Author: whatmeread

My End-of-Year Report

~ whatmeread ~ 6 Comments

I saw a post from Helen of She Reads Novels about her historical fiction reading goals, and that made me decide to write an end-of-year report about my reading, starting this year. I am pulling most of the data from StoryGraph, which I switched over to from Goodreads this last year.

First, I set a goal of reading 160 books this year, and I read 156. I felt especially slowed down over Christmas time because of everything going on. Some of my comparative stats this year were interesting, especially this one:

You can see that in general I read shorter books this year than I usually do, 50% being less than 300 pages and only 5% being more than 500 pages. I think that was because I was trying to achieve some goals under tight deadlines, but I also read quite a few novellas for Novellas in November this year. And toward the end of the year, I put my books for A Century of Books project in order by the shortest first, so that I could finish as many as possible (although not very many were short)! Sneaky, huh?

For fiction vs. nonfiction, I am still doing lamentably little in the nonfiction area. However, I read 1% more nonfiction this year than in previous years, so I guess Nonfiction November is having an impact. Let’s see if I do better this coming year.

Here are the genres I’ve read this year with the number of books for each:

  • Historical fiction: 47
  • Literary fiction: 43
  • Mysteries: 39
  • Classics: 37
  • Crime: 26
  • History: 10
  • Thriller: 10
  • LBGTQIA+: 8
  • Biography: 7
  • Contemporary: 7

These are Storygraph’s categories. I’m not sure, for example, how Crime and Mystery are differentiated or whether they overlap. Obviously, some categories must overlap, because these numbers add up to more books than I read. Also, I’m fairly sure I read one or two nonfiction books that don’t fit easily into either biography or history, so I’m not sure how they have categorized them.

StoryGraph also provided me with a list of writers I read most this year vs. for all time. I’m not showing this list because the most books I read this year of any one writer is four. However, I will say that the only writer who appears on both lists (this year vs. all time) is Georgette Heyer, and that the only man who appears on either list is, of all people, Fyodor Dostoevsky. (But that’s only two books.) However, if I switch this graph to show the repeat authors for last year, I get two more male writers for 2023, John Dickson Carr and Martin Edwards (four books by each!).

As usual, my top ten list for the year will appear on my blogging day closest to my blog anniversary. This year, it will be Friday, January 24. For a few months, at any rate, I am going to be blogging on Fridays again until I catch up a little closer with my reading.

Review 2520: Hunting the Falcon

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I have read quite a bit about the Tudors, fiction and nonfiction. This book deals especially with the relationship between Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, although it starts earlier in their lives.

A strong theme in the book is Anne’s formative time spent at the court of France. There she witnessed a different kind of court than that in England, one in which powerful women discussed politics and were forces behind the throne and in which court was gay and flirtatious. As queen and as a woman who had worked in tandem with Henry on their cause for six years before marriage, she tried to create that sort of court.

In addition, her leanings toward France helped incline Henry toward an alliance with Francis of France, despite a long history of enmity between the two countries, rather than one with Charles, the Holy Roman Emperor and his first wife Katherine’s nephew. Francis had his own agenda, though, that did not always match Henry’s.

All-in-all, the book paints Anne in a more positive light than I’ve seen, emphasizing her true piety and her generosity to the poor. However, she also clearly got caught up in her own power and was sometimes rapacious and unforgiving.

Recent programs about the Tudors are notoriously inaccurate, but we are sometimes affected nonetheless. Used to thinking of Jane Parker, wife of Anne’s brother George, as someone who betrayed her, I now find she was one of the people who had the nerve to speak up for her.

Biographers and historians can err by including too much information on a subject. Although this book was written for a general audience in an entertaining style, it occasionally has that fault, for example, describing every detail of Anne’s coronation, including her outfits and the themes of the spectacles presented. However, in general, I found it interesting and illuminating.

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WWW Wednesday!

~ whatmeread ~ 9 Comments

Happy New Year!

It’s the first Wednesday of the month, so it’s time for WWW Wednesday, an idea I borrowed from David Chazan, The Chocolate Lady, who borrowed it from someone else. For this feature, I report

  • What I am reading now
  • What I just finished reading
  • What I intend to read next

This is something you can participate in, too, if you want, by leaving comments about what you’ve been reading.

What I Am Reading Now

I actually haven’t started this book as of this writing, but I’m drafting this a day ahead of time, so by the time you read this, it will be what I am reading now. The book is The Temptations of Big Bear by Rudy Wiebe. I believe that someone recommended it this year, so I put it in my pile and then found it would fill a hole in my A Century of Books project. It’s called “an epic of the Canadian West.” Should be interesting.

What I Just Finished Reading

As of this writing, I’m cheating, because I have a page and a half of this book to go, but I will have finished it within a few minutes. It is Island by Alastair MacLeod. I guess I’m on a Canadian kick.

I think I keep reading about Alistair MacLeod on Naomi’s site, Consumed by Ink. MacLeod is considered a master of the short story. This book is collection of all his stories, 14 of them, most of them set on Cape Breton in Nova Scotia. He also wrote one novel, which I will be looking for. It also qualifies for A Century of Books.

What I Will Read Next

Next, I am reading another book that qualifies for my A Century of Books project. It is a book I loved when I was younger, so I’m curious if I will love it now. It’s How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn.

Review 2519: Murder after Christmas

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There’s nothing like a nice, cozy mystery to read at Christmas time. This one is so cozy, in fact, that you don’t want any of the characters to be murderers. And what better day to post the review of a book called Murder after Christmas than New Year’s Eve?

When Rhoda Redpath invites her eccentric, elderly, very wealthy stepfather to spend Christmas, none of the Redpaths expect him to come. After all, he has never come before. Uncle Willie is nearly 90 and has lived a rambunctious life, so there are lots of people who want to meet him. Thus, when he agrees to come, the Redpaths decide to throw a real blowout, a Christmas Tree on Boxing Day, and invite everyone.

Once he arrives, his behavior is a bit odd. He eats a lot, stuffing down loads of mince pies and chocolates even though it is wartime. He gets the order of his wives mixed up, and all the Christmas packages disappear. He also starts writing his memoirs, so they have to hire a secretary.

During the party, he is hardly to be seen except when he appears dressed as Santa to pass out the packages. Frank Redpath, the host, also appears as Santa, but having been upstaged by Uncle Willie, his appearance is a bust. Then the next morning, Uncle Willie is found frozen stiff out by the snowman, still in his Santa suit. Was it a natural death or did someone murder him? When everyone learns that his wife died on Christmas day, the timing becomes very important.

Uncle Willie is found to have laudanum in his system. Nevertheless, the coroner’s hearing finds the cause of death accidental, assuming the batty old man took an overdose. Inspector Culley isn’t quite sure, so when Frank and Rhoda Redpath ask him to stay and figure out what really happened, he agrees.

Inspector Culley’s clue collection involves lots of mince pies—sewn into a chair cushion, eaten before Christmas, eaten after Christmas, packages hung from the ceiling, chocolates hidden in the snowman, and a turkey in the wardrobe—among other things. The whole thing is ridiculous and hard to keep track of, so I just went along for the ride.

Lots of fun, this one. I’ll never look at mince pies the same again.

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Review 2518: Dean Street December! The Fledgling

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Here’s another book for Dean Street December!

I have read two memoirs by Frances Faviell, but The Fledgling is the third of her three novels and the first of her novels I’ve read. For me, It wasn’t as successful as her memoirs.

One reason is the main character. He is not very appealing. I’ll explain why later.

Neil Collins is serving his compulsory military service in 1950s England. This service was apparently controversial because the country was not at war.

Neil is a fragile, small young man who gets so nervous when ordered around or bullied—which he frequently is—that he gets stupid and can’t remember how to do things. He has already gone AWOL twice and has promised his grandmother he won’t do it again.

Everyone in his unit picks on him. He thinks he has one friend, Mike, but when Mike bullies him to desert, planning to follow him and use Neil’s contacts to get to Ireland, he realizes Mike has just been using him. So Mike bullies him more until he goes. Sexual abuse is implied.

Neil shows up in his grandmother’s rooms hoping to get his twin Nonnie’s husband, Charlie, to take him to Southampton before the arrival of Mike, who was supposed to leave the next day. However, his grandmother wants to turn him in, like she did last time, and Charlie doesn’t want to help him. To make matters worse, the walls of the rooms are very thin and people keep dropping by and trying to come in. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the family, Mike is across the street all day watching the house.

I found Neil unlikable not so much because of what he is doing but how he acts. He is like the most timid heroine in a Gothic novel. He gasps loudly when he’s hiding, he keeps raising his voice despite many warnings about the nosy neighbors. He actually falls through the door when he is eavesdropping on his grandmother and her social worker. Basically, he’s an idiot with no control over himself. He acts more like a five-year-old than a twenty-year-old.

Of course, the book is about how he gets some stuffing to brace him up, but some of the book’s values are very dated. For example, Nonnie is supposed to tolerate Charlie’s infidelity because he’s jealous of her connection with her twin. And Neil has to get in a physical fight to gain some confidence. I also didn’t really find any of the characters to be that likable.

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Review 2517: Dead Ernest

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I very much enjoyed the Tilton books I have read so far, especially for a certain wacky energy, so when I saw that Dead Ernest filled a hole in my Century of Books project, I looked for a copy. At first, this novel was almost too frenetic for me, but either it calmed down a bit or I got used to it.

Leonidas Witherall, Tilton’s amateur sleuth, is trying to finish one of his Lieutenant Haseltine adventure novels before his publisher goes crazy, so he has asked not to be disturbed. However, telegrams keep arriving that he doesn’t look at, people keep coming to the door, and his housekeeper, Mrs. Mullet, keeps trying to tell him things he refuses to listen to. Of course, we know he should at least be opening the telegrams and listening to Mrs. Mullet.

After Leonidas sends her home, two young men show up with a truck and try to deliver a freezer. Leonidas thinks they have the wrong address and sends them next door where new neighbors are moving in. The two men come back and say the neighbors don’t want it either, but Leonidas sends them away again after they tell him that a man fixing a tire beside the road paid them to deliver it. Later, he finds the freezer shoved into his kitchen. Inside is a leg of lamb, some haddock, and a body. Leonidas is horrified to recognize it.

Leonidas recently picked up some new offices and duties. One of them involves Meredith Academy, which was taken over by the Navy during the war. Now that the war is over, the Navy has handed it back without warning. This would normally not affect Leonidas, but he was willed the school by a friend and has decided to act as head at least for the meantime. He recognizes the body as that of Ernest Finger, whom he hired as French instructor the day before.

As soon as he discovers the body, the doorbell rings. It’s a girl dressed in violet who says she was sent for his birthday. And she is determined to stay for the time she was hired even when he tells her it is not his birthday. People keep coming over, and it’s all he can do to keep his nosy neighbor, Mrs. Havershaw, from opening the freezer. Once he gets rid of all of them except Terry, the girl, he tells her what’s going on and they decide to join forces.

As Leonidas keeps getting pulled into social engagements he’s forgotten about, he continues to investigate, ruling suspects out and gaining and losing partners as he goes. This novel is funny and entertaining, and the case is ridiculous. The perfect light reading.

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A Century of Books! How Am I Doing? December Report

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In January, I foolishly decided to join Simon Thomas’s Century of Book Challenge, even though I knew that reading 100 books, one for each year in a century, from 1925-2024, would be tough because last year I only read 169. So, how am I doing?

Here are the holes in my project with the books listed for this month below. If you want to see the details, see my Century of Books page.

  • 1925-1934: complete!
  • 1935-1944: entry needed for 1939
  • 1945-1954: entries needed for 1948 and 1950
  • 1955-1964: entries needed for 1955 and 1960
  • 1965-1974: entry needed for 1973
  • 1975-1984: entries needed for 1979, 1981, 1982, and 1983
  • 1985-1994: entries needed for 1986, 1990, 1991, 1993, and 1994
  • 1995–2004: entries needed for all years except 1998, 1999, and 2004
  • 2005-2014: entries needed for 2005, 2006, and 2007
  • 2015-2024: complete!

Since November 27, I read the following books. As we’re closing in on the end of the year, I decided to mark the ones that fill one of my holes in bold from now on. I was trying to fit in novellas for Novellas in November and some nonfiction in November, so I did poorly on this project in November. This month I tried to read mostly books for this project, but I read fewer books because of the holidays.

  • Elizabeth and Essex by Lytton Strachey from 1928
  • The Scapegoat by Daphne Du Maurier from 1957
  • Levels of the Game by John McPhee from 1969
  • A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters from 1977
  • Cousin Rosamund by Rebecca West from 1985
  • A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride from 2013
  • The New Life by Tom Crewe from 2023
  • The Winter Spirits by various authors from 2023

Review 2516: The Fountain Overflows

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Rebecca West based The Fountain Overflows on her chaotic family life when she was a girl. I understand it is the first of an unfinished trilogy. If so, I’m interested in reading all of it.

Rose Aubrey is a daughter of an unusual couple. Her father Piers is a writer and editor whom many consider a genius, but he is a gambler who continually impoverishes his family. He has a pattern of collecting followers or benefactors who at first seem to worship him, but eventually they break with him, usually after lending him money. However, his family adores him. Her mother is a gifted pianist, formerly a famous concert performer, who is teaching Rose and her sister Mary with the expectation that they will become concert pianists, too. Their oldest sister, Cordelia, has no talent for music but doesn’t know it. She takes up the violin. Their younger brother Richard Quin is adored by all, a toddler at the beginning of the novel.

The novel covers about ten years of the family’s life. There is plenty of incident, from Mrs. Aubrey’s struggles to keep the family financially afloat to the girls’ struggles at school because they’re considered peculiar but also because they hate wasting time at school when they could be playing piano. Cordelia finds a mentor in one of her schoolteachers who encourages her in the idea that she is talented, which Mrs. Aubrey and the other girls deplore. Rose and Mary meet poltergeist activity at a friend’s house, and the family gets involved in a murder case. Also of importance is the girls’ cousin Rosamund.

It’s difficult to summarize this novel, but this family is so interesting, brilliant, chaotic, well-intended, and right behaving. I found the novel delightful.

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Review 2515: Dean Street December! The Late Mrs. Prioleau

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Here’s another one for Dean Street December!

Because of the war, Susan Prioleau never meets her mother-in-law before she dies. Mrs. Prioleau seems to have kept an unhappy home, with children who left it as soon as they could, excepting Austin, her oldest son. She adored him but convinced him he is an invalid with a bad heart, which his doctor says is not true. He is immensely fat and makes his heart an excuse for doing nothing.

Susan hears stories about Mrs. Prioleau that don’t agree. She was adored by her servants of long ago, but she has written people cruel, vindictive letters. Both her daughters say she never gave them any attention, although the oldest, Nonnie, remembers a time when things were different. Her daughter Melissa disliked her, and she was estranged from her sister, Catherine, for years.

As Susan gets to know the family and helps Austin clear the house (although he won’t let her remove much), she begins to learn more about her mother-in-law’s life. Eventually, she learns about events that turned her from a selfish but warm-hearted girl to a spiteful old woman.

It’s a pity Monica Tindall only wrote one novel, because this is a good one. Although some of its secrets are easy to guess, the journey was absorbing.

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