reads
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series (reading Vol. III)
Category 5 - Classics

Reading goal: 45 books
Read-to-date: 46 books

Made it to more than my goal so yay! That makes me very happy.

Hope to see you in 2025 for my newest reading adventures.

January Reading Log

Category 1 - Quick Reads Four Blind Mice by James Patterson, All That is Mine I Carry With Me by William Landay
Category 2 - Longer Reads Dangerous Rhythms by T.J. English, Pan: The Great God's Modern Return by Paul Robichaud, Last Train from Atlanta by A. Hoehling
Category 3 - Book Group Reads The Poet by Michael Connelly
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series, Vol. III The Lays of Beleriand
Category 5 - Classics Dante's Inferno, The Niebelungenlied (I haven't decided yet)

January Current Count - 3
Yearly Count - 3

I am involved in both this Group's monthly LT group read, though sadly I did not get the book for my local library's F2F in time to read it. I also hope to finish Vol. III of Tolkien's "History of Middle Earth" series, since I have really lingered over this one for a long, long time. The poetry in it is astounding, though - lyrical and majestic in the best heroic form.

I was able to read the group read and the quicker reads this month, and started a new one for my "longer reads" that is worthwhile about the Battle of Atlanta.

>2 threadnsong: I can't wait to hear what you think of All That Is Mine I Carry With Me! It was one of my higher-rated books last year!

Good Luck with your goal, threadnsong.

Happy Reading! ☺️

Hello! Just popping over to follow along. :-)

>3 Hope_H: I read it in 3 days (evenings) after work. Holy moly what an incredible book! I will post my review of it by the weekend. I can see why you rated it highly last year.

>4 Sergeirocks: Thank you! I think it will be a good reading year 😃

>5 LibraryCin: Yay! Thank you very much!!

1) January Category 1 - All That is Mine I Carry With Me by William Landay

5*****

I was not expecting to read this in three consecutive evenings, and I just had to finish it to arrive at the ending. Plus, the family dynamics were incredibly engaging and the writing throughout was top-notch.

The story centers around a family that loses its mother/wife without a trace. The two youngest children, Miranda and Jeff, are the most affected by her sudden disappearance. Their oldest brother, Alex, is the least mostly due to his age. How each child relates to their father, the chief suspect, is the underlying tension in this book.

The question that lasts throughout the book centers on the father/husband, Dan. Did he or didn't he? What was his relationship with his wife, Jane, like? And there is a brilliant section that is told from Jane's POV that leaves no doubt about whodunit.

Yet the focus of the book is more about proving in a court of law who the suspect is and how the children deal with their growing up without their mom. And when they reach adulthood, the battle lines are well-entrenched for who suspects their dad, and who does not.

During the initial investigation, the spotlight on Dan as the chief suspect gradually dims and the DA chooses not to charge him. When a case is finally brought, Dan's skills as a defense attorney come to the fore brilliantly. Jane's sister, who has never liked Dan, plays a behind-the-scenes role in this case and relates incidents that in hindsight show the obvious to any who should be looking.

The ending was incredible and grabbed me and stayed long past when I got to the last sentence.

2) January Category 1 - Four Blind Mice by James Patterson

This book was a great revisit to Alex Cross' world and into the trauma experienced by soldiers when they return home. It did not get my usual 5 star rating, though, because the book seemed to be relying on too many formulas.

Still, it is a great page-turner. Alex Cross is deciding to resign from his policing job with the Washington, D.C. police force, and instead go into another field. It may be psychology, it may be the FBI and he he leaning toward the FBI. Then his best friend, Sampson, urges him to help clear an old Army buddy from Death Row.

As the two lifelong friends investigate what appears to be a wrongful conviction they come up against the thick grey wall of the armed forces. Seems that Sampson's buddy was accused of a brutal murder of three women, including painting and posing the bodies, and nothing either Sampson or Cross say will change the verdict.

Along with this conviction are more Army men accused of similarly heinous crimes, all of whom plead innocent and all of whom are put to death by the State. All of them served in the Vietnam War.

And then we begin to see the co-plot of three men, veterans of this same War, who seem to be re-enacting something from their days in Vietnam. They have a horrible blood lust and seem to revel in tracking down and killing their victims.

In the personal side of this book, Nana is beginning to feel her age and it takes Alex everything he can do to get her to a doctor. In fact, the Doctor comes to visit Nana and only then does she agree to go to a hospital. And the possible interest from the previous book, Jamilla, begins a long-distance romance with Alex.

By the end, the resolution was just a bit too pat and complete, and the chance to hear the stories from the bad guys didn't happen. I would have loved a confession of some sort from them.

3) January Category 3 - The Poet by Michael Connelly

An interesting look at an FBI murder investigation from a journalist's point of view. Jack Riley is an investigative reporter with a plum beat with the Rocky Mountain News where he covers the police beat on his own terms. As the story opens, Jack finds out that his twin brother, Sean, has killed himself in a deserted parking lot of a National Park. The thinking was that an unsolved gruesome murder has haunted Sean, and he couldn't take it any more.

When Jack breaks the story, he uncovers details that bring in the FBI to begin to link his brother's suicide with similar suicides by cops. The other side of the story that Jack finds, and that the FBI investigates, are the series of children's murders committed to which these same cops are assigned.

Because of Jack's breaking the case wide open, he is given access to the FBI during its investigation of this case. The common theme of suicide with quotes from Edgar Allen Poe's works begin to point to murders, not suicides. And we are also given the POV of a pedophile named Gladden, released from years-long imprisonment on a technicality, who continues to stalk children now that he is back on the streets.

While the ending seemed like a necessary wrap-up due to the length of this book, the story itself is a good one and kept me and my book group guessing.

February Reading Log

Category 1 - Quick Reads When Gods Die by C.S. Harris
Category 2 - Longer Reads Dangerous Rhythms by T.J. English, Pan: The Great God's Modern Return by Paul Robichaud, Last Train from Atlanta by A. Hoehling, The Once and Future King by T.H. White
Category 3 - Book Group Reads
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series, Vol. III The Lays of Beleriand
Category 5 - Classics Dante's Inferno, The Niebelungenlied (I haven't decided yet)

February Current Count - 2
Yearly Count - 5

Maybe it's the number of quick reads I've done over the past few months, or maybe I'm just exploring my huge TBR pile and reading those books that looked interesting enough to buy.

One of them, "Last Train from Atlanta," had interesting maps and pictures of the City, both before and after the Battle of Atlanta. It uses letters from soldiers, diary entries from several women in the Atlanta area, and newspaper stories noted from both Northern and Southern newspapers. Fascinating look at the months of siege and battle and bombings from the people who lived through it. And fairly apolitical, thankfully, in the commentary and explanations of each day's events.

Ed. I finished 2 books this month! Really, I'm enjoying the fascination of a quick murder mystery series, exploring the historical and artistic renditions of Pan, and continuing to learn how the Mob influenced Jazz in the 20th century. We're in the early 60's now and Cuba has experienced a revolution so the music scene has changed forever. Again.

4) February Category 1 - When Gods Die by C.S. Harris

A continuation of the Sebastian St Cyr mysteries, this one takes place in the Regent's quarters in Brighton during one of his outrageously expensive fetes. The people of London are starving, children without mothers beg in the street, and the Regent needs everyone to love him. So he throws this ball.

And as I'm finding with this mystery series, the murder happens right at the beginning of the book with the Prince Regent entering a private chamber for a private assignation with a Marchioness, only to find her dead and his own antique dirk protruding from her back.

Added to the mystery is the lack of blood in the chamber, the access to the Regent's collection of antique swords and knives, and how a medallion belonging to Sebastian's drowned mother was found around the dead woman's body. Woven into the thread of this tale are the suppositions about James II, whose descendants have as good a claim to the tottering throne as the Hanovers do. And the name of the dead Marchioness is Guinevere, her older sister named Morgana, and Gwen's childhood sweetheart whose family lost everything during the French Revolution.

Somehow, Harris manages to keep all these threads well-woven with just enough explanation to instruct but not condescend. I'll be interested to see how these novels continue.

5) February Category 3 - Pan: The Great God's Modern Return by Paul Robichaud
4****

A well-researched deep dive into the demi-diety Pan, his origins in Arcadia, his following among shepherds, and his listing in the pantheon of Greek gods. One of the currents throughout this book comes from Plutarch, reporting on a ship's journey the words spoken by the ship's pilot Thamus: "Great Pan is dead." This statement is taken up by the early Christians as an acknowledgement that the old gods have died when Jesus was born (or was resurrected, depending on the writer), and later in English Romanticism when the poets seek to re-invoke Pan in their "green and pleasant land."

In addition to Plutarch there is Ovid, linking Pan to the nymph Syrinx, and others who include Echo and Pitys as two more nymphs linked with Pan. Robichaud uses these ancient springboards to discuss facets of Pan's character: panic, elemental, all-encompassing, lecherous, beneficent, seldom seen, guardian to the natural world.

From the ancient writers, Robichaud researches Medieval Pan, up through Pan's Romantic Rebirth with the writers' and artists' seeking of a deeper connection to nature during this time. There is artwork through the ages, there are poems, there are invocations, and there are the stories "Peter Pan" and "Wind in the Willows" that bring in elements of Pan. Robichaud also goes into detail about the chapter in the latter work called "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" that was removed from most American editions of "Wind in the Willows."

And he doesn't stop with the Edwardians. Pan is brought into the 20th century with neo-Pagan ideas and writings, including new rituals and hymns. There is also music (Pink Floyd and the Waterboys), films and television series, and an undercurrent of Pan's many aspects as we move through into the 21st century. Like the "pan-demic" that he mentions at the very end of this informative work.

March Reading Log

Category 1 - Quick Reads Girls and Their Monsters by Audrey Clare Farley, The Woman with the Cure by Lynn Cullen
Category 2 - Longer Reads Dangerous Rhythms by T.J. English, Last Train from Atlanta by A. Hoehling, The Once and Future King by T.H. White
Category 3 - Book Group Reads The Malta Exchange by Steve Berry
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series, Vol. III The Lays of Beleriand
Category 5 - Classics The Niebelungenlied

March Current Count - 4
Yearly Count - 9

So I'm almost finished with "Dangerous Rhythms" and near the end of "Last Train." I'll dig through my bags o' books to see what my next choice will be for the month. And also to promise myself to spend some time at a coffee shop to spend some time in Beleriand - it's been too long since I visited those lost shores!

Ed. Well, I stopped by my library to pick up this month's reading selection and also the next in Maggie Sefton's cozy mystery. And I looked at one of their displays and came home with a book about a set of quadruplets in Lansing, MI who were all diagnosed with schizophrenia in the 1950's. It's fascinating and a relatively quick read. Not an easy subject matter but well written.

Ed. Ed. So at the end of March I adjusted this list a bit. I have not even cracked open "Dropped Dead Stitch" so it will be in April's book list. And I am hoping I can real quickly read "Woman with the Cure" because the beginning is completely amazing.

6) March Category 2 - Dangerous Rhythms by T.J. English
5*****

Such a great book and so eye-opening about the intersecting worlds of jazz and the Mafia. I had no idea. There were rumors of Frank Sinatra's involvement with the Mob and Mob Bosses, but the work done by this author brings so much more to light about these two worlds.

In short, the Mafia had the money and they were active during Prohibition, while they also ran the speakeasy's as a chief source of income. And they were familiar with the burgeoning jazz musicians who were willing to play in those same clubs as a way to make a living.

Then once Prohibition ended, these same Mafia bosses had to find a way to keep their income coming in and boy did they. From New York's famed Cotton Club to Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, and Miami, the jazz clubs sprang up, the musicians played, big band music became the new thing, and the money rolled in. Mostly to the mobsters as one would expect.

Very many aspects of the intertwining of jazz and the Mafia are put into history, including the increased use of heroin and the musicians who got hooked, the violence that happened if anyone tried to switch clubs or bands, and the "plantation mentality" of black musicians, white audience till the 60's and early 70's. Also detailed are the years that Havana was a jazz-and-Mob jewel and how Las Vegas came to exist.

Highly recommend this book for music fans and readers interested in 20th century American history.

7) March Category 1 - Girls and Their Monsters by Audrey Clare Farley
4****

This book is a well-researched history of a set of American quadruplets who grew up in Lansing, Michigan and were part of the burgeoning research into the origins of schizophrenia. Is it nature or nurture? What does the science of psychology gain from these studies? And most importantly, how has the care of the mentally disturbed become so abysmal?

The parents of these quadruplets married in the 1920's, with many warnings pre-marriage that the young bride, Sadie, failed to heed. One wonders what her life would have been had she not listened to her employer, a doctor, who decided that Carl was a "good man" even though her intuition told her differently. And as one can guess, the abuse started early with one bizarre twist: Carl was a biter.

They eventually have their quadruplet girls and like so many children they learned to perform on stage and were the family's breadwinners for several years. But as they began to enter school their differences became much more discernible: Helen became inert and would not finish school, Edna became a second spouse to Carl. Wilma discovered her own body, and Sarah just wanted to be able to have friends outside her family. But Carl would have none of it, and the abuse became more physical and sexual as the sisters entered puberty.

By the 1950's, their story included mental health institutions, which eventually brought all 4 sisters to the attention of a brilliant psychologist, David Rosenthal, and his new facility, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).

The four sisters lived on the NIMH campus for several years, their parents were also studied, to see whether their schizophrenia was genetic or tied to their upbringing. The author shows how it could easily be both.

Also presented in the book's timeline are the strides that were made in the care of those suffering from mental illness that came to a crashing halt with 1980's Reaganomics. Once mental health facilities turned to profits for themselves instead of care for the mentally challenged, there was nowhere else to turn but the streets.

8) March Category 3 - The Malta Exchange by Steve Berry
3***

Having read another book in the Cotton Malone series, and being interested in the Knights Templar and other Medieval organizations, I was really intrigued that there would be discussion of the Knights Hospitaller and the Knights of Malta, and even letters between Churchill and Mussolini. What fun!

Unfortunately, this book was a bit too disjointed. Yes, there was discussion about the structure of the Knights Hospitaller and the mysterious documents case held by Benito Mussolini at the time of his death, but the latter sort of fizzled out on Malta and the former was a bit eclipsed by a cast of characters that were in, then out, then trying to be mysteriously involved.

While I can appreciate multiple chapters with multiple points of view, this one jumped from Cotton Malone to Luke to the mysterious Knight to other events, and all those jumps made following the plot just way too hard. So, while I enjoy this genre, I was left without that wonderful conspiracy puzzle that I had expected.

9) March Category 1 - The Woman with the Cure by Lynn Cullen
4 1/2 ****

A great book that is so very timely, both in its subject matter (the search for the cure for polio) and for its actual writing. Cullen says at the very end of this book that she began it the day that Chinese scientists announced an outbreak of a new, respiratory-centered virus, and only found the coincidence months later.

The book centers on the life of Dorothy Horstman, daughter of German immigrants, who earns her college degree in science because she uses her first two initials. Barely allowed even a fellowship appointment in the 1940's, she has become drawn into fighting the horrors of polio and its attack on the nervous system. And the way it robs people of all ages of their full lives.

Dr. Horstman is competing not just with a narrow-minded group of colleagues, but also the famous Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin, the former of whom is credited with finding the cure. Except he didn't. And his race to get the grant resulted in rushed inoculations with the dead, not the live, virus, combined with shoddy work at the laboratory. Both of these mistakes resulted in another mass outbreak of polio, though they also brought about stricter controls on labs that manufacture vaccines.

The great thing about this book is the way in which I felt drawn into the race, into rooting for Dorothy and her successes, the deft way in which she handles both the egos and the medicine, and her compassion for those doomed to live their entire lives in an iron lung.

One aspect that seemed a little forced was the way in which other noted women who worked around polio patients were introduced to the story, and then shuffled to the side. Granted, this is Dorothy's story, but a bit more interaction or fleshing out of the Australian nurse Sister Elizabeth Kenny, who placed hot, wet wool on patients' limbs, or Barbara Johnson, the research assistant who developed polio due to interacting with the live virus in her work, would have helped the larger story.

Still, this is a timely story that needs to be told, in the way that Lynn Cullen has made women's histories come back from obscurity with her books.

April Reading Log

Category 1 - Dropped Dead Stitch by Maggie Sefton, Things in Jars by Jess Kidd
Category 2 - Longer Reads Last Train from Atlanta by A. Hoehling, The Once and Future King by T.H. White, Mothers of Feminism by Margaret Hope Bacon
Category 3 - Book Group Reads
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series, Vol. III The Lays of Beleriand
Category 5 - Classics The Niebelungenlied

April Current Count - 2
Yearly Count - 11

This was the month of the total eclipse and I went to go see it! The road trip was leisurely and the eclipse was brilliant. I highly recommend that everyone go see at least one total eclipse in their lifetime.

So even though March was a long month, I have moved some March books to April and will spend some long evenings curling up and reading. Actually, re-reading, since both "Once and Future King" and "Mothers of Feminism" are re-reads. Sadly, my planned group read with the next Clive Berry book is something I've had to put off due to the timing of getting home and getting organized. Holding out hope for future months and future group reads!

10) April Category 1 - Dropped Dead Stitch by Maggie Sefton
4****

Another fun romp through the bright shelves of Lambspun Yarn in Fort Connor, Colorado with Kelly and her found family. Two years have passed since the first two books concluded, and Kelly is now happily ensconced with her boyfriend, Steve, her canine companion Carl, and all the staff and customers of Lambspun.

This book opens quite quickly with her friend, Jennifer, calling about being attacked. Jennifer finds help to deal with the aftermath, and Kelly, Jennifer, and Lisa with the shop are all invited to join a knitting and therapy retreat with Jennifer's therapist. The lovely, secluded mountain ranch has many amenities to offer this group of survivors who really open up when the yarns, hooks, and needles make their appearance.

Sefton deals well with the effects of violence, both the physical and the emotional trauma, and her characters show the myriad ways in which healing occurs. Or not, as we find out later in the book. And of course, Kelly wants to rescue her friend and of course, things take an interesting turn (twist?) at the ranch.

A quick Saturday read and looking forward to continuing this series.

11) April Category 1 - Things in Jars by Jess Kidd
5*****

What an amazing, cool, well-written book that fits so many different genres. It was loaned to me by a friend who read it quickly; I had to take it in batches because the panoramas that the language paints are so very rich and full. This story has an Irish waif grown to adulthood on the streets of London; well-to-do families of physicians; Victorian carnivals and their creatures; and an undercurrent of both malice and wonder.

The book opens with Bridie (Brigit) Devine in her widow's cap approached by a well-muscled ghost with tattoos who encounters her in a church graveyard. Bridie is not enamored of Ruby, though she is curious about him, especially because she is investigating the skeletons/corpses of a woman and her child, both with very sharp teeth and other strange anomalies, walled up in the church basement.

Who Bridie is becomes part of the story in chapters that start 20 years before, where she is an orphan from 1840's pre-Famine Ireland taken in by her Gan while he introduces her to anatomy and studies of the human form. The adult Bridie walks the streets of London with her pipe and her mind and her memories, and assisting in the recovery of a very strange, missing child that seems to be more myth than real.

The missing child is the daughter of Sir Edmund and the playfellow of Dr. Harbin, who was sent to hire her for the search. But things are not as they seem, and her new-found friend (and ghost) Ruby is assisting her in her efforts even if no one else can see him. Or his various tattoos that shift and move and communicate his thoughts without words.

There are some cautions in this tale: death is very prevalent, and there is an incident of animal cruelty as well as Victorian operating procedures pre-anesthesia. Most of them take place in the household were Bridie is raised, that of prominent physician Dr. Eames and his psychopathic (also well-described) wife and son, during the Before passages.

How this tale is woven, how language is used, and Bridie herself are quite memorable and it is definitely a book I am glad I read.

April Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth Book 3 - The Lays of Beleriand

Chapter III, Cantos 1-3

This chapter encompasses the heroic poem "The Lay of Leithian" that Tolkien wrote between 1925 and 1931. He sent it to his good friend C. S. Lewis for critique, and Christopher Tolkien details some of the changes that came into the final poem as a result of Lewis' suggestions.

This Lay eventually becomes the story of Beren and Luthien in both "Lord of the Rings" and "The Silmarillion." What is presented here is a deeper backstory of Beren's father, Barahir, and his band of outlaws who harried the forces of King Morgoth and managed to evade capture. Until one of their band, Gorim, sees his cottage? a vision of his cottage? with his wife all drawn and pale, and in an effort to return to his lost life approaches Morgoth's throne and provides the whereabouts of this band of outlaws.

The poem then goes on to describe the love story of Thingol and Melian, parents of Luthien Tinuviel, with a change in the passage of the Elves over the sea in a fleet of ships they themselves built (instead of by moving the island of Tol Eressea as is later recounted). Again, the details about Luthien's dancing through the land, her pursuit by Beren, and the Elven harpist who plays for her, are more fleshed out and much richer in this poetic format.

There are a total of 14 Cantos in this section, and the notes and commentary are helpful and do not get in the way of knowledge of the story as it is told in this format.

May Reading Log

Category 1 - Quick Reads Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey
Category 2 - Longer Reads Last Train from Atlanta by A.A. Hoehling, The Once and Future King by T.H. White, Mothers of Feminism by Margaret Hope Bacon
Category 3 - Book Group Reads
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series, Vol. III The Lays of Beleriand
Category 5 - Classics The Niebelungenlied, Erec and Enide by Chrétien de Troyes

May Current Count - 4
Yearly Count - 15

This is the month of finishing some longer reads (at last!) and deciding what to read next. I found a copy of Erec and Enide to supplement my classics reading and I might go back to some well-loved fantasy series. Will keep that thread open!

Ed: I did it! I finished 3 whole books this month! I'm hoping that I'll be able to add T.H. White's to my list of finished, although I'm getting close to the end and the heartbreak is just overwhelming. Again. So I've chosen some lighter reading with Anne McCaffrey, another teenage favorite.

12) May Category 2 - Mothers of Feminism by Margaret Hope Bacon

3***

I first read this in 1990 or thereabouts, and I think part of my recollection of struggling with this book is borne out again. The scholarship is well done, and showing the Quaker faith to be what gave Quaker women a voice, but the details on many of the less-known women are too scattered and tend to diminish their stories.

From the very beginnings of Quakerism came the belief that the spirit of God lives within each being, regardless of gender or race or social standing. Many Quakers in the 1800's worked to protect the rights of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, in addition to their work as abolitionists and suffrage.

Examples of women's lives include how some Meetings allowed women to preach to the Friends gathered for Sunday service. Quaker women were allowed to travel in order to preach at other Meetings, or even travel to other cities to bring Quakerism to others. Evangelical, if you will.

Many women were researched in this book and that is a credit to the author. Each chapter has a historical focus, including Colonial America and the rise of Abolition in both the American Colonies and the United States, going through the struggles for Suffrage and Civil Rights.

However. I found myself struggling to find the continuity throughout each era or chapter or set of events. Once an idea was introduced as the main focus, women's lives followed in rapid succession with little to no narrative to bring them together. Other times, women's lives were explored or introduced, then referenced several pages or paragraphs later, again without a narrative voice. The dis-jointed-ness of this overall writing style lessened the strength of this book.

13) May Category 2 - Last Train from Atlanta by A.A. Hoehling

5*****

Where to begin with a review of this book? It is an extraordinary look at the soldiers and citizens who were involved in this siege and serves as a good counterpoint to the minutes on screen in "Gone With the Wind" or a few sentences of a book about the Civil War.

Hoehling has done a thorough job of finding letters, newspaper articles, and diaries for this time period. He has arranged this book on a daily basis, so each month is its own section. It starts with July, 1864 when the Union (Northern) army has left Chattanooga and is marching towards Atlanta. This capital city is important as a centerpiece of commerce due to its many railroad lines that supply goods to the rest of the Confederacy (Southern forces). The long, drawn-out Civil War can be brought to an end by destroying these rail lines and the city where they reside.

Starting on July 3, Hoehling provides an edited newspaper article from The Daily Intelligencer (Atlanta), then follows it with an overview of troop movements, weather, background to the upcoming seige, and overall view of the life in the city for a normal Sunday: church services, gatherings, hotels, and hospitals. On July 4, he provides an excerpt from the same Daily Intelligencer as well as an excerpt from Frank Leslie's Illustrated Weekly, a newspaper out of New York. And on, and on, daily through the first bombardments, to the cavalry movements, to the barricades and battles, to the bombs falling in the railroad lines and among the homes and businesses.

Each newspaper article is accompanied by a flag indicating whether it is a Union or Confederate publication. Diary entries form more of the daily events in this book as the siege progresses, since women were more inclined to keep journals/diaries. They range everywhere from a nine year old girl discussing knitting socks in the underground bunker outside her family home, to a nurse receiving the wounded (often from both sides) in Jonesboro (south of Atlanta). Decatur resident Mary Gay writes about opening up her ceiling to store Confederate uniforms and then re-plastering it so as to escape notice.

The most obvious exclusion from this book are the slaves, both newly-freed and those staying with their owners. A desire to capture their oral traditions is not part of this book, so while Mary Gay references communicating with "her" girl Talitha, who was deaf, we do not know Talitha's thoughts on the matter. She only communicated through signs. Literacy for enslaved peoples was not allowed in this place at this time. And sadly, Mary Gay's journey into Atlanta for supplies causes such hardship and stress on "her" boy, Toby, that he sickens and dies when they return to her Decatur home. There is a telling paragraph where she confesses to him the truth of "I have not always been just to you . . . " that speaks volumes.

July goes into August, and day after day the entries are the same from the citizens. Day after day of hot weather, the noise of shells, the death of soldiers and citizens both; the sameness of these days' writings emphasize the unrelenting bombardment of what it was like to live in a city under seige.

Finally, by the autumn, the battle is won, families are given the choice to leave and go north and start again, or join the lines of trains going south. Also to start again. Observations of the Union soldiers are most accurate here. And a letter from Union General William T. Sherman, leader of the Union forces, to the losing Confederate General, John B. Hood, who is complaining about the death, destruction, and removal of civilians from Atlanta, says it best:

In the name of common sense, I ask you not to appeal to a just God in such a sacrilegious manner. You, who in the midst of peace and prosperity have plunged a nation into war, dark and cruel war, who dared and badgered us to battle, insulted our flag, seized our arsenals and forts that were left in the honorable custody of a peaceful ordnance sergeant . . . you tried to force Kentucky and Missouri into the rebellion in spite of themselves, falsified the vote of Louisiana, turned loose your pirates to plunder unarmed ships, expelled Union families by the thousands, burned their houses, and declared by act of your Congress the confiscation of all debts due Northern men for goods had and received.

14) May Category 5 - Erec and Enide by Chrétien de Troyes, Trans by Burton Raffel

5 *****

A magnificent poem, full of courtly graces and a couple's travails in the court of King Arthur. It is the first romance to show Arthur's court not as the warrior king of Welsh legend in "Culhwch and Olwen," but rather as a landed sovereign and giver of great gifts.

The story opens with a pleasure ride with Erec, Guinevere, and one of Guinevere's maids meet with a knight, his lady, and the knight's dwarf. Because the dwarf strikes the maid across the face, Erec challenges the dwarf to combat and then rides after the knight, with a promise to Guinevere that he shall return in 3 days.

He does, after finding a Count's castle where an older lord has fallen onto hard times, and who has the loveliest of daughters, Enide. In true romance fashion, the young people fall in love, Erec promises lands and castles to her father, and he bests the earlier knight at his quest to obtain a hunting hawk.

The two young people return to Arthur's court, feasting and a wedding ensue, and then they pretty much take to their marriage bed for a couple of years. Because Enide has overheard some of the knights at court whisper that Erec has lost his questing prowess, she weeps at this unfortunate stain to his reputation. Erec becomes enraged at Enide and forces her to journey with him in search of a quest.

And quests ensue. And multiple single combats with worthy opponents, swords that cleave shields and heads in twain, and on in French romance fashion until the final combat. It is called Joie de la Cort (explained in the Afterword as a play on several words) and has resulted in the deaths of nearly 80 worthy knights. But Erec wins, spares the other knight's life, and a return to court with his reputation restored ends this tale.

It is presented and translated as a poem, rather than as prose, and the translator has taken pains to retain the metre and the feel of the original rather than the rhyme. All of which made reading the short phrases easier, though certainly less poetic, and still evocative of the medieval romantic world.

15) May Category 1 - Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey

5**** and ❤️

Still one of the best fantasy books I have ever read. And to think it was written waaaay back in 1968! It shows a smart, flawed heroine, political maneuverings, and a world-building that came from thinking and postulating about what might have happened when the spaceships grew tired of their mission.

Lessa is the last survivor of the ruling family of Ruatha Hold, one of the oldest fortresses answering to the oldest Weyr, Fort Weyr. How these got the names and designations they did is not part of this book. Instead, we are picking up with Lessa's life, her past told in bits, and the visit of two dragonriders to her hold. And what results.

What I did not grasp as a smart 16-year-old when I first read this is the need to tell the story of why the adults in charge have brought dragonriders into such disrepute. And why the dragonriders F'lar and his half brother, F'nor, are working so hard to help Lessa succeed once she has impressed the new queen dragon, Ramoth. It's all about complacency and a forgetting of the reasons for the old ways and old ballads.

Lessa learns about the civilization on Pern, the ballads, the teachings, what it means to be Weyrwoman, over the couple of years it takes for her queen to mature. When Ramoth has her first mating flight, Lessa is partnered with the rider of the bronze dragon who mates with her, F'lar, and the two quickly work to bring in better ways of running the Weyr.

Part of the fall of dragons into disrepute is the lack of a reason for their existence. Dragons of Pern chew firestone and flame away Threads, which fall on Pern from a neighboring planet every 200 years for about 50 years. In this story, the Threads have not fallen for 400 years so the Holds are wondering why they need to sustain the population of the last remaining Weyr, Bendan Weyr. And for some strange reason, the other Weyrs have been abandoned for many hundreds of years with no record of their inhabitants' whereabouts.

Then Thread begins to fall, otherwise complacent Holds watch their crops and greenspaces burned away, and the existing dragonriders realize that they do not have the numbers to effectively guard against the destruction of Thread. How Lessa puts together the bits and pieces of dragons and their riders, what they are capable of as a duo, leads to a rejuvenation of the reason for dragonriders and is the latter part of this book.

June Reading Log

Category 1 - Quick Reads Classified as Murder by Miranda James, Birds of a Feather by Jacqueline Winspear, The Shattered World by Micheal Reaves
Category 2 - Longer Reads The Once and Future King by T.H. White, After the Conquest by Teresa Cole
Category 3 - Book Group Reads
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series, Vol. III The Lays of Beleriand
Category 5 - Classics The Niebelungenlied

June Current Count - 4
Yearly Count - 19

Yes, I can't believe it either! Here it is June 8, and I was able to read a book already this month! Plus I am towards the end of "Once and Future King" and came across the passage that just enlightened my 14 year old heart, and still does all these years later.

I am finding "Niebelungenlied" quite good tho' it is a bit slow going; I like that it is divided into short chapters. And while it is still early June, my weekends look pretty empty and I just discovered a new coffee shop that looks quiet. So, I may get some more Tolkien completed.

Ed. I also decided to move the C.S. Harris book to July, and instead I'm re-reading "The Shattered World." I had not realized how well this book stood up to the test of time and I'm gaining so much more from it all these years later.

16) June Category 1 - Classified as Murder by Miranda James

4****

A continuation of Charlie Harris' work as a sleuthing librarian and his feline companion, Diesel. This book transpires a few years after the first (always a plus in my opinion) and also includes a glimpse into Charlie's family life. In this book we meet his son, a young lawyer, who has left his firm and has moved in with Dad. And we also meet one of the First Families of Athena, Mississippi, with all of their family dynamics.

The mystery starts with Mr. James Delacorte, a regular Friday visitor to the public library, who wants to employ Charlie to inventory his rare books collection. Some of them are out of order and others may be missing. Mr. James Delacorte trusts that Charlie and Diesel can help with this project.

Shortly after Charlie and Diesel begin their work, they find Mr. Delacorte dead and the rest of his family at odds over who should, or should not, inherit his wealth. Mr. Delacorte knew that he was keeping the rest of the family under his roof at his own expense, and his will specified who needed to go out and find a job.

Since Charlie's work was included in Mr. Delacorte's will, he continues with the inventory helped by his son, Sean. This provides them the time they need to re-connect as adults, and Sean reveals why he just happened to show up at Charlie's home with a rescued dog. And when Sean discovers a book that is different from Mr. Delacorte's written catalog, the mystery gets even deeper.

17) June Category 2 - The Once and Future King by T.H. White

5*****❤️

Below is a combination of my 2012 review and my thoughts on it now:

What a way to end a year. This book is so full of hope and laughter, and then becomes one of sadness and despair, yet its views on humanity and human nature are just as profound as they were when I first read it at age 14.

And now, knowing how anachronistic this re-telling of the tale is, I understand so much more of what White was describing: how the suppression of the Saxons by the Normans was the start of Arthur's kingship, followed by the flowering of the High Middle Ages, and ending all by cannons. I am especially struck by Mordred's twisted spirit, Agravain's mindless focus on his mother (and his own hidden monstrosity), and the pulling of Arthur into his lawfulness and sadness. The principal actors become archetypes in this re-telling, and many tips of the hat are given to Mallory's description of the battles and panoply.

I know, I know, that Arthur was probably an anglicized Roman general, but the depth of feeling and heights of joy and despair just reflect so much better the heights and depths of the Dark and Middle Ages.

And for my 2024 reading, I was struck by the almost off-hand way that valiant knights on horseback are portrayed as almost comical characters despite White's admiration for Mallory's work. I was also more than a bit annoyed by White's blunt dismissal of Guenever as an older woman. As a product of his time, his unconscious chauvinism, bordering on misogyny, simply writes her off as no longer of worth because she is not the beauty she was as a young queen. It's appalling to read now, especially as Lancelot and Arthur and Gawain gain wisdom as they age.

What I barely grasped at the age of 14 I now understand so much better: the politics of King Arthur's downfall and why petty, cruel men wish to topple the world he helped make better. My favorite quote is the one towards the end, when Lancelot and Guenever are looking through her window:

Do you think that they, with their Battles, Famine, Black Death and Serfdom, were less enlightened than we are with our Wars, Blockade, Influenza and Conscription? Even if they were foolish enough to believe that the earth was the centre of the universe, do we not ourselves believe that man is the fine flower of creation? If it takes a million years for a fish to become a reptile, has Man, in our few hundred, altered out of recognition?

18) June Category 1 - The Shattered World by Michael Reaves
4****

A great fantasy book from the mid-80's that builds on an interesting premise: how do different peoples do on a planet that has been split into different fragments? For those wondering how the science works in this scenario, there is a Runestone for each fragment that takes care of things like gravity and atmosphere.

The chief characters are a thief, Beorn, who is under a lifetime spell of shape-changing into a bear. His latest mission is to steal a Runestone from the largest fragment, Darkhaven, for which he will gain his human-only life back. He was hired by Ardatha, a court wizard of another fragment, Oljaer, to retrieve this fragment in the hopes of re-joining the fragments. Another wizard, Pandrogas, is currently researching the history of this fragmented world in the library on the fragment of Darkhaven. Stranded on Darkhaven are a marquis and his wife, whose dragonship is being repaired due to their wreck onto this fragment during a storm.

The POV switches between each of the characters and each is well supplied with a backstory and motivation for their actions. And as a friend said who read it shortly after I first did, again, back in the 80's, each character thinks they are doing the right thing with their intentions and actions. Sort of a Neutral Good alignment for the Dungeons and Dragons players. No character is doing truly good, and no character is doing true evil; they are simply doing what they think best in their situation.

The world-building of the different fragments, along with the Abyss in which they own float in their own orbits, is quite well-done. And the conflicts that each character brings based on their actions are also believable. The sacrifices and choices each character makes are more adult than adolescent which made is a great read all these years later. And yet, for all the build-up, it's the ending that feels more than a bit rushed and incomplete. Still, it's a great book for all that, and has stood the test of time in its readability.

19) June Category 1 - Birds of a Feather by Jacqueline Winspear
4****

Another great installment in this series, this one follows Maisie into the Great Depression in London's streets. And as with the inaugural book, we see the fall-out from the Great War all these years later.

This time, Maisie and her assistant Billy Beale are invited to the grand home of a self-made man, James Waite. His daughter has run away, again, and he insists that Charlotte be returned at once. Part of Maisie's concern when she takes the case is why would a father insist that his 34 year old daughter come back to live at home, especially as she is well-heeled and should have made a good match long ago.

As Maisie's MG takes her around on her sleuthing, we also take a look at how her relationship with her father, Frank, has become difficult. Frank is working on the grounds of Chelston with Lady Rowena's prize mare when he slips and falls and breaks both his legs. Maisie realizes that they have not spoken much since she has arrived at adulthood and is a wise enough woman to know it's time to address this issue.

The main mystery of the story, though, is why Charlotte has gone into hiding in Camden Convent, with which Maisie is familiar, and how three of her friends from her finishing-school days have all died by a murderer or by suicide. Of course Detective Inspector Stratton thinks that he has found the killer, the estranged husband of one of the murdered women, except that Maisie thinks he might be mistaken.

In a blend of wisdom, intuition, and a bit of "reading" of the locations where the women have died, Maisie realizes there is some connection between all four beyond their finishing-school days. And that somehow, it is connected with the Great War and the grocer's empire that Charlotte's father created from the ground up. What that connection is gets revealed at the tail end in a most logical and tragic way.

July Reading Log

Category 1 - Quick Reads Why Mermaids Sing by C.S. Harris, A Very Private School by Charles Spencer
Category 2 - Longer Reads After the Conquest by Teresa Cole, The Burning of the Rose by Ruth Nichols, Star Trek Psychology, ed. by Travis Langley
Category 3 - Book Group Reads The Sixth Extinction by James Rollins
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series, Vol. III The Lays of Beleriand
Category 5 - Classics The Niebelungenlied

July Current Count - 5 (!)
Yearly Count - 23

No exact plans yet, and with a holiday nearly-weekend coming up I'm sure I'll spend some time staring at my bookshelves and deciding what I want to read this month.

I definitely want to make some more headway on "Niebelungenlied" and Tolkien. They are tied together through Tolkien's mythology, and both books tell a fascinating story.

And my local library carries this James Rollins book, so I look forward to some group discussion this month.

Ed: So, I read the first chapter of Going Clear and decided such an in-depth look at Scientology was too much for me to deal with. Instead, I found a TBR book (actually, I still have a receipt from 1992 as my bookmark) and decided I should re-start reading it. It's a good medieval first-person narrative, and I can see why I put it down all those years ago.

July Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth Book 3 - The Lays of Beleriand

Chapter III, Cantos IV - VI

Here we have, in touching detail, the meeting of Luthien and Beren by moonlight. We still have Dairon, the piper who is in love with Luthien, and his jealousy that she is being courted by a mortal. Only this time, when he puts down his flutes/pipes, the sounds of Doriath also stop - no birdsong, no bees.

Also detailed is the story of Luthien bringing Beren to her mother and father, Melian and Thingol, along with descriptions of the Caves of Doriath, where they hold their court. Including a green light that magically lights up the interior so that Melian's birds can sing deep underground (Melian being a Maia and therefore capable of such magick). A nice touch is that Dairon regrets speaking to Thingol and betraying Luthien's love for Beren. And of course, Thingol decides that Luthien's bride price is a Silmaril from the crown of Morgoth, instead of killing him or making him a prisoner.

And also a nice touch is in Christopher's notes after Canto V, where he describes:

"(A) curious detail in a marginal note to the B-text. At some time (as I think) long afterwards someone unknown wrote against lines 1331-6: 'Thingol is here being rather obtuse'; and against this remark my father scribbled: 'But he could not believe she loved Beren--unless some evil spell had somehow been laid on her.' "

Finally, Canto VI details Beren's journey to Nargothrond and consolidates the link (finally, in a way that made it easy to finally, finally understand) between Felagund and Beren and why Felagund gives up his kingship in Nargothrond to help Beren. He gives his crown to his brother, Orodreth, to be Steward in Nargothrond in his stead. Two of Felagund's houseguests are two of the sons of Fëanor, who swore the oath with their father to hunt down anyone who took one of the Silmarils. And the oath-swearing and Fëanor's crafting the Silmarils are also beautifully revisited in this Canto.

Interestingly, neither Celegorm nor Curufin, the sons of Fëanor, decide to accompany Beren to retrieve this jewel. They invoke their oath and use that oath to cause Felagund to give up his kingship, but they do not gird themselves with armour magickal nor sword powerful to aid him on this quest. That is a detail that I had not realized before but it is very stark in this poetry-written version of this tale: they stay put and cause chaos, not harmony, when faced with such a choice.

19) July Category 1 - A Very Private School by Charles Spencer

4 1/2 ****

Trigger Warnings: Intense physical and emotional child abuse, childhood sexual abuse

Boy, this was a difficult book to read. And I tip my hat to Charles Spencer for writing it. His writing style is fantastic - I read it in about 3 or 4 days. It's the subject matter of nightmares and maybe because of its unrelenting pace, or maybe just the subject matter, I could not give this book 5 stars. Others may differ.

The book details his 5 years, from 1972 to 1977, that he spent as a boarder at Maidwell Hall and the trauma he and the other boys experienced at the hands of the headmaster, the staff, and from one another. He was 8 when he was sent there as were many (most?) of the other boys of his station and generation in England. In fact, the beginning of this book includes quotes from George Orwell, who was whisked to boarding school 30 years before Spencer in much the same way, about the futility of it and the hope that such a life would never happen to another boy.

Spencer gives his personal accounts of the beatings, the homesickness, and the emotional abuse from the teachers. He also uses personal interviews (the names have been changed) with his classmates, both in the same forms and those who graduated later or earlier, to describe the conditions and their experiences at Maidwell. And the book kept going on through the years Spencer was a boarder to the point where I just wanted to stop reading. Because I wanted the abuse to stop for him and his fellow boarders, and that may have been the point: there was no end in sight for these young boys, until they matriculated from Maidwell and entered Eton or the other secondary schools their entrance exams allowed them to attend.

Once he becomes an adult, he details both his struggles with adulthood and those of his fellow Maidwell classmates. Much of the stories are the same for them all as adults: alcoholism, divorce, or even near-silence and self-imposed isolation.

I must say, it took guts to write this book and for Charles Spencer to write the deepest sadnesses and trauma of his childhood. It's not easy reading, there are triggers, and I hope the healing continues.

20) July Category 1 - Why Mermaids Sing by C.S. Harris
5****

This was a really good book and important to the build-up of the characters. One of the techniques this author brings is an ability to narrate from both Sebastian's POV and Kat without detracting from the overall flow of the plot.

As the book opens, young Dominic Stanton is riding to his mother's for a dinner party, and in typical series fashion is waylaid and killed. His body is later gruesomely hung in public, and Sir Henry Lovejoy, the local magistrate, is brought in to begin the investigation. And of course he calls in Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, to assist him.

When more bodies of young men are found, some mutilated and some not, then Bow Street decides to take over the investigation, St. Cyr has to rely on young Tom and himself for the most immediate searches. Which lead him to the upper echelons of British society and a retired ship's captain who seems to have fallen into the bottle. And while St. Cyr was fighting abroad, a trial happened about a ship that floundered on its return from India captained by this retired captain.

Also we begin to learn more about the character and motivations of St. Cyr's lover, Kat, a beauty of the London stage and also a spy against England. While she does not care about Napoleon per se, she is Irish by birth and upbringing, and therefore despises the English for what they have done to her homeland.

Revelations come to light, sea voyages are examined, and even Lord Jarvis makes his presence known. As he does. And the title? It comes from the John Donne poem, and provides a clue about the murders in a literary twist.

21) July Category 3 - The Sixth Extinction by James Rollins
4****

This is the first James Rollins book I read and I rather liked the research he put into it. The book starts with the journals of Charles Darwin and concern some creatures that were found? uncovered? during the voyage of the Beagle.

Fast forward to modern times, and Jenna, a park ranger in Mojo Park, California, drives to a sudden conflagration and a panicked emergency call. The science complex in her district is the site of this explosion, hovered over by commandos and a helicopter, and she is able to hold her own against them with the help of her beloved husky, Nikko.

Meanwhile, the Sigma Force is called into the case, in part because of the nature of the research and in part because of the commandos. And then the action really builds: from California, to Washington, D.C., to a Tepui in the Amazon, to a scientific research station in Antarctica. It was all a wild ride, bordering on the unbelievable with the timing, though with lots of brave folks taking risks to save the planet and the ones they love.

One of the factors I really liked about this book was its exploration of the current sixth extinction of so many species on our planet, along with some of the differing views about the best way to mitigate this tragedy. Do we continue to conserve resources and keep wild what is wild? Or do we mess with genes and DNA and try to help extant species adapt to the new climate?

22) July Category 2 - The Burning of the Rose by Ruth Nichols
3 1/2***

I probably bought this book a few years after it came out, though I can't be sure. The receipt that marked my original ending place is dated 1992, and it was definitely not for the price of the book! Maybe for the cup of coffee where I bought it?

In any event, the idea of the book enchanted me: a young woman struggles to make sense of her place in the world. Claire Tarleton lives in the mid-1400's as an adopted daughter of a devoted Norman-English couple. She was found by them in her plague-ridden London home as a two-year old orphan, locked in with her parents who had just died of the plague. William Tarleton is an artist and scholar, Elisabeth is a healer, and they raise young Claire to have musical gifts and much learning. She is also an artist's model in Florence for many years.

The story then moves to Saint Aurele on the Norman coast, where Elisabeth lived as a girl and where she still owns lands outside of the town. There, the Tarletons set up a printing press to great acclaim, and William begins to print the Bible. And Claire becomes a performing musician while being courted by two brothers who might equally win her hand.

For the descriptions of the times, cloth, rooms, light, all those things that bring the plot fully into Europe of the Medicis and the Norman-English wars, I would have given this book hands down 5 stars. But. Ruth Nichols' writing style is continuously convoluted, sentences are divided up with references, commas, and backwards phrasing that just add a clunkiness to the flow of her story-telling. It is a style that can be used to great effect, when conveying a point or bringing something to the reader's attention. But it is too slow and awkward to narrate an entire book, and the plot and pacing suffer for it.

23) July Category 2 - After the Conquest by Teresa Cole
4 ****

A somewhat difficult book to begin, since I am not familiar with this time period nor had I read her earlier books on William the Conqueror. That said, once I realized that Teresa Cole used the person's identifier to help explain the various Williams, Roberts, Matildas, Henrys, etc., I flipped back and forth less often.

That said, by the time the events arrive at the formation of the Holy Roman Empire, I was hooked. Because, you see, a granddaughter of William I was named Matilda and she married Henry V who set himself up as the Holy Roman Emperor, and Cole explains this unique event in painstaking detail. And I now fully understand the machinations behind it and who the historical personages were.

So yes, from English History class, we all certainly remember that William the Conqueror came over in 1066 and killed Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings. And then he had sons, and yes, we learned to recite the genealogy and there was some quibble in the succession later on down the line. But this book takes the important next steps to discuss the 3 sons who each received a share of England, Normandy, and some silver.

What happens next is a great deal of struggle, an arrow that kills William II (whether it was an accident or an assassination is reviewed and discussed); his eldest son, Robert Curthose is given his father's duchy in Normandy (and later goes on the First Crusade); and his youngest, Henry, is the most apt at statecraft and loses his only legitimate son on the White Ship. Which leaves the succession open to his daughter, Matilda, to whom the nobility swear fealty only to renounce it when Stephen de Blois makes his claim to the throne of England.

Another thing that impressed me about this book is the contemporary sources Teresa Cole uses: the Saxon Monk Eadmer's History, the Chronicle of Henry of Huntingdon, Orderic Vitalis' History, and William of Malmesberry Chronicle of the Kings of England. So while there may be scholarship and other histories of this time, this one draws on the eye-witness sources that speak to the people and events as, or soon after, they happened.

August Reading Log

Category 1 - Quick Reads Scourge by Gail Z. Martin, A Song for the Basilisk by Patricia A. McKillip, The Mirror Crack'd by Agatha Christie
Category 2 - Longer Reads The White Ship by Charles Spencer, Star Trek Psychology, ed. by Travis Langley, The Book of Merlyn by T. H. White
Category 3 - Book Group Reads Why Kings Confess by C. S. Harris
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series, Vol. III The Lays of Beleriand
Category 5 - Classics The Niebelungenlied Les Misérables, Vol. II by Victor Hugo

August Current Count - 4
Yearly Count - 27

I started "Scourge" last week, and I almost clocked out of work early in order to keep reading it! It's a monster of a book at 400 pages, and I know I bought it during DragonCon because Gail Martin signed it. And also because she attends conventions like DragonCon and was on several panels in years past that would have interested me.

"Song of the Basilisk" is filling my need for some more good fantasy and Patricia McKillip is one of my favorite authors. Need to re-read this one!

Also going to start "The White Ship" because after reading Spencer's memoir last month and realizing he wrote "Ship," I knew I had to start it right after reading "After the Conquest." Such a thing can only happen on LT!

Ed. I decided over the weekend that I need to remove "Niebelungenlied" from my reading stack. I've arrived at Siegfried's death (with all its graphic details) and there's still a long way to go. So it's kind of a DNF for the time being; I do plan to pick it up again and I have a marker with the date of when I stopped at the point of ending.

Instead, have picked up "Les Misérables" to continue with this story.

24) August Category 1 - Scourge by Gail Z. Martin
4 1/2 ****

What a fast read, all 500+ pages, and I am surprised that I am the only one on LT that is reviewing it so far. This book centers on the city of Ravenwood where monsters are running amuck and randomly killing the townsfolk. Ravenwood is set up like a medieval city, with a Lord Mayor, Guilds, a port, and there is even room for Wanderers (similar to Gypsies) and Below, an underground City. And I read it and enjoyed it, and I'm not even into monsters as a plot point!

We begin with three brothers, Corran, Rigan, and Kell, who are born into a family and therefore Guild of undertakers. In this realm, the trade one is born into is the trade one assumes as an adult, so apprenticing does not enter into the picture. Part of what the undertakers do when they prepare the dead includes painting sigils on the bodies to honor their life, and easing their spirits into the afterlife. One night as Rigan is going about his work, he realizes that the spirit of the young woman is manifesting as a ghost and telling her story to him.

The oldest brother, Corran, who has assumed the head of household designation after the death of first their father, then their mother, at the hands of the various monsters, is taking up a secret and highly illegal position as a hunter of the monsters that are terrorizing Ravenwood because the guards are not keeping all the townsfolk safe. And the youngest brother, Kell, collects the bodies with the dead cart and keeps them all fed.

All of this is against the backdrop of the Lord Mayor Machison, who seeks to maintain his hold on power with the help of a shadowy bloodwitch; both are under the employ of the Crown Prince of the kingdom. Trade negotiations are taking place and Machison wants the Guilds indebted to him while keeping the different ambassadors of the other cities constantly looking over their shoulders.

There were days when I read this book that I almost clocked out of work early to open it and see where the next adventure was going to take place. And then there were sections that became too bogged down in details (like Machison's court intrigues and the brothers' constant fighting against monsters, getting hurt, then getting healed). I realize that much of it advanced the plot, but the repetitive nature could have been remedied a bit. Still, as someone who likes my fantasy realms monster free, I thought their use in this book was spot-on, and the interplay between the three brothers was very well done.

August Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth Book 3 - The Lays of Beleriand

Chapter III, Cantos VII - X

I got pretty far in reading this section - must have been the comfy chair in a new coffee shop I found! Which is always a good thing when reading these in-depth poems and the commentary afterwards.

There are some significant changes to this story: Orodreth is the King of Nargothrond now that Felagund has gone with Beren to take the crown from Thu (later Sauron), and Celegorm and Curufin, the sons of Fëanor, are pretty much hangers-on because of their heritage. There is more detail about the deviousness of Curufin, and his lust for Luthien when he finally espies her. Also, Oromë's faithful hound, Huan, is given more backstory, all the way back to his days when he was whelped.

The structure of the story remains the same, though: the setting forth from Nargothrond by Beren, Felagund, and their 12 companions; their imprisonment in the dungeons of the tower on the island in the River Sirion; and the aid that Huan the Hound brings to Luthien.

Another development in this original poem was Luthien's "imprisonment" when she was a "guest" in the new halls of Celegorm and Curufin. Sort of touched on in "Silmarillion" but really given new wording and new depth in the original.

25) August Category 1 - Song for the Basilisk by Patricia A. McKillip
3 1/2 ***

I read this book a while ago and decided to re-read it. I remember being a bit confused the first time through, remembering only elements like a one-stringed instrument held by the player and a music school where one of the main characters teaches.

And on this re-reading, I'm beginning to see why it was confusing. Don't get me wrong: I love Patricia A. McKillip's writings and her books kept me going through many decades (now). But this one did not, and I think it's a combination of things.

Her writing style is beautifully descriptive and evocative of feelings and place. And she has wonderful women who play prominent roles. But. This book was about the deepest of evils and a ruler whose symbol was a basilisk, and who burned the ruling family out of their home. Which is how this book begins, from the eyes of the heir to this ruling family hiding in the ashes of the hearth.

But all this story is hidden and barely becomes a story until close to the end, and instead one catches glimpses of events that are very hard to piece together. When there is a story that finally unfolds, it is told with McKillip's abilities and images. But there is too much going on with evil and court intrigues and just outright vileness for there to be so little of a story and so much of atmosphere and ponderings and descriptions.

So, sadly, this one got this rating from this reader.

26) August Category 1 - The Mirror Crack'd by Agatha Christie
5*****

Yes, it's Miss Marple, and yes, "The Mirror Crack'd" is everything one wants from this feisty sleuth. It begins with an older Miss Marple being tutted over by her new caretaker, a certain Miss Knight, and a young housekeeper named Cherry from the nearby Development. So time has passed in Jane Marple's life, including the sale of Gossington Hall to a famous film actress; this Hall was the setting for "The Body in the Library" (the final mystery in this particular collection).

As Miss Marple gets used to modern life, including having to rip out her knitting more often than not, the sudden death of a neighbor during the welcoming reception at Gossington Hall by the film actress and her 4th (or was it 5th?) husband presents a sudden twist of fate. The neighbor was a bit of a busybody who helped organize the reception and was a huge fan of Marina Gregg, the film actress. To the point where she relayed a story about jumping out of a sickbed to shake Miss Gregg's hand and get her autograph many years before.

Miss Marple begins to take an interest in film magazines to understand Miss Gregg and her world, while her agile brain begins to wonder about her neighbor's death and the deaths of several other employees at Gossington Hall. She is helped along the way by Inspector Craddock and her friend, Mrs. Bantry. They provide a set of eyes and ears, not to mention the ability to travel and converse, with the people from St. Mary Mead, its new Development, and London in a way that Miss Marple cannot.

While the references to Miss Gregg's only son and his disabilities are jarringly out of date, the sleuthing is top-notch. The reference to Lord Tennyson's poem is apropos of the events during the reception, and our dear Jane Marple is finally able to put the pieces together to solve the mystery.

27) August Category 3 - Why Kings Confess by C. S. Harris
5 *****

Another great book with great research on this period in history. Oh yeah, and Sebastian St Cyr is called upon to solve murders connected with the deposed French royal family. And Hero is about to have their child (always a danger, especially with the blood-letting and bland diet imposed on women by the accoucheurs of the time, always men). But I digress.

The initial murder and near-death wounding occur one night in late January in Cat's Hole, in the poverty-stricken district called St. Katharine's in London. Sebastian St Cyr is called by the constabulary to investigate the gruesome death of Damion Pelleton. Damion is a French physician and the son of the physician who performed the autopsy on the young Dauphin, son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Damion's companion, Alexandrie Sauvage, slowly regains consciousness and she, too, is a French physician with knowledge of easing childbirth. She also shares a part of St Cyr's troubled past during the Napoleonic Wars.

But these details come to light as the plot progresses against the backdrop of attempted peace negotiations between the French and English governments. After Napoléon's disastrous invasion of Russia, the French are looking to maybe bring the war to an end, but there are always players who seek an end to such negotiations. And St Cyr finds that both delegations have members who could be these detractors.

Part of what makes this story strong for me are the development of Hero's mother into a real character, and also the inclusion of the French Royal Family 20 years after the Reign of Terror. Central to the plot is Marie-Thérèse of France and her uncles, the Comte de Provence (later Louis XVIII) and the Comte d'Artois (later Charles X). Their lives become more than just an entry in a history book; they become characters in this murder mystery, with retainers, and interactions with St Cyr and details about their lives in exile.

September Reading Log

Category 1 - Quick Reads The Door in the Wall by Marguerite De Angeli, The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
Category 2 - Longer Reads The White Ship by Charles Spencer, Star Trek Psychology, ed. by Travis Langley, The Book of Merlyn by T. H. White
Category 3 - Book Group Reads The Locked Room by Elly Griffiths
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series, Vol. III The Lays of Beleriand
Category 5 - Classics Les Misérables, Vol. II by Victor Hugo

September Current Count - 4
Yearly Count - 31

I'm very much looking forward to this month's group read, and I expect to finish some of these books that are taking a bit longer. Somewhere on my shelves are some lighter reading, and I'll add them as I find them!

Ed: There's nothing like curling up with my laptop on a Sunday evening and some LT groups to add a few books from my shelves to my monthly reading list.

28) September Category 1 - The Door in the Wall by Marguerite De Angeli
5***** and ❤️

My original review, brought over in 2016 from Shelfari, and not much has changed in how I feel about it:

A book from my childhood that I have kept into adulthood, and was a quick read last night when I needed to escape to medieval England.

The events take place during the reign of Edward III of England, while the Scottish and Welsh border wars that his grandfather, Edward Longshanks (he of Braveheart" fame) began. Young Robin is expecting to become the page of his father's friend while his father is at war in Scotland and his mother with the Queen, who is in a delicate condition. But he is in London during an outbreak of the Plague, and while he does not come down with it, he does succumb to a fever that leaves his legs bent and withered.

With the help of Brother Luke he is cared for in a nearby monastery. Brother Luke teaches him to cope with the reality of his new life, Brother Matthew teaches him to whittle, and Brother Hugo helps him learn to read the stars. After time passes, he receives word from his father to make the journey to the castle where he will become a page.

The journey with Brother Matthew and John-Go-in-the-Wynd does prove eventful, and helps this young boy understand that he still has something to contribute to his friends and his world. He arrives at the castle, uses his carving skills to make a Saxon harp, and more adventures ensue.

Much that makes this book memorable is the action that shows to the newly disabled boy, who wants nothing more than to be a brave knight on horseback like his father, that he still has many gifts and many more to learn. The history and landscape are firmly rooted in mideval England, and the conflicts between "tribes" are also accurate for the age. Brother Matthew and his fellows at the monastery talk in very formal, educated language which may throw some readers off. The events (I'd hardly call them action) evoke a time when crutches were hand planed from hard oak, where travelers went with cheese and bacon in their saddle bags, and a horse's pace was what set the journey for a day. Slower and more thoughtful times, though not an easy life.

The pictures are soft and delightful and occur at just the right places in the book. I'm so glad I kept it all these years.

29) September Category 3 - The Locked Room by Elly Griffiths
4 1/2 ****

The penultimate book in the Ruth Galloway series, this book begins on February 22, 2020. It is one of those dates, one of those times, where we all know where we were and what we were doing. And true to form, Ruth Galloway is solving a murder, teaching her classes, raising her daughter Kate, and preparing for lockdown during Covid.

The murders are apparent suicides by older women, except that one victim has her door locked from the outside. And all of the family members are puzzled in their grief because their mother "seemed just fine." One even had a microwave dinner in the microwave.

But appearances can be deceiving, and the book opens with a train of thought from a woman who is trying to understand why she is in a darkened, locked room and we are left to wonder who she is until near the end, as events begin to accelerate.

Not only are we reading about a suicide/murder investigation, we are also walked back through the events of the spring of 2020 and how they affect the inhabitants of Norwich. How does Kate react to her on-line schooling? How prepared is Ruth for lockdown? How do Harry Nelson, his staff, and his family go about their lives and their work during this period of social isolation? These are all areas that Elly Griffiths explores, even as she throws one thing after another at Nelson and Ruth while the mystery deepens.

30) September Category 2 - Star Trek Psychology, ed. by Travis Langley
4****

The editor's understanding of the phenomenon that is Star Trek is tremendous, and his goal is link to different concepts within the field of psychology to different episode's plots or characters. I originally bought this book when I worked in the Learning & Development field to provide an insight into the concepts we were teaching. I have since transitioned out of that role and so I sat down to read it as a non-work related book.

While having an interest in psychology, though not as a practicing professional, I was pleasantly surprised at the scope of research that went into each article. The book is broken down into several sections: Launch Time; Inner Worlds; Warped Drives; Federation; and Others. Each article in the section draws on a vast amount of research in the field of psychology, sometimes even stretching back to the mid-20th century. And any reference to an episode or a character is included in the endnotes to each article, as is each article or book containing that psychological reference.

Still, as a standalone book, something to read from my shelves, it did not hold my interest for more than a couple of chapters at a time. Which could be as much the book's premise as well as its intended audience.

31) September Category 1 - The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
5*****

A phenomenal book that I read as part of a "find something hidden" challenge. And it really did fulfill that challenge on so many levels. The book's flyleaf describes workers finding a human body in 1972, in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, and that is just the first of many secrets that is whispered between these pages.

The book itself begins with the workers finding the body along with a mezuzah, the police knocking on the door of the only remaining Jewish resident in Pottstown, yet before they can collect the skeleton Hurricane Agnes comes through and removes the body. Along with much of the town. And so the tale is told of the residents of Chicken Hill, both Jewish and African-American (throughout the book referred to as "Negro") in the mid-1930's.

One of the main characters, Chona, is the daughter of the town's rabbi and owner of the only Jewish store in Chicken Hill, the Heaven and Earth Grocery Store. She is hidden churning butter and sorting vegetables in the back of her father's store because of her limp that was an effect of the polio she suffered as a child. And because she is hidden so well, she is able to study the Torah, another secret hidden from her as a woman.

When her soon-to-be-husband falls in love with her (one of the few things not hidden in this book), the story begins to unfold about the lives of the townspeople and the secrets they hold. The leader of the Ku Klux Klan, which marches through the town, is revealed to be Doc Patterson thanks to Chona's frequent letters to the newspaper and the city council, criticizing their marching and calling out the town's doctor by name. She knows his secret because he, too, has a limp caused by polio and a special shoe to help him walk.

The town's Negro population have their own secrets, some not revealed until the end of the book. Nate, who helps Chona's husband, Moshe', with his theater, has his own secrets, and Chona had a close friendship with her next door neighbor, Beatrice, who now keeps to herself and no longer reveals her beautiful voice in song.

I worried that I would not finish this book after starting it late in the month; I read it in only a few days, and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves a good tale told well.

October Reading Log

Category 1 - Quick Reads Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn, The Demon in Business Class by Anthony Dobranski (DNF), The Last Light of the Sun by Guy Gavriel Kay
Category 2 - Longer Reads The White Ship by Charles Spencer, The Book of Merlyn by T. H. White, Three Hainish Novels by Ursula Le Guin
Category 3 - Book Group Reads
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series, Vol. III The Lays of Beleriand
Category 5 - Classics Les Misérables, Vol. II by Victor Hugo

October Current Count - 4
Yearly Count - 35

Yes, I know, right? I finished "Killers" in less than a week, and it was even before I put it on my October list! "Demon" has been on my shelf for a couple of years, and here it is October. It seems a fitting time to read it. And finally, yes, it's time to turn to Ursula K. Le Guin and her Hainish novels. I may finish them this month, or it may be later. Either way I'm loving her story telling as I knew I would.

Update: I read through the first 9 chapters of "Demon in Business Class" before deciding it was a DNF for me. Instead, I picked up "Last Light of the Sun" and am now reveling in the beautiful tale telling that is Guy Gavriel Kay. It is like lounging on a down mattress with a bowl of strawberries and whipped cream and a few chocolate sprinkles on top. Plus, I've had this book on my shelves for far too long.

32) October Category 1 - Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn
5***** and ❤️

I've got to say, I did not see this coming. This book was everything I could have wanted for a murder mystery/espionage/book about life. It takes place between the Now and the late 1970's/early 1980's in true spy fashion, recounting past deeds and present predicaments, in a fun and easy to read storyline.

Our narrator is Billie in the present day, and she is on a retirement cruise with her three former colleagues: Helen, Mary Alice, and Natalie. They have been hired assassins for the Museum, a secretive combination of OSS and Nazi hunters who take out the Bad Guys. They have done this work since their first assignment in 1979 in a twin engine plane and saved a dog in the process. Now, though, they begin to suspect that something is wrong when one of the other Museum assassin's _targets one of them.

While they race to solve the mystery of who wants them dead and why, there are also chapters, clearly labeled, taking them to their training in England as the Sphinxes and several of their key assignments. Clues about who might want them dead are cleverly disguised in the details of these missions which makes the intrigue all that more gripping.

The action is fast paced, the reality of age catching up with these assassins is part of the plot, and even with age, their experience keeps them alive. How they dunnit is as important as whodunnit in the brilliant, woman-centered spy mystery.

33) October Category 2 - The White Ship by Charles Spencer
4 1/2 ***

A truly fantastic book, detailing the effects of the death of William Aetheling, sole heir to Henry I, on a ship headed back to his English homeland. Spencer does a good job of using surnames to distinguish one royal or courtier from another and that lends to this book's readability.

And it is necessary to know not just how personally devastating it was for Henry I to lose a son; it was also a tragedy for his new kingdom. After William the Conqueror died, his three sons each took a turn at ruling Norman England. But it was still early in the Conquest and therefore necessary to know who were a king's allies and how well they would fare at his side.

Though Henry was the youngest of William the Conqueror's sons, he managed to consolidate power and followers in both England and Normandy, where he still held lands. His oldest brother died from a mis-shot arrow, and his middle brother was nowhere near a competent ruler, so Henry seized power and had Robert Curthouse imprisoned for life.

Henry I had many children but only 1 legitimate male heir, William Aetheling. And after battles and conquests and treaties, Norman and English lords bowed their knee to recognize this heir. Ready to set sail at night in November, 1120, the 17 year old William chose to celebrate his success and status by ordering casks of wine brought on board and enjoyed by both crew and passengers. Trying to sail fast enough that night to take over his father's ship, also bound for England, William's ship crashed into a rock exiting the harbor and sank with all but one traveler drowned.

The after effects of Henry's sole heir dying were to have lasting consequences in a civil war between two claimants to the throne: Stephen of Blois, who had royal blood; and Matilda of Britain, whom Henry had named as his heir after her brother's death. While the courtiers swore oaths to their sovereign that they would follow Matilda as Queen, many of them switched to Stephen during the years of the anarchy and many English died in the fighting. It is Spencer's theory that this tragedy is felt even now, 900 years later, in Englad.

34) October Category 1 - The Last Light of the Sun by Guy Gavriel Kay
5***** ❤️

Oh where do I begin with the glories that are this book? It brings the heartbreak and beauty that live in the world(s) of Guy Gavriel Kay, interconnected tales of Byzantium and southern France and medieval Spain. Now we have the realms of England and Wales and the Vikings, told as they begin to shift and change from constant invasion and warfare to wisdom and tentative alliance.

The book begins on the island of Rabady and delves into the ways and customs of the Erlings, starting with the theft of a grey stallion by an exiled warrior's son, Bern. And Bern manages to escape his fate, with the stallion, while he pursues a warrior's way amongst the fierce mercenaries of Jormsvik on the mainland.

Into the tale, told in a bit of hindsight, is the rise of King Aeldred of the Anglcyns, last survivor of his royal line when the Erling raiders slaughter his father and brother. Aeldred manages to survive in the Anglcyn marshes for a season with two brothers-in-arms, attracting more Anglcyn survivors to him, until he makes his revenge on the Erling raiders and wins back his kingdom.

By the time of the main storyline, King Aeldred has established peace in his kingdom for 25 years, married and has 4 children, and is set to have his third annual fair and festival with the rebuilding of his kingdom. The cleric, Ceinion, of the Cyngael, journeys between the Anglcyn kingdom and that of the Cyngael.

The Cyngael are represented by the Arbreth and the Cadyr, two factions who are often caught stealing cattle and raiding one another's farms, and that is how Alun and Dai enter the tale when they try to start a cattle raid on Brynn ap Hywll's farm and holdings. It is in the land of the Cyngael that a hint of magic takes place, with the Fae and their Queen and mysterious lights that hint at another world coexisting with the one in this tale.

The language of this book is one of longing and sorrow and hope and youth, and weaves in observations about the commonality of human experience and knowledge and what happens when fates and choices overlap. I especially liked the bits of lives of incidental characters, who would never make it into the songs or history books, but whose lives are forever changed by encounters with the larger world.

35) October Category 2 - Three Hainish Novels by Ursula K. Le Guin
5***** ❤️

Perhaps the best word to sum up this collection is "poignant." All three of the novels from Ursula K. Le Guin's Hainish universe have an element of loss, starting with "Rocannon's World." Two storylines are woven together here, on a planet that has a medieval feel with its hierarchies and impoverished ruling class. One storyline is that of an impoverished wife of an impoverished lord who takes an interstellar journey to retrieve her family's inheritance and returns years later with her heirloom necklace. The other involves the namesake of this book, Rocannon, who is preparing to return to his ship and shipmates only to find his spaceport blown apart.

The second book, "Planet of Exile," deals with more primitive peoples on this world, living near the exiles from Terra who are unable to return to their homeland. Time on this planet is much different than on Terra, due to the rotation of the planet with its moon. Le Guin's skill in anthropology is shown to its fullest when explaining how peoples' culture adapts when a moon phase is 400 days long.

Finally, in "City of Illusions," we journey with Falk whose memories only begin when he is a man stumbling through a forest and into a small settlement. Who he was as a child, where he came from, are all blanks for him. As he journeys from this settlement after a number of years, he finds out he is on Terra and the technology of the past, the learnings of the past, are all forbidden so as not to raise the interest of the Shing. And in this story we learn that the League of All Worlds is dissolved, also because of the Shing. At the end of Falk's journey he meets the Shing and discovers not just his past but also his planet and his own starship's disaster.

November Reading Log

Category 1 - Quick Reads Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng, The Android's Dream by John Scalzi, The First Ladies by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray, Death Comes Ashore by Corinne O'Flynn
Category 2 - Longer Reads The Book of Merlyn by T. H. White, Half-Life of a Stolen Sister by Rachel Cantor
Category 3 - Book Group Reads
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series, Vol. III The Lays of Beleriand
Category 5 - Classics Les Misérables, Vol. II by Victor Hugo, Cligès by Chrétien de Troyes

November Current Count - 6
Yearly Count - 41

I only have a very little bit to finish on Merlyn and his book, and once I do I will see what else is out there on my shelves. I may read some more series books, or grab a couple that I bought from DragonCon or the Renaissance Festival this spring, or last year. And I will post my reviews here!

Ed - I found some extra books that fit into several challenges and they represent a large range of interests and books and genres. So, here we are, ready to read this month!

Ed. Ed. Also, I changed which Chrétien de Troyes romance for this month, moving from Lancelot to Cliges (#5 to #2)

36) November Category 2 - The Book of Merlyn by T.H. White
4****

Below is my original review of this book from the first time I read it in 2013. What I would add to it is that White's heavy-handedness with his POV on war, individualism vs. everyone else, and Merlyn's other long diatribes felt unnecessary. Yes, there are parts where Arthur is looking at his own upcoming death and the ending of his Round Table, but. They got in the way of Arthur coming to an understanding of his role in the history of humanity until the final few pages. Which are poignant and so very meaningful.

Anyway, here's my review:

What an amazing book. I started reading it late last year after not having read Once and Future King for about 30 years, and it didn't quite make sense. So I re-read King and am now reading this book to finish the story.

Once again, Merlyn arrives to teach Arthur, but it is an aging King whom he sees bent over his war plans with tears on his face. Merlyn realizes that the King has forgotten the lessons of the Wart, as so many of us do when we become older and forget the beauty and joy that was sometimes in the world when we were younger. The idea of a single thing that could grab your attention to the exclusion of all else - this is a remembrance that Arthur finds when he is with the geese.

As polarized as this country is now, there are some who will object to T.H. White's thinly-veiled essays against war. The geese do not fight against their own kind "just because": they see the world as one great big planet over which they fly and land when they need to. Different species share the same rock in the middle of the North Atlantic. By the same token, ants from different "tribes" will start the drumbeat and the propaganda for war the minute another ant arrives.

And of course, it is into misunderstanding and an ultimate war that Arthur faces as his reign comes to an end. He is heartbroken that his Round Table has come to its end: his best friend is exiled, his wife is trapped in the Tower of London, and his son wants to kill him. It is a tragic end to an otherwise beautiful story, and I am glad that White wrote these chapters and that they were finally published.

37) November Category 1 - The Android's Dream by John Scalzi
3.5 ***

Hmmm. Well. Don't get me wrong, I love me some John Scalzi. His biting sense of humor (what one might call snark) is always a welcome relief in a world full of opinions and influencers.

This book got off to a great start with a bureaucratic meeting of interplanetary trade negotiations, and the history of the chief human negotiator and the non-human species, the Nidu. The set-up is hilarious, icons are mocked, and set-ups across the negotiating table had me laughing and reading parts out loud.

But then Scalzi gets involved in his next set-up, and the next history of characters, and then a bit of the story advances, with a few more set-ups, until we wind up in a shopping mall. With bouncing tennis shoes. And I almost put it down at that point as a DNF.

The fact that I picked it up again is the half star in my rating. When he finally got around to telling a story and remembered the "show, don't tell" advice of any writer, there was a heck of a story in here. But until that point, I got tired of being told and the myriad of characters who were supporting, but then weren't, and so on. This was a book that, while I wanted to enjoy it, I was just glad it ended.

38) November Category 2 - Half-Life of a Stolen Sister by Rachel Cantor
4****

This is a haunting, nuanced, interesting and amazing book. According to the author's acknowledgement, it took her 10 years to write. I began reading it and thought it might be a long read, but nope. I finished the last half of it in one evening.

The book is told as a series of letters, journal entries, observations, and thoughts by each of the Brontë sisters and Branwell. And their mother as she lays dying. And the telling (re-telling?) takes place in the modern era, so Branwell talks about going downstairs from the apartment with the baby on his shoulder to shop for diapers. Or all the children running through the streets to get to the park, where they can run wild and free. I saw it as a bit of overlay, of one time over another, with just enough hint of the "true" Brontë voice for the authenticity. There were passages where I wondered if Rachel Cantor had merged passages from their diaries, just for a moment, as she recounted an episode in their lives.

So yes, the book begins with Maria's death as she reaches out to her children. Then the perspective shifts to the two older sisters as they return, barely more than skeletons, from their horrendous boarding school. Several chapters then include Maria's sister, the children's aunt, who comes to take care of them just after their mother dies. And Patrick's advertisement for a new wife which could easily have been an authentic piece of writing.

It's haunting - it's as though the author has gotten into the heads of Lotte, Em, Annie, and Bran and given them emotions, thoughts, and experiences we only read about as a biography. Some time is spent in the creation of Glass Town, the created world of Emily and Anne, other time is spent with the sisters ignoring their brother, the Only Boy, and his toy soldiers. As the sisters age, we share their experiences as governesses (Lotte), then as hotel staff (Lotte and Anne), then in a journey to Rome (Lotte and Em).

It's also not an easy read. Children left to their own fate because a mother dies and a father is too involved in his own work to care for them is difficult to read. Em describing her self-hatred is difficult to read. Maria coming back as "just a skeleton" and covering her scars is difficult to read. But maybe that's the point: we're not just reading a few sentences in a biography or catching up on details on Wikipedia. We're reading the tragic history of this remarkable family.

39) November Category 1 - Death Comes Ashore by Corinne O'Flynn
3 1/2 ***

Truly, I was not impressed by this volume. I liked the premise (magick on an island keeping it invisible to the 'danes, police investigations, a tough woman police investigator), and it fit a group challenge. Definitely building on the premise of Harry Potter and the Ministry of Magick, the action takes place on an island off the Northeastern coast.

The murder mystery portion, and the international scope of it, was well-told and gripping. The originality of a cartel preying on young women could be taken right out of the headlines. And the initial re-telling of the magical abuse of the main character, Corey, was well-done and an important facet of her character. But. It didn't stop with the initial re-telling, nor the second mention a page later, or on the following few paragraphs. It became more navel-gazing or a character stuck in her past than a well-told murder mystery.

And Corey's reaction to having to face her own panic attacks is another realistic part of recovery. But again, the format of a magical murder mystery is not the place for exploring how PTSD affects survivors, page after page after page. The flow of the mystery was too broken up with Corey's musings, fears, and feelings to garner my continued interest.

40) November Category 1 - Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng
5*****

This was absolutely a 5 star read for me, despite the difficult subject matter and need to put it down half-way through. It's intense, and there are moments of violence that may be triggers for readers.

The story is told mostly from the point of view of young Bird, now known as Noah, who is 12 and who lives with his father in a student college dormitory. His father shelves books at the college library, and Bird's/Noah's mother has not been part of their lives for about three years. It is during encounters at a pizza place, and recollections of a school friend, that we the reader learn of the PACT act and violent anti-Asian sentiment in the US.

At about the half-way point, we meet Bird's mother, daughter of Chinese immigrants, and learn how this violent campaign against not just Asians but also protesting the government and banning books began. How inflation and a loss of jobs led to picking one group to blame, with scrutiny of library shelves for subversive books being just one of the results. This latter is important because Margaret, Bird's mother, wrote a book of poetry that is one of the books removed from library shelves.

There is also the PACT Act, a law enacted during the Crisis, that allows the government to remove any children from any household deemed too "radical" for the child to stay. Spying on one's neighbors is encouraged, and signs are posted in windows of houses and shops both with messages that sound eerily similar to the slogans from "1984" by George Orwell.

How Bird copes with his loss, how his mother copes with her loss, and how millions of Americans are affected by the chaos of a few difficult years makes this a timely and prescient book.

41) The First Ladies by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray
3 1/2 ***

This is a well-researched historical novel by two acclaimed novelists. They began their foray into describing the perils of racial inequity in their first collaborative book, "The Personal Librarian," and are up-front with the encounters they had with their readers during their book tours. So they collaborated again and we now know that Mary MacLeod Bethune and Eleanor Roosevelt were good friends. Which came as quite a pleasant surprise to me.

And rightly so - they were strong forces of nature in an era when women could be strong, they just couldn't be seen being strong. Especially not in the South, and especially not when one's mother-in-law is indulgent to her son, Franklin. We see both Bethune and Roosevelt through their eyes as the chapters alternate between each woman and her encounters with her family or in meetings with one another. The time between the Depression and World War II are the backdrop to this novel and chapters may be days or months apart, depending on what actions or meetings each woman had.

But, and this is what lost a half star for me, the constant surprise/astonishment/realization or moment of understanding/acceptance became too much. Too repeated, too much a part of each chapter, each shared experience, each conversation, each visit to one another's home or office or tea room. Yes, I get that it was during the era of Jim Crow. Yes, I get that having the First Lady photographed with Dr. Bethune was seen by many as the height of impropriety. Maybe the authors were responding to their audience members who asked "How do I create this friendship that you have?" with this book. But I felt that the tale of these women's accomplishments and friendship could have been just as strong with a little less repetition.

December Reading Log

Category 1 - Quick Reads Light a Single Candle by Beverly Butler, Big Bad Wolf by James Patterson, A Killer Stitch by Maggie Sefton, File M for Murder by Miranda James, While My Pretty One Knits by Anne Canedeo
Category 2 - Longer Reads A Chainless Soul by Katherine Frank
Category 3 - Book Group Reads
Category 4 - Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series, Vol. III The Lays of Beleriand
Category 5 - Classics Les Misérables, Vol. II by Victor Hugo, Cligès by Chrétien de Troyes

December Current Count - 4
Yearly Count - 45

Wow! This is fantastic! With a little bit of luck, I might just finish up this year's goal of 45 books read. My reading last month of "Half Life of a Stolen Sister" got me all ready to re-read "A Chainless Soul" about Emily Brontë and I'm about a third of the way through it.

Also, in making up my book list for this Christmas, I realized I haven't read the James Patterson books DH gave me last year, and they're a quick and easy read so I am going to start "Big Bad Wolf" this week (had started "London Bridges" but this is a series I really prefer to read in order).

Plus, for another group, I pulled a YA classic, "Light a Single Candle" off my shelves and re-read it in a few days. It stands the test of time and insight into humanity's interactions with (in this case) a high school student making her way back into the world without her sight.

Ed: WOW! Happy Dance around the Christmas Tree! I made my goal of 45 books, and there is one more I need to review to make 46. Yay go me!!!

42) December Category 1 - Light a Single Candle by Beverly Butler
5***** & ❤️

I have forgotten how many times I read this book as a pre-teen and teenager. And how gripping it is all these decades later is a testament not just to its subject matter, but also its writing style. I'm sure much of it is autobiographical, if not sequentially then at least through interactions in Ms. Butler's life.

The story begins with Cathy's 14th birthday and her brand-new set of pastels for her dreams of becoming an artist. A few weeks later, though, she is in the hospital for a necessary operation on her eyes due to glaucoma's pressure on her optic nerve. And once the bandages come off, she is blind.

Her life adjusts, her family accommodates her recovery, including finding Talking Books for the Blind at the local library that she could play on her family's record player. Interesting how "audiobooks" are just elements of everyday reading life since these books were checked out and sent back by Post!

Cathy chooses to attend the Institute for the Blind in Burton, about 100 miles from her home, after her best friend, Pete, cuts her out of his birthday party. Her experiences with her dorm mates, the low level of instruction, and the pettiness of the administrator, Miss "Creepy" Creel, are very well-described. Trying to understand this new world throws her into a depression, from which she emerges ready to go back to her local high school.

The next portion of this book goes into her month-long training with her guide dog, Trudy. Again, Cathy is talked out of doing what she originally intended (bringing Trudy with her to school) by another schoolmate. This so-called friend's do-gooding attitude wears thin after a month or so, and as one would guess, Trudy and Cathy enter school with minimal fuss.

I was surprised upon re-reading this book that it held up as well as it had over 60+ years. The insights Ms. Butler has into the people she encounters (through Cathy) are realistic and as relevant as when they were written. Glad I still have my copy even though the pages are falling out of their binding!

43) December Category 1 - The Big Bad Wolf by James Patterson
4 ****

After stumbling through the first third of "London Bridges" I realized that the other book on my shelf by James Patterson, "Big Bad Wolf," was really the next one in the series. And in true James Patterson fashion, it pulled me right in.

This installment in the Alex Cross series brings us back to his family and his training within the FBI. Cross is dealing with the bureaucracy that is the FBI versus the street-smarts that was part of his Washington, D.C., police training. He is also dealing with some bad feeling within the ranks of his incoming class, most especially from his supervisor, who never ceases to remind Cross that going home at night during training is not a privilege the other cadets get to have; most cadets to the FBI are required to live in dormitory situations.

But Cross' policing acumen comes to the fore when a strange set of kidnappings occurs that leave way too many clues. Beautiful women, handsome men, both are victims in these kidnappings, and there are eyewitnesses who are able to identify the perpetrators. Is this deliberate or sloppiness? As Cross and his new colleagues try to track down clues, the reader comes behind the scenes to the den of The Wolf, an ex-KGB agent who was brought to the US during the early 90's as part of the CIA's program to flip as many Soviet agents as possible. And this time, The Wolf is not amused by the sloppiness.

Add in the resources that are part of the FBI, and a brilliant 14-year-old computer hacker, as well as a determination to live while a captive, and you have a wide net of intrigue, opportunity, and oh yes, solving crimes as only Alex Cross can find a way to solve them. Definitely a page-turner and hard to put down.

And now back to "London Bridges" for the next installment!

44) December Category 1 - A Killer Stitch by Maggie Sefton
4 1/2 ****

Well, this was a fun romp through the rooms of Lambspun in Colorado! It was by turns an exploration of spinning, a look at the Christmastime chaos in a knit shop, and the feeling of community that this cast of characters brings.

Our sleuthing friend, Kelly, watches a spinning class take shape while she bravely knits on, hoping to get the scarf finished and in the mail in time for Christmas. Meanwhile, several patrons of both Lambspun and the adjoining coffee shop have Christmas events of their own to plan so chaos ensues. And then a murder happens and the community joins together to help several of their own.

I did like how the subject of alcohol addiction was handled, with insight and compassion, and also how an admonition to maybe find some better friends than the ones in the bar made an impact on Kelly's close friend, Jennifer. Certainly Burt showed his wisdom about police questioning, and Kelly begins to pursue some canyon land to build her very own house. Loyal Steve is right there to lend a hand and give an occasional kiss, and Curt's home, kids, and grandkids are able to bring joy for the holiday season.

For the characters, though, there were just way too many of them, especially when you have a conversation between Lizzie, Lucy, and Lisa. There have got to be more women's names that Sefton can use for future installments in this series.

Oh, and the murder itself? Did not see that one coming! Way to keep it all very interesting and full of fluffy yarns.

45) December Category 1 - File M for Murder by Miranda Janes
4 1/2 ****

This book is why I am enjoying cozy mysteries so much: I picked it up from the library, took it to lunch, brought it home to continue reading it, and yay! I finished it that night. So nice that feeling of accomplishment!

The characters and mystery are growing better as this series progresses. This time, Charlie Harris' daughter makes an appearance at her dad's home and at Athena College. She has received a one-semester teaching gig in the theater department and has moved over from Hollywood to accept this opportunity. The catch? She will have to work with her former lover, Connor Lawton, who is not known for his good disposition and even temper. He is the writer-in-residence due to his playwriting skills.

Some days progress, and Connor is holding a read-thru in the College's auditorium when Charlie and Diesel come by to watch. The rehearsal becomes a train wreck, and tempers explode right in front of the department head who is not pleased to see Connor's bad writing and even worse temperament.

Then Connor is found murdered in his apartment. Charlie knows that his daughter, Laura, is innocent but there's just something about her manner that is questionable. So if Laura didn't kill her ex, just who did? And what is Laura holding back? With a lawyer in the family, the police and detective interrogations go reasonably well. But then some "accidents" happen around town, including to the Harris family home, and the story takes an unexpected twist.

Yes, this was a mystery that had me guessing until the final pages, and I like how James has added in some small-town twists to explain actions and motivations.

46) December Category 1 - While My Pretty One Knits by Ana Canadeo

3 1/2 ***

I found this one either on LT or listed at my local library as a "knitting mystery," so of course I had to snap it up. And it was a good, quick, cozy mystery kind of read, set in the town of Plum Harbor, Massachusetts, inside of a knit shop with a group of friends.

Lucy, the POV character, is new to the town and fairly new to knitting, having arrived after a divorce in Boston. She freelances now and has time to wander into Black Sheep knitting and, of course, solve murders with the Black Sheep Knitters. There are two shops in this small town, Black Sheep which is fairly new and run by Maggie, widowed these past 3 years, and Knitting Nest, the established shop with all kinds of fancy yarns and spinning wheels and an owner who is known as a bit of a grump.

The story opens with one of Maggie's former high school art students starting her publicity tour of her first knitting book. Maggie is busily preparing the shop for a big crowd the night before when the owner of the Knitting Nest, Amanda, comes in to check the details and mention that she will be coming. Within knitting store protocols, this is known as a Big Deal. Everyone is a bit excited and nervous about this news.

Sadly, the next morning, Amanda is found murdered in her shop, and while Cara is able to do her presentation about her new book and patterns and ideas, the news definitely puts a damper on what would have otherwise been a great celebration. And of course, the Black Sheep Knitters put all their combined skills together and come up with who might have done it and why.

A dog is adopted from Amanda's shop (she had several), there is a bit of romance between Lucy and the vet in town (I'm finding this is a Thing within knitting mysteries) who treats the rescue dog, and arrests happen that turn the tale topsy-turvy.

This book got 3 1/2 stars from me because of the time factor: the amount of time Lucy has to spend to go shopping for her hot date, the little amount of time she has to spend with her client, that sort of thing. Though the mystery was an interesting twist, and well-solved, and I may pick up the next one in this series at some point in time.

Here are my reading stats for 2024:

Accomplishments

Finished several door stoppers, from which I gained a great deal of knowledge:

Last Train from Atlanta by A.A. Hoehling
Pan: The Great God's Modern Return by Paul Robichaud
Dangerous Rhythms by T.J. English
Star Trek Psychology by Travis Langley
After the Conquest and The White Ship by Teresa Cole and Charles Spencer, respectively
Three Hainish Novels was also an accomplishment - I have had this series on my shelves for, literally, decades

Also enjoyed some books in the Arthurian cycle:

The Once and Future King and The Book of Merlyn by T.H. White
Erec and Enide and (nearly) Cligès by Chrétien de Troyes

Read some more modern works:

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng
Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn
The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
Things in Jars by Jess Kidd

And curled up with a mystery, cozy or otherwise:

Miranda James' "Cat in the Stacks" series
James Patterson's "Alex Cross" series
Another Jacquline Winspear installment - I really don't want this series to end!
C.S. Harris' "Sebastian St. Cyr" series
Maggie Sefton's "Lambspun" series

I also joined in a couple of group reads:

The Poet by Michael Connelly
The Malta Exchange by Steve Berry
The Sixth Extinction by James Rollins
Why Kings Confess by C. S. Harris
The Locked Room by Elly Griffiths

And discovered some hidden gems:

All That is Mine I Carry with Me by William Landay
Girls and The Monsters by Audrey Clare Farley
Scourge by Gail Z. Martin
Half-Life of a Stolen Sister by Rachel Cantor (which is why I re-read A Chainless Soul almost immediately afterwards)
A Very Private School by Charles Spencer
The Woman with the Cure by Lynn Cullen
The Last Light of the Sun by Guy Gavriel Kay

While re-reading some favorites:

Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey
The Shattered World by Michael Reaves
The Mirror Crack'd by Agatha Christie
The Door in the Wall by Marguerite d'Angeli
Light a Single Candle by Beverly Butler

And then, sadly, there were some disappointing books:

The Burning of the Rose by Ruth Nichols
Mothers of Feminism by Margaret Hope Bacon
Song for the Basilisk by Patricia A. McKillip (an otherwise favorite author)
The Android's Dream by John Scalzi (ditto)
Death Comes Ashore by Corinne O'Flynn
The First Ladies by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray

I'm having as a goal for 2025 to finish The Lays of Beleriand and read a good chunk of Les Misérables, Vol. II, while also daring to read more in the Jacqueline Winspear series, knowing that it will, eventually, come to an end.

Here's to a good 2025!

>68 threadnsong: 👏