Spin #43 for the Classics Club, February 2026

 

The latest Classics Club Spin has been announced. To join in, I choose twenty unread books from my classics list and list them in a post before Sunday, February 8th, 2026.  On Sunday, the Classics Club will generate a random number between 1 through 20 and post it at the website. Then I will read whatever book falls under that number on my Spin List by March 29th, 2026.

So, here is my list of 20 books for the spin...

1. Patricia Highsmith – The Talented Mr.Ripley (1955)
2. Madeleine L'Engle – A Wrinkle in Time (1962)
3. Graham Greene – Our Man in Havana (1958)   
4. Roald Dahl – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964)
5. Ray Bradbury – The Martian Chronicles (1950)
6. Ray Bradbury – Fahrenheit 451 (1953)
7. Robert Louis Stevenson – The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886)
8. Kurt Vonnegut – Slaughterhouse-Five  (1955)
9. John Steinbeck – Cannery Row (1945)
10. Mary Shelley – Frankenstein (1818)
11. Oscar Wilde – The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
12. J. D. Salinger – Catcher in the Rye (1951)
13. Chinua Achebe – Things Fall Apart (1958) 
14. Lewis Carroll – Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
15. Dashiell Hammett – Red Harvest (1929)   
16. Charlotte Bronte – Jane Eyre (1847)
17. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – The Sign of the Four (1892)
18. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902)
19. Edna Ferber – Giant (1952)
20. Edna Ferber – Show Boat (1926)

The four books I would most like to read for this spin are A Wrinkle in Time, The Talented Mr.Ripley, Jane Eyre, or Our Man in Havana. But, really, any of the books on my list would be fine.  

Books Read in January 2026

I am always excited to start a new year of reading. This year I would like to read one each of the following every month:

• A vintage mystery
• A mystery published between 1970 and now
• A book in any other genre, including nonfiction
• A book in eBook format
• A graphic novel or graphic nonfiction
• One classic, preferably from my Classics Club list
• One Canadian book
• One short story book

Some of these categories can overlap, so it is not as hard as it sounds (to me, at least). 

This month I read seven books and the only categories I missed are: a short story book, an eBook, and a classic. I started reading The Prime of Miss Jean Brody, which is on my Classics Club list, in eBook format, but I haven't finished it yet.

So, here are the books I read:

Nonfiction / Nature

The Backyard Bird Chronicles (2024) by Amy Tam

I always like to read about birds in fiction or nonfiction. I was expecting to enjoy this book because of the format, similar to a diary, and the illustrations, which were a mix of rough sketches and very polished, detailed bird portraits. Amy Tan did all of the illustrations herself. The text was very informal; Tan took drawing lessons and she delighted in discovering birds that were new to her and drawing them so that she could identify them later. She talked a lot about mating behavior and which birds mate for life. I loved her enthusiasm for the subject. The book covered part of 2017 through 2022. It was the perfect book for me. 

Graphic Nonfiction

What I Hate: From A to Z  (2011) by Roz Chast

This is a very short book, 64 pages, about twice the length of the average children's picture book and in the same format. Chast has illustrated twenty six of the things she hates (or is very anxious about), one for each letter of the alphabet. It is the first book by Chast that I have read, although I have admired her cartoons in the New Yorker for years. What we hate or are anxious about is very personal. So, although some of the things that cause anxiety in Roz Chast seemed silly to me, who am I to judge? The book is fun and funny.

Fiction

I See You Called in Dead (2025) John Kenney

I borrowed this book from my husband, before he had even read it. The protagonist works for a newspaper writing obituaries. He likes his job, but his life changes for the worse when his wife divorces him. He loses any zest for life that he had, starts drinking to excess, and ends up writing his own obituary. And publishes it. He is immediately suspended, but he is still getting paid, so he has plenty of time to wallow in self-pity. Fortunately he has caring friends and meets some new ones. These characters are the ones who make this book so satisfying. This book is described as humorous, and it has plenty of humor, but I would say it tends more towards sadness than humor. Just a warning. I thoroughly enjoyed it but parts of it are heartbreakingly sad. 

Historical Fiction

Old Filth (2004) by Jane Gardam

I could not decide whether to call this Historical Fiction or not. It begins and ends in the early years of the 21st century, but most of the story is about the years between World War I and through World War II. It is the first book in a trilogy by Jane Gardam and I will be reading book 2 for sure. See my thoughts on the book.

Crime Fiction

Hidden Agenda (1985) by Anna Porter

This is mystery by a Canadian author, set in Toronto, New York, and London. The main protagonist is Judith Hayes, a single mother and journalist based in Toronto who has ties to various publishing houses. The story starts with the death of a man run over by a subway car. Inspector Parr talks to Judith Hayes, who had a meeting with the man, an editor in a publishing house, just hours before he died. The police tend to think it was suicide. Judith says he gave no indication in the meeting that he would commit suicide. Then more deaths occur in publishing houses, all seemingly connected to a missing manuscript. The stakes keep escalating and it seemed to be a  cross between spy fiction and a political conspiracy plot. I admit that it strained my ability to suspend disbelief, but I liked the characters and the international locations and the look at the publishing industry. The author was a publisher for many years in Canada. 

The Murder at the End of the World (2024) by Stuart Turton

This book is a dystopian mystery. The story is very convoluted. There are two sets of characters on an island that has been isolated by an event in the past. The island is run by three elders, who have lived very long lives (over 100 years) and all have scientific or engineering backgrounds. The larger group on the island function to serve them, and all have lives limited to 60 years. One day, one of the elders is killed and this leads to the whole island being threatened by a poisonous atmosphere that will kill them all if they don't solve the murder. I was confused most of the time, and I think that was intentional. In the end it all came together and made sense. The book has two elements I love in a mystery: a lovely map of the island on the endpapers of the book and a list of characters.

Death of a Busybody (1942) by George Bellairs

When I sat down to write my thoughts on this book, I was dismayed to realize that I don't remember much about the plot of this story. Yet I do remember that I enjoyed reading the book and I plan to keep reading this series. Basically, the title describes the major plot element. A busybody, Miss Tither, who lives in a very small village, Hillary Magna, is killed. She has no friends. She snoops on people, offers her advice, and interferes in their lives. When she is killed, the local police are unable to handle the investigation and Inspector Littlejohn is called in to help. The procedure of tracking down the clues and suspects is not exciting, but the way the police work together and the relationships within the village are interesting, and there is subtle humor throughout. The final solution was much more complex than I expected, but it was very satisfying. The Inspector Littlejohn series has at least 50 novels in it, and many are available at affordable prices as eBooks.

The photos at the bottom and top of the post are of plants we purchased in early Summer of 2025. They were sitting on the patio waiting to be repotted. The photos were taken and processed by my husband. Click on the images for the best viewing quality.

 

Short Story Wednesday: USA Noir

 

I have had a copy of USA Noir for nearly 10 years, and this is the first time I have read any stories from the book. It contains stories selected from 37 USA-based original noir anthologies published by Akashic. The series started in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. I do recognize a large percentage of the authors with stories in this book, but there are some that I don't recognize. Today I stuck with authors I have read before. 

There are Six Sections. Some of them sound pretty dark and unwelcoming, others are ambiguous.

• True Grit
• American Values
• Road Rage
• Homeland Security
• Under the Influence
• Street Justice  

I liked all three of the stories that I read and they are all different. They illustrate the variety of stories found in the Akashic Noir anthologies.

From the Road Rage section:

"Our Eyes Couldn’t Stop Opening" by Megan Abbott is a suspense-filled story about high school girls wanting to escape their boundaries. It is told in first person by a member of a clique; the setting is Grosse Pointe in Detroit, where the author grew up. The narrator follows around a former friend who is getting wilder and wilder in her behavior. It is beautifully written and very dark.

First published in Detroit Noir, in 2007. Megan Abbott has written twelve crime fiction novels, all of them standalone thrillers. 

From the Under the Influence section:

"Lighthouse" by S.J. Rozan is about a thief who is troubled by voices in his head. The voices urge him to rob various locations to get money to buy drugs. He thinks of the voices as aliens who have taken residence in his brain. I have read lots of stories by Rozan and most of them are lighter than this one. Very sad, although the ending is not a total downer.

First published in Staten Island Noir in 2012. S.J. Rozan writes the Lydia Chin / Bill Smith mystery series, mostly set in New York City's Chinatown.

From the Homeland Security section:

"Loot" by Julie Smith is set in the Garden District of New Orleans.  It is a very convoluted story about the devastation in New Orleans after Katrina and the looting that resulted. Smith packed a lot of story into 11 pages. It did not seem very noir to me; for such a serious subject, it was surprisingly light and in some ways uplifting.

First published in New Orleans Noir in 2007. Julie Smith was also the editor of that anthology. She has written two mystery series, the Skip Langdon series set in New Orleans and the Rebecca Schwartz series set in San Francisco.

Old Filth: Jane Gardam

 

Description from the paperback edition I read...

Filth, in his heyday, was an international lawyer with a practice in the Far East. Now, only the oldest QCs and Silks can remember that his nickname stood for Failed In London Try Hong Kong. 

Long ago, Old Filth was a Raj orphan – one of the many young children sent 'home' from the East to be fostered and educated in England. Jane Gardam's new novel tells his story, from his birth in what was then Malaya to the extremities of his old age. In so doing, she not only encapsulates a whole period from the glory days of the British Empire, through the Second World War, to the present and beyond, but also illuminates the complexities of the character known variously as Eddie, The Judge, Fevvers, Filth, Master of the Inner Temple, Teddy and Sir Edward Feathers.

Teddy Feathers acquired the name "Old Filth" when he was in Hong Kong. FILTH is an acronym for Failed in London Try Hong Kong. When it first came into usage, it was an insult, but later did not have that negative connotation.

The story begins when Teddy is living in Dorset with Betty, his wife. They are both in their late 70s and live a very isolated life. The story jumps around, from his childhood in Wales living with a foster family, to the years that he spends in boarding school and then prep school. When World War II starts, Teddy's father has him evacuated to Singapore, at the age of eighteen, which he finds mortifying. The story covers very little of his time working in Singapore and later in London.

My Thoughts:

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Old Filth. Teddy Feathers is a wonderful character. He had a sad life, but the story is not depressing. 

I will admit that the hopping around to various times in his childhood was confusing for me at times. Normally, I like that format of story telling, but in this case it may have been a problem because I did not have much knowledge of the time before World War II in the UK, and the relationships between the UK and various Asian countries. As usual, that makes me want to read more about the period (and any suggestions are welcome). There is a 2nd book, The Man in the Wooden Hat, telling the story from his wife's point of view, and I look forward to reading that.

I also want to try more of Jane Gardam's books. In an interview at the Guardian, from 2011, Gardam said "that's what all my books are about, the end of empire," and I think that would be interesting reading. If you have any to recommend, let me know.

Books Read in November and December 2025

 

I had some very good reading in both November and December of 2025. Seven books per month. I completed two short story books, which is unusual. I usually read a few stories from a collection and take forever to finish the book. Plus two nonfiction books! And a book from my Classics Club list. I managed to complete my goal of reading six books by Elizabeth Strout in 2025.

So here are the 14 books I read...

Nonfiction

Eight Days in May (2020) by Volker Ullrich, translated by Jefferson Chase

The subtitle of this book is "The Final Collapse of the Third Reich." My husband suggested this book to me. It was a perfect nonfiction read for me and the text was very readable, not dry at all. It covers the events that took place in Germany in the eight days following Hitler's death by suicide on April 30, 1945. May 8th, 1945 was the day when Germany unconditionally surrendered to the Allied forces. I learned so much about the events in Germany at that time. The book was a good length, 271 pages of text, plus a section of notes citing the author's sources. Volker Ullrich is a German historian and journalist.

Dear California (2023), edited by David Kipen

I borrowed this book from my husband; he read it in 2024 and liked it a lot. I read it off and on throughout 2025. For the most part I found this to be a very interesting book, but it had its highs and lows. Some of the entries are over a page long, but many are only a few sentences. The entries for each day may cover several years, sometimes as early as the 1600s or the 1800s, and others as late as 2020, during the height of Covid. That can be confusing at times. 

Examples of events covered:  For April 18 there are two entries for 1906, immediately after the San Francisco Earthquake. The third entry is from Dylan Thomas, while in Hollywood, to his wife back in Laugharne, a town on the south coast of Carmarthenshire, Wales. The entries from various famous writers who spent some time in Hollywood were especially interesting; same for the entries from people who were interned in the American internment camps during World War II.

Fiction

The Women (2024) by Kristin Hannah

One of the author's goals in writing this book was to recognize the contribution of the women in the armed forces who went to Vietnam and worked as nurses in the hospitals which were near to the fighting. I don't think the book was perfect, but I learned so much about the Vietnam War between 1966 - 1968, and the role of the nurses in the hospitals there, that it eliminated all quibbles that I had with the book. I was born in 1948, and I felt like I should have known much more about the events that took place there. About half of the book is about the years that the protagonist was in Vietnam, and the second half is about her return to the US and the difficulties of adjusting to normal life and dealing with the traumas that she experienced in Vietnam. Not a fun book but an important one, for me.

Lucy by the Sea (2022) and Tell Me Everything (2024) by Elizabeth Strout

I read Oh, William! by Strout in early October. I read Lucy by the Sea and Tell Me Everything in November. I have loved all the books that feature Lucy Barton. But I find it almost impossible to review them. Personally, I would not have enjoyed reading them if I had known much about the books in advance. In My Name is Lucy Barton, Lucy tells of one event in her life while she is married to William, and I really disliked him in that story. In each succeeding novel about their relationship I grew to understand him and Lucy more. Lucy by the Sea takes place during the Covid-19 pandemic. In Tell Me Everything, Olive Kitteridge meets Lucy, and Bob Burgess plays a bigger part. I loved all of those books.

Goodbye to Berlin (1939) by Christopher Isherwood 

This book was on my Classics Club List. I did not particularly enjoy reading it, I found it too depressing, but I think I am in the minority. Before reading it, I did not realize that it is a series of six connected short stories. "Sally Bowles" is about one of the characters in the film, Cabaret, although I did not see many similarities between the story and the film. I liked the connections between the stories, although it took me a while to pick up on some of them. "On Ruegen Island" is about three young men spending the summer on an island.  "The Nowaks" is about a strange and impoverished family that Christopher lives with; Otto Nowak was one of the characters in the previous story. In "The Nowaks", they talk about the Landauer family, which is the subject of the fifth story.

Anxious People (2019) by Fredrik Backman, translated by Neil Smith

This is another book that is really impossible for me to describe. This is only the second book I read by Backman. I was very impressed by this book; it is very humorous, but it also has its sad moments and talks about some serious subjects, such as suicide, divorce, losing a spouse to an illness. A person decides to rob a bank, but they don't really know what they are doing and it ends up turning into a hostage situation. I found the book very confusing at times, but still very readable and uplifting. My favorite characters are the two policemen.

Mystery / Time Travel / Science Fiction

The Frozen People (2025) by Elly Griffiths

This is the start of a new time travel/mystery series. Ali Dawson is a detective in a Cold Case department, and the group attempts to solve crimes by going back in time for clues. I liked the premise, the characters, and the story was good. The level of tension was just right. Some of the story strains disbelief, but the story is enough fun that I was not bothered by that.

Crime Fiction

El Dorado Drive (2025) by Megan Abbott

The first book I read by Megan Abbott was Queenpin, which won an Edgar award. It was a great book, beautifully written, but also very, very tense. I knew I would like the setting of El Dorado Drive (Detroit, Grosse Point, in 2008-2009, when the economy was in such bad shape) and it was not as tense as I expected. It is a thriller; I found it to be fast-paced, a page turner. And it is about a family of three sisters, and their money problems. The family relationships pulled me in. Some reviewers talked about it being too slow but I did not see that at all. So I will be reading more by Abbott. I have three of her novels, including Turnout, Beware the Woman, and You Will Know Me.

The Guest List (2020) by Lucy Foley

I was surprised that I ended up reading two thrillers in December. They were both entertaining, but El Dorado Drive had more depth. The Guest List is set on a tiny isolated island off the coast of Ireland; the characters are on the island to attend the wedding of a TV star and the publisher of a well-known magazine. Many of the characters have baggage from their childhoods; most are unlikeable and/or superficial. 

Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death (2012) by James Runcie

The Grantchester Mysteries is a series of short story collections by James Runcie. The stories are all connected and follow the investigations of Sidney Chambers, a vicar in Grantchester. There were only six short stories in the collection, and they are all novella length. I covered two of the short stories HERE and HERE.

The Shanghai Moon (2009) by S.J. Rozan

This was a reread of the ninth book in the Lydia Chin & Bill Smith series. I read it about 15 years ago, and I remember at the time I did not enjoy the story, even though Rozan is one of my favorite authors. I have no idea why I did not like it originally, because the subject matter is something I am currently interested in. Lydia is working on a job to help recover stolen jewels that once belonged to a Jewish refugee who fled from Austria to Shanghai in 1938, so it includes some history from that pre-WWII time. For me, the biggest attraction of this series are the characters. Not only are the main characters interesting, but Lydia's family members who have recurring roles in the books are well done, and many of the secondary characters are fully developed. After this reread, I rank this book as a favorite in the series.

The Big Four (1927) by Agatha Christie

I have read many negative comments on The Big Four, but in my opinion it is not that bad. It is sort of spy fiction and adventure. I certainly would not recommend this one as anyone's first Poirot book; it is not representative of the series. I mostly enjoyed the interplay between Captain Hastings and Poirot, and did not take the plot all that seriously. I read that the novel was a mashup of several short stories that Christie wrote earlier, and that explains why it feels disjointed and disorganized at times.

Christmas Stalkings (1991) edited by Charlotte Macleod

This was the second Christmas short story anthology edited by Charlotte MacLeod. All of the stories in the book appeared in print for the first time in this book. I covered all of the stories in this book in three posts in December. My favorite short story in the book was "A Political Necessity" by Robert Barnard (reviewed here), although all of them were good.

End of Year notes

I read 78 books in 2025, compared to 89 in 2024. The longest book I read was 800 pages: The Charm School by Nelson DeMille. The average number of pages for the books I read was 323. In 2024, that number was 302, which means I must have read more longer books in 2025.

• I read less mysteries than last year, 40 as compared to 48 in 2023. Only 6 of the mysteries published were before 1970, which is a big change from my early blogging years, but in line with last year's reading.
• I read 6 nonfiction books.
• My reading included 13 books in the science fiction or fantasy genres, which is higher than last year.
• I read 16 novels that I categorize as general fiction.

• I completed 8 short story books, and read 16 books by authors from Japan, Ireland, Canada, Denmark, Argentina, Australia, and Germany.

My Results for the 52 Book Club Reading Challenge 2025

 

This year I participated in the 52 Book Club’s 2025 Reading Challenge. It is a self-led challenge and how you decide to participate is up to you. 

There are 52 prompts and that is challenging, but of course each person can determine how many prompts they want to do. There is a guide that explains each prompt and there are lists on Goodreads with examples. I think I only skipped 5 of the prompts. 

I liked that the challenge added more variety and unexpected books to my reading, but I did not read any book only because it fulfilled a prompt. The prompts either led me to books on my TBR piles (which are huge) or my own reading fit into the prompts. 

So I will be doing the 52 Book Club’s 2026 Reading Challenge this year and see where that takes me.

These are the prompts for the 2025 challenge and the books I read for them:

1. A Pun In The Title

Come Death and High Water by Ann Cleeves

2. A Character With Red Hair

The Women by Kristin Hannah

3. Title Starts With Letter "M"

A Meditation on Murder by Susan Juby

4. Title Starts With Letter "N"

Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee

5. Plot Includes A Heist

   The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules by Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg 

[For Prompts 6-9, each Prompt had to be from a different genre.]

6. Genre 1: Set In Spring

Before Your Memory Fails by Tochikazu Kawaguchi [Time Travel]

7. Genre 2: Set In Summer

A Death in Summer by Benjamin Black [Mystery]

8. Genre 3: Set In Autumn

The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland by Jim DeFede [Nonfiction]

9. Genre 4: Set In Winter

A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson [Historical Fiction]

10. Author's Last Name Is Also A First Name

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

11. A Prequel

12. Has A Moon On The Cover

The Shanghai Moon by S. J. Rozan

13. Title Is Ten Letters Or Less

Here by Richard McGuire

14. Climate Fiction

15. Includes Latin American History

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

16. Author Has Won An Edgar Award

El Dorado Drive by Megan Abbott

17. Told In Verse

18. A Character Who Can Fly

Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett

19. Has Short Chapters

The Killing of the Tinkers by Ken Bruen

20. A Fairy Tale Retelling

21. Character's Name In The Title

Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout

22. Found Family Trope

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

23. A Sprayed Edge

Can't Spell Treason Without Tea by Rebecca Thorne

24. Title Is A Spoiler

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson

25. Breaks The Fourth Wall

Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson

26. More Than A Million Copies Sold

27. Features A Magician

Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb

28. A Crossover (Set In A Shared Universe)

The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout

29. Shares A Universe With Prompt 28

Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout

30. In The Public Domain

The Big Four by Agatha Christie

31. Audiobook Has Multiple Narrators

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

32. Includes A Diary Entry

Eight Days in May: The Final Collapse of the Third Reich by Volker Ullrich

(My husband chose the Genre: Nonfiction about World War II.)

33. A Standalone Novel

The Thursday Night Widows by Claudia Piñeiro

34. Direction In The Title

Star of the North by D. B. John

35. Written In Third Person

Death By Accident by Bill Crider

36. Final Sentence Is Less Than 6 Words Long

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

37. Genre Chosen For You By Someone Else

At the Table of Wolves by Kay Kenyon

(My son chose the Genre: Alternate History, and he also suggested this Alternate History / Fantasy / Spy Fiction crossover.)

38. An Adventure Story

The Murder of Mr. Ma by S.J. Rozan and John Shen Yen Nee

39. Has An Epigraph

Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore

40. Stream Of Consciousness Narrative

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

41. Cover Font Is In A Primary Color

The Charm School by Nelson DeMille

42. Non-Human Antagonist

Exit Strategy by Martha Wells

43. Explores Social Class

Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death by James Runcie

44. A Celebrity On The Cover

Perplexing Plots by David Bordwell (Gene Tierney)

45. Author Releases More Than One Book A Year

At Bertram's Hotel by Agatha Christie

46. Read In A "-Ber" Month

Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood

47. "I Think It Was Blue"

Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout

48. Related To The Word "Puzzle"

The Amateur by Robert Littell (Puzzle Piece on the cover.)

49. Set In A Country With An Active Volcano

Silent Parade by Keigo Higashino (Japan)

50. Set In The 1940's 

The '44 Vintage by Anthony Price

51. A Book With 300-400 Pages

A Death in Tokyo by Keigo Higashino

52. Published in 2025

The Frozen People by Elly Griffiths