Reading Summary for January 2023

 

Looking back on my reading in January, it was a pretty good month. I was glad I pushed myself to finish Anna Karenina. As with some other longer classics I have read, once I got past the halfway mark it got better. Reading the biography of the Mitford sisters, The Six, got me started on a quest to find more books about that family. I read my first graphic novel for the year (a manga!), and I read some very good crime fiction. 

Nonfiction / Biography

The Six: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters (2015) by Laura Thompson

The Mitford family was in the news a lot in the late 1930s and during World War II primarily because of the behavior of Diana, who married Oswald Mosley, and Unity, who was a big fan of Hitler. The book concentrated on the six sisters, but spent more time on Nancy, Diana, and Unity. I am hungry for more information about the family, so I am now reading The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family by Mary S. Lovell. My review of The Six is here.

Graphic novel

A Man and His Cat, Vol. 1 (2018) by Umi Sakurai (Writer and Artist)

This is a short graphic novel about a widower who lives alone and decides to get a cat for the first time. The story is mostly about him learning to live with and take care of a cat, and it is very sweet. This is a manga and I had to get used to reading the story from back to front and from right to left on the page. I have read volume 2 in the series now, and will be reading more.

Fiction / Classic

Anna Karenina (1878) by Leo Tolstoy

After owning this book for twelve years, I finally read it and I am glad I did. I learned a lot about life in Russia when it was written. But I found a large part of it depressing to read. My review is here.

Crime Fiction

The Graveyard Position (2005) by Robert Barnard

Barnard is one of my favorite authors. He wrote about 50 novels between 1974 and 2012. Some were series books but a large number of his mysteries were standalones. The standalone books have the best plots and subtle humor, but I have read and enjoyed most of his series books. This one is about a man who returns from abroad to Leeds, England after his aunt dies, to the dismay of the rest of the family, who thought he was dead. He will inherit most of his aunt's estate, once he can provide proof of his identity. Some long hidden secrets about the family are uncovered along the way.

The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling (1979) by Lawrence Block

This is the third book in the series starring Bernie Rhodenbarr, who makes his living as a burglar. In this book, he has purchased an antiquarian bookstore, and his lesbian friend Caroline, a dog groomer, is introduced. Bernie is hired to steal a very rare book, and in the process gets involved in another crime. I liked the first two books but I think this one was much better. I like the characters and the writing and will read more books as I locate them.

A Midsummer's Equation (2011) by Keigo Higashino

This book is the 6th book in the "Detective Galileo" series but only the third book translated into English. I like the series very much, and each book is a bit different.  My review is here.

The Sign of Four (1890) by Arthur Conan Doyle

I have been a fan of mystery novels since my teens, but I did not read anything in the Sherlock Holmes series until the last few years. This was the second of the novels that I have read, and I was surprised to find that the novels are a combination of puzzle mystery and exotic adventure. My review is here.

Currently reading

I am reading The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family by Mary S. Lovell and Fender Benders by Bill Fitzhugh, a darkly humorous mystery about the country music scene in Nashville.

Status of challenges

• Both the crime fiction book by Keigo Kigashino and the two manga were read for the Japanese Literature Challenge. And I recently read Bullet Train by Kōtarō Isaka.
• Several of the books I read in January also fit categories for my Bingo Reading Challenge.
• Six of the books I read in February count for the Mount TBR Reading Challenge.

The images at the top and bottom of the post were taken on a recent visit to the Woodland Loop at the Natural History Museum, in the Mission Canyon area. It has been years since we walked in this area. Another lovely walk.

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

Anna Karenina: Leo Tolstoy

I found it difficult to write more than a superficial review of this book without revealing some of the plot. If you have not read this book, and don't want to know much about the plot, I would pass on this review until you have read it. I knew little of the overall plot before I started reading the book, but I did know the ending. That did not spoil the book for me, but I would have preferred to go into the book with no knowledge of the story at all.

These are the major characters:

Anna Karenina, née Princess Oblonsky, is the wife of Alexei Karenin, who is 20 years older than she is. She is the sister of Prince Stepan (Stiva) Arkadyevich Oblonsky.

Princess Ekaterina (Kitty) Alexandrovna Shcherbatskaya is the sister of Princess Darya (Dolly) Alexandrovna Oblonskaya, married to Prince Stepan.

Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky, a cavalry officer.

Konstantin Dmitrievich Levin, a wealthy landowner. 

The story centers around Kitty and Levin and Anna. 

Anna is not happy in her life as the wife of a Petersburg government official but she does enjoy the social life and the things she can afford as the wife of a wealthy man. They have a young son that she adores.

Anna visits Moscow at her brother Stiva's request. His wife Dolly has discovered that he has a mistress, and is threatening to leave him. They have five children, and he wants her to stay married to him. Anna's goal is to talk Dolly into staying.

While in Moscow, Anna goes to a ball that Kitty and Count Vronsky also attend. Kitty is very young, and she expects Vronsky to propose marriage at the ball. However, Vronsky dances with Anna and they are very attracted to each other. When Vronsky does not propose, Kitty is humiliated. Vronsky and Anna get involved and soon are having an affair. 

Levin is a family friend of Stiva and Dolly, a wealthy landowner, and in love with Kitty. He had proposed to Kitty earlier, but was rejected. His life is more simple than the other characters who are involved in society in Moscow or Petersburg. He must spend time running his farm, and he takes his responsibilities there seriously.

Obviously there is much more to the story and the tale unfolds in over 800 pages.

My thoughts:

When I finally decided to read Anna Karenina, I had had my copy at least 12 years. It was time to make a decision to read or not read. I was put off by the length and my opinion that it would be a depressing book, but it was on my Classics List. The book was not as difficult a read as I expected, but at least half of the story was depressing. And it took me four months to read it.

I had difficulty reading this book mainly because of Anna's plight. She brings her problems upon herself, but she is in the unfair position of not being able to divorce her husband and still have some rights to her son. She, like other women at the time, had very little control over her life. 

On the other hand, I enjoyed reading about Levin, his trials and tribulations, and his propensity for evaluating his life and that of others. He was a good man and a hard worker. I liked that he and Kitty do find their way to each other and enjoy their life together. Levin is surprised to find that marriage is not always idyllic, but together they learn how to deal with their differences. There are portions of Levin's story that are drawn out and overly long, but those parts also reveal a lot about life in Russia in the 1800s.

Anna Karenina is good book, deserving of the designation as a classic, and I am glad I read it. I learned a lot about life in Russia when it was written.  My edition had footnotes and explanations; for instance, there was a note explaining the laws that governed divorce and the rights of women at the time. I liked the Levin / Kitty plot but I had to mostly force my way through Anna's story. 

At times I had problems with the Russian names. Some of them were very similar (both Vronsky and Anna's husband are often referred to as Alexei, which was very confusing) and the same person was referred to at various time by their real name or nicknames.  

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Publisher: Penguin Classics, 2004 (orig. pub. 1878)
Length:  838 pages
Format: Trade paperback
Setting:  Russia
Genre:   Fiction, Classic
Source:  On my shelves for many years.
Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky

My Reading in August 2022

 

This may be the latest I have ever taken to put up a monthly reading summary. August was a good reading month with six books finished. I read two nonfiction books which was unusual. The rest were crime fiction, which is my favorite genre. The majority of the books were published after 2000, which is a change for me. 

Nonfiction / Biography

Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life (2007) by Laura Thompson

I started out loving this biography of Agatha Christie. It is very readable, and the first chapter about her childhood was charming. I had some quibbles with this book, but most of it was interesting, informative, and worth reading.

Nonficton / Nature

Why Do Birds Suddenly Disappear (2018) by Lev Parikian 

This is a nonfiction book about a man who decides to return to an old love, birding. He has a goal to find 200 different species in the UK in one year. I love to read about birds and I would have liked to get more about birds and less about his personal journey and the process. But all of it was good, and visiting different parts of the UK was interesting. 

Crime Fiction

The Long Way Home  (2014) by Louise Penny

I am now a big fan of the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series. Except by this book, the tenth in the series, Gamache has retired to Three Pines. I was still very happy with the book, and I look forward to reading the next in the series. See my review here.

The Burglar in the Closet (1978) by Lawrence Block

The Bernie Rhodenbarr series by Lawrence Block now consists of 11 books. The Burglar in the Closet is the second book in the series. Bernie lives in New York City and supports himself by burgling apartments. See my review here.

Vanish (2005) by Tess Gerritsen

This is the 5th book in the Rizzoli and Isles series. It has been eleven years since I read the 4th book in the series, but I caught up with the story easily enough. Jane Rizzoli is a police detective, and she is also pregnant and her baby is overdue. While visiting her doctor at the hospital she gets caught up in a hostage situation. I am not fond of books about sex trafficking and that was a focus here, Also, the book was a bit too thrillerish for me. However, in the end I liked the book a lot because Gerritsen tells the story well, most of the characters are strong and well-defined, and the story has a great twist at the end.

Death Around the Bend (2017) by T.E. Kinsey

This is the third book in the Lady Hardcastle historical mystery series. The books have interesting plots, wonderful characters, and a lot of humor. See this post where I discuss the first three books in the series.

Currently reading

I am currently reading Anna Karenina. I started it on September 12th and am about a third of the way through. 

We have been to the Planned Parenthood Book Sale three times already, and will go again this weekend. It started on September 16th and will end on the 25th. I have bought way too many books, so I hope I won't find too many more on the weekend. 

The photos at the top and bottom of this post are geraniums (actually pelargoniums), my favorite flower. I think it is because there is so much variety in the blossoms for various types of geraniums. Photos were taken and processed by my husband. Click on the images for the best viewing quality.