Judi Y's 2019 reading
Forum100 Books in 2019 Challenge
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1JudiY
1. 1/1 Started the year off by finishing A Splendid Exchange. Very interesting - traced "globalization" back to about 6,000 B.C., through the centuries and various trade wars, then looked at the effects on various populations. A strong defense of free trade, while acknowledging the hows and whys of protectionism. Doesn't really come to a conclusion, but ends by discussing the need for balance between free trade and a social safety net. Nice to see an economist acknowledge there's a human cost to open markets.
2. 1/12 Finished Uneasy Lies the Crown the latest Lady Emily. Had a hard time with this one, since it kept jumping back to the Middle Ages, with no explanation until the last chapter.
3. 1/19 Starting slow this year, since I read over 150 last year. :) Finished Origin Story. A recap of everything from the Big Bang to the future of Earth! Light on detail, but it's an overview. Not sure I agree with all his conclusions, but his descriptions of what we've been doing to the planet since the Industrial Revolution make sense.
4. 1/22 Finished Monarchy of Fear. Read this in an attempt to understand what's happening in the world. Nothing really I hadn't already glimpsed, but I liked the last chapter about hope. Probably should re-read.
5. 1/29 Finished Chaos: Making a New Science. Interesting, as all of Gleick's books are. More of a history of the development of the area than an explanation, though.
6. 2/2 Read I Met a Traveller in an Antique Land. Odd little book - seems to be an argument for the preservation of the written word. Or a parable for our instantaneous world.
7. 2/4 Finished The Library Book. As much a history of Los Angles as a history of their public library. Both sound like interesting places, especially the library. But it's also a very good treatise of what libraries actually do and why we treasure them.
8. 2/16 Finished Babylon, which probably should have been titled "Civilization". Excellent view of the how and why we went from farms to cities and a very readable timeline of all the various groups involved. I especially liked how he drew parallels with the rhythms of our times.
9. 3/2 I finally finished a book! Read The Drunkard's Walk, a very interesting discussion of the role of chance, and how very poor we are at accepting it. I particularly liked the conclusion that humans equate success with superiority, since I've never understood why that should be. Now I know.
10. 3/4 Re-read The Woman in the Water, which I didn't realize I'd read last year until half-way through. Still fun to read about a very young Lenox, though.
11. 3/7 So followed up with The Vanishing Man. Not sure what the title refers to, but the story involves a Duke, his family and Shakespeare. More interestingly though, was the snippet that Lennox has met Jane's husband, and approves of him absolutely. But it also sounded like Lady Jane was expecting a child?
12. 3/9 Finished The Deeds of the Disturber. Didn't enjoy this one as much as the others, perhaps because it was set in London. And too much family, too much "young love" and matchmaking. But they solved the mystery, of course, which involved Egyptian "priests" creating havoc at the British Museum to cover up a nefarious plot involving a dying young nobleman.
13. 3/19 Actually read Decluttering at the Speed of Life twice. Never once thought of my house as a container, with limited capacity - but it is. So now to figure out what I'm likely to use, instead of maybe use - someday! :) I think I'll start with the kitchen...
14. 3/27 Finished The Last Camel Died at Noon - I think I'd read this years ago, but it's the one where they discover a lost civilization - and Nefret!
15. 3/30 Read The Lost Traveller, the latest County Cork. Maura discovers a body, then a whole new part of Irish society, realizes she has to broaden her horizons - like learning how to use a computer! and cook!! But she also solves the mystery. I do enjoy this series.
16. 3/30 Also finished The Eagle Catcher. Not Hillerman, but the premise is interesting - a Jesuit priest and a Arapaho lady lawyer team up to clear a young boy of murdering his uncle and also figure out what's happening to the oil on the reservation. Exciting ending, but I thought deux ex machina was out of style :)
17. 4/1 Well, if I stay away from politics, I can still finish a book. :) Read Murder at Brightwell. Interesting plot, somewhat interesting characters, a marriage that's really, really difficult to believe. Nick & Nora Charles, as one reviewer said, they're not. But another Englishwoman solving murders just ahead of the police is OK.
18. 4/3 So finished Death of a Dead Man Juniper Grove Cozy #1, a so-so cozy, this one set in Colorado. This one's heroine is a mystery writer, her elderly neighbor next door, and the pastry shop baker. The town attorney is after the mayors job, the other cop wants to be chief, and the newspaper editor is a real piece of cake.
19. 4/5 Finished Fooled by Randomness. Interesting book - seems to support what I've always believed - stuff happens, and you can't know what or when.
20. 4/11 Finished The Black Ascot. Which was the horse race after Edward VII died - everyone dressed in black - and still partied, presumably. A car accident after the race killed a woman and injured her husband, another man was accused of tampering with the car and held to be tried for murder. He escaped and disappeared, and 10 years later, Scotland Yard is still looking for him. Rutledge helps a man in a small village, and in return, the man tells him that the escapee is in England. Lots of twists and turns, including a faked suicide attempt involving Rutledge, but in the end he proves the husband did it.
21. 4/15 Read Nipped in the Bud, the latest Orchard Mystery. This one's as much about relationships as a mystery, but it all works. Meg has a new manager and Seth turned into a rather inept landlord - which causes all sorts of problems, as his tenants turn out to be drug dealers. Good story and a wild finish.
22. 4/16 Finished The Lost Man, the next Jane Harper. Her descriptions of Australia remind me of Hillerman - I really feel like I'm there. This one starts with the apparent suicide of the middle brother - of exposure, which no one can figure out why he did. The book slowly reveals he wasn't the nice guy most people thought he was, a horrifically abusive father, and the redemption of the oldest brother, who'd been shunned by the small community for committing a perfectly understandable yet taboo act ten years prior. Slow start, but good story.
23. 4/21 Finally read A Suspicion of Silver, the next Robert Carey. This one has him in England, looking for the man that set up the apparatus to murder King James in the last book. While searching, his warrant takes him to mines set up by a very unsavory German family - the brother is the missing assassin and a serial killer. Carey gets him, eventually, and then ends the blood feud between the Dodds and the Eliots. Book ends with a new threat to Lady Widdington.
24. 4/30 Bought - and read - How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind, as much to support the author as for any new information. Entertaining read, but her other book, which I also bought helped me more, since I already pretty much do most of the things she suggests. I will now, however, do them all on a more regular basis, since the house does look better! :)
25. 5/4 Read Ghost Walker, next in the series. Not sure why these aren't as gripping as Hillerman's books - possibly because they're more about people in general than the tribal customs? Anyway - good description of the havoc alcoholism causes, and drugs. A cartel is trying to close the mission, apparently to eventually set up a money-laundering casino and a drug lab, but it all goes awry in the end, thanks to Father John.
26. 5/12 Got Triple Jeopardy from the library a couple of days ago. Even more involved than the first one! Jemima and her family are visiting England. Patrick, her husband and a detective in D. C., also wants to see an Englishman charged in Britain for a crime he allegedly committed while working for the Embassy in Washington. And from there it goes back to a murder on a remote island, treason, affairs - and quite an ending!
27. 5/17 Read A Snapshot of Murder, the next Kate Shackleton. The badly used daughter of a murderous father and the sot of a husband he picks for her - as well as a friend of Kate's - finally snaps, but not until the end of the book! :) Not as much about the times as in her previous books, but still quite enjoyable.
28. 5/25 Doesn't look like I'll make 100 this year unless I find a good series of fluff. Finally finished The Dream Stalker. Something about this series makes it hard to get interested. Maybe because the priest is human? Anyway, this one's about why a nuclear waste storage site shouldn't be built on the reservation, and who keeps murdering people involved in a crime in the distant past.
29. 5/27 Finally finished The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt. Very interesting, and very long. A lot about the Old Kingdom that was new to me and quite a bit about the decline of the New Kingdom I didn't know, so well worth reading. Some of which sounds disturbingly familiar - history does repeat itself. Well written, and worth the effort.
30. 5/30 Finished Never Enough. I was rather hoping for more info about nicotine, but there's still a wealth of information about what any substance does to the brain and body, as well as how addictions develop. Not why, though - we still don't know, and her comment that there are as many paths to addiction as there are addicts is probably true. Worth the effort to read.
31. 6/14 Read Janson's A History of Art. A hard book to read - not because of the writing, which is really quite interesting, but because it's so big and so heavy! Not sure I'm any more knowledgeable about art than I was before, but at least I've got a little better sense of the timeline of various types.
32. 6/15 Read Ashes to Ashes by Mel Starr. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy this series. He's been compared, rightly I think, to Ellis Peters, and the investigations do proceed at a leisurely pace! This one has bones found under a fire built for a town celebration and the quest to find out who's bones and why they were there.
33. 6/22 Forced myself to finish A Vein of Deceit. This was a series I did enjoy, but not this time. Plot was too convoluted and it could have used some substantial editing.
34. 6/24 Finished Lucifer's Harvest. Maybe I was comparing #33 to these books, which are much shorter? Anyway, this one has Hugh off to battle in France. While there, he has a run-in with his rival for Kate, who's later found murdered, and Hugh is accused of it. So he has to find the real murderer, which he does. The most interesting part is the ending - the murderer was really a young boy, Simon's lover, who kills in a fit of jealousy when he finds Simon with a woman. Hugh offers him the choice of being hanged in disgrace or making sure he dies a hero in the upcoming battle. Good stories.
35. 6/27 Read Murder at the Bayswater Bicycle Club. Given my feelings about current day cyclists, I was surprised to find this one very interesting. Not so much for the mystery, but for the early days of bicycles and especially about the impossibility of a woman riding one. Frances, of course, finds a new fashion - split skirts! - that allow her more freedom of movement than the Victorian heavy skirts and petticoats, so of course she catches the killer. Good book, good series.
36 6/29 With so many waiting, read The American Agent as soon as the library had it for me. Set during the Blitz, Priscilla and Masie take a young American reporter with them on an ambulance run. The reporter is murdered soon after she makes a very successful radio broadcast, ala Edward R. Murrow, and Masie is asked to work with an American attache to find the killer. Turns out the attache is the man who got her out of Hitler's Berlin in a previous book, and he's not much help at all in the investigation, so Masie's quite suspicious of him while being attracted to him at the same time. Then there's the stress of having to go through a hearing to see if she's fit to adopt Anna, the little girl she rescued in another book. The killer is found in a somewhat surprising ending. A very good story.
37. 7/2 Finished Dinosaurs Rediscovered. Just as good as the first book I read by him, this one talks about the revolutions in paleontology and how new tools are making it possible to discover things that seemed impossible. No expert, but his argument that dinosaurs rose because of an extinction event makes more sense to me than others I've read. Bought this one to support the author.
38. 7/7 Finished Deeds of Darkness, the last one the library has in this series. Pity, because they're quite interesting. This one starts with a murder, goes through all sorts of housebreaking & a couple more murders, but Hugh gets the men - one the son of a quite honorable knight, who brings the miscreants to the sheriff, even though one is his youngest son.
39. 7/16 Too much cleaning & weeding to get much reading done! Finished An Artless Demise, the next Lady Darby. Kind of a far-fetched motive when it's finally revealed, but a good read anyway. She's carrying their first child - "increasing" in the terms of the times, I guess, and the story is as much about that as the murders, the blackmail, and the general unrest around the idea of anatomical study and "burkers" - the terms for body-snatchers and sometimes murderers to sell the body to a surgeon's college. Ugly idea.
40. 7/18 Finally finished The Killer of Pilgrims. LT says I read this in 2010, but if I did, I didn't remember any of it - probably because it was fairly boring. It takes Michael & Matthew several days to figure out who's the evil family behind thefts and murders, and why Michaelhouse is being targeted.
41. 7/24 Read Killer in the Carriage House - well, not the carriage house but the library this time. I don't really like these as well as her other series, but she still writes and plots quite well.
42. 7/26 Finally finished Mystery in the Minster. Set in York, where clerics seem to be as unsavory as the students in Cambridge, this one involves an inheritance left to Michaelhouse by Langelee's former employer.
43. 8/3 Finished The Burning Issue of the Day, the next Lady Hardcastle. Who knew there were two groups of women agitating for the vote in Britain? I didn't, but the book explained it. :) This one draws them into the suffragette movement - as opposed to the suffragists - starting with arson that becomes a murder, then theft on a grand scale - by the town worthies no less! Fun read.
44. 8/5 Finished The Ends of the World Not a very optimistic book - seems many of the past extinctions are linked to rising CO2 levels, though he does point out that at our worst, we aren't pumping it into the atmosphere as fast as a volcano can and does. And did. One thing I found quite interesting - that the asteroid that hit earth at the K-T boundary has been shown by models to have been able to trigger the Deccan Traps eruption, which was apparently a fairly local event up to the asteroid. Makes sense to me, anyway.
45. 8/8 Finished Lost in Math. Well, now I have an idea of why some of the physics books I've read made very little sense to me - aside from the fact that I'm not a physicist, anyway. Her contention that economic constraints are pushing science as a whole away from basic research - "publish or perish" and as verification gets more complicated and expensive, the fact that some discoveries take much longer than a career length steers research away from it. Along with other things - herd instinct, silos, more scientists competing for less funding. Glad I read it though. She also feels some popular science authors are presenting opinion and philosophy as science fact - I agree.
45. 8/9 Read The Quick and the Thread. Short book, but interesting characters, if a tad unbelievable. Loved the Irish Wolfhound! The heroine opens an embroidery shop in Oregon, is quickly accepted by the locals, finds a dead body, solves the case ahead of the police. Of course. I think there's a recipe somewhere for writing these books. :) But they're marginally entertaining.
46. 8/10 Read Death at La Fenice - At last - I think it's a long series I'll enjoy, even though I've never been to Venice - nor wanted to go, really. :) A very nasty conductor, who also happens to be one of the best in the world, dies in the middle of an opera - apparently murdered, but in the end, no, it's a suicide because he's going deaf. With help. Interesting characters, and a nice plot.
47. 8/11 Finished The Meaning of Everything, about the creation of the OED. Interesting story, and really, an amazing accomplishment.
48. 8/12 Finished Trouble in Nuala, which I enjoyed, only to find the library doesn't have any of the rest of the series and I don't really want to buy them. Oh well. Set in Ceylon in the 30's it's an interesting take on the British and a nice little mystery.
49. 8/15 Read A Lady's Guide to Etiquette and Murder. A rather delightful new twist on the English cozy. Married for her father's money, Frances finds herself a widow, and living in the midst of what has to be one of the greediest of English noble families. She escapes by buying a house in London, runs into all sorts of difficulties, including murder, while introducing her sister during "the Season". Nice twist at the end, and I was completely wrong about the murderer. :)
50. 8/17 Read The Tale Teller as soon as the library had it for me, there's so many people waiting. Nice to "see" Joe Leaphorn back in form, and his struggles with language must be heartening to others with similar problems. This one involves a string of thefts - both from Seniors and a museum a murder and a shooting, so Bernie, Chee and Leaphorn all end up investigating different aspects of connected crimes. Why does it always seem to be Bernie that has to go into so much danger to catch the bad guys? A fitting continuation of Tony Hillerman's books, and I love the descriptions of the desert.
51. 8/29 Finished City of Parks - very interesting, at least if you live in Minneapolis and place a high value on the parks, both of which I do. :) Lots of things I didn't know especially about my neighborhood. Glad I read it.
52. 8/31 Read Thread Reckoning. At least almost all the disagreeable people were murdered in this one. Starts with a bridezilla wanting a wedding dress made over with some jewels her future mother-in-law was giving them, and ended with a couple of corporate no-goodniks unmasked as the guilty parties. At least I learned how the romances are progressing. I rather like the characters, but the plotting isn't very good.
53. 9/1 Read Stitch Me Deadly next. Wrong order, and not really much build-up in the romance department, but this one involves a frail old lady asking for help finding Ivy and collapsing in the shop, and ends with the long-lost grandchildren coming to the fore.
54. 9/2 Read Death in a Strange Country. I suppose there's some comfort in knowing corruption is the same the world over. This one involves toxic waster dumping and only ends a little satisfactorily - just like real life.
55. 9/3 Read Digging Up History. Seems shorter than her usual books - I think I finished it in a couple of hours. Interesting about how one goes about researching when a developer finds an abandoned graveyard on his site, and more than a little deux ex machina at the end, in the form of a letter included in a bequest. Still worth reading, though, simply because I like the characters. :)
56. 9/6 Read The Long Stitch Good Night in an afternoon. I like these short reads - not overly puzzling mysteries, but fairly interesting people. This one involved both her friends being suspected of a murder at a fraternity alum gathering at Ted's bar and Angus almost getting shot as he roars to the rescue on the last page.
57. 9/6 Followed by Thread on Arrival. People are still interesting, but the plots are lacking. However, I do enjoy the embroidery and the dog. :) This one involves domestic abuse and a treasure map.
58. 9/7 Followed by Cross Stitch Before Dying. So Hollywood comes to Oregon. You'd think they'd have learned after the TV crew, but no... A rather convoluted story involving an actress from India trying for a comeback, and Marcie's mother seeming to be the main suspect - until the last page of course. Still like the characters though.
59. 9/8 Read Dressed for Death. Apparently, August is very hot and humid in Venice - not surprising, I suppose. A banker is murdered, then dressed as a transvestite, then another murder followed by an attempt on Brunetti that kills a policewoman. He gets his man in the end though - somewhat surprisingly. Very good series.
60. 9/10 Finished Elementary, She Read. I think I started this a while ago, then returned it, because I didn't care much for the protagonist. checked it out again because the reviews were so good, and I do like the Sherlock stories. Got a little more interested in Gemma this time, and it is a well-plotted mystery. Ending left a lot of threads hanging though. I would hope any police office that acted like these would lose their job!
61. 9/12 Finished Devil's Wolf, the latest Hugh Corbett. Convoluted as always, this time he and Ranulf are traveling toward Scotland with all sorts of excess baggage regarding the Percy's, Robert the Bruce, Piers Gaveston... Anyway, Corbett figures everything out in the end. I do like the way Doherty combines fact with fiction.
62. 9/13 Sat right down and read Word to the Wise as soon as the library had it for me. This time, Lindsey's the victim of a stalker who winds up dead in front of the library door - and Sully's framed for the murder! One of the better ones, I think - but way to short.
63. 9/14 Read Yarned and Dangerous, and enjoyed it a bit more than I thought I would at first. Called to a small, dying Connecticut town to care for a great-uncle, injured in a car crash that killed his wife. Josie finds herself missing the Aunt Cora she never knew while trying to close the yarn shop she ran. Small town police are pictured as much more human, and I rather liked the characters.
64. 9/16 Why is it when I find a series I like, it's so short? Read A Knit Before Dying. Josie rented out the store next door for an antique shop, and finds the new proprietor dead the first day. But he'd given her a box of doilies the night before, and in it, she finds a message from a woman that disappeared long ago - and another murder to solve! Which she does. I may have to buy these books for the knitting patterns. :)
65. 9/17 Finished Body on Baker Street. Sort of a convoluted plot that starts with a very popular artist being murdered at a book signing in Gemma's shop! Still no real explanation why the detective dislikes her so much, and she's still sort of annoying, but I'm starting to rather like her. Anyway, now I'm curious about how the romance goes - and to meet Uncle Arthur. :)
66. 9/18 Re-read Twisted Threads, apparently, though I didn't really remember reading it before I was part-way through - then I finished it to see if I still liked the plot. I did, and I do - daughter returns to grandmother 19 years after her mother disappeared when the mother's body is found. Interesting town and interesting people.
67. 9/19 Read Threads of Evidence. Still interesting plots and people. An actress returns to buy a crumbling old mansion and fix it up. She was friends with first the daughter that died many, many years before, then the parents - who helped her get started. Anyway, she's trying to keep a promise to solve the daughter's murder, enlists Angie's help, and the crime is solved - along with several recent ones.
68. 9/19 Got Bewitched and Betrothed from the library and sat right down to read it. I really do like these stories, obviously. Ivory's dealing not only with evil forces, but also with evil people raising a demon and trying to destroy California! Starts when a shirt worn by a supposed escapee from Alcatraz shows up in a bag of vintage clothes and ends with a hand-fasting. Exciting story. Wish there were more of them.
69. 9/20 Read Thread End in a few hours - if I can find another series like this, I may make 100 yet this year. :) Starts with being excited about a textile art exhibit loaned to the local museum, then Marcy finds a body wrapped in one of the rugs behind her shop and goes on from there. Meanwhile, she finally meets Ted's mother, does a little bit of match-making and the crime gets solved - it was the collection owner's friend!
70. 9/20 Also read The Cat of the Baskervilles. A summer theater group is putting this on with an aging British actor as the star. Highly unsuitable for the role, he's found dead after a fund-raising tea, and Jayne's mother is the chief suspect, so naturally, Gemma solves it - at the very last minute. And the romance appears to be getting back on track.
71. 9/21 Then read Wicked Stitch This one's set at a Renaissance Fair - in Tallula Falls, no less! At least one of the more noxious characters is done away with and the current crime spree is tired to a cold case - and solved dramatically on the last page. The embroidery is interesting, though - may have to dig out my needles. :)
72. 9/23 Finished A Scandal in Scarlet. Finally admitted to myself that I do not really like Gemma, and the rest of the characters aren't that interesting.
73. 9/26 Finished Death and Judgement. In a way, it's nice to know corruption isn't limited to us, but rages world-wide. Not sure why I like this series - I generally don't much care for contemporary crime, but these are very well written, and I like the family. This one deals with prostitution and evolves into importing snuff films. Ugly world.
74. 9/26 Read Grave Importance almost in one sitting. The only implausible part of the story was the idea of the mega-rich collector who puts the whole train of events in motion tries to reverse the damage she's done. Yeah, sure... Otherwise, I have no trouble with the parallel universe's angels invading our universe to destroy it, Armageddon happening then being reversed, Hell as a well-run country and all the other weird happenings. Hope this isn't the last one, since Greta marries her vampire in the end. Truly fun story!
75. 9/28 Got Shadows at the Fair because I like Lea Wait's other series. Enjoyed it, probably because the information about the prints was interesting, and because I used to do shows. Even a fairly good mystery!
76. 9/28 Read Thread and Gone. I may make 100 after all! This one had needlepoint from Mary, Queen of Scots turning up in New England - and involved a couple of murders by a couple of kids - but Gram is happily married, so that's good.
77. 9/29 Finished How To: Absurd Scientific Advice. Funny, sometimes hilarious ways to get some real scientific knowledge out. Enjoyed greatly!
78. 10/1 Finished Dangling by a Thread. Interesting how she manages to bring contemporary issues into a mystery. This one involves a vet who lives on an island that a threatened species of cormorant uses to nest. He prefers the company of his birds, but when a wealthy man decides he wants to buy the island and build a large house... Anyway, the murderer turns out to be just as unlikely as in other stories - the wife of the realtor trying to sell the island. The commission would pay her medical bills and their kids college tuition. Two issues in one mystery!
79. 10/5 Finished Prince Edward's Warrant. Nice to go back in time again. A truly nasty Knight is murdered - poisoned at the Prince's table, no less. Hugh is on hand to help the Prince's medical condition, and the Prince asks him to find the murderer, of course. Several more violent deaths occur, and Hugh finally solves it by eavesdropping! In a maze, no less! And helps the Prince find some relief from the ineffective doctor treating him. Some things don't change.
80. 10/6 I may make 100 this year after all. Finished Tightening the Threads (A Mainely Needlepoint Mystery). This one has a clambake, which sounds like fun, and two murders - Sarah loses her newly-found uncle and gets a family not really worth having. And a 200 year old probable ancestor is reburied.
81. 10/7 So went on to read The Stitching Hour. A haunted house opens next door to Marcy's shop, and the plot gets very convoluted from there. I like these books - not terribly violent and the characters are interesting people.
82. 10/7 So then read Better Off Thread, the last in the series. This time it's Captain Moe that's accused of a murder he didn't do. There do seem to be a lot of bullies in that small town, and a very dramatic ending. Stunt car driving lessons?
83. 10/9 Finished Archie Meets Nero Wolfe for a nice change of pace. Quite well written, and really seemed to have the flavor of Stout's novels. Archie was just a tad precocious, but still seemed to be Archie. :)
84. 10/11 Finally finished The Proud Tower, Tuchman's book about the years leading up to WWI. Sad parallels, in ways, of today, and poignant look at what might have been. But a chilling look at the arrogance and fear, really, that allowed the war to happen.
85. 10/12 Finished Shadows on the Coast of Maine. I rather like this series - not especially violent and the information about the prints is interesting. This one has Maggie coming to visit her super-organized college room-mate, with dire consequences. But the descriptions of an old house are interesting, too.
86. 10/10 Read Thread the Halls. Christmas in Maine! Actually sounds fairly delightful, even if it's marred by a couple of attempted murders and one real one.
87. 10/14 Finished WTF?. Though it's mainly about Brexit, there are parallels to Trump being elected. Interesting read - he's not overly optimistic about the future.
88. 10/15 Finished Thread Herrings About the unlikeliest plot I can imagine. She picks up a family crest at an auction, finds a paper from the London Foundlings Hospital in it, gets on TV and it goes from there. The TV reporter is murdered, her car is blown up - and the murderer turns out to be a dot com billionaire with a grudge against his estranged family.
89. 10/17 Read The Religious Body. I'm surprised I really liked this, as I generally don't much care for contemporary mysteries. But I did - good characterization, well-plotted and written. Murder in a convent? Followed by one at an ag school? Interesting... Also read about half of Feta Attraction. If it's supposed to be taken seriously, it's a terrible book. If it's a spoof, it's still terrible. Returned to the library unfinished, something I very rarely do.
90. 10/19 Finished Acqua Alta. An archaeologist gets badly beaten, then a museum director is murdered - and it's all the fault of the Mafia. And maniacal collectors. Which, of course ends about as well as it can. Fascinating about the effects of flooding in Venice though - something I've never had to think of here in the middle of the continent.
91. 10/20 Followed up with Quietly, In Their Sleep. This one involves a former nun, corrupt priests and Opus Dei. Since I have little respect for any organized religion, found the whole story quite plausible.
92. 10/21 Read shadows on the Ivy this rainy day. Not as interesting this time, as it was set in the college, and most of the more interesting characters were missing until the very end.
93. 10/26 Read Henrietta Who? since I was tired from raking. I like these books - nice puzzles, and not very violent. This one starts with a hit-and-run that turns out to be murder, an heiress who doesn't know she is, and an embezzler. Good story.
94. 10/29 Finished Thread on Arrival (A Mainely Needlepoint Mystery by Leah Wait. I thought titles were copyrighted? A man who makes a living turning in recyclables - and takes in a runaway teen - is murdered, and of course, the teen is suspected. In the course of her investigation, Angie uncovers a thief and finds the murderer - but not before another death occurs. And the romance seems to be heating up!
95. 10/30 People waiting, so read A Noble Radiance as soon as I picked it up from the library. The body of a kidnapping victim from two years ago is found, and the plot thickens from there - is it really a kidnapping? And why was the victim killed? Questions for Brunetti to answer, once he reads the original files, and sees how much deference was paid to the father, a Count with a Nazi collaborator father whose reputation he's trying to erase.
96. 10/31 Guess I won't have a problem making 100 this year. Finally finished The Birth of Plenty, another economic history. Although his premises make sense, I think he draws some dubious conclusions from them. Interesting book, though.
97. 11/2 Read The Stately Home Murder. I think the Inspector was drawn a tad unflatteringly, probably on purpose, since he had trouble with vocabulary. And anyone would have trouble finding their way around a "house" with 300 rooms! But they find the killer, finally. The butler did it, so I guess it really is a traditional British mystery! :)
98. 11/2 Feel like I'm getting a cold, so also read The Late Phoenix. Starts out by the new doctor in town finding a skeleton in a construction site. At first thought to be from bombing in the war, turns out to be murder, followed by another, modern one. Gives something of a nice glimpse of small-town England.
99. 11/6 Finished Love and Death Among the Cheetahs. Fun story - Darcy's chasing a jewel thief in Africa, so they get a honeymoon in an exotic place - among British aristocrats behaving very badly. Attempts are made on both Darcy and Georgianna, but they prevail in the end - they even find out who the mysterious fellow is!
100. 11/12 Made it! Finished Mycroft Holmes. Well-written and an interesting plot, but not really how I imagine a young Mycroft would act. Convoluted plot involving a resurgence of slavery, and reaching all the way up into Victoria's family. Not sure I'll read any more of the series - at least not until the image of Mycroft as a man of action settles in. :)
101. 11/15 Finished A Better Man. Had to re-read the ending, because I almost didn't believe it! Even Armand was wrong, right up to the last pages. And Jean-Guy gone? Wonder how long that will last.
102. 11/16 So then read A Lady's Guide to Gossip and Murder. Fun story - an acquaintance that she liked is murdered, then her cousin becomes the prime suspect, so of course she and George have to solve it. Amidst fittings and engagement parties for her sister, and a romance for her young charge. Nice light read. One more, then back to the tomes.
103. 11/17 Read The Body on the Train. I liked this one a lot. Scotland Yard calls Kate in - a body they can't identify is found on the Rhubarb Express - I guess there really is such a thing - and the Chief thinks it's a harbinger of revolution. Kate, of course, solves the whole thing - including a second murder, rescues some orphans and finally sees the culprits arrested and an innocent man freed. Good story.
104. 11/20 Finished Fatal Remedies. This one starts with Brunetti's wife throwing a rock through the window of a travel agency that arranges trips for men to use child prostitutes. Then the owner of the building the agency is in is murdered, and suspicion falls on Paoloa - of course, it turns out to be about shipping bad medicine to third world countries and NGOs and it's all in the family.
105. 11/22 Finished His Burial Too. I like the plots, and the books are short and easy to read, but somewhat lacking in characterization. Still, a nice way to spend the afternoon when I'm tired. This one involved patents, engineers, and Foucault's Pendulum.
106. 12/1 Finished The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, the first book in The Inheritance Trilogy. Jemisin deserves every award she's won. Enthralling story about the cost of power and revenge.
107 12/2 So finished the second book, The Broken Kingdoms. An enthralling story about demons, magic and the redemption of a god.
108. 12/3 Finished Kingdom of Gods. I'll have to think a bit about what to say about this one, except that it's a well-written as the others.
109. 12/6 Read Penny For Your Secrets, the next Verity Kent. Good mystery, but a very odd ending - seems catching the real culprit will have to wait for the next book. Also though, a look at what it might have been like in England between the wars, when the men who survived came back. Touching story.
110. 12/10 Finished Friends in High Places. Not sure why I like this family so much, but I do enjoy reading about them. This one starts with an agency that finds the Brunetti apartment was probably built illegally, goes on to three murders and ends with the murderer's sister - who instigated the whole thing - defending the "honor" of an old family. A Pope shouldn't have descendants, should he?
111. 12/21 Finally finished Death Beside the Seaside. They have a new car - enclosed, no less and with an electric starter - but hand-cranked windshield wipers. Wonder how that would work with no passenger. Anyway - they plan a vacation so Flo can finally sea the ocean, and end up at a hotel full of spies - who are being murdered, one by one. So naturally, they get involved, rescue the kidnap victims and save the day for Britain. Fun story, but didn't grab me the way these books usually do - maybe because of all the house problems. Might be the last one finished this year - then on to my growing TBR pile.
112. 12/22 Finished Dog Is Love. Interesting, thesis seems to be that dogs are the only animal we know of that can bond with another species. Not sure I buy that, but he does have a lot of interesting examples of how even stray dogs go for human company.
113. 12/23 Finished Lethal Pursuit, the next Barker & Llewellyn. Seems like there was a lot more violence in this one, and ends up on a ferry in the English Channel in the middle of a blizzard! Who knew England had blizzards? Or that Barker was a member of the Knights Templar? But it's nice to see Llewellyn happily married and they all seem to be getting along well - other than all the exciting cases.
2. 1/12 Finished Uneasy Lies the Crown the latest Lady Emily. Had a hard time with this one, since it kept jumping back to the Middle Ages, with no explanation until the last chapter.
3. 1/19 Starting slow this year, since I read over 150 last year. :) Finished Origin Story. A recap of everything from the Big Bang to the future of Earth! Light on detail, but it's an overview. Not sure I agree with all his conclusions, but his descriptions of what we've been doing to the planet since the Industrial Revolution make sense.
4. 1/22 Finished Monarchy of Fear. Read this in an attempt to understand what's happening in the world. Nothing really I hadn't already glimpsed, but I liked the last chapter about hope. Probably should re-read.
5. 1/29 Finished Chaos: Making a New Science. Interesting, as all of Gleick's books are. More of a history of the development of the area than an explanation, though.
6. 2/2 Read I Met a Traveller in an Antique Land. Odd little book - seems to be an argument for the preservation of the written word. Or a parable for our instantaneous world.
7. 2/4 Finished The Library Book. As much a history of Los Angles as a history of their public library. Both sound like interesting places, especially the library. But it's also a very good treatise of what libraries actually do and why we treasure them.
8. 2/16 Finished Babylon, which probably should have been titled "Civilization". Excellent view of the how and why we went from farms to cities and a very readable timeline of all the various groups involved. I especially liked how he drew parallels with the rhythms of our times.
9. 3/2 I finally finished a book! Read The Drunkard's Walk, a very interesting discussion of the role of chance, and how very poor we are at accepting it. I particularly liked the conclusion that humans equate success with superiority, since I've never understood why that should be. Now I know.
10. 3/4 Re-read The Woman in the Water, which I didn't realize I'd read last year until half-way through. Still fun to read about a very young Lenox, though.
11. 3/7 So followed up with The Vanishing Man. Not sure what the title refers to, but the story involves a Duke, his family and Shakespeare. More interestingly though, was the snippet that Lennox has met Jane's husband, and approves of him absolutely. But it also sounded like Lady Jane was expecting a child?
12. 3/9 Finished The Deeds of the Disturber. Didn't enjoy this one as much as the others, perhaps because it was set in London. And too much family, too much "young love" and matchmaking. But they solved the mystery, of course, which involved Egyptian "priests" creating havoc at the British Museum to cover up a nefarious plot involving a dying young nobleman.
13. 3/19 Actually read Decluttering at the Speed of Life twice. Never once thought of my house as a container, with limited capacity - but it is. So now to figure out what I'm likely to use, instead of maybe use - someday! :) I think I'll start with the kitchen...
14. 3/27 Finished The Last Camel Died at Noon - I think I'd read this years ago, but it's the one where they discover a lost civilization - and Nefret!
15. 3/30 Read The Lost Traveller, the latest County Cork. Maura discovers a body, then a whole new part of Irish society, realizes she has to broaden her horizons - like learning how to use a computer! and cook!! But she also solves the mystery. I do enjoy this series.
16. 3/30 Also finished The Eagle Catcher. Not Hillerman, but the premise is interesting - a Jesuit priest and a Arapaho lady lawyer team up to clear a young boy of murdering his uncle and also figure out what's happening to the oil on the reservation. Exciting ending, but I thought deux ex machina was out of style :)
17. 4/1 Well, if I stay away from politics, I can still finish a book. :) Read Murder at Brightwell. Interesting plot, somewhat interesting characters, a marriage that's really, really difficult to believe. Nick & Nora Charles, as one reviewer said, they're not. But another Englishwoman solving murders just ahead of the police is OK.
18. 4/3 So finished Death of a Dead Man Juniper Grove Cozy #1, a so-so cozy, this one set in Colorado. This one's heroine is a mystery writer, her elderly neighbor next door, and the pastry shop baker. The town attorney is after the mayors job, the other cop wants to be chief, and the newspaper editor is a real piece of cake.
19. 4/5 Finished Fooled by Randomness. Interesting book - seems to support what I've always believed - stuff happens, and you can't know what or when.
20. 4/11 Finished The Black Ascot. Which was the horse race after Edward VII died - everyone dressed in black - and still partied, presumably. A car accident after the race killed a woman and injured her husband, another man was accused of tampering with the car and held to be tried for murder. He escaped and disappeared, and 10 years later, Scotland Yard is still looking for him. Rutledge helps a man in a small village, and in return, the man tells him that the escapee is in England. Lots of twists and turns, including a faked suicide attempt involving Rutledge, but in the end he proves the husband did it.
21. 4/15 Read Nipped in the Bud, the latest Orchard Mystery. This one's as much about relationships as a mystery, but it all works. Meg has a new manager and Seth turned into a rather inept landlord - which causes all sorts of problems, as his tenants turn out to be drug dealers. Good story and a wild finish.
22. 4/16 Finished The Lost Man, the next Jane Harper. Her descriptions of Australia remind me of Hillerman - I really feel like I'm there. This one starts with the apparent suicide of the middle brother - of exposure, which no one can figure out why he did. The book slowly reveals he wasn't the nice guy most people thought he was, a horrifically abusive father, and the redemption of the oldest brother, who'd been shunned by the small community for committing a perfectly understandable yet taboo act ten years prior. Slow start, but good story.
23. 4/21 Finally read A Suspicion of Silver, the next Robert Carey. This one has him in England, looking for the man that set up the apparatus to murder King James in the last book. While searching, his warrant takes him to mines set up by a very unsavory German family - the brother is the missing assassin and a serial killer. Carey gets him, eventually, and then ends the blood feud between the Dodds and the Eliots. Book ends with a new threat to Lady Widdington.
24. 4/30 Bought - and read - How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind, as much to support the author as for any new information. Entertaining read, but her other book, which I also bought helped me more, since I already pretty much do most of the things she suggests. I will now, however, do them all on a more regular basis, since the house does look better! :)
25. 5/4 Read Ghost Walker, next in the series. Not sure why these aren't as gripping as Hillerman's books - possibly because they're more about people in general than the tribal customs? Anyway - good description of the havoc alcoholism causes, and drugs. A cartel is trying to close the mission, apparently to eventually set up a money-laundering casino and a drug lab, but it all goes awry in the end, thanks to Father John.
26. 5/12 Got Triple Jeopardy from the library a couple of days ago. Even more involved than the first one! Jemima and her family are visiting England. Patrick, her husband and a detective in D. C., also wants to see an Englishman charged in Britain for a crime he allegedly committed while working for the Embassy in Washington. And from there it goes back to a murder on a remote island, treason, affairs - and quite an ending!
27. 5/17 Read A Snapshot of Murder, the next Kate Shackleton. The badly used daughter of a murderous father and the sot of a husband he picks for her - as well as a friend of Kate's - finally snaps, but not until the end of the book! :) Not as much about the times as in her previous books, but still quite enjoyable.
28. 5/25 Doesn't look like I'll make 100 this year unless I find a good series of fluff. Finally finished The Dream Stalker. Something about this series makes it hard to get interested. Maybe because the priest is human? Anyway, this one's about why a nuclear waste storage site shouldn't be built on the reservation, and who keeps murdering people involved in a crime in the distant past.
29. 5/27 Finally finished The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt. Very interesting, and very long. A lot about the Old Kingdom that was new to me and quite a bit about the decline of the New Kingdom I didn't know, so well worth reading. Some of which sounds disturbingly familiar - history does repeat itself. Well written, and worth the effort.
30. 5/30 Finished Never Enough. I was rather hoping for more info about nicotine, but there's still a wealth of information about what any substance does to the brain and body, as well as how addictions develop. Not why, though - we still don't know, and her comment that there are as many paths to addiction as there are addicts is probably true. Worth the effort to read.
31. 6/14 Read Janson's A History of Art. A hard book to read - not because of the writing, which is really quite interesting, but because it's so big and so heavy! Not sure I'm any more knowledgeable about art than I was before, but at least I've got a little better sense of the timeline of various types.
32. 6/15 Read Ashes to Ashes by Mel Starr. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy this series. He's been compared, rightly I think, to Ellis Peters, and the investigations do proceed at a leisurely pace! This one has bones found under a fire built for a town celebration and the quest to find out who's bones and why they were there.
33. 6/22 Forced myself to finish A Vein of Deceit. This was a series I did enjoy, but not this time. Plot was too convoluted and it could have used some substantial editing.
34. 6/24 Finished Lucifer's Harvest. Maybe I was comparing #33 to these books, which are much shorter? Anyway, this one has Hugh off to battle in France. While there, he has a run-in with his rival for Kate, who's later found murdered, and Hugh is accused of it. So he has to find the real murderer, which he does. The most interesting part is the ending - the murderer was really a young boy, Simon's lover, who kills in a fit of jealousy when he finds Simon with a woman. Hugh offers him the choice of being hanged in disgrace or making sure he dies a hero in the upcoming battle. Good stories.
35. 6/27 Read Murder at the Bayswater Bicycle Club. Given my feelings about current day cyclists, I was surprised to find this one very interesting. Not so much for the mystery, but for the early days of bicycles and especially about the impossibility of a woman riding one. Frances, of course, finds a new fashion - split skirts! - that allow her more freedom of movement than the Victorian heavy skirts and petticoats, so of course she catches the killer. Good book, good series.
36 6/29 With so many waiting, read The American Agent as soon as the library had it for me. Set during the Blitz, Priscilla and Masie take a young American reporter with them on an ambulance run. The reporter is murdered soon after she makes a very successful radio broadcast, ala Edward R. Murrow, and Masie is asked to work with an American attache to find the killer. Turns out the attache is the man who got her out of Hitler's Berlin in a previous book, and he's not much help at all in the investigation, so Masie's quite suspicious of him while being attracted to him at the same time. Then there's the stress of having to go through a hearing to see if she's fit to adopt Anna, the little girl she rescued in another book. The killer is found in a somewhat surprising ending. A very good story.
37. 7/2 Finished Dinosaurs Rediscovered. Just as good as the first book I read by him, this one talks about the revolutions in paleontology and how new tools are making it possible to discover things that seemed impossible. No expert, but his argument that dinosaurs rose because of an extinction event makes more sense to me than others I've read. Bought this one to support the author.
38. 7/7 Finished Deeds of Darkness, the last one the library has in this series. Pity, because they're quite interesting. This one starts with a murder, goes through all sorts of housebreaking & a couple more murders, but Hugh gets the men - one the son of a quite honorable knight, who brings the miscreants to the sheriff, even though one is his youngest son.
39. 7/16 Too much cleaning & weeding to get much reading done! Finished An Artless Demise, the next Lady Darby. Kind of a far-fetched motive when it's finally revealed, but a good read anyway. She's carrying their first child - "increasing" in the terms of the times, I guess, and the story is as much about that as the murders, the blackmail, and the general unrest around the idea of anatomical study and "burkers" - the terms for body-snatchers and sometimes murderers to sell the body to a surgeon's college. Ugly idea.
40. 7/18 Finally finished The Killer of Pilgrims. LT says I read this in 2010, but if I did, I didn't remember any of it - probably because it was fairly boring. It takes Michael & Matthew several days to figure out who's the evil family behind thefts and murders, and why Michaelhouse is being targeted.
41. 7/24 Read Killer in the Carriage House - well, not the carriage house but the library this time. I don't really like these as well as her other series, but she still writes and plots quite well.
42. 7/26 Finally finished Mystery in the Minster. Set in York, where clerics seem to be as unsavory as the students in Cambridge, this one involves an inheritance left to Michaelhouse by Langelee's former employer.
43. 8/3 Finished The Burning Issue of the Day, the next Lady Hardcastle. Who knew there were two groups of women agitating for the vote in Britain? I didn't, but the book explained it. :) This one draws them into the suffragette movement - as opposed to the suffragists - starting with arson that becomes a murder, then theft on a grand scale - by the town worthies no less! Fun read.
44. 8/5 Finished The Ends of the World Not a very optimistic book - seems many of the past extinctions are linked to rising CO2 levels, though he does point out that at our worst, we aren't pumping it into the atmosphere as fast as a volcano can and does. And did. One thing I found quite interesting - that the asteroid that hit earth at the K-T boundary has been shown by models to have been able to trigger the Deccan Traps eruption, which was apparently a fairly local event up to the asteroid. Makes sense to me, anyway.
45. 8/8 Finished Lost in Math. Well, now I have an idea of why some of the physics books I've read made very little sense to me - aside from the fact that I'm not a physicist, anyway. Her contention that economic constraints are pushing science as a whole away from basic research - "publish or perish" and as verification gets more complicated and expensive, the fact that some discoveries take much longer than a career length steers research away from it. Along with other things - herd instinct, silos, more scientists competing for less funding. Glad I read it though. She also feels some popular science authors are presenting opinion and philosophy as science fact - I agree.
45. 8/9 Read The Quick and the Thread. Short book, but interesting characters, if a tad unbelievable. Loved the Irish Wolfhound! The heroine opens an embroidery shop in Oregon, is quickly accepted by the locals, finds a dead body, solves the case ahead of the police. Of course. I think there's a recipe somewhere for writing these books. :) But they're marginally entertaining.
46. 8/10 Read Death at La Fenice - At last - I think it's a long series I'll enjoy, even though I've never been to Venice - nor wanted to go, really. :) A very nasty conductor, who also happens to be one of the best in the world, dies in the middle of an opera - apparently murdered, but in the end, no, it's a suicide because he's going deaf. With help. Interesting characters, and a nice plot.
47. 8/11 Finished The Meaning of Everything, about the creation of the OED. Interesting story, and really, an amazing accomplishment.
48. 8/12 Finished Trouble in Nuala, which I enjoyed, only to find the library doesn't have any of the rest of the series and I don't really want to buy them. Oh well. Set in Ceylon in the 30's it's an interesting take on the British and a nice little mystery.
49. 8/15 Read A Lady's Guide to Etiquette and Murder. A rather delightful new twist on the English cozy. Married for her father's money, Frances finds herself a widow, and living in the midst of what has to be one of the greediest of English noble families. She escapes by buying a house in London, runs into all sorts of difficulties, including murder, while introducing her sister during "the Season". Nice twist at the end, and I was completely wrong about the murderer. :)
50. 8/17 Read The Tale Teller as soon as the library had it for me, there's so many people waiting. Nice to "see" Joe Leaphorn back in form, and his struggles with language must be heartening to others with similar problems. This one involves a string of thefts - both from Seniors and a museum a murder and a shooting, so Bernie, Chee and Leaphorn all end up investigating different aspects of connected crimes. Why does it always seem to be Bernie that has to go into so much danger to catch the bad guys? A fitting continuation of Tony Hillerman's books, and I love the descriptions of the desert.
51. 8/29 Finished City of Parks - very interesting, at least if you live in Minneapolis and place a high value on the parks, both of which I do. :) Lots of things I didn't know especially about my neighborhood. Glad I read it.
52. 8/31 Read Thread Reckoning. At least almost all the disagreeable people were murdered in this one. Starts with a bridezilla wanting a wedding dress made over with some jewels her future mother-in-law was giving them, and ended with a couple of corporate no-goodniks unmasked as the guilty parties. At least I learned how the romances are progressing. I rather like the characters, but the plotting isn't very good.
53. 9/1 Read Stitch Me Deadly next. Wrong order, and not really much build-up in the romance department, but this one involves a frail old lady asking for help finding Ivy and collapsing in the shop, and ends with the long-lost grandchildren coming to the fore.
54. 9/2 Read Death in a Strange Country. I suppose there's some comfort in knowing corruption is the same the world over. This one involves toxic waster dumping and only ends a little satisfactorily - just like real life.
55. 9/3 Read Digging Up History. Seems shorter than her usual books - I think I finished it in a couple of hours. Interesting about how one goes about researching when a developer finds an abandoned graveyard on his site, and more than a little deux ex machina at the end, in the form of a letter included in a bequest. Still worth reading, though, simply because I like the characters. :)
56. 9/6 Read The Long Stitch Good Night in an afternoon. I like these short reads - not overly puzzling mysteries, but fairly interesting people. This one involved both her friends being suspected of a murder at a fraternity alum gathering at Ted's bar and Angus almost getting shot as he roars to the rescue on the last page.
57. 9/6 Followed by Thread on Arrival. People are still interesting, but the plots are lacking. However, I do enjoy the embroidery and the dog. :) This one involves domestic abuse and a treasure map.
58. 9/7 Followed by Cross Stitch Before Dying. So Hollywood comes to Oregon. You'd think they'd have learned after the TV crew, but no... A rather convoluted story involving an actress from India trying for a comeback, and Marcie's mother seeming to be the main suspect - until the last page of course. Still like the characters though.
59. 9/8 Read Dressed for Death. Apparently, August is very hot and humid in Venice - not surprising, I suppose. A banker is murdered, then dressed as a transvestite, then another murder followed by an attempt on Brunetti that kills a policewoman. He gets his man in the end though - somewhat surprisingly. Very good series.
60. 9/10 Finished Elementary, She Read. I think I started this a while ago, then returned it, because I didn't care much for the protagonist. checked it out again because the reviews were so good, and I do like the Sherlock stories. Got a little more interested in Gemma this time, and it is a well-plotted mystery. Ending left a lot of threads hanging though. I would hope any police office that acted like these would lose their job!
61. 9/12 Finished Devil's Wolf, the latest Hugh Corbett. Convoluted as always, this time he and Ranulf are traveling toward Scotland with all sorts of excess baggage regarding the Percy's, Robert the Bruce, Piers Gaveston... Anyway, Corbett figures everything out in the end. I do like the way Doherty combines fact with fiction.
62. 9/13 Sat right down and read Word to the Wise as soon as the library had it for me. This time, Lindsey's the victim of a stalker who winds up dead in front of the library door - and Sully's framed for the murder! One of the better ones, I think - but way to short.
63. 9/14 Read Yarned and Dangerous, and enjoyed it a bit more than I thought I would at first. Called to a small, dying Connecticut town to care for a great-uncle, injured in a car crash that killed his wife. Josie finds herself missing the Aunt Cora she never knew while trying to close the yarn shop she ran. Small town police are pictured as much more human, and I rather liked the characters.
64. 9/16 Why is it when I find a series I like, it's so short? Read A Knit Before Dying. Josie rented out the store next door for an antique shop, and finds the new proprietor dead the first day. But he'd given her a box of doilies the night before, and in it, she finds a message from a woman that disappeared long ago - and another murder to solve! Which she does. I may have to buy these books for the knitting patterns. :)
65. 9/17 Finished Body on Baker Street. Sort of a convoluted plot that starts with a very popular artist being murdered at a book signing in Gemma's shop! Still no real explanation why the detective dislikes her so much, and she's still sort of annoying, but I'm starting to rather like her. Anyway, now I'm curious about how the romance goes - and to meet Uncle Arthur. :)
66. 9/18 Re-read Twisted Threads, apparently, though I didn't really remember reading it before I was part-way through - then I finished it to see if I still liked the plot. I did, and I do - daughter returns to grandmother 19 years after her mother disappeared when the mother's body is found. Interesting town and interesting people.
67. 9/19 Read Threads of Evidence. Still interesting plots and people. An actress returns to buy a crumbling old mansion and fix it up. She was friends with first the daughter that died many, many years before, then the parents - who helped her get started. Anyway, she's trying to keep a promise to solve the daughter's murder, enlists Angie's help, and the crime is solved - along with several recent ones.
68. 9/19 Got Bewitched and Betrothed from the library and sat right down to read it. I really do like these stories, obviously. Ivory's dealing not only with evil forces, but also with evil people raising a demon and trying to destroy California! Starts when a shirt worn by a supposed escapee from Alcatraz shows up in a bag of vintage clothes and ends with a hand-fasting. Exciting story. Wish there were more of them.
69. 9/20 Read Thread End in a few hours - if I can find another series like this, I may make 100 yet this year. :) Starts with being excited about a textile art exhibit loaned to the local museum, then Marcy finds a body wrapped in one of the rugs behind her shop and goes on from there. Meanwhile, she finally meets Ted's mother, does a little bit of match-making and the crime gets solved - it was the collection owner's friend!
70. 9/20 Also read The Cat of the Baskervilles. A summer theater group is putting this on with an aging British actor as the star. Highly unsuitable for the role, he's found dead after a fund-raising tea, and Jayne's mother is the chief suspect, so naturally, Gemma solves it - at the very last minute. And the romance appears to be getting back on track.
71. 9/21 Then read Wicked Stitch This one's set at a Renaissance Fair - in Tallula Falls, no less! At least one of the more noxious characters is done away with and the current crime spree is tired to a cold case - and solved dramatically on the last page. The embroidery is interesting, though - may have to dig out my needles. :)
72. 9/23 Finished A Scandal in Scarlet. Finally admitted to myself that I do not really like Gemma, and the rest of the characters aren't that interesting.
73. 9/26 Finished Death and Judgement. In a way, it's nice to know corruption isn't limited to us, but rages world-wide. Not sure why I like this series - I generally don't much care for contemporary crime, but these are very well written, and I like the family. This one deals with prostitution and evolves into importing snuff films. Ugly world.
74. 9/26 Read Grave Importance almost in one sitting. The only implausible part of the story was the idea of the mega-rich collector who puts the whole train of events in motion tries to reverse the damage she's done. Yeah, sure... Otherwise, I have no trouble with the parallel universe's angels invading our universe to destroy it, Armageddon happening then being reversed, Hell as a well-run country and all the other weird happenings. Hope this isn't the last one, since Greta marries her vampire in the end. Truly fun story!
75. 9/28 Got Shadows at the Fair because I like Lea Wait's other series. Enjoyed it, probably because the information about the prints was interesting, and because I used to do shows. Even a fairly good mystery!
76. 9/28 Read Thread and Gone. I may make 100 after all! This one had needlepoint from Mary, Queen of Scots turning up in New England - and involved a couple of murders by a couple of kids - but Gram is happily married, so that's good.
77. 9/29 Finished How To: Absurd Scientific Advice. Funny, sometimes hilarious ways to get some real scientific knowledge out. Enjoyed greatly!
78. 10/1 Finished Dangling by a Thread. Interesting how she manages to bring contemporary issues into a mystery. This one involves a vet who lives on an island that a threatened species of cormorant uses to nest. He prefers the company of his birds, but when a wealthy man decides he wants to buy the island and build a large house... Anyway, the murderer turns out to be just as unlikely as in other stories - the wife of the realtor trying to sell the island. The commission would pay her medical bills and their kids college tuition. Two issues in one mystery!
79. 10/5 Finished Prince Edward's Warrant. Nice to go back in time again. A truly nasty Knight is murdered - poisoned at the Prince's table, no less. Hugh is on hand to help the Prince's medical condition, and the Prince asks him to find the murderer, of course. Several more violent deaths occur, and Hugh finally solves it by eavesdropping! In a maze, no less! And helps the Prince find some relief from the ineffective doctor treating him. Some things don't change.
80. 10/6 I may make 100 this year after all. Finished Tightening the Threads (A Mainely Needlepoint Mystery). This one has a clambake, which sounds like fun, and two murders - Sarah loses her newly-found uncle and gets a family not really worth having. And a 200 year old probable ancestor is reburied.
81. 10/7 So went on to read The Stitching Hour. A haunted house opens next door to Marcy's shop, and the plot gets very convoluted from there. I like these books - not terribly violent and the characters are interesting people.
82. 10/7 So then read Better Off Thread, the last in the series. This time it's Captain Moe that's accused of a murder he didn't do. There do seem to be a lot of bullies in that small town, and a very dramatic ending. Stunt car driving lessons?
83. 10/9 Finished Archie Meets Nero Wolfe for a nice change of pace. Quite well written, and really seemed to have the flavor of Stout's novels. Archie was just a tad precocious, but still seemed to be Archie. :)
84. 10/11 Finally finished The Proud Tower, Tuchman's book about the years leading up to WWI. Sad parallels, in ways, of today, and poignant look at what might have been. But a chilling look at the arrogance and fear, really, that allowed the war to happen.
85. 10/12 Finished Shadows on the Coast of Maine. I rather like this series - not especially violent and the information about the prints is interesting. This one has Maggie coming to visit her super-organized college room-mate, with dire consequences. But the descriptions of an old house are interesting, too.
86. 10/10 Read Thread the Halls. Christmas in Maine! Actually sounds fairly delightful, even if it's marred by a couple of attempted murders and one real one.
87. 10/14 Finished WTF?. Though it's mainly about Brexit, there are parallels to Trump being elected. Interesting read - he's not overly optimistic about the future.
88. 10/15 Finished Thread Herrings About the unlikeliest plot I can imagine. She picks up a family crest at an auction, finds a paper from the London Foundlings Hospital in it, gets on TV and it goes from there. The TV reporter is murdered, her car is blown up - and the murderer turns out to be a dot com billionaire with a grudge against his estranged family.
89. 10/17 Read The Religious Body. I'm surprised I really liked this, as I generally don't much care for contemporary mysteries. But I did - good characterization, well-plotted and written. Murder in a convent? Followed by one at an ag school? Interesting... Also read about half of Feta Attraction. If it's supposed to be taken seriously, it's a terrible book. If it's a spoof, it's still terrible. Returned to the library unfinished, something I very rarely do.
90. 10/19 Finished Acqua Alta. An archaeologist gets badly beaten, then a museum director is murdered - and it's all the fault of the Mafia. And maniacal collectors. Which, of course ends about as well as it can. Fascinating about the effects of flooding in Venice though - something I've never had to think of here in the middle of the continent.
91. 10/20 Followed up with Quietly, In Their Sleep. This one involves a former nun, corrupt priests and Opus Dei. Since I have little respect for any organized religion, found the whole story quite plausible.
92. 10/21 Read shadows on the Ivy this rainy day. Not as interesting this time, as it was set in the college, and most of the more interesting characters were missing until the very end.
93. 10/26 Read Henrietta Who? since I was tired from raking. I like these books - nice puzzles, and not very violent. This one starts with a hit-and-run that turns out to be murder, an heiress who doesn't know she is, and an embezzler. Good story.
94. 10/29 Finished Thread on Arrival (A Mainely Needlepoint Mystery by Leah Wait. I thought titles were copyrighted? A man who makes a living turning in recyclables - and takes in a runaway teen - is murdered, and of course, the teen is suspected. In the course of her investigation, Angie uncovers a thief and finds the murderer - but not before another death occurs. And the romance seems to be heating up!
95. 10/30 People waiting, so read A Noble Radiance as soon as I picked it up from the library. The body of a kidnapping victim from two years ago is found, and the plot thickens from there - is it really a kidnapping? And why was the victim killed? Questions for Brunetti to answer, once he reads the original files, and sees how much deference was paid to the father, a Count with a Nazi collaborator father whose reputation he's trying to erase.
96. 10/31 Guess I won't have a problem making 100 this year. Finally finished The Birth of Plenty, another economic history. Although his premises make sense, I think he draws some dubious conclusions from them. Interesting book, though.
97. 11/2 Read The Stately Home Murder. I think the Inspector was drawn a tad unflatteringly, probably on purpose, since he had trouble with vocabulary. And anyone would have trouble finding their way around a "house" with 300 rooms! But they find the killer, finally. The butler did it, so I guess it really is a traditional British mystery! :)
98. 11/2 Feel like I'm getting a cold, so also read The Late Phoenix. Starts out by the new doctor in town finding a skeleton in a construction site. At first thought to be from bombing in the war, turns out to be murder, followed by another, modern one. Gives something of a nice glimpse of small-town England.
99. 11/6 Finished Love and Death Among the Cheetahs. Fun story - Darcy's chasing a jewel thief in Africa, so they get a honeymoon in an exotic place - among British aristocrats behaving very badly. Attempts are made on both Darcy and Georgianna, but they prevail in the end - they even find out who the mysterious fellow is!
100. 11/12 Made it! Finished Mycroft Holmes. Well-written and an interesting plot, but not really how I imagine a young Mycroft would act. Convoluted plot involving a resurgence of slavery, and reaching all the way up into Victoria's family. Not sure I'll read any more of the series - at least not until the image of Mycroft as a man of action settles in. :)
101. 11/15 Finished A Better Man. Had to re-read the ending, because I almost didn't believe it! Even Armand was wrong, right up to the last pages. And Jean-Guy gone? Wonder how long that will last.
102. 11/16 So then read A Lady's Guide to Gossip and Murder. Fun story - an acquaintance that she liked is murdered, then her cousin becomes the prime suspect, so of course she and George have to solve it. Amidst fittings and engagement parties for her sister, and a romance for her young charge. Nice light read. One more, then back to the tomes.
103. 11/17 Read The Body on the Train. I liked this one a lot. Scotland Yard calls Kate in - a body they can't identify is found on the Rhubarb Express - I guess there really is such a thing - and the Chief thinks it's a harbinger of revolution. Kate, of course, solves the whole thing - including a second murder, rescues some orphans and finally sees the culprits arrested and an innocent man freed. Good story.
104. 11/20 Finished Fatal Remedies. This one starts with Brunetti's wife throwing a rock through the window of a travel agency that arranges trips for men to use child prostitutes. Then the owner of the building the agency is in is murdered, and suspicion falls on Paoloa - of course, it turns out to be about shipping bad medicine to third world countries and NGOs and it's all in the family.
105. 11/22 Finished His Burial Too. I like the plots, and the books are short and easy to read, but somewhat lacking in characterization. Still, a nice way to spend the afternoon when I'm tired. This one involved patents, engineers, and Foucault's Pendulum.
106. 12/1 Finished The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, the first book in The Inheritance Trilogy. Jemisin deserves every award she's won. Enthralling story about the cost of power and revenge.
107 12/2 So finished the second book, The Broken Kingdoms. An enthralling story about demons, magic and the redemption of a god.
108. 12/3 Finished Kingdom of Gods. I'll have to think a bit about what to say about this one, except that it's a well-written as the others.
109. 12/6 Read Penny For Your Secrets, the next Verity Kent. Good mystery, but a very odd ending - seems catching the real culprit will have to wait for the next book. Also though, a look at what it might have been like in England between the wars, when the men who survived came back. Touching story.
110. 12/10 Finished Friends in High Places. Not sure why I like this family so much, but I do enjoy reading about them. This one starts with an agency that finds the Brunetti apartment was probably built illegally, goes on to three murders and ends with the murderer's sister - who instigated the whole thing - defending the "honor" of an old family. A Pope shouldn't have descendants, should he?
111. 12/21 Finally finished Death Beside the Seaside. They have a new car - enclosed, no less and with an electric starter - but hand-cranked windshield wipers. Wonder how that would work with no passenger. Anyway - they plan a vacation so Flo can finally sea the ocean, and end up at a hotel full of spies - who are being murdered, one by one. So naturally, they get involved, rescue the kidnap victims and save the day for Britain. Fun story, but didn't grab me the way these books usually do - maybe because of all the house problems. Might be the last one finished this year - then on to my growing TBR pile.
112. 12/22 Finished Dog Is Love. Interesting, thesis seems to be that dogs are the only animal we know of that can bond with another species. Not sure I buy that, but he does have a lot of interesting examples of how even stray dogs go for human company.
113. 12/23 Finished Lethal Pursuit, the next Barker & Llewellyn. Seems like there was a lot more violence in this one, and ends up on a ferry in the English Channel in the middle of a blizzard! Who knew England had blizzards? Or that Barker was a member of the Knights Templar? But it's nice to see Llewellyn happily married and they all seem to be getting along well - other than all the exciting cases.
2jfetting
Welcome and happy reading in 2019! Looks like you're off to a great start - that books sounds really interesting.
3wookiebender
Good luck with your 2019 reading goals! Sounds like you've started with a very interesting one. :)
