Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.
The topic for Top Ten Tuesday this week was to go back and list the books I was reading on August 11th in the previous ten years. I used Goodreads to find the books but I did find that in some cases it was hard to determine exactly what I was reading on that day, and I just winged it.
2025
Perplexing Plots by David Bordwell
Published in 2023
Bordwell was an influential film scholar; this book, the last one he published, focuses on crime fiction and films in the 1900s up to more recent times. He discusses the development of crime fiction plots and narratives and notes the same developments in plays and film of that time.
2024
A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny
Published in 2016.
The mysteries in this series are always rewarding. Usually very complex and sometimes circuitous and perplexing, they keep me guessing. I never even came close to suspecting the perpetrator in this book. Louise Penny is very good at creating characters we want to read about. She also continues to develop the characters, both the main characters and the continuing secondary characters in Three Pines. It is hard to look back and compare all the books, but I think this is my favorite book in the series so far.
2023
Sleep and His Brother by Peter Dickinson
Published in 1971.
This is the fourth in a series about Jimmy Pibble. In the first two books, he was a Scotland Yard detective; now he has been forced into retirement. His wife is a volunteer for a charitable institution and asks him to look into a problem they are having. There are vague supernatural elements, which is not surprising since Dickenson was a well-known author of fantasy books. The book is very short, around 200 pages, but very dense, not an easy read at all. I loved the story and the writing.
2022
Death Around the Bend by T.E. Kinsey
Published in 2017
This is the third mystery in a series of historical mysteries. Set in the early 1900's, Lady Hardcastle (Emily) and her maid Florence Armstrong solve mysteries while living in the English countryside. The stories are excellent historical fiction, and the mystery plots are well-done.
2021
Way Station by Clifford D. Simak
Published in 1963.
All I knew when I started this book was that it was a science fiction classic about a man on earth, in the US in the 1960s, providing a station where aliens from other planets stop overnight while traveling from planet to planet. This is completely hidden from the rest of the world. It is a very interesting and entertaining book, with lots of tension, because his station is discovered, and I was surprised at the ending. It is very much of its time, but I did not mind that at all.
2020
Young Bess by Margaret Irwin
Published in 1944.
Young Bess is the first book in a trilogy about Elizabeth I of England. It covers her life from the time she was 12 until she was about 20, including Henry VIII's death, his son Edward VI's years as king (from age 9 to 15), and Elizabeth's relationships with her brother Edward and Princess Mary, her sister.
2019
Champagne for One by Rex Stout
Published in 1958.
Rex Stout is my favorite author; I have reread all the books in the Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin mystery series several times. One of Archie's acquaintances asks him to take his place at an annual dinner party and dance for unwed mothers. One of the mothers, Faith Usher, ends up dead. This book has all the best features of the series. The interplay between Archie and Nero Wolfe. Inspector Cramer visiting the brownstone to berate Archie for sticking to his guns regarding the cause of death. And freelance investigators Orrie, Fred, and Saul helping with the detecting.
2018
Starting out in the Evening by Brian Morton
Published in 1997.
This book follows a short period in the life of four people: Leonard Schiller, a novelist in his seventies; Heather Wolfe, a woman in her early twenties who wants to write her thesis on Schiller's novels; Ariel, Leonard's daughter, who wants very much to have a child; and Casey, one of Ariel's ex-boyfriends. It was a wonderful read but very different from my usual reading.
2017
Hammett by Joe Gores
Published in 1975.
Joe Gores was an admirer and a student of Dashiell Hammett's writing. Both Gores and Hammett had been private investigators before they became full time writers. Both had lived and worked in San Francisco. Thus Gores was the perfect person to write this fictionalized version of events in Samuel Dashiell Hammett's life, set in 1928 when Hammett was no longer a private detective and was trying to support himself with his writing.
2016
See Also Deception by Larry D. Sweazy
Published in 2016.
This is the second book in a mystery series set in rural North Dakota in October, 1964. The area is affected by a drought, with a severe impact on the crops and livestock on the farm. President Kennedy was killed in the previous year, and that still affects the nation. There is a cold war going on, very visible in North Dakota, with missile silos being drilled into the ground. Marjorie Trumaine and her husband Hank are owners of a working farm; her husband is an invalid and Marjorie has to run the farm, and take care of her husband. Marjorie is a freelance indexer, creating indexes for non-fiction books. It is this aspect of the book that drew me to the series from the beginning. I think indexes in books are wondrous things and I can only imagine the work that goes into creating one. My husband pointed the first book in the series out to me because he knew I would be interested in it. I loved this book and I don't know why I haven't read the 3rd book yet.
