I am going to post about a few individual titles, but I'll include a list of all of the reading for the year (that I can remember):
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I continue my love affair with Inspector Gamache and the residents of Three Pines. I really want to find a Wisconsin Three Pines when it's time for us to retire! I'm not going to give away too much, except to say that you really need to listen to or read the series in order, as there are recurring characters that will make no sense if you haven't read the previous books. I am SO proud of myself--I figured out who done it well before the end of the book! I'm finally figuring out Louise Penny's craft.
I'm now on Book 9 (How the Light Gets In), so I don't know if I can even give you specifics on the first book in the series, but the general gist of the series follows the cases and life of Inspector Armand Gamache, chief of the the Sûreté du Québec, along with some of his most trusted agents, as they track down killers (and find rank corruption within the Sûreté itself). Penny does an extraordinary job painting us a picture of Gamache and his crew, along with the wilds of Canada and especially the tiny town of Three Pines. Three Pines (as many of the tiny towns found in murder mystery series) has an inordinate amount of death compared to actual tiny towns, but that doesn't detract from the magical quality of the village and the people within it. I've been listening to the whole series, so nearly as much praise goes to Ralph Cosham, the narrator of the series, whose voice just draws you in and keeps you listening. If you're looking for your next murder mystery series, add this to the list!
75 books in 2021!!! I blew 2020 out of the water (and still only posted twice--sorry)! And I read MANY more physical books this year than I did last year, mostly because I got on a roll with the Alexander McCall Smith brilliant series about Mma Ramotswe and the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. I read Number 4 (The Kalahari Typing School for Men) through Number 19 (The Colors of All the Cattle). I could not have picked a better series for 2021, as this lovely visit to Botswana on a regular basis is the most stress-relieving experience imaginable. The characters are just lovely people to spend your time with--I will be so sad when I read the next few and am done.
I did get into a couple of other book series in 2021. The Bridgerton series by Julia Quinn could not have been further from the Smith books (very much sex), but once you get started on them, you have to read how each Bridgerton sibling ended up finding their significant other. I also stumbled on Louise Penny's Still Life and Chief Inspector Gamache, so I'm three books into that series of twelve books. It's incredible that Three Pines, a lovely little town south of Montreal, could have so many murders! William Kent Krueger's Ordinary Grace and This Tender Land were also stand-outs. I also hit up some classics in 2021--The Giver while on vacation Up Nort' and A Wrinkle in Time as well. And, actually, I read a LOT of poetry, so if I counted those chapbooks, I'd be closer to 90. My lesson for the year--when life hands you a pandemic, pick up a book.
Snow is shocked to find, first, that his tribute Lucy Grey Baird has some surprises up her sleeve. The tributes are not treated as royalty prior to the games as they are in the trilogy, so soon tributes and mentors are dropping like flies, and Snow believes that Lucy may actually have a shot at winning. I don't want to spoil too much of the story, but there it is definitely a love story, and I was worried that Snow may actually still be likable at the end of the story, and then how do we reconcile that with the President Snow we all love to hate? Never fear, by the end of the novel, Snow is as despicable as we all know him to be. A satisfying addition to the trilogy.
The book was fascinating on so many levels. The descriptions of different individuals and groups who choose to live in the wild and what they have to do to survive each year was supremely interesting to someone who spends all summer canning, and Hannah's characterizations are spot on. The family dynamics at play with the Allbrights was harrowing, as we see how Ernst's PTSD gets increasingly worse each winter and how Cora refuses to leave him, even if the survival of her family depends upon it. I found myself stressing out for Leni every time she decided to sneak out to see Matthew, her teen love and the son of Ernst's bitter enemy. I guarantee the novel will have you on the edge of your seat until the final, bittersweet ending.
The book was a fast read, in that it starts right off the bat with a murder and builds from there. Mrs. Cauley decides that the best way to introduce this lost son to the town is to stage a production of The Playboy of the Western World with Mahony as the lead. Auditions become interrogations as Mahony and Mrs. Cauley try to discover the answers to Mahony's parentage. As he gets closer to the truth, he and his patronesses also get closer to danger. I'll let you see how things resolve--or don't. A recommended fun read that's not too taxing.
I read 59 books in 2020. And only blogged twice. (I thought it was 61, but as I typed the list below, I found two duplicates!) I feel badly about that, but at the same time, we were all just trying to survive, so I'm going to give myself a bit of grace. I did read some really good books (and some not-so-good ones). But I also did some things I have not done for years: walked outside 133 miles from September through December; took up crocheting again and crocheted a TON of stuff; finished my first chapbook of poetry. This was without a doubt the most bizarre year of my life . . . but you were all there, so you know. Therefore, I'm just going to LIST all of the books I read (and highlight the most memorable) and let you decide what to pursue!
In a fictionalized but accurate New York City, Candace Chen is living her life, working at Spectra overseeing the publication of books in the Bible division, loving her boyfriend Jonathan--in flashbacks. In the present, she is traveling with a band of survivors of Shen Fever toward "The Facility." We learn about Candace's background, having immigrated to the U.S. at age 6. We feel the conflict between her Chinese origin and her very American upbringing. We watch as the world is slowly consumed by a fungal pandemic which basically turns most of the world into zombies which repeatedly perform the tasks they performed in life, until they quietly pass away of malnutrition (or are helped along in the process).
Candace is the satirical millennial, working at a job which isn't her passion but which she is good at; continuing to go to work long after the rest of the world has abandoned Times Square because she has been promised an obscene amount of severance pay if she sticks around (and stays healthy enough) to collect. I don't want to give too much away, but at some point she does leave New York, does find more survivors on the road, does protect a life-changing secret. It could not have been more bizarre to be reading descriptions of overrun hospitals, emptying businesses, quiet streets in major cities while the exact same thing is happening outside of our doors (but in an odd way, also comforting knowing that our measures against Covid-19 seem to be having more of an impact than that in the novel). A good book to read in front of the fireplace on a "shelter in place" weekend. (YA warning--definite adult situations). |
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