Becky's Books –

Rabbit Run
by John Updike
1960 / 336 pages
read by Arthur Morey 12h 5m
Rating:  5 / classic 20th century angst

I got it read – been tempting me for years solely because it’s a series of books  although I couldn’t stand the one Updike I’d managed to struggle through – (The Beauty of the Lilies – 1996).

Anyway – a reading group chose it and I am an obliging member and found it on Audible.  Okay – I’m listening with an ear toward Updike’s literary qualities,   his style,  the metaphors and the other tropes which I suppose is what’s important.  He’s good that way but you do lose the plot – this is apparently a book that needs a couple readings – one for the descriptions,  one for the plot and one for the themes (in whatever order you want). >>>>MORE with no spoilers >>>

Monsieur Lecoq
by Émile Gaboriau
1869 / 316 pages
Rating:  A+ / classic crime  police procedural –

I guess it’s the history embedded in classic lit which gets to me –  this is the first full length detective novel of the Western world.  It was published only three years after the death of Eugene Francois Vidocq, the first professional detective,  founder of the French national police force (Sûreté Nationale), and grand  inventor innovator of devices and methods.

Edgar Allen Poe was inspired by a news clipping about Vidocq to write the first detective story  and Wilkie Collins based much of The Moonstone by on the Vidocq.  Finally, Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes was modeled on the criminal-detective.  >>>>MORE>>>>

The Inner Circle
by Brad Melzer
2011 / 544 pages
read by Scott Brick 14h 15m
rating  B  /  political thriller

The Inner Circle was first published in 2011 and  it takes place in the not too distant future.

I bought the book because I thought I’d read something by Meltzer prior and because I enjoy Scott Brick’s narration – the man can make a dramatic performance out of a techie manual.

Anyway,  The Inner Circle is the first of three (so far) books about Beecher White, an archivist at the White House.  White is also involved in what is called the Culper Ring,  a group dedicated to preserving the presidency (as opposed to the president himself).    In this first book of the series Beecher and his new-old friend Clementine are looking at some documents in President Warren’s archive cubicle when they find a very old dictionary with many pages pulled out hidden inside an armchair.  Then the guard dies suddenly. >>>>MORE>>>>

Evan Harrington
by George Meredith
1860 / 427 pages
rating  8 / classic satire

This is a bit outside my comfort zone – I can read late Victorian lit very nicely thank you,  but when it comes to the earlier Victorian novels it seems to be a different ballgame. The vocabulary is more esoteric, the syntax more complex – it’s just plain archaic and takes me awhile to get used to it.

That said – I do enjoy a good classic novel because, as I’ve likely said here before, it gives me a real bird’s-eye view into the times – not some historical fiction writer’s explanation and interpretation of the times (which is nothing against historical fiction.  As a result the things a reader of the author’s own times would know are often mysteries to me and I have to do a bit of research.  Also the style and the substance of the narrative form has changed – we rarely see and intrusive author these days,  but in Evan Harrington the narrator is almost a character.  Also,  social “class”  is not a common theme of literature about 21st century times.  >>>>MORE (no spoilers>>>>

Sweetland
by Michael Crummey
2014/ 336 pages
read by John Lee 9h 12m
Rating: 7 /  literary survival fiction

Moses Sweetland’s family was among the original settlers on Sweetland Island – a fictional place off the coast of Newfoundland  – or so he tells the  government agent who comes to convince him to move.   Times have changed and what with the fishery and lighthouse being long gone,  the expense of keeping a few families that far away from the mainland is prohibitive.  The compensation is quite fair but everyone on the island has to agree to the move or it won’t happen.  The government is not going to be held responsible for a single lunatic alone on an island.

So every family has signs except Moses and his neighbor, Loveless.   Too bad,  Moses is determined to stay on the island – even when he gets threats, some veiled, some violent from his neighbors.  But the Newfoundland government is also determined to end the habitation of Sweetland Island.  The government is going to cut off all services like ferry service, telephone, internet, etc.  They are going to cut the whole place off.  Still, Moses will not leave.  >>>>MORE (no spoilers)>>>>

An Ice Cream War
by William Boyd
1982 / 397 pages
rating: 7  / historical fiction

Set in the summer of  1914 in German East Africa,  now Burundi, Rwanda and parts of Tanzania,  a couple ex-patriot neighbors, one US one German,  live in relative peace, tolerating each other as they strive to make a living in the area.  Then WWI breaks out and the English come.

This is the rather darkly humorous story of  how the war affected ex-patriots from various countries in and around Kilimanjaro.

Walter Smith is an enterprising young man from the US who with his wife Matilda, the daughter of a minister,  owns a small sisal plantation and a precious Decorticator.

Erich Von Bishop and his wife Leisl.  Leisl has just returned from a visit to her family in the US and she hates Africa and was very ill.  She works as a nurse.   >>>>MORE>>>>

The Attorney
by Steven Martini
1999 / 448 pages
read by Eric Bergmann 11h 5m
rating B- / legal thriller

The story started out so well – rich old grandpa Jonah and grandma Mary  Hale have custody of their granddaughter Amanda because the child’s mother Jennifer is a drug addict – in and out of jail.  Then one night they are threatened with the loss of their  granddaughter by the Zolanda Suade,  their daughter’s advocate. Then the granddaughter is kidnapped.  Grandpa hires Paul Madriani to find Amanda and make the courts work so that he can keep her.

Unfortunately,  Suade is murdered and the evidence and motive point to Jonah – along with the fact he has no alibi.  And the evidence mounts.  Meanwhile,  some really bad people are hunting Jennifer –   >>>>MORE>>>>

The Edge of the World:
A Cultural History of the North Sea and the Transformation of Europe
by Michael Pye
2014/403 pages (K)
Rating:  8.5  / European history

Oh I have been gone from reading nonfiction history for so long I think I forgot what a good history book feels like.  And it took me several weeks to finish this book – very dense –

Pye starts out with an introduction which leads the reader into a discussion of the importance of  the coast of northern western Europe in the Medieval (6th century to 16th centuries) and still is, but also how changeable the area has been for hundreds of years.

There’s a LOT of detailed material written up in historical essays but it’s still basically an overview of topics on which whole books have been written.  This is a seriously broad brush book and sometimes the brush is broader than the evidence and perhaps some over-generalizations  are made.  The North Sea is the connecting thread between the essays but it seems to also be very concerned with the changing economic situation of Northern Europe during Medieval Times  from the end of Roman occupation  to the gilded age of Amsterdam, the printing press and the seeds of the Reformation.   >>>>MORE>>>>

The Crossing
by Michael Connelly
2015 / 400 pages
read by Titus Welliver 9h 20m
rating A+  / crime
(#20 in the Harry Bosch series)

I’ve read almost all of the Harry Bosch police procedural series over the years – many years and regularly entertaining.  I caught up a couple years ago and have followed the series as the new novels came out.   I’ve also read the Mickey Haller legal thrillers – good stuff.

But after 20 books,  Harry is getting older and in the prior book was forced to retire.  He’s still gung-ho LAPD, and his half
-brother, Mickey Haller still works as a defense attorney,  the “enemy” as far as Bosch is concerned.  Now Mickey needs Harry’s help with investigations which could free a truly innocent man and Harry wants something to do – hard as it is to “go over to the enemy” if what Haller believes about his client is true is also means a killer is still on the loose – so Bosch’s conscience is mostly relieved.  >>>>MORE>>>

Matterhorn
by Karl Marlantes
2009 / 640 pages
read by Bronson Pinchot 21h 10m
rating:  9.5   / literary war

I wasn’t even going to read this book because I tend not to like war books – even so-called “anti-war” books (movies).  But three people in the small Modern Fiction Reading Group gave the book a 10!  I thought maybe I should at least give it a try.   I mean I love Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian – that’s a 10!

So I read it – was very impressed but Marlantes is no McCarthy or Faulkner although I see the influences.  What Marlantes has written is very much his own work.

It was the language and themes and history which pushed McCarthy’s horrendously violent book up to that “10” line.  Lots of books get a 9.5 from me,  but it takes something special to lift it to “one of the best books I’ve ever read in my life.”   >>>>MORE>>>>

A Killer Among Us
by Charles Bosworth
1998 / 460 pages
read by Kevin Pierce 16h 14m
rating:  C / True Crime
(Elizabeth/Rick Decaro case)

I succumbed –  years ago I read quite a lot of True Crime – no serial killers, thank you,  I like the ones which are heavy on police and legal procedures with some good psychological reporting. Then  I got tired of them at some point,  but when Audible showed up with some good ones I hadn’t read,  well … as I said,  I succumbed.

A Killer Among Us is standard fare – background of the murder of a loving wife whose husband has been spending too much money and having an affair.  The “who done it” is not an issue.  The family of the victim and the perpetrator are in the foreground with the police and legal procedures taking second place.   >>>>MORE>>>>

The Dwarfs
by Harold Pinter
published in 1992 but written in the 1950s, 184 pages
Rating:  8  –  mid 20th century lit

I hadn’t read anything by Harold Pinter, who was the recipient of the 2005 Nobel prize in literature until now.   The Committee gave it to Pinter who,  “in his plays uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression’s closed rooms.”

Okay – so is that a clue?  We basically have three young men, Len the bus driver,  Mark who is an actor (p. 61)  and Pete, a office clerk  of some kind (p . They all live in the same small apartment which is the usual setting.   Mark insists the room is moving.   and sometimes outside. .There is also a cat in the room but sometimes it goes out – as do the characters.  In fact that’s what they all want – out –  out of the walls of the sexual and emotional limits on their lives.   >>>> MORE>>>>

The Vikings
from The Great Courses
by and read by Professor Kenneth W. Harl
rating –  NA? –  quite good –  8.5?

I started this “book”  (listening to lectures) a long time ago and am only finally finishing it.  What prompted me to really finish is that I was reading Michael Pye’s The Edge of the World and there was a chapter on Vikings specifically.   I wondered how different it would be.

Another reason for reading this – the original reason actually,  is that I’m of Norwegian ancestry on my mom’s side and one branch came from an area heavy with Vikings (Tingelstad) – my dad’s side came from Finland.  >>>>MORE>>>>

Missing Person
by Patrick Modiano ( France)
1978 (1980 Eng) / 168 pages
rating 9.5

This is the second Modiano I’ve read although the first – Suspended Sentences – is really 3 novellas in one volume, Afterimage, Suspended Sentences, and Flowers of Ruin.  I guess I can say I’m generally familiar with his work – after Missing Person anyway – the tone and style and usual substance.  I understand what the Nobel Prize committee (2014) meant when he was awarded the prize for literature for …

“…the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life world of the Occupation,”  although the Occupation is not so prominent in Missing Persons as it is in a couple of the works in Suspended Sentences.

>>>>MORE>>>> 

The Hanging Girl
by Jussi Adler-Olsen  (Danish)
2015 / (512 pages)
read by Graeme Malcolm 15h 37m
Rating  A+ / crime
#6 in the Dept. Q series

I don’t read series books back-to-back,  not normally anyway.  I usually take my time and read about one every 6 months or so unless I’m caught up and then I just wait for the new one –  but look what I did!

And on top of that I have 3 (count them) books to be read before the 1st – for reading groups.  Too bad,  I guess – I’m housecleaning big-time and need my background.  🙂   –  And I won’t finish all 3.

Besides all that – I’m hooked on the continuing characters of the Dept Q novels,  Carl Mørck the detective in charge of Cold Case Files in Copenhagen’s police department,  Assad, his assistant who is apparently exceptional at everything except revealing anything personal,  and Rose … >>>>MORE>>>> 

The Purity of Vengeance
by Jussi Adler-Olsen  (Denmark translated)
2013 / 528 pages
read by Graeme Malcolm 14h 6m
rating:  A –  crime
(Dept. Q mystery – #4 )

Eeks!   I read this earlier this month (October) but forgot to post the blog here.

I’m catching up on the Department Q mysteries – I was a bit hesitant about this one because it has less glowing reviews – still,  I know I want to read #5 so here we go.  The down side of the novel seems to be the historical aspect – there really was a sterilization program for wayward girls on the island of Sprogø in Denmarkbetween the years 1923 and 1959

The Purity of Vengeance has to do with that sorry part of Denmark’s history and the possibility of continuing racist ideas in the country.  So Adler-Olsen is writing with some  political and historical ideas involved and that changes the tenor a bit.   Oh well – the suspense remains high and I’m used to historical aspects to my fiction.   >>>>MORE>>>>

The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine
by Alexander McCall Smith
2015 / 224 pages
read by Lisette Lecat – 9h 20m
rating – A++  /  very cozy crime
#16 in the #1 Ladies Detective Agency series

Oh be still my heart!  I was waiting to know if Audible would even have book #16 because they weren’t telling us!   And the day it was due to be out in hardback came I got a fan-mail from Smith so I checked Audible (one more time) … and there it was – and even read by Lisette Lecat – the reader of the first 15.  YES!

So I finished the book I had going – Trespass by Rose Tremain –  wrote the blog piece and downloaded the Smith book.

This time Mma Grace  Makutsi has decided that Mma Precious Ramotswe, a woman “of traditional proportions” and  the owner of the Ladies’ #1 Detective Agency needs a vacation.  Now is a good time because business is slow and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, the husband of Mma Ramotswe who also owns a mechanic’s garage, agrees.  Besides, Grace Makutsi really wants to be in charge of the office.  >>>>MORE >>>>