Books Read in June 2025

 

I read six books in June, and all of them were from my 20 Books of Summer list. I liked all the books; four of them were upbeat and fun; two of them were more serious and somewhat depressing.

Fiction 

Table for Two (2024) by Amor Towles

This is a short story collection. There are six stories plus one 220 page novella. The short stories are all set in New York City. See my post on some of the short stories here.

In the novella, "Eve in Hollywood," Towles returns to a character in his first novel, Rules of Civility. I did read that book, but I don't think you need to have read it to enjoy the story. "Eve in Hollywood" is set in the Golden Age of Hollywood, and it features Olivia de Havilland as a character. I enjoyed the novella very much.

The Burgess Boys (2013) by Elizabeth Strout

I have read four books by Elizabeth Strout, and I have rated all very highly, but they are always difficult reads, with hard to like characters and family difficulties. This one is my favorite so far. My review here.

Fantasy / Time Travel

Oona Out of Order (2020) by Margarita Montidore

I read this book because I like time travel books and this one was on a list of "time loop" novels (the film Groundhog Day is a good example of a time loop). In this book, Oona jumps from one year to another year in her life, randomly. I liked it. I have been thinking about it off and on since I read it. But it can be frustrating. My review here.

Crime Fiction

Death by Accident (1998) by Bill Crider

This book was my first read for 20 Books of Summer. The Sheriff Dan Rhodes series by Bill Crider is set in a small town in Blacklin County, a fictional county in Texas. It is a cozy series; Sheriff Rhodes solves crime mostly with his intuition and avoids computers where possible. Death by Accident is the 9th book in the series. See my review.

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone (2022) by Benjamin Stevenson

This story takes place at a remote ski resort in Australia, where Ern Cunningham's family is having a family reunion. They are coming together because Ern's brother is getting out of prison, after having killed a man. Family relationships are strained. Shortly after the majority of the family arrives, a man's frozen body is found near the resort,  and the weather begins to get very bad, threatening to snow in all the guests.

This is a very unusual mystery. Ern Cunningham, who is narrating the story, writes books about how to write mysteries. The books starts with a list of classic rules for mysteries as published by Ronald Knox in 1929. So it is a traditional fair play mystery, but of course there is lots of misdirection in the clues, and for the most part the author kept me fooled for most of the book. I enjoyed the book, although I sometimes got frustrated with the repetition of the "rules." I liked it enough so that I will read the next one to see how it goes.

A Death in Summer (2011) by Benjamin Black

This is the fourth book in the Quirke series written by John Banville, under the name Benjamin Black. Quirke is a pathologist in Dublin, Ireland in the 1950s. He often is called in to examine dead bodies before they are moved, and to perform autopsies. Inspector Hackett will sometimes seek his advice on crimes, when he thinks the case is tricky. I like the slow pace of the writing and the emphasis on the characters as much or more than the crime investigation. I like the continuing characters. This one was about a sordid subject, and depressing. Yet I will persist and read more of them. 

The photos at the top and bottom of this post are recent pictures of plants in our back yard patio area. The top photo is of a cuphea plant (on the left) and a blue sage plant that are hummingbird attractors. They have been doing a good job of attracting hummingbirds and bees.

The two photos below are closer shots of blue sage plants. We have two other pots of those plants in the back. I love the little buds on the blue sage. Click on the images for best viewing quality.

Short Story Wednesday: "The Bootlegger" by Amor Towles

This story is from Table for Two, a short story collection by Amor Towles. Table for Two is book #3 that I am reading for my 20 Books of Summer. 

"The Bootlegger" is my favorite short story in the book, and it was the one that affected me emotionally the most. The story was told by Tommy's wife, Mary. Mary and Tommy's two young children were finally old enough that they could take one night a week to go out and get away from the kids. So, in the month of April, they were attending a concert series at Carnegie Hall every Saturday night. This is not Mary's idea of a great night out but it is what Tommy has chosen, so that is what they are doing.

At all of the concerts, Mary and Tommy are seated right next to an older man, and Tommy has noticed that the man is recording the show. Tommy is incensed. Mary tells him not to worry, it is just a harmless old man who loves music, but Tommy will not let it go. By the third Saturday concert, Tommy is so perturbed and outraged that he leaves his seat to go report the man to the usher.

From that point on, things don't go the way that Tommy expects. The story is not especially fun or uplifting but it is a compelling story and very well told. 

I like the way that Towles builds up the story bit by bit and along the way reveals a lot about the characters and their relationships. 

From the book's dust jacket:

Millions of Amor Towles' fans are in for a treat as he shares some of his shorter fiction: six stories based in New York City and a novella set in Golden Age Hollywood. 

The New York stories, most of which take place around the year 2000, consider the fateful consequences that can spring from brief encounters and the delicate mechanics of compromise that operate at the heart of modern marriages.

At this point I have read the six short stories in the book and they are all good stories, all between 30 to 40 pages. There were two other short stories that I especially liked: "Hasta Luega" and "I Will Survive." 

I have not read the novella yet, but I do want to point out that it is 220 pages long in the hardback edition I read, and that does not fit my definition of a novella. 

In the novella, "Eve in Hollywood," Towles returns to a character in his first novel, Rules of Civility. It has been long enough since I read the book and I don't remember much about any of the characters; I am assuming that won't make any difference to my enjoyment of the story.

Check out another review at FictionFan's Book Reviews with her thoughts on each story.

Books Read in May 2024

 

I read more books than I expected to in May, a total of nine books. Those books included a graphic novel, a book on my classics club list, a science fiction book, and a time travel book.

Graphic novel

The Book Tour (2019) by Andi Watson

This is a graphic novel with a Kafkaesque storyline. A man goes on a book tour with a suitcase of his books. The suitcase is stolen, so he has no books to sell or sign. He goes to book signing after book signing where no one turns up to see him. A confusing story, but I liked it, both the story and the art.

Fiction

The Lincoln Highway (2021) by Amor Towles

I started this book in April and it took me 10 days to read it. It was the only book on my list that I did not enjoy reading. It is about three young men, all 18 years old, traveling across the United States. The main character, Emmett, has a younger brother, Billy, who is traveling with them. Emmett's plan is to drive from his childhood home in Nebraska to Texas, but the trip eventually leads them in a different direction. All of that sounds good but I did not really grow to like any of the main characters. Yet I found the ending to be satisfying.

The Warden (1859) by Anthony Trollope

I read this for the last Classics Club spin, and I was happy to finally read something by Trollope. This one is the first book in the Chronicles of Barsetshire, and I will be reading more in that series. See my review here.

Science Fiction

The Kaiju Preservation Society (2022) by John Scalzi

This is simply a very fun and funny science fiction novel. The following quote is from the author's notes at the end of the book: “KPS is not, and I say this with absolutely no slight intended, a brooding symphony of a novel. It’s a pop song. It’s meant to be light and catchy, with three minutes of hooks and choruses for you to sing along with, and then you’re done and you go on with your day, hopefully with a smile on your face. I had fun writing this, and I needed to have fun writing this. We all need a pop song from time to time, particularly after a stretch of darkness.”

Time Travel 

A Rip Through Time (2022) by Kelley Armstrong

This novels spans many genres: crime fiction, historical fiction, and time travel. It is part of a trilogy and I will be reading the next two books. See my review here. 

Crime Fiction

What Was Lost (2007) by Catherine O'Flynn

A young girl, ten years old, lives with her grandmother; her goal is to be a detective, and run her own detective agency. She has few friends, hates school, and entertains herself with investigating cases that she has made up. The remaining portions of the book take place in 2004 and 2005, 20 years later, and focus on Kurt, a security guard in the Green Oaks Mall, and Lisa, an employee at a large record store in the mall. My review here.

Newcomer (2001) by Keigo Higashino

Translated by Giles Murray

This Japanese mystery seems at first to be a straightforward police procedural, but the structure of the story is unusual. The case involves the death of a woman who has recently moved to the Nihonbashi area of Tokyo. Each chapter features a location (usually a shop) at which Kaga interviews various prospective witnesses or suspects, and each chapter reads almost like a self-contained short story. See my review here.

Corpse in a Gilded Cage (1984) by Robert Barnard

When the eleventh Earl of Ellesmere dies, Perce Spender, a working-class Londoner, inherits the title and the estate. He is a simple man with simple tastes and doesn't want to live in the huge family estate; he plans to sell everything, but it isn't that simple. His three children and their hangers-on come to stay at the estate for his 60th birthday party. Perce Spender is just about the only likable character in the book. I always enjoy books by Robert Barnard. This one is very, very funny, even with all the unsympathetic characters.

Salt Lane (2018) by William Shaw

I was very glad I read SALT LANE by William Shaw. I had been put off by DS Alexandra Cupidi in THE BIRDWATCHER, but in this start to a new series starring Cupidi, she is a more appealing character. It isn't that there a complete reversal of her behavior but that we get to see more of her background and her family and why she came to work in a small seaside town in Kent. One of the aspects of this book that I especially love is that Cupidi's teenage daughter Zoë is a serious birdwatcher and there are scenes describing birds and bird enthusiasts. And the setting is wonderful.

Currently reading and what's next?

I am reading A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers. It is in the science fiction genre, the second book in the Wayfarers series. I am loving it.

After having two cataract surgeries in June, I am much behind in my blogging, and I am trying to catch up. I hope to review a few of the books I read in June and put up a summary post for that month and then get back on track to some extent by the end of July. 

 

The photos at the top and bottom of this post were taken in late May at the I Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival. It was held at Mission Santa Barbara over the Memorial Day weekend, on May 25-27, 2024. Click on the images for best viewing quality.

2021 Overview and Reading in December

 

2021 statistics ...

In 2021 I read 105 books. I usually aim at 84 books in a year, which would be seven books a month. In 2020 I read 113 books.

My reading continues to be focused on mystery novels. This year I read 69 mystery novels, which is less than last year. That group includes any historical mysteries and spy fiction I read. Of that total, 27 were published in 1960 or before, 26 were published between 1960 and 1999, 12 were published between 2000 and 2018, and only 4 were published in 2019-2021. The mysteries were divided almost equally between male and female authors. 

Other fiction reading was divided thus:

• Science fiction: 7
• Fantasy: 2
• General fiction: 8
• Historical fiction: 11

All of those numbers are up from last year, and I am pleased with that. I would like to read more science fiction in 2022.

I continued reading short stories every month, but I only completed one book of short stories. I have sampled stories from a lot of short story collections and anthologies, and I need to finish more of them this year. 

My nonfiction reading was much lower than last year. I only read 6 books in that genre. Of all the books I read, only 6 books were from my Classics List. That is another area I need to improve on. 

And now, on to books read in December 2021...

General Fiction

The Last Noel (2002) by Michael Malone

This book was set at Christmas and has a definite Christmas theme. It takes place in the small town of Moors, North Carolina. Noni (real name Noelle) is the daughter of the Tilden family, a rich and privileged family that has lived in the area for many years.  Kaye is the grandson of the Tilden's black maid, who has worked for the Tilden family for years. Kaye and Noni's relationship is viewed through twelve Christmases, starting in 1963 and ending in 2003. See review here.

High Rising (1933) by Angela Thirkell

This was one of the books set at Christmas, at least partially. I have been hearing about the Barsetshire series by Thirkell for years. At first I thought that they were not for me, but recently I became curious and decided I had to read one and I wanted to start at the beginning. I am glad I tried it, it was an entertaining read. I hope to continue the series, but there are 29 books in the series, so maybe that is a bit much. I will try to get through the books written during the war years, which is about half of them. 

Historical Fiction

Rules of Civility (2011) by Amor Towles

This is not a Christmas book, really, but the main story starts on New Year's Eve in 1937 and ends with a surprise Christmas gift two days before Christmas in 1938, so it felt like holiday reading to me. I loved this book. See review here.

Crime Fiction

Spence And The Holiday Murders (1977) by Michael Allen

This is the first book in the Detective Chief Superintendent Ben Spence series. It was an enjoyable read, the type of book I enjoy now and then, but it was a pretty standard 1970s police procedural. But is was set in the UK and around Christmas time, so a timely read.

Murder in the Snow: A Cotswold Christmas Mystery  (1950) by Gladys Mitchell

This book was originally published as Groaning Spinney, and it was the 23rd book in the Mrs. Bradley series. I read it as a part of a group read hosted at Jason Half's blog; there is commentary there from the group in four parts. It begins here and the final post is here.

As the subtitle above indicates, some of the action takes place at Christmas, when Mrs. Bradley is visiting her nephew and his wife, but the Christmas festivities are over very quickly. The investigation continues for months afterwards. I love the setting in the Cotswold and there are treks through the rural areas there. My only complaint is that the investigation drags on and on.

Pictures of Perfection (1994) by Reginald Hill

The 14th book in the Dalziel & Pascoe series. Pascoe is sent to a small village in Yorkshire to investigate the disappearance of one of their uniformed officers. Coincidentally, Sergeant Wield had just a few days previously stopped in the village on the way back from vacation and had a mild altercation with the missing village policeman. When he gets back from vacation, he is also sent to investigate, but neither of them finds any evidence of what has happened to the missing man. This entry in the series is Reginald Hill's version of a village cozy, and has much more humor than usual. 

Fortune Favors the Dead (2020) by Stephen Spotswood

This was Spotswood's debut novel and the first in the Pentecost and Parker series. The author is a fan of the Nero Wolfe series by Rex Stout and used it as inspiration in coming up with this detective duo. Since Rex Stout is my favorite mystery writer, I had to try the series. Lillian Pentecost is a successful private detective in her forties but she has multiple schlerosis and her health is failing. She hires Willowjean Parker, a young woman who ran off to work in the circus when she was 15, to be her assistant and offers to provide training in many areas. They are the perfect pair, and I loved the story. 

My husband took this photo at Mackenzie Park in Santa Barbara. The photo at the top of the post was taken at Lake Los Carneros located near Stow House in Santa Barbara County. Click on the images for best viewing quality.

Six Degrees of Separation: From Rules of Civility to The Quickening

The Six Degrees of Separation meme is hosted by Kate at booksaremyfavoriteandbest. The idea behind the meme is to start with a book and use common points between two books to end up with links to six books, forming a chain. The common points may be obvious, like a word in the title or a shared theme, or more personal. Every month Kate provides the title of a book as the starting point.

The starting point this month is Rules of Civility by Amor Towles. The main story in that book begins on New Year's Eve in 1937, and ends shortly before Christmas in 1938, so it is very appropriate for this time of year. I own that book and when I saw that Kate had picked it for the beginning of the chain for January 2022, I decided to read it in December. My review is here.

In the Preface to Rules of Civility, the book's heroine, Katey, is attending an exhibition of photographs by Walker Evans at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The exhibition is Many Are Called, the first exhibit of the portraits taken by Walker Evans in the late 1930s on the New York subway with a hidden camera. She sees two photos of a man she knew in 1938, which leads her to remembering that year in her life. Thus my first link is to Walker Evans at Work, part of my husband's collection of photography books. 

The subtitle for this book is "745 Photographs Together with Documents Selected from Letters, Memoranda, Interviews and Notes." There are photographs from Walker Evans' projects throughout his life, with notes on how they were chosen, and how he worked. Often there are several versions of photos, not just the ones chosen for publication or viewing. The book includes several pages of subway photographs, and various drafts of explanations how the photos were achieved with a hidden camera. Check this link for photos from the Many are Called collection.

From photos taken on the subway, I move to The Taking of Pelham One Two Three by John Godey, which is primarily set on one subway train in New York City. 

Subway train Pelham One Two Three is hijacked by four men: an ex-mercenary soldier; a former motorman (driver) for the subway; an ex-Mafia crook; and one man hired mainly for his muscle. They demand a $1 million ransom, or else hostages will be killed. The book was published in 1973 and it was adapted to film in 1974. I enjoyed both book and film. My review here.

For my next book, I chose another one set in New York City. The Art of Violence is the thirteenth book in S.J. Rozan's series about private investigators Lydia Chin and Bill Smith. Bill lives in Manhattan; Lydia is an American-born Chinese who lives in New York’s Chinatown. This one is set in the art world of New York. Bill's client Sam Tabor, just out of prison after a five-year homicide stint, is a very talented painter who is convinced that he has killed two women. My review here.

Death of a Ghost, published in 1934 by Margery Allingham, also focuses on the world of art. This one is set in London. Belle Lafcadio's husband was a famous painter, and he instructed his agent to exhibit twelve of his pictures, one every year, after his death. A murder is committed at the event when the eighth painting is unveiled. Albert Campion, Margery Allingham's detective and a friend of Belle, investigates. This was the 6th book in the Campion series. My review here.

From "ghost" in the title of the previous book, I move to The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi. With this book, I move away from crime fiction to military science fiction. When I read this book I had never read any military science fiction, but really it isn't much different from other books in the science fiction genre. The "ghosts" used in the Special Forces in this book are clones of dead soldiers turned into perfect soldiers for dealing with challenging situations. I especially liked the characters in this book: the portrayals of the humans working at all levels, the portrayals of the alien species.  Also moral issues surrounding the use of clones bred to defend earth and its colonies are explored. My review here.

Continuing with the "ghost" theme, my last book is The Quickening by Rhiannon Ward (who also writes as Sarah Ward). This is a suspense novel with gothic elements, spooky and sort of creepy. It is set in 1925 and highlights how many families lost sons and fathers to World War I. The main character is a female photographer who is documenting the contents of an estate that is in disrepair and being sold. There is an excellent subplot about a séance that took place back in 1896, and its continuing effects on the family. I felt like the ending left it open whether there was an actual ghost at work in this story or not, but the possibility of a ghost on the estate is important to the plot.

So my chain moves from Rules of Civility, a historical novel set in New York, to a book about the photographs of an important photographer, on to two crime novels set in New York City, then to the art world in London in the 1930s, next to a science fiction novel, and ends in the British countryside at a possibly haunted estate.

Next month's Six Degrees on February 5, 2022 will start with No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood.

Rules of Civility: Amor Towles

I found Amor Towles' Rules of Civility to be an excellent book. It was one of those that took me at least a quarter of the book to settle into and enjoy, and then, as I got close to finishing, I didn't want it to end.

The book starts with a Preface set in New York City in 1966. Katey, who narrates the story, tells of an art exhibition she attended with her husband Val.

On the night of October 4th, 1966, Val and I, both in late middle age, attended the opening of Many Are Called at the Museum of Modern Art—the first exhibit of the portraits taken by Walker Evans in the 1930s on the New York subway with a hidden camera.

At that exhibit, Katey sees two photos of Tinker Grey, a man she knew well when she was in her twenties. One was taken in 1938 and he is well-dressed in expensive clothing; the other photo was from 1939 and his clothes are worn and threadbare. 

The story then jumps back to New Year's Eve in New York City in 1937, when Katey and her roommate Eve met Tinker at a jazz bar. Very quickly the three become friends, even though Katey and Eve are living in a boarding house and have low paying jobs and Tinker is a part of New York society. There is a big turning point when the three of them are in a serious automobile accident and only Eve has significant injuries.

From that point, the story mostly focuses on what happens to Katey in the next year. She is ambitious and resourceful; she works toward having a more rewarding job while still mingling in New York society. There are some wonderful minor characters: Wallace Wolcott, Tinker Grey's wealthy friend, who teaches Katey how to shoot and ends up going to Spain to fight in the Civil War; Anne Grandyn, an older woman (also wealthy of course) who encourages Katey to do bigger things with her life.

The book is divided into four sections, one for each season of the year. At the end of each section, there are a few pages told from Tinker Grey's point of view. There are also many changes in his life in 1938. At the end  of the book there is an Epilogue that ties together with the Preface. 

My thoughts:

I think a lot of what I liked in this book is due to Amor Towles' gift of storytelling. I also enjoyed A Gentleman in Moscow by the same author. It was set in Moscow starting in 1922 and continuing through the next three decades, and had a more unrealistic, fantastical feel, but I loved reading that one too.

Katey is a reader. I always love a book where reading plays a part. She reads and rereads Dickens. Her reading keeps her grounded. At one point she starts reading Agatha Christie's mysteries and has interesting comments on them. 

Photographs also play a role in the story. There are the subway photos at the beginning, photos along the walls at various homes, school photos.

Appearances can be very deceiving in this book. There are many surprises in store as the book progresses. 

 -----------------------------

Publisher:  Sceptre, 2012 (Orig. pub. 2011)
Length:     335 pages
Format:    Trade paperback
Setting:     New York City
Genre:      Historical Fiction
Source:     Purchased in 2020.