Review 2791: #NovNov! On the Calculation of Volume I

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I didn’t intend to read this novella, because it didn’t sound like my kind of thing. However, so many people were raving about the series that I decided to read it for Novellas in November, hosted by Cathy of 746 Books and Bookish Beck.

Before I start my review, I thought I’d list all the novellas I have read so far this year:

Admittedly, some of these are a few pages longer than the limit of 200 pages.

And now, here’s my review:

I have to say right up front that I don’t understand what the fuss is about. I did want to know what happened, but one thing I knew from the beginning is that Tara isn’t going to get out of her predicament because the series has seven volumes! Of course, people reading the first volume right after it came out wouldn’t know that.

For the few people who don’t know what the book is about, Tara owns a book dealership with her husband, Thomas. She goes on a routine trip to Paris to look in at an auction and try to find some specific books as well as to purchase anything interesting. She arrives on the 17th of November, attends the auction, and buys some books. On the 18th, she buys more books, purchases a Roman coin for Thomas, and visits friends, Philip and Molly, where she burns her hand.

The next day, it is still November 18.

She isn’t stuck repeating the same day, like Bill Murray in Ground Hog Day. She eventually returns home. Some of the books she purchased go with her, but the coin is gone. Thomas is surprised to see her because she was supposed to return on the 19th, so she explains what happened and he believes her. But the next day only she remembers.

The novella is moody and contemplative, as Tara tries to make sense of what’s going on. What is the logic, if there is some, behind what she can keep and what she can’t? What happens to a couple if one person remains the same while the other is changing?

What never seems to occur to her is whether she is the only person experiencing this or if others are. After all, when Thomas is with her, he relives November 18 over and over, but he just doesn’t remember. Maybe everyone is reliving the same day, but she’s the only one who knows it.

The novel makes you think, if only to try to figure out what’s going on. Tara goes through a period of torpor, and then she decides not to put Thomas through the same thing daily, so she moves out, sort of, and he thinks she’s still in Paris and coming home tomorrow.

Of course, the novel is exploring many ideas, particularly the perception of time.

I’m not bothered by the lack of activity in the book, or by its contemplative nature. I just feel distanced from what is going on.

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Nonfiction November Strikes Again! My Year in Nonfiction

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Here it is time for Nonfiction November again, hosted by different bloggers each week. Last year, I was determined to read more nonfiction books, especially because I read about such good ones during the month. Alas, I went from 14 last year to 8 this year! Oh dear! To be fair to myself, I have several in my pile. I just haven’t gotten to them yet. I see that I started out fairly well but things fell off in the summer and fall.

Here’s the prompt for Week 1:

Week 1 (November 2-8) – My Year in Nonfiction – Heather. What nonfiction books did you read this year?  What were your favorites?  Did you find yourself reading a particular category of nonfiction most often? Hosted by Heather at Based on a True Story.

So, let’s see what I did read. With only eight, I can certainly give each a run-down:

The Little Dinner by Christine Terhune: In 1892, apparently, Christine Terhune was equivalent to Martha Stewart. Her book assumes that people can no longer afford to host big, elaborate dinners, so she is helping with the details of a little one. The most fascinating thing about this book to me was what Terhune considered a little dinner. Apparently, you only need one or two maids and four or five courses. The book contains recipes and also tips about how to decorate for the event and so on.

Oscar Wilde by Sheridan Morley: This biography is not an exhaustive one but one that tells just enough about Wilde’s life to be interesting and includes some quips and quotes from Wilde himself. It also is easier on Lord Alfred Douglas than other biographies I have read.

The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan: I heard about this book over a year ago on public radio, in an interview with Amy Tan. She explained that she had a physical condition that didn’t allow her to drive anymore, so she started watching birds in her backyard. She had lots of questions about them, so she decided to draw them, figuring that might answer some of them. Her drawings are delightful, and she certainly has an inquiring mind. This book is a year of her observations.

Pure Wit: The Revolutionary Life of Margaret Cavendish by Francesca Peacock

Margaret Cavendish is such a fascinating person, one of the first women to be paid for her writings. I was so fascinated by her that I read two biographies, one last year and one this year, as well as the novella Margaret the First by Danielle Dutton. Peacock’s biography is the more scholarly of the two I read, the other being Mad Madge by Katie Whitaker. Peacock also deplores the “Mad Madge” appellation, which was actually applied to her after the Victorian period (she is 17th century), and regrets that Whitaker used it for her book title.

I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O’Farrell

Maggie O’Farrell is talking here sometimes about brushes with actual death and sometimes about more metaphorical issues. I found this one rivetting and deeply touching.

A Woman in the Polar Night by Christiane Ritter

This is a fascinating memoir by the first European woman to spend a year in Spitsbergen (Svalbard), joining her husband there. Her outlook changes from thinking the landscape is cold and forbidding to beautiful. The descriptions are wonderful. The book is translated from German by Jane Degras.

The Clothing of Books by Jhumpa Lahiri

This book is really an essay about how Lahiri regards the covers for her books. At once she says they aren’t hers anymore when they get to that stage, yet it’s clear that some of the covers chosen for her books really bother her. She would actually like her books to just have the title and her name on them. The details about publication were interesting.

Queens and Kings: An Unusually Personal History by Lucy Worsley

Lucy Worsley is always entertaining, and this history/memoir is not meant to be comprehensive. It presents information about most of the English reigns beginning with Henry VIII and ending with Elizabeth II and refutes some myths. The information is presented in terms of the palaces most associated with the particular reign, for example, Hampton Court for Henry VIII. It also tells some stories of Worsley’s own experiences working in the different palaces as Chief Curator and encountering royalty.

Which were my favorites? I would say I Am, I Am, I Am and A Woman in the Polar Night.

So, that’s all I have done, sad to say. Most of these books were read in the spring, and then I picked back up when I realized November was approaching, but I also got caught up in reading novellas for the same month!

What I Added to To Read in October

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I’m beginning to think I have to keep track of these books better, if I can figure out a way to do it easily. I already looked into putting some kind of tag to indicate sources on the books in The StoryGraph, but I can’t figure out how to do it. I found myself not even readily able to remember where I heard about the latest addition to my list.

Anyway, here it is, the third installment of this feature, which I stole from Liz at Adventures in reading, running, and working from home. These are the books I added to my list in October, with sources if I can remember them:

May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry

I found out lately that I have to read this one for my Booker Shortlist Prize project anyway, but I think it was already on my list from a New York Times post. And lately, I saw a review of it by Bookish Beck and before that another by Cathy of 746 Books. A curator and king—interesting.

The Country Schoolmaster by Kate Grenville

I’m usually going to read Grenville, but I am indebted to Helen of She Reads Novels for the knowledge that this book was available. I’m not always up on Australian publications. It’s interesting to see that a main character of May We Feed the King is a curator and of The Country Schoolmaster is an archivist. I think I see a trend here.

Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabahattin Ali

I checked most of the usual suspects, but I was unable to spot anyone’s review of this book that rang a bell. I probably paid attention to it because it is written by a Turkish writer and I keep trying to read more books from different countries. I see that a couple of Classics Club members have reviewed it, but I’m pretty sure that’s not where I read about it. Hmmm. It’s about a young Turk who goes to Berlin in the 1920s.

With Our Blessing by Jo Spain

I’m fairly sure it isn’t the review of With Our Blessing that made me put this book on my list, but FictionFan‘s enthusiastic review of the second in the series, Beneath the Surface. When it’s a series, I usually try to go back to the first book. I believe that she said that the second book was even better than the first, which she regarded highly, so something to look forward to. It’s a crime novel set in 1970s Ireland.

The Far Cry by Emma Smith

I at least know where I read about The Far Cry, from Simon at StuckinaBook for the 1949 Club. It’s about a girl whose father takes her away to India to get her away from her mother. Anyway, it’s Persephone Press, so I would eventually have read it.

Music Against the Night by Yiyun Li

I am fairly sure I read about this novel in a review by the New York Times. It’s about two music students in 18th century Dublin. I am noticing that most of these books seem to be historical fiction. Not surprising, I guess.

Luna, Phoenix, Queen by Julie Orringer

Although I don’t use Amazon’s book recommendations because they are always pretty far off for me, I think this book popped up when I was buying something else. It’s by Julie Orringer, and I have loved everything I’ve read of hers so far. I didn’t even look to see what it was about.

Hawthorn by Elaine Thomson

I have no idea where I read about this one, but the words “Victorian Ghost Story” got me right away, I’m sure. If you think I read about it on your blog, let me know.

Shadows of the Burning Moor by Kenny Boyle

This book is so new, it doesn’t even have a proper cover yet. I have been following Kenny Boyle on Instagram. He’s a delightful Scot from the Isle of Lewis who talks about Scottish mythology and pronunciation and other Scottish subjects, but mostly folklore. He is also a playwright who won the 2021 New Playwright’s Award. I’m not sure this is going to prove to be my genre, but I am planning to buy this book when it comes out.

Opal Country by Chris Hammer

I again have FictionFan to thank for cluttering up my To Read list with a bunch of books, including this one. Crime novel, set in an Australian mining town. What’s not to like?

Review 2790: #RIPXXI! Faithful unto Death

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Faithful unto Death is the fifth book in Graham’s Inspector Barnaby series and the only one so far that I didn’t remember from the TV series. Like some others, it gets to Barnaby slowly and murder even more slowly.

Neighbors wonder at the disappearance of Simone Hollingsworth, the beautiful wife of wealthy Alan Hollingsworth. It’s unlike her to have missed two appointments one afternoon and fail to show up for bell practice. Yet, no one really knows her. She flits from one activity to another and stays home alone while her husband works. In her absence, Alan is missing work and turning into a wreck. But when Barnaby acts on a report, Alan says his wife has gone to visit her mother, and Barnaby seems unwilling to go further even after learning her mother is dead (which I found odd). Meanwhile, the whole village thinks Alan murdered his wife.

Brenda Brockley, the girl next door, has a big crush on Alan, and when he goes off unexpectedly, she follows him to Heathrow Airport. There, someone spots her.

Then Alan apparently commits suicide, but something tells Barnaby otherwise. It begins to look like Simone was kidnapped and Alan was trying to ransom her.

In the meantime, Brenda still isn’t home. Eventually, she is found dead in the Heathrow parking garage, apparently hit by Alan’s car. And where is Simone?

I had an idea I knew what was going on in this one, but Graham convinced me I was wrong, and then she turned the tables again and it turned out I was right all along! Pretty good trick!

As usual, the characterization is really good and the plot complex. Another good one for Graham.

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Review 2789: No Fond Return of Love

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Dulcie Mainwaring is just recovering from the shock of her engagement being broken off (albeit quite a while ago) when she decides to attend a conference. She does part-time academic research and indexing, but a throw-away thought that she prefers researching live subjects proves significant.

At the conference she meets and befriends Viola Dace almost against Viola’s will. Viola’s profession is a bit murkier than Dulcie’s, and she implies that she had an affair with one of the speakers, Aylwin Forbes, the author of several scholarly articles and the lecturer on “Some problems of an editor.” (The lecture titles cracked me up. There’s another on “Some problems of indexing.”) Aylwin is thinking more about his impending divorce than his lecture and has a dizzy spell during it. (Later on, I had my doubts about Aylwin’s supposed affair and reputation, because he remembers his encounter with Viola as one kiss, whereas Viola is wondering why he hasn’t returned to her after his divorce. It’s hard to get a good idea of this, despite Aylwin clearly being susceptible.)

Dulcie’s “research” becomes more obvious as, having decided she is attracted to the handsome Aylwin, she begins visiting people and addresses associated with him. Although for some reason this seems odd but harmless in the book, today we call it stalking. Aylwin, who keeps meeting her, has a confused impression of a pleasant face but can’t remember her name.

Viola actually ends up moving into the home that Dulcie inherited from her mother, although she complains about how far it is from the action and doesn’t really seem to like Dulcie. Also moving in is Dulcie’s young niece Laurel, who would rather live in her own bed-sit, but her parents won’t let her.

As Dulcie and often Viola traipse around checking out Aylwin’s relatives and their homes and following up rumors, Dulcie meets her old fiancé Maurice, who seems to be reconsidering his decision to break it off, Viola seems to get less interested in Aylwin, and Aylwin is attracted to someone even more unsuitable than either his ex-wife or Viola.

These ordinary people seem believable with all their oddities and inconsistencies. I liked Dulcie even though she is a stalker. The other characters not so much. There’s a lot of sly humor in this book.

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Review 2788: Scotch Mist

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Scotch Mist is a light as air romance novel with beautiful settings and an attractive heroine.

Alison Fairlee is something unusual for her time—a working woman who runs a decorating business and shares a flat with her friend Jane. She is in her mid-30s and has no thought except to make her business successful and stave off her deadbeat mother and sister. Unfortunately, her mother, Lady Caroline, who since her return from India has thought it preferable to stay with friends than to purchase or lease a home, has arrived unexpectedly, assuming Alison can put her up. Her sister Pamela is with her. Alison tells them they can only stay one night, because Jane is returning the next day.

The next day, Jane suggests that Alison go on vacation while her mother goes to a friend and Pamela takes a two-week cruise. Alison loves Scotland, so she agrees and drives off by herself. Unfortunately, when she is ready to stop, she can only find a commercial hotel, uncomfortable and cheap. She is outside the next morning when she is overheard complaining to herself about the hotel by Neil McPherson. He invites her to stay at his home, which he has converted to a hotel that he leases out to hunting and fishing parties.

Alison falls in love with Glenlochart House, which is empty, expecting guests the next day. Neil is the laird but has been unable to support the estate without this solution. Alison and Neil get along well, and he hires her to help redecorate the house, which is a bit shabby.

The next day, however, wealthy Andrew Tosh and his son Roddy arrive. Andrew is a vulgar self-made man, and Roddy spends his time chasing women and spending his father’s money. He finds talking to Alison more amusing than fishing, and Alison finds him amusing. Neil finds himself unexpectedly jealous.

Pamela returns early from her cruise after being exposed to measles and told to quarantine. Instead, she finds a letter from Alison to Jane about Glenlochart and decides to go there. She leaves immediately, sending a telegram with insufficient information about her arrival. Alison doesn’t receive the telegram until it’s almost too late to meet the train and doesn’t know where the station is. Roddy offers to drive her, but there is confusion about the route, and they don’t find her.

Pamela in the meantime has forgotten the name of Alison’s hotel. She is picked up by the taxi service, Dugald McDougal, a young man running the taxi to save money for medical school, and Pamela being flighty, they spend the night smooching. In the meantime, Roddy and Alison give up driving around trying to find Pamela and go to Edinburgh for dinner, getting stranded overnight in the mist.

When Alison gets back to Glenlochart, Neil shows he is angry, which she reads as disdain, as everyone else assumes the worst. Soon, Lady Caroline arrives, having been kicked out of her friend’s house for flirting with her husband, and the situation gets even more awkward.

Alison’s relatives are so awful, it’s funny, and the novel spends a lot more time on all the complications than the romantic angle. But Alison is an interesting heroine, and this is a fun book to read. I was just a bit shocked at how blithely Pamela travels all over the place after having been told to quarantine.

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Another lame attempt at Book Serendipity

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I really admire the eye for detail shown by Bookish Beck in her feature Book Serendipity. She notices everything! I am not so observant, it turns out. Rather than notice that I had two characters named Rachel, I would only notice if they were named “Amadeus,” or “Auryandry.” (This is a name I made up in my twenties, which I used when drunk men would try to pick me up in a bar. I would say my name was “Eurythice Auryandry Guggelheimer,” which ended up with me having a repeat myself a lot, as you can imagine. Somehow none of them could remember my name.)

Anyway, here are my pitiful three serendipities, collected over three months. This time I have one true book serendipity and two cross-media serendipities:

Here’s my one true case of book serendipity:

Encountering for the first time the name Aylwin in No Fond Return of Love by Barbara Pym and a few books later in Harvest Home by Dorothy Lambert.

My two cross-media serendipities are

Reading a novel set in Svalbard, A Woman in the Polar Night by Christianne Ritter, and three days later having a trip there be a prize on Wheel of Fortune.

Publishing a post on the Classics Club blog about 19th/20th century Yankton Dakota writer and activist Zitkala-Šá (Red Bird) a week before encountering her as a character (named Miss Redbird) in the novel To Save the Man by John Sayles.

Review 2787: Heart, Be at Peace

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Of Donal Ryan’s books, I’ve only read so far The Spinning Heart. Like that novel, Heart, Be at Peace employs a multitude of voices to tell of events in a western Irish town, going back about ten years. Some of these characters are the same as in The Spinning Heart, but it’s ten years later.

Underlying the story is a series of tragedies. Pokey owned a contracting business until he ran out, leaving his men unemployed and cheated of benefits and his business unfinished all over town. Having served his time, Pokey is back and using the front of a language school to launder drug money. Frank, an old man, was murdered by the gang of drug dealers, and his murderer is also out and trying to keep a low profile. Frank’s son Bobby has done his best to rebuild the contracting business that Pokey abandoned and employ all the workers.

We first meet Bobby, who secretly visits his dying mother-in-law and is stressed because his friend Seanie’s wife has been sending around a photo of what appears to be Bobby leaving a whorehouse while the boys were on a stag party in Amsterdam. Bobby is also stressed about the amount of drug activity in the area.

Then Josie Burke, Pokey’s father, tells about Pokey’s return from prison and his attempts to make amends. But law enforcement starts grilling him about Pokey’s language school, telling him that he himself is listed as the company director.

Lily was trained as a witch, or maybe an herbalist. She is an old lady who has long been estranged from her family. Then her teenage granddaughter Millicent begins visiting her. Lily adores Millicent. But Millicent falls in love at 17 with Augie, a local drug dealer.

Vasya is one of the men driven out of work by Pokey’s original betrayal. He has been homeless, but Frank occasionally left food and other items at his camp for him until he was killed. Then Pokey returns and hires Vasya to ferry drugs across the river.

Réattin is Seanie’s wife. She is still traumatized by her son Dylan having been kidnapped when he was two. But she is jealous of Bobby and his wife Triona even though Triona was her first customer when she opened her accountancy business. So, she is happy to circulate Seanie’s photo of Bobby.

Timmy isn’t quite all there ever since Mickey Briars arrived on the work site after Pokey decamped because he found out his builder’s pension hadn’t been paid into and hit Timmy with a shovel. But Mickey has tried to make up for it by spending time with Timmy and telling him stories. Mickey is upset about all the drug dealing. I forgot about Mickey until the end of the novel, when one of his stories becomes significant.

And so on. Ryan creates some vivid characters, only there are so many of them that I wished I’d taken some notes (and remembered them better from The Spinning Heart). Because aside from some obvious main characters or some stories that made the strongest impression on me, someone would be mentioned again and I’d struggle to remember what I knew about that character.

I am not making a criticism, though. There are some rough events in this novel, but overall it ends on a hopeful note. I liked it more the more I read, and the ending was touching.

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Review 2786: #RIPXXI! Split Code

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Another book for RIPXXI. Joanna Emerson is a highly trained nanny whose employer recently died in a car accident. She has flown to Winnipeg on a skiing week when she meets Johnson Johnson, the famous portrait painter. Meets him again, that is, because he’s a friend of her father.

Leaving a party, a group of people board a railway carriage where some Inuits who are part of an ethnology study are living for a few days. (The Inuits are part of their party.) At some point, they realize the carriage is moving, and then it is left in the middle of snowy nowhere. During this experience, Joanna takes care of an infant who is no more than a few weeks old, Benedict, the son of Simon and Rosamund Booker-Readman and ultimately the heir to a cosmetic fortune. Everyone is eventually rescued by a bunch of guys on snowmobiles.

Joanna is hired by Benedict’s grandmother to take care of her grandson, so she travels to New York City, where she meets another nanny, Bunty, with her charges, the next door neighbors. They are children of another wealthy family, the Eisenkopps. Almost immediately, there’s an attempt to kidnap Benedict while Joanna and Bunty have the kids out in the park. However, they chase the kidnapper and find Ben in a trash can.

Johnson Johnson is around, because he is painting Rosamund’s portrait. He knows all about the kidnapping attempt and encourages Joanna to explore a theme park called Missy’s Golden American Wonderland because she found a piece of paper advertising it in her pocket after the kidnapping attempt. She takes along a group, and there they are shot at.

These kinds of events follow Joanna and her charge to Cape Cod and eventually to Dubrovnic, then part of Yugoslavia, where Rosamund wants to attend a party on a yacht. There’s a lot of action, during which Joanna proves she can do a lot more than babysit, and she eventually finds that there is more to the situation than someone wanting to kidnap the baby for money.

Johnson Johnson novels are always full of chaotic events and espionage, and this one is no exception. It’s quite a bit of fun and has a revealing last sentence. This book was originally published as Dolly and the Nanny Bird.

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