Six Degrees of Separation: From Rapture to State of Wonder

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 book this month is Rapture by Emily Maguire. This is a historical fiction novel, set in the 800s, about a young girl who becomes a monk by disguising herself as a male. I may read this book because it sounds interesting and is not overly long. The book was longlisted for the 2025 Stella Prize, which celebrates the best writing by women and non-binary authors in Australia. 

1st degree:

My first link is to another Australian novel, Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay, published in 1967. The story is about a group of young female college students that go on a picnic. Some of the girls don't return. 

2nd degree:

Using "Rock" in the title of the previous book takes me to my next book, Brighton Rock by Graham Greene, published in 1938. I haven't read much by Greene so I was happy to find this old hardback edition of Brighton Rock with the dust jacket mostly intact at the 2023 Planned Parenthood book sale. The protagonist is Pinkie, a teenage gang leader who has murdered a journalist and thinks he can get away with it. The book goes beyond a thriller to explore moral issues.

3rd degree:

The Zig Zag Girl by Elly Griffith's is my next link because of its setting – Brighton, in the 1950s. This is from the description at the author's website: "When the body of a girl is found, cut into three, Detective Inspector Edgar Stephens is reminded of a magic trick, the Zig Zag Girl. The inventor of the trick, Max Mephisto, is an old friend of Edgar’s. They served together in the war as part of a shadowy unit called the Magic Men." This is the first book in the Brighton Mysteries series, and I have not yet read it.

4th degree:

Another book with "Girl" in the title is Girl Waits with Gun by Amy Stewart. This book is also the start of a historical mystery series, set in the early 1900s in New Jersey. It is based on a real woman who was one of the first female deputy sheriffs in the US. 

5th degree:

Again using a word from the title, I link to Gunshine State by Andrew Nette. This is a gritty heist novel set in Australia. Description at Goodreads: "Gary Chance is a former Australian army driver, ex-bouncer and thief. His latest job takes him to Surfers Paradise, Queensland, working for aging standover man, Dennis Curry. Curry runs off-site, non-casino poker games, and wants to rob one of his best customers, a high roller called Freddie Gao. ... Chance knows he can’t trust anyone, but nothing prepares him for what unfolds when Curry’s plan goes wrong." 

6th degree:

Gunshine State takes me to State of Wonder by Ann Patchett, a novel that is set in the jungles of Brazil. From the description at the author's website: "Dr. Marina Singh, a research scientist with a pharmaceutical company, is sent to track down her former mentor, Dr. Annick Swenson, who seems to have all but disappeared in the Amazon while working on what is destined to be an extremely valuable new drug. Nothing about the assignment is easy: not only does no one know where Dr. Swenson is, but the last person who was sent to find her, Marina's research partner Anders Eckman, died before he could complete his mission." 

My Six Degrees took me from Australia to the UK, then to the US and back to Australia, but ended in Brazil. I have not read any of the books in this post, but I have five of them on my TBR shelves. Have you read any of these books? 

If you did this month's Six Degrees, where did your list take you?

The next Six Degrees will be on June 7, 2025 and the starting book will be All Fours by Miranda July.

My Mystery Books from the 2023 Book Sale

 

From September 15th through September 24th this year, we visited the Planned Parenthood Book Sale five times. Here I have listed ten of the crime fiction books that I purchased at the sale. There were some older books, some newish books.

The House on the Strand (1969) by Daphne de Maurier

I had been looking for books by Daphne de Maurier at the book sale, and my son volunteered to help. He did not have any luck either until he found one in the Science Fiction and Fantasy area. We were both surprised. It turns out this is a time travel book of sorts, so of course I had to try it. Almost 300 pages; I think it will be a good read.

The English Teacher (2013) by Yiftach Reicher Atir

I bought this book because it is spy fiction and the protagonist is a female Mossad agent. Otherwise, I know nothing more about it. The author drew on his own experiences to write the book. It was translated from the Hebrew by Philip Simpson.

Tangerine (2018) by Christine Mangan

I bought this because it is set in Morocco and it is a mystery / thriller. I don't know much about Morocco at all. BookerTalk has reviewed this book. Based on her thoughts on the book I may be disappointed, but it won't hurt to give it a try.

A World of Curiosities (2022) by Louise Penny

I bought this book because I plan to read all the books in this series. And because it was a very good price for a newer hardback, although I usually don't pay $6.00 for books at the book sale. I have read 11 of the books, and this is the 18th. It will take me a while to get to this one.

The Outcast Dead (2014) by Elly Griffiths

This is another series I am working my way through. This is the 6th book of a 15 book series, so it is up in the air whether I will read all of the books in the series or not.

Bitter Wash Road (2013) by Garry Disher

Garry Disher is a prolific Australian author; I think most of his novels are mysteries. I have read one book from his Peninsula Crimes police procedural series, The Dragon Man. His first series stars a thief, Wyatt; two years ago I was lucky to find the first four in that series at the 2021 book sale. I still haven't tried any of those. And this year I found the first book in his most recent series starring Paul Hirschhausen, Bitter Wash Road. 

Brighton Rock (1938) by Graham Greene

I haven't read much by Graham Greene so I was happy to find this old hardback edition of Brighton Rock with the dust jacket mostly intact. The protagonist is Pinkie, a gang leader who has murdered a journalist and thinks he can get away with it. The book goes beyond a thriller to explore moral issues. 

Anatomy of a Murder (1958) by Robert Traver

I have a paperback copy of this book and had wanted to read it for years, but it has the tiniest print I have ever seen. So I was thrilled to find this copy at the book sale. 

This is from the prologue:

"This is the story of a murder, of a murder trial, and of some of the people who engaged or became enmeshed in the proceedings. Enmeshed is a good word, for murder, of all crimes, seems to posses to a greater degree than any other that compelling magnetic quality that draws people helplessly into its outspreading net, frequently to their surprise, and occasionally to their horror."

Missionary Stew (1983) by Ross Thomas

I have enjoyed the Ross Thomas books I have read, which were espionage books. Not all of his books are in that genre, but I think this one has at least a tinge of it.

This is part of a review in the October 16, 1983 Washington Post by Stephen King:

"In a country that chooses to canonize a few of its many fine comic novelists and ignore the rest, Ross Thomas is something of a secret. Missionary Stew is Thomas's 19th novel (five of them were issued under the pseudonym Oliver Bleeck), but the people who know and relish the work of Ishmael Reed, Don DeLillo, and Peter DeVries do not know the work of Ross Thomas, and that seems a great shame. Perhaps Missionary Stew, certainly the best of the Thomas novels I've read, will help to rectify that situation. It is funny, cynical, and altogether delicious. If buying a novel is, as a friend of mine once said, always a speculative investment for the reader, then take it from me--this one is a blue-chip stock. Baby, you can't go wrong."

Strangers in Town: Three Newly Discovered Mysteries by Ross Macdonald, edited by Tom Nolan

From the dust jacket of the book: 

"In an important literary discovery, Macdonald biographer, Tom Nolan, unearthed three previously unpublished private-eye stories by Ross Macdonald. 'Death by Water,' written in 1945, features Macdonald's first detective Joe Rogers, and two novelettes from 1950 and 1955, 'Strangers in Town' and 'The Angry Man,' are detailed cases of Lew Archer."

This was my most expensive purchase at the book sale. The book was published by Crippen & Landru in 2001. It is in excellent condition and includes an additional small booklet with a piece written by Macdonald titled 'Winnipeg, 1929.' Ross Macdonald is a pseudonym of Kenneth Millar; he was brought up in Canada and met his wife Margaret Millar there.

My reading in May and June 2023

In May and June, I read a total of 17 books. Two were nonfiction, and two were general fiction, both from my Classics Club list.

The other 13 books were crime fiction. Two of those were short story books that I was finishing up from previous months. 

In June I started on my 20 Books of Summer list and read 6 from that list. I have even posted my thoughts on four of those. 

So here are the books I read.

Nonfiction / Health

Hello, Sleep (2023) by Jade Wu

The focus of this book is insomnia. The subtitle is "The Science and Art of Overcoming Insomnia Without Medications." The book offers a self-guided program that helps change a person's sleeping patterns and behavior using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I). The book was extremely interesting to me and I learned a lot from it.

Nonfiction / Books about Books

Book Lust to Go (2010) by Nancy Pearl

My third read of this book, and I enjoyed it every time I read it. This time I read it specifically for the Bookish Books Reading Challenge and to look for some books for the Wanderlust Challenge at FictionFan's Book Reviews, which I am planning to start working on (after 20 Books of Summer).

Fiction

The Optimist's Daughter (1972) by Eudora Welty

I read this book for the Classics Club Spin #33. The book is very short, 180 pages in the edition I read. It was published in 1972 and won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1973. Welty was a well-known author of Southern fiction but she only wrote five novels, between 1946 and 1972. See my thoughts here.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1940) by Carson McCullers

I read this book for the Classics Club Spin #34 and it is also on my 20 Books of Summer list. How lucky was that? I liked the book a lot, and will be reviewing it in July.

Crime Fiction

Murder by the Book: Mysteries for Bibliophiles (2021) ed. by Martin Edwards

Murder by the Book is a short story anthology edited by Martin Edwards. It is a part of the British Library Crime Classics series, published in the US by Poisoned Pen Press. I reviewed some of the stories in this book here and here.

Paper Chase (1989) by Bob Cook

This is a humorous book about four old spies who retired years ago, and only get together at the funerals of other old friends who were intelligence agents. They are forbidden to publish their memoirs, and they decide to deal with this by writing and publishing a fictional story based on their memoirs. I enjoyed the book, it was short and fun but serious enough. And I love the cover.

Slough House (2021) and

Bad Actors (2022) by Mick Herron

Books 7 and 8 in the Slow Horses series. Mick Herron is an author that has never disappointed me. The "slow horses" are MI5 agents who have been demoted due to some disgrace or screw up in their jobs, and are now working under Jackson Lamb. Amazingly, this is one series I have kept current with. I love the writing, the characters, and the plots get better and better.

Murder is Easy (1939) by Agatha Christie

This is one of Christie's standalone mysteries, published in 1939. It isn't one of her best, but most books by Christie are worth reading, and this one was fun and entertaining. Luke Fitzwilliam, a retired policeman, returns to England after several years in the East. He is on a train when he meets Miss Fullerton, an elderly woman on her way to Scotland Yard to report some murders in her village. Later, when he finds that Miss Fullerton was killed in a hit-and-run accident in London, and that the man that she thought was going to be the next murder victim had also died recently, he goes to her village to investigate. 

Killers of a Certain Age (2022) by Deanna Raybourn

This story is about four older women who have worked for years as assassins. The organization that hired and trained them is the Museum, and now the Museum has turned against them and ordered their deaths. At first I was reluctant to read this book because I have had problems with books centered around hitmen, but I had heard so much about this one, I had to try it. I loved this book, and I regret that I did not have time to review it. 

Dolphin Junction: Stories (2021) by Mick Herron

This collection was published in 2021 and features 11 short stories previously published between 2006 and 2019. There are four stories about the Oxford wife-and-husband detective team of Zoë Boehm and Joe Silvermann, characters from Herron's Oxford Investigations series, plus a story about Jackson Lamb, top agent in the Slow Horses series, which goes back to a time in the past when he had an assignment in Berlin. There are also six short stories with no connection to any of his novels. I reviewed some of the stories in this book here and here.

Clark and Division (2021) by Naomi Hirahama

This is the first book I have read that gave me any insight into the internment of Japanese Americans into "relocation camps" during World War II. In this novel, the Ito family are sent to Manzanar shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Later they are resettled in Chicago, far from their original home Southern California. The oldest daughter was sent to Chicago first, and when the rest of the family arrives, they find that she has committed suicide. This was a good read, and it inspires me to read more about the subject. The second book in this series, Evergreen, will be published on August 1, 2023. In that book, the Ito family has been allowed to return home to California.

The Mitford Murders (2017) by Jessica Fellowes

The first book in a series set among the Mitford family, in 1920.  My review here.

Mindful of Murder (2022) by Susan Juby

Helen Thorpe returns to the Yatra Institute, a spiritual retreat where she used to work, after the owner of the institute dies. The author is Canadian and the setting is one of British Columbia’s gulf islands. My review here.

Our Man in Camelot (1975) by Anthony Price

This is the 6th book in the David Audley series, a Cold War espionage series usually set in the UK. See my thoughts here.

A Dying Fall (2012) by Elly Griffiths

This was the fifth book in the popular Ruth Galloway series, which features a forensic archaeologist living in Norfolk in an isolated cottage on the saltmarsh. Since both this book and Our Man in Camelot centered around the Arthurian legend, I combined my reviews in one post.

Sworn to Silence (2009) by Linda Castillo

I had been putting off reading this 1st book in the Kate Burkholder series, another very popular mystery series, set in an Amish town in Ohio. Kate Burkholder is the police chief of the town. One of her deputies finds the body of a dead girl who has been raped and mutilated. I thought this book would have too much graphic violence and tension. It was not too tense (for me) and I loved the characters. The violence was a bit too much for me, but I will be reading more of this series. 

Walks

The images at the top and bottom of the post were taken in May, when we visited Alice Keck Park Memorial Garden, a small park in Santa Barbara. It covers only one city block, but has lots of paths to walk around on, and is a favorite for dog walkers. For three years when our son was very young, we lived across the street on Garden Street. It was the only time we have lived in the city rather than an unincorporated area.

My husband took the photos. Click on the images for the best viewing quality.

Two books for 20 Books of Summer — Anthony Price and Elly Griffiths

This month I read two books from my 20 Books of Summer list that had a major plot line centered around the King Arthur legend. I did not realize that when I put them on the list, and it was serendipitous that I decided to read them one after the other. 

The first book was Our Man in Camelot by Anthony Price. This is the 6th book in the David Audley series, a Cold War espionage series set in the UK (usually), often featuring some historical element in the plot. The series was written during the Cold War years; this one was published in 1975.

Audley, an agent in the Research and Development Section of the Britain's Intelligence Services, has taken an extended leave from his job—with his wife and young child—to finish a historical research project. CIA agents posing as husband and wife plan to dupe Audley into helping them find the location of Badon Hill, considered to have been the site of King Arthur's most important battle. You might ask why? Somehow it is connected to a US Air Force plane that vanished on a flight from its base in Britain. Since this is an espionage book, you never know exactly what anyone's goal is. 

Price's espionage books are slow and thoughtful and this one was very talky with little action, but it was a great read. 

The second book was A Dying Fall by Elly Griffiths.

This was the fifth book in the Ruth Galloway series, which features a forensics archaeologist living in Norfolk in an isolated cottage on the saltmarsh. 

From the flyleaf of the edition I read:

Ruth Galloway is shocked when she learns that her old university friend Dan Golding has died tragically in a house fire. But the death takes on a sinister cast when Ruth receives a letter from Dan written just before he died.

The letter tells of a great archaeological discovery, but Dan also says that he is scared for his life. Was Dan’s death linked to his find? The only clue is his mention of the Raven King, an ancient name for King Arthur.

Ruth travels with her young daughter Kate to Blackpool in Lancashire to take part in the assessment of the archeological dig and the bones found by her friend Dan. The investigation is exciting to Ruth, but it is hampered by academic intrigue and rivalries at Dan's college. Also, Kate's father is a policeman who is married with teenage children; he also ends up in Blackpool, where he grew up.

In the past I have had reservations about this series, but the characters and the stories are beginning to grow on me. In addition, the experience of reading about the research behind the Arthurian legend in Anthony Price's book enhanced my enjoyment of this book, which discussed some of the same documents and historians. 

These books were my third and fourth books read for 20 Books of Summer.

Top Ten Tuesday list: Mysteries with an Academic Setting

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

This week's Top Ten Tuesday topic is a School Freebie (come up with a topic that somehow ties to school/education). I am keeping it simple, a list of my favorite books with a school setting.

And here's my list:

Murder is Academic by Christine Poulson

Poulson set her debut novel at St. Etheldreda's College at Cambridge. Cassandra James is a professor of English, and she finds the head of her department drowned in a pool, surrounded by exam papers. In Murder is Academic, in addition to the college setting, we have plagiarism, séances, and the pressures to publish research. And the characters are well-done and believable. The UK title of this book is Dead Letters. Published in 2002. She has published two more books in this series and three books in the Katie Flanagan series.

The Secret Place by Tana French

This is the fifth book in Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad series. The setting is primarily a girls' boarding school in the suburbs of Dublin. The case is the death of a teenage boy who was found murdered, a year before, on the grounds of the girl's school. The action all takes place in one day. The story is told in alternating narratives. The first narrative is from the point of view of a policeman working on the case. The second narrative (in third person present tense) follows the eight girls, boarders at the school, in the year leading up to the crime. Published in 2014.

Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie

This novel in the Hercule Poirot series is set primarily at the prestigious Meadowbank School for Girls in England, but the action begins with international intrigue in the fictional country of Ramat. I loved the girls school setting, but the espionage story was a bit too unrealistic for me. Julia Upjohn and Jennifer Sutcliffe, two students at the school, are very good characters, and I liked their letters home which moved the plot along. Julia is clever and notices things, Jennifer is more focused on herself, but together they are a good pair. Published in 1959.

The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths

There are three main characters who share the narration of the story. All three are interesting, with very different points of view on life. Clare is an English teacher at a high school; a close friend at work has been brutally murdered. Harbinder Kaur is a policewoman working on the investigation of the death of Ella Elphick, Clare's friend. Georgia is Clare's fifteen-old-daughter, who is a student at the high school that her mother teaches at.  Some of Clare's sections are told via entries from her diary, which does play an integral part in the story. Published in 2018.

Quoth the Raven by Jane Haddam

Quoth the Raven is the 4th book in a 20-book series about Gregor Demarkian, retired FBI agent, living in Philadelphia. This one is set in rural Pennsylvania at a small college, where Gregor has been invited to give a lecture. Halloween is a major event at the college and there will be the annual lighting of the bonfire the same night. The story takes place in the two days before that event; thus this is the perfect book for fall and the Halloween season. I liked the academic setting, and the mix of students and faculty as characters. Published in 1991.

Publish or Perish by Margot Kinberg

This is the first book in Margot Kinberg's Joel Williams series. The setting is academia: a university in Pennsylvania. I know that the academic setting is a competitive one, although I have no first-hand knowledge of this. Williams is an ex-policeman who now teaches in the university's Department of Criminal Justice. There is a good subplot about a group of students investigating the murder. Published in 2008.

A Killing Spring by Gail Bowen

A Killing Spring is the 5th book in a mystery series about Joanne Kilbourn, a political analyst and university professor who gets involved in criminal investigations. The setting is Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. This story begins as the head of the School of Journalism at the university where Joanne Kilbourn teaches is found dead, in embarrassing circumstances. Then a student in Joanne's class complains of sexual harassment and stops coming to class. Published in 1996. 

The Shortest Day by Jane Langton

This is the 11th book in the Homer Kelly series. This story is set in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Homer and Mary Kelly are teaching a class at Harvard University. This is a quirky and humorous mystery in an academic setting. Mary is participating in the annual Christmas Revels when a young singer in the event dies in an automobile accident. When other deaths follow, Homer resists getting involved, even though he was once a homicide detective. The author illustrated the story with her own pen and ink drawings. Published in 1995.

Last Seen Wearing by Hillary Waugh

The story starts with the disappearance of a young female college freshman, Lowell Mitchell. The college she attends is in Bristol, Massachusetts, a fictional small town near Boston, Massachusetts. She goes missing on a Friday in early March 1950 after attending a morning class. Once the college dean ascertains that she is missing, the police are called in to investigate. The small police department in Bristol has less resources and less men to assign to the case than a big city police force. The press and the public are soon pressuring them for a solution, and Lowell's distraught parents also come to town. Published in 1952.

A Novena for Murder by Sister Carol Anne O'Marie

This is a very cozy mystery starring a nun as an amateur sleuth. Sister Mary Helen has retired at 75 and is sent to Mt. Saint Francis College for Women in San Francisco. Shortly after she arrives the body of a professor at the school is found, following an earthquake. The police blame the wrong person, in Sister Mary Helen's opinion, so it is up to her to find out what happened. The setting in San Francisco is nicely done, and there is an interesting subplot involving Portuguese immigrants who have been helped to enter the US and are now students or workers at the college.

Six Degrees of Separation: From Ruth Ozeki to Louise Penny

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 book is The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki. I know nothing about this book so I am using just a few sentences from the Goodreads summary to describe it:

After the tragic death of his beloved musician father, fourteen-year-old Benny Oh begins to hear voices. The voices belong to the things in his house – a sneaker, a broken Christmas ornament, a piece of wilted lettuce. Although Benny doesn't understand what these things are saying, he can sense their emotional tone; some are pleasant, a gentle hum or coo, but others are snide, angry and full of pain. When his mother, Annabelle, develops a hoarding problem, the voices grow more clamorous.

This time I am using a simple approach, linking from a word in the current title to a word in the next title. 

Using "Emptiness" in the starting title, my first link is to An Empty Death by Laura Wilson. That book is the second in a historical mystery series set from the early 1940s into the late 1950s, a period I enjoy reading about. The novel provides a vivid picture of the wartime years in Great Britain, and how the war affected family life in particular. Set in 1944 after several years at war, it also focuses on the deprivation that was experienced during those years.

From An Empty Death, I move on to A Small Death in Lisbon by Robert Wilson. This book has two story lines, one set in the 1940's in Germany and Portugal, the other set in the late 1990's in Lisbon. The later time line features a police detective whose investigation of a teenage girl's murder links back to the experiences of a Berlin factory owner forced into Hitler's SS in 1941. The story is suspenseful and compelling, the characters have depth, but there was too much violence and sex for me. This book won the CWA Gold Dagger in 1999.

From A Small Death in Lisbon, I next link to The Lisbon Crossing by Tom Gabbay. Comparing the two books, this story is much lighter and very picturesque. Jack Teller is a US citizen visiting Lisbon with international film star Lili Sterne in 1940, to help her locate a childhood friend, Eva Lange. This is the 2nd in the Jack Teller series and each book is set in a different city and time period. 

The Lisbon Crossing leads me to The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths. That book takes me out of the World War II period to a more contemporary mystery. This is the first book in the Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries. The main character is a forensic archeologist who often ends up working with the police when there are questions about skeletal remains. There are 15 books in the series but I have only read the first four. 

My next link is A Beautiful Place to Die (2008) by Malla Nunn, a story set in 1950s apartheid South Africa. This is the only one of the six linked books that I have not read.  And it has been on my TBR pile for five years now! 

Description at the publisher's site:

In a morally complex tale rich with authenticity, Nunn takes readers to Jacob's Rest, a tiny town on the border between South Africa and Mozambique. It is 1952, and new apartheid laws have recently gone into effect, dividing a nation into black and white while supposedly healing the political rifts between the Afrikaners and the English. Tensions simmer as the fault line between the oppressed and the oppressors cuts deeper, but it's not until an Afrikaner police officer is found dead that emotions more dangerous than anyone thought possible boil to the surface...

A Beautiful Place to Die leads me to my last link, The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny. This is the eighth book in the Chief Inspector Gamache series, set in a secluded monastery. I enjoyed the new setting. The stories set in Three Pines are charming, but I also enjoy exposure to other parts of Québec. It was interesting to get a look at the workings of a small monastery. (I am currently reading the tenth book in the series, The Long Way Home.)

All of my links are crime fiction stories, and all are set outside of the USA. Settings are in the UK, Portugal, Germany, South Africa, and Canada. 

If you are participating in the Six Degrees meme, where did your links take you? If not, have you read these books? Any comments on The Book of Form and Emptiness or A Beautiful Place to Die, which I have not read yet?

Next month (September 3, 2022), Six Degrees of Separation will begin with the book you ended with this month. (So, for me it will be The Beautiful Mystery.) For those who did not participate this month, start with the last book you read.

Reading Summary for February 2022

This is my idea of a good mix of reading for the month. A majority of the books were mysteries. One nonfiction book and two general fiction books. The only improvement would have been if I had read at least one vintage mystery. 

Nonfiction

Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution (2001) by Diane McWhorter

This book won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction. From the Pulitzer site:

"A major work of history, investigative journalism that breaks new ground, and personal memoir, Carry Me Home is a dramatic account of the civil rights era's climactic battle in Birmingham, as the movement led by Martin Luther King, Jr., brought down the institutions of segregation."

I started reading this book one year ago, took about a long break in the middle, and took about a month to finish the last 300 pages (of 600). 

General Fiction

Convenience Store Woman (2016) by Sayaka Murata

Translated from the Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori 

This is an interesting story about a woman who does not fit in. Keiko is a 36-year-old woman who has been a part-time convenience store worker in Tokyo for 18 years. The novel is short, about 160 pages, and very strange, but I loved it.  Reviewed here.

Strange Weather in Tokyo (2001) by Hiromi Kawakami

Translated from the Japanese by Allison Markin Powell 

Another book set in Tokyo. The style of this book was unusual. It seemed to be made up of vignettes of the friendship between a woman and a male teacher who had been her teacher in school. Then it pulls together and has more focus, and I liked the ending a lot. Reviewed here.

Crime Fiction

Nemesis (2002) by Jo Nesbø

Translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett

Nemesis is the fourth novel in the Harry Hole series, which is mostly set in Norway. I did not enjoy reading this novel, but I recognize the high level of Nesbø's writing. Reviewed here.

Dressed for Death (1994) by Donna Leon

This is the third book in the Commissario Brunetti series, set in Italy; it has been over ten years since I read the first two  books in the series. Brunetti has to go to Mestre to handle a case because the Commissarios there are all unavailable. The dead body of a man, badly beaten, is found near a slaughterhouse; the face is so mutilated that identification of the body is difficult. I liked this book and I am glad I got back to reading this series.

The Thursday Murder Club (2020) by Richard Osman

A quartet of men and women in their seventies or eighties form a club called the Thursday Murder Club. They start out investigating cold cases, whose case files they inherited from a former member who had access to police files. Then they have the opportunity to investigate a real crime, when a part owner of their retirement complex is killed. I found a lot to like about this book and plan to read the second book in the series as soon as possible.

One Corpse Too Many (1979) by Ellis Peters

The best thing about the books in the Chronicles of Brother Cadfael series is the setting. I learn so much about the times reading these books. Per Goodreads, the books in the series are "set between about 1135 and about 1145, during 'The Anarchy', the destructive contest for the crown of England between King Stephen and Empress Maud." This is the third book in the series and I have many more left to read.

The Postscript Murders (2020) by Elly Griffiths

This novel features Harbinder Kaur, who was also a character in an earlier book by Griffiths (The Stranger Diaries). Harbinder is a closeted gay Sikh Detective Sergeant in the police in Shoreham, West Sussex. She is the principle investigator into the death of an elderly woman, Peggy Smith, in a apartment complex for senior citizens, although initially she is not convinced it was murder. Peggy's carer, Natalka, is the one who is convinced that Peggy's death was murder, and she and two of her friends who knew Peggy also investigate. I liked this book very much, although it is quite different from The Stranger Diaries. 

Status of my challenges:

• I have read three novels for the European Reading Challenge, but only reviewed one of them so far.
• I have read and reviewed three novels for the Japanese Literary Challenge. That challenge will end on March 31, 2022. 
• I have read at least two books that fit categories for the Bingo Challenge. I will go into more detail on that when I have more read for that challenge.
• Back to the Classics Challenge: Nothing so far.
• The TBR Pile Challenge at Roof Beam Reader: Nothing so far.
• I recently joined the Mount TBR Challenge, run by Bev Hankins, via Goodreads. So far this year I have read 13 books from my TBR for that challenge.
• Reading Ireland is going on for the month of March at 746 Books, and I have read one book for that event. I hope to read another this month.

The photo at the top of the post shows a gorgeous cactus in front of a business in downtown Santa Barbara. The photo immediately above is of a stonework fence in the Mission Canyon area near the Santa Barbara Mission. My husband took both photos. Click on the images for best viewing quality.