CBL looks for balance in 2022

I'm Carrie, and I've lost track of how many years I've been participating in the category challenges. I know it's been at least since 2010!

I haven't been around as much the last couple of years. In an effort to be more fit, I've been walking a lot, with and without my dog Adrian. The walking has paid off in my fitness level, but it's cut into my reading and LT time. As I enter 2022, I'm looking to find a balance between reading, posting, and keeping fit that works for me.

The reading challenges in this group and in the 75 Books group are still working for me. They provide me with opportunities to tackle some of my TBR stash as well as to discover new authors, they provide enough variety to keep me interested, and they provide social opportunities for shared reads. With that in mind, my categories this year will be much the same as last year:

American Authors (75 Books group)
British Authors (75 Books group)
Asian Authors (75 Books group)
Non-Fiction (75 Books group)
AuthorCAT
CATWoman
ShakespeareCAT
Group Reads
Reading Projects
Everything else

American Authors (75 Book Group)

JANUARY - Graphic novels and/or non-fiction
Love, Loss, and What I Wore by Ilene Beckerman (3.5) - completed 1/1/22
To the Heart of the Storm by Will Eisner (4) - completed 1/1/22

FEBRUARY - Wild Card
The Body Farm by Patricia Cornwell (4) - completed 2/20/22

MARCH
Bernard Malamud - The Fixer (4) - completed 3/29/22

British Authors (75 Books Group)

JANUARY - Children's Classics
A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley (5) - completed 1/9/22

FEBRUARY - Wild Card
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle (5) - completed 2/2/22

MARCH - Interwar Period
Diary of a Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield (3) - completed 3/20/22

Asian Authors (75 Books Group)
JANUARY - Turkish authors
Last Train to Istanbul by Ayse Kulin (4) - completed 1/15/22

FEBRUARY - Israeli & Palestinian authors
The Property by Rutu Modan (4) - completed 2/11/22
Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari (2.5) - completed 2/27/22

MARCH - The Arab World
The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf by Mohja Kahf (3.5) - completed 3/24/22

Non-Fiction (75 Books Group)
JANUARY - Prizewinners and nominees
Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro (4.5) - completed 1/16/22

FEBRUARY - Welcome to the anthropocene
Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari (2.5) - completed 2/27/22

MARCH - Espionage
The Nazi Hunters by Neal Bascomb (4.5) - completed 3/12/22

AuthorCAT
JANUARY - Indigenous Authors
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (4) - completed 1/31/222

FEBRUARY - 19th century authors
The Perpetual Curate by Margaret Oliphant (4.5) - completed 2/18/22

MARCH - Authors first published at age 40 or later
The Doctors Blackwell by Janice P. Nimura (4) - completed 3/9/22
Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder (4) - completed 3/15/22
Unto Us a Son Is Given by Donna Leon (4) - completed 3/15/22

CATWoman

JANUARY - Biography/Autobiography/memoir by women
Love, Loss, and What I Wore by Ilene Beckerman (3.5) - completed 1/1/22
Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro (4.5) - completed 1/16/22

FEBRUARY - Women in translation
The Chalk Circle Man by Fred Vargas (4) - completed 2/6/22
The Property by Rutu Modan (4) - completed 2/11/22

MARCH - Women pioneers
The Doctors Blackwell by Janice P. Nimura (4) - completed 3/9/22
Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder (4) - completed 3/15/22
Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Pruitt Stewart (4) - completed 3/24/22

ShakespeareCAT
JANUARY - King Lear
Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac (3.5) - completed 1/30/22

FEBRUARY
Much Ado About Nothing (4) - completed 2/5/22

MARCH - Book based on a Shakespeare play
The Storm by Frederick Buechner (3.5) - completed 3/31/22

Group Reads
The Resistance Man by Martin Walker (3.5) - completed 1/26/22
A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life by Allyson Hobbs (3) - completed 2/11/22
The Children Return by Martin Walker (3.5) - completed 2/19/22
The Doctors Blackwell by Janice P. Nimura (4) - completed 3/9/22
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson (4) - completed 3/12/22
Unto Us a Son Is Given by Donna Leon (4) - completed 3/15/22

Reading Projects

Holocaust Reading
Last Train to Istanbul by Ayse Kulin (4) - completed 1/15/22
Hana's Suitcase by Karen Levine (4.5) - completed 2/3/22
The Property by Rutu Modan (4) - completed 2/11/22
The Nazi Hunters by Neal Bascomb (4.5) - completed 3/12/22

1,000 Books to Read Before You Die
Love, Loss, and What I Wore by Ilene Beckerman (3.5) - completed 1/1/22
Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac (3.5) - completed 1/30/22
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (4) - completed 1/31/22
Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder (4) - completed 3/15/22
Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll (4.5) - completed 3/18/22
Diary of a Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield (3) - completed 3/20/22
Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Pruitt Stewart (4) - completed 3/24/22

Sherlock Holmes
The Adventure of the Cardboard Box (short story) (3) - completed 1/1/22
A Scandal in Bohemia (short story) (5) - completed 1/3/22
The Adventure of the Abbey Grange (short story) (4) - completed 1/4/22
The Man with the Twisted Lip (short story) (3.5) - completed 1/5/22
The Valley of Fear (4) - completed 1/7/22
Silver Blaze (short story) (4) - completed 1/8/22
The Adventure of the Red-Headed League (short story) (4) - completed 1/9/22
The Adventure of the Empty House (short story) (3.5) - completed 1/10/22
The Final Problem (short story) (3.5) - completed 1/11/22
The Adventure of the Yellow Face (short story) (3) - completed 1/13/22
The Adventure of the Dying Detective (short story) (4) - completed 1/16/22
The Adventure of the Norwood Builder (short story) (3.5) - completed 1/18/22
A Case of Identity (short story) (4) - completed 1/20/22
His Last Bow (short story) (3) - completed 1/23/22
The Sign of the Four (3.5) - completed 1/24/22
The Adventure of Black Peter (3) - completed 2/1/22
The Hound of the Baskervilles (5) - completed 2/2/22
The Five Orange Pips (3) - completed 2/6/22
The Boscombe Valley Mystery (3.5) - completed 2/12/22
The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge (3) - completed 2/13/22
The Adventure of the Red Circle (4) - completed 2/19/22
The Reigate Puzzle (4) - completed 2/21/22
The Adventure of the Priory School (4) - completed 2/23/22
The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor (4) - completed 2/24/22
The Adventure of the Second Stain (4) - completed 2/25/22
The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle (4.5) - completed 2/26/22
The Adventure of the Three Students (4) - completed 2/27/22
A Sherlock Holmes Devotional by Trisha White Priebe (2.5) - completed 3/1/22
The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb (4) - completed 3/3/22
A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro (3.5) - completed 3/6/22
The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet (3.5) - completed 3/6/22
The Adventure of the Stockbroker's Clerk (3.5) - completed 3/12/22
The Adventure of the Gloria Scott (3.5) - completed 3/17/22

Everything Else
So Many Beginnings by Bethany C. Morrow (3) - completed 1/2/22
I Could Chew on This: And Other Poems by Dogs by Francesco Marciuliano (3.5) - completed 1/15/22
A Market Tale by Martin Walker (4) - completed 2/23/22

Good luck with your 2022 reading!

Have a good 2022 with both your reading and your walking.

>12 Tess_W: >13 hailelib: Thank you both! I hope you have lots of great reading in 2022!

Have fun with all your challenges this year!

>15 rabbitprincess: Thanks, RP! You too!

Best of 2021

My 4 1/2-5 star reads last year were:

All Clear by Connie Willis
Race Against Time by Jerry Mitchell
Chasing Vines by Beth Moore
John Sevier: Tennessee's First Hero by Gordon T. Belt & Traci Nichols-Belt
The Waters of Eternal Youth by Donna Leon
Black Diamond by Martin Walker
Marcel's Letters by Carolyn Porter
The Secret History of Home Economics by Danielle Dreilinger
Ramadan Moon by Na'ima B. Robert
Going to Mecca by Na'ima B. Robert
Falling in Love by Donna Leon
After by Morris Gleitzman
A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor
The Plague and I by Betty MacDonald
Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy Sayers

What books did you love last year?

Currently reading:



Love, Loss, and What I Wore by Ilene Beckerman
So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix by Bethany C. Morrow
A Sherlock Holmes Devotional by Trisha Priebe

I always enjoy the end-of-year memes. I haven't seen any yet this year, so I adapted last year's (2020) for my 2021 reading. Here goes!

Describe yourself: Decider

Describe how you feel: Shattered

Describe where you currently live: John Sevier: Tennessee's First Hero (I live in Sevier County TN)

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore

Your favorite form of transportation is: Stage-Coach and Tavern Days

Your favorite food is: The Golden Egg

Your favorite time of day is: After

Your best friend is: The Woman They Could Not Silence

You and your friends are: Independent Dames

What’s the weather like: Spring

You fear: The Devil’s Cave

What is the best advice you have to give: Uncommon Decency

Thought for the day: We’ll Meet Again

What is life for you: Race Against Time

How you would like to die: After the Funeral

Your soul’s present condition: All Clear

What was 2021 like for you? The Plague and I

What do you want from 2022? A Time of Gifts

And here's an alternate meme, describing a dinner party (I think) with books I read in 2021.

What would you call the event? Hedy’s Folly

How did they find their way? Marcel’s Letters

How did they know they'd arrived? The Address Book

Any special activities? Bruno and the Carol Singers

Did your guests stay over? A Long Way Home

Were there servants to help? Four Women in a Violent Time

Was there turn down service? All but Forgotten

How were the guests greeted? A Curse Dark as Gold

Was dinner held for later comers? Odds Against

And dinner was? The Golden Egg

Afterward? A Time of Gifts

Great to see you all set up and ready for another year, Carrie. I have struggled a bit this year in trying to keep up with everyone but I will try to do so this year!

>21 DeltaQueen50: Thanks, Judy! No worries. I have struggled to keep up as well. I will enjoy seeing you whenever you happen to drop in!

American Authors
CATWoman
Love, Loss, and What I Wore by Ilene Beckerman

On its surface this is a memoir of the author’s life told through the clothes she wore from childhood through mature adulthood. There’s a deeper story between the lines, of the mother she lost at puberty, of the father she never saw again after she went to live with her mother’s parents, of a rift with her grandfather who didn’t approve of her first marriage, of the child she lost due to acute illness, of the rift the child’s death created in her marriage. Sadness is tempered by relationships with her best friends and her obviously cherished granddaughter.

If you’ve thought about writing an autobiography for your children and grandchildren but struggled to get started, I think this is a great idea for a writing prompt. Most people, especially women, wear special clothes for significant events, and we often have photographs of ourselves at these events. Why not try telling your own story through the clothes you wore?

What clothes would my story include? The bronze baby shoes my mother cherished, the dress that matched one of my doll’s dresses, the pink and white sweater set my grandmother made me, the dress I wore as a flower girl, my kindergarten graduation gown, the red and white smock shirt I loved in junior high, my bell bottom jeans, my choir robe, my madrigal dress, the dress I wore to my senior banquet, the dress I wore to my mother’s funeral, the dress I wore as a bridesmaid in my brother’s wedding. It looks like I have some work to do!

3.5 stars

2. The Adventure of the Cardboard Box by Arthur Conan Doyle

This is not Sherlock Holmes at his best. The resolution of the story includes a long information dump in the form of a letter written by the guilty person. Sherlock Holmes isn’t supposed to need those.

My devotional reading for January and Feburary is A Sherlock Holmes Devotional. It looks like each day's devotion is related to one of the Sherlock Holmes stories, so I'll be reading (or more likely, listening to) a story a day unless it's a story I'm really familiar with. I listened to a LibriVox ensemble recording of this one.

3 stars

I especially loved your answer to what 2021 was like for you. We had the same activity at our Christmas dinner. The end of the year meme thread is at: https://www.librarything.com/topic/337350#n7702334

>25 thornton37814: Thanks for the link! No wonder I missed it. I wasn't looking for it that early in December!

American Authorws
To the Heart of the Storm by Will Eisner

The artist/author’s introduction describes this as “a thinly-disguised autobiography.” On a troop train in 1942, draftee Will spends the journey looking backward on his life and his parents’ journey to America. Will encountered a lot of prejudice as the son of Jewish immigrant parents. Eisner used his talent as a graphic artist to reveal the damage that prejudice does to those who cultivate it as well as to those on the receiving end.

4 stars

>17 cbl_tn: Busman's Honeymoon was on my "best reads of 2021" list as well!

Everything Else
So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix by Bethany C. Morrow

This Little Women remix is set in the Freedmen’s Colony on Roanoke Island during and shortly after the Civil War. The Marches are newly-freed slaves. While Alcott March is in the camp at Corinth, Mammy and her four girls are making a new life in the colony. Mammy works in the office, Meg is a teacher, Jo builds houses, Beth is a seamstress, and Amy, the youngest, dreams of dancing.

I think I would have appreciated this book more if it wasn’t a retelling. Even though the author varied many of the plot elements, the story was still constrained by Alcott’s original plot and characters. The Freedmen’s Colony was new to me, and I am glad to have learned about it in this novel.

3 stars

Next up:


A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley

Woke up to this when the power went out a little after 6 a.m. Needless to say, I'm working from home today!

>29 cbl_tn: Ooh, that sounds interesting! Book bullet for me!

>31 cbl_tn: It seems like winter came suddenly and out of nowhere this year. No real snow here yet, but the temperatures dropped from the 50s to the 20s over the course of the weekend.

>32 casvelyn: This book wasn't on my radar at all. My friend at the public library thought I'd like it and placed a hold on it for me, so I think I'm the first to read the library copy. I found out about it when she called to tell me my hold had arrived! It's nice to have friends in the right places!

It was in the 70s here on Saturday. I wore long sleeves and I was too hot when I took Adrian for a walk. The snow is a shock to my system!

No snow, but it's minus 17 Celsius here at the moment (1.4 degrees Fahrenheit according to the Google converter). I guess I'm wearing the big coat and snowpants if I'm heading to the library.

We had snow here for the last week which is actually odd for us here on the Pacific coast. Strange weather patterns seem to be the norm these days!

This time yesterday it was 70 and right now it's 50 (F) but at least the rain has gone away.

Happy New Year, Carrie, great to see you back. The weather really is strange sometimes. We had down to -10 Celsius over Christmas, but over the last couple of days we were back to +10 Celsius, with gray clouds and rain. I hope winter comes back to us soon.

>34 rabbitprincess: Now that's cold!

>35 DeltaQueen50: Yes, that is odd! Swings like this are fairly normal here. One of the nice things about Tennessee winters is that we get occasional breaks from the extreme cold temperatures.

>36 hailelib: It was in the 60s yesterday morning when I went to church.

>37 Chrischi_HH: Happy new year! Even though I don't like cold weather, we do need enough of it at the right time to control the insect population and keep the trees and flowers on the right schedule.

Reading Projects
A Scandal in Bohemia by Arthur Conan Doyle

This is my favorite Sherlock Holmes story, in which he matches wits with adventuress Irene Adler and comes up short. It’s clear that Holmes enjoys the challenge of an equally sharp adversary.

5 stars

Great categories, Carrie! Have a wonderful reading year.

>40 MissWatson: Thanks! You too!

Reading Projects
The Adventure of the Abbey Grange by Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes and his assistant, Watson, are summoned to Abbey Grange by a Scotland Yard detective who is troubled by the circumstances of a murder. Lady Bracknell had been found tied to a chair while a gang of three stole the silver and murdered her husband. It all seems straightforward, and yet it doesn’t sit quite right with Sherlock Holmes. His minute attention to detail suggests there is more to the story.

This story reveals a softer side of Sherlock Holmes. The victim was one of those people who “just needed killing”, and as a private citizen, Holmes doesn’t feel morally obligated to correct Scotland Yard’s mistaken theory of the crime, which would lead their investigation to a dead end.

4 stars

Reading Projects
The Man with the Twisted Lip by Arthur Conan Doyle

Dr. Watson goes to an opium den to retrieve a patient for his distraught wife. As he is leaving with his mission accomplished, he is astonished to hear his friend Sherlock Holmes’s voice from an unfamiliar face. Of course Holmes is there working on a case, and he draws Watson into his confidence. A businessman has disappeared, and his wife claims that she last saw him in the window of the opium den. When the authorities searched for him, they found a beggar in the room with the missing man’s clothing. The conclusion was that the beggar had murdered the missing man. But where was the body?

Naturally all was not as it seemed, and it took Sherlock Holmes’s powers of observation and deduction to get to the truth. The real story is one of the funniest of Holmes’s cases. The beggar was the missing man. He had discovered that he could make more money from begging than he could earn as a professional man, so he had been leading a double life. He was cornered by his wife’s unexpected appearance, and he needed Holmes’s help to extract himself from a delicate situation.

3.5 stars

More snow in the forecast tomorrow. Eek! 1-3 inches, so not as much as we got overnight Sunday/Monday. But it's not supposed to get above freezing on Friday, so whatever we get tomorrow will stick around for a while. Fortunately I can work from home so I won't have to get out and drive in it.

>44 cbl_tn: - They're predicting up to 6" for us tomorrow so I'm going out to get a couple of errands done today.

It's been years since I've read any Sherlock Holmes but I might try to add some in later this year.

>45 dudes22: Good idea!

>46 hailelib: I wasn't planning to read so much Sherlock Holmes in such a short amount of time, but when I decided to read the devotional book I realized I need to. I'm enjoying listening to a story on Librivox every evening while I practice knitting.

>47 cbl_tn: You should start a thread over on Needlearts to showcase your knitting. I need to put up a 2022 thread for my cross stitch. I wanted to wait until I got the buttons to really finish off the Christmas ornament I did during Christmas. I'm working on one project now that I might finish this weekend.

>48 thornton37814: Thanks for the suggestion! I'm not sure if I'll do that because I really don't need another group to follow. I have enough trouble keeping up with the ones I'm already in!

>47 cbl_tn: - >48 thornton37814: - Oh - please come. You don't have to post often and we're usually not too chatty after the start of the year.

>50 dudes22: I may come and find you once things settle down a bit!

Today's Sherlock Holmes story is "The Adventure of the Three Gables". I think it's just come out of copyright in the U.S. so there hasn't been time for it to be recorded for Librivox. I couldn't find an audio version available in either of the library OverDrive collections I can access, so I watched the Granada TV adaptation with Jeremy Brett instead. I wasn't impressed with the melodrama or the odd cinematography (if that's the right term for TV). The camera work seemed amateurish, particularly the prism reflections in rooms and the superimposition of scenes that had, for instance, Holmes having a conversation indoors while he was standing outdoors. If I'm thinking about the camera work rather than the story, that seems like a fail to me.

Reading Projects
The Valley of Fear by Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes receives a coded warning from within his nemesis Moriarty’s network about a crime that is to take place shortly. Holmes has hardly finished decoding the message when news reaches him that a murder has taken place. Holmes and Watson head for Sussex to investigate the murder. Holmes spots details that others overlook and solves the murder. Its resolution leads to a very different second half of the novel, where a secret society terrorizes a Pennsylvania mining valley.

I enjoyed the second half of the book as much or more than the first half, which is more characteristically Holmesian. It’s essentially two loosely connected novellas. I think Doyle must have enjoyed breaking out of the mold he had created with his Sherlock Holmes adventures. The first half of the book gave readers what they craved of the familiar detective, and the second half gave Doyle an opportunity he craved of writing of a world beyond Victorian England.

4 stars

I love your reading project!

>54 Tess_W: Thanks! I'm enjoying it!

Reading Projects

Silver Blaze by Arthur Conan Doyle

In this short story, Sherlock Holmes investigates the disappearance of a race horse and the murder of his trainer. The police have arrested a man for the murder, but Sherlock’s investigation points in an entirely different direction. He pieces together clues, including “the curious incident of the dog in the night-time”, to find Silver Blaze and determine who murdered the trainer. It’s a well-constructed mystery. It’s easy to see how the seemingly trivial clues fit together once Holmes explains it, but nearly impossible to see before the explanation is given.

4 stars

British Authors Challenge
A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley

Worried about her youngest daughter’s health, Mrs. Cameron arranges for all three of her children – Alison, Ian, and Penelope – to stay with her elderly aunt and uncle on the Derbyshire farm where she herself was raised. All of the children, and especially Penelope, soon take to the rhythms of country life. However, it isn’t as restful for Penelope as the adults hoped. Penelope finds she has the ability to slip between past and present. She spends more and more time in 16th century Thackers, the country home of Anthony Babington, whom Penelope knows is destined to be executed for his role in plotting the escape of Mary, Queen of Scots. Penelope feels herself caught between the two worlds, as tragedy draws ever closer for her 16th century friends and Penelope is powerless to change the outcome.

This book combines many elements that I love, including old houses with secret passages and time travel into the past. The time travel element reminds me very much of Daphne du Maurier’s The House on the Strand, with past and present coexisting in the same physical space for the time traveler. The descriptions of the house, its furnishings, the farm buildings, and the landscape are vivid enough that I could easily picture them in my mind. The continuity between past and present, with furniture and tools in use over many generations of the farm’s inhabitants, will resonate with family historians who either cherish physical objects passed down in their own family or who mourn their lack.

5 stars

>57 cbl_tn: This one goes straight on the BB list, sounds great!

>58 Chrischi_HH: I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

>57 cbl_tn: I've seen great reviews of this one. On my RL it goes; hope my library has it!

>60 Tess_W: Oh, I hope you can find it!

Reading Projects
The Adventure of the Red-Headed League by Arthur Conan Doyle

I have a special fondness for this story as it’s the first Sherlock Holmes story I remember reading. Holmes is presented with a client who answered a job advertisement seeking only red-headed applicants. He takes the job, but is puzzled by his duties, and he turns to the great detective for answers. This is Holmes’s famous “three pipe problem”. Once he’d finished his pipe, he understood that there was no time to waste to prevent a great crime.

I sympathize with Watson, who admits “I was always oppressed with a sense of my own stupidity in my dealings with Sherlock Holmes. Here I had heard what he had heard, I had seen what he had seen, and yet from his words it was evident that he saw clearly not only what had happened, but what was about to happen, while to me the whole business was still confused and grotesque.” Fortunately, Holmes is always willing to explain his deductions, or we would all still be confused!

4 stars

>57 cbl_tn: I'm so glad you enjoyed this one - I loved it when I read it, too!

>63 scaifea: I do love a good time travel story!

Reading Projects
The Adventure of the Empty House by Arthur Conan Doyle

In the three years since Sherlock Holmes’s death, Dr. Watson has attempted to use his friend’s methods to solve crimes, but without Sherlock’s success. When Watson goes to Park Lane to look into a man’s mysterious death, he bumps into an old man carrying books. Watson is overcome when the man later reveals himself to be his old friend, Sherlock Holmes. After explaining to Watson how he had survived at Reichenbach Falls, Holmes enlists Watson’s aid in setting a trap for a would-be assassin.

The crime at the beginning of this story is secondary to Holmes’s return, which is the real purpose of the story. It’s hard to imagine the impact on Holmes’s fans upon this story’s publication. Today’s readers know that Sherlock Holmes returned after his confrontation with Professor Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls. Contemporary readers only hoped for Holmes’s return.

3.5 stars

Reading Projects
The Final Problem by Arthur Conan Doyle

For some time, Sherlock Holmes has been tracking Professor Moriarty, a criminal mastermind whose crimes are nearly undetectable. Holmes has become too much of a threat to Moriarty, so attempts are being made on Holmes’s life. Holmes asks his friend, Dr. Watson, to go with him to the Continent. After a cat and mouse train journey, they arrive in Switzerland. A final confrontation between Holmes and Moriarty awaits at Reichenbach Falls.

At the time of publication, this was intended to be Holmes’s last outing. I’m sure that Conan Doyle thought he’d written a fitting end for his great detective and his equally brilliant criminal counterpart. However, readers disagreed, and Conan Doyle eventually succumbed to public pressure.

3.5 stars

Reading Projects
The Adventure of the Yellow Face by Arthur Conan Doyle

At the beginning of his narrative, Dr. Watson describes this adventure as one of Holmes’s two failures. Holmes’s client is troubled by a secret his wife is keeping from him. She had been a widow when they married, her first husband having died in America. Their marriage has been a happy one until this secret came between them. The secret is somehow connected to the new tenant in a neighboring cottage in Norbury, whom the client describes as having a yellow face. Holmes is sure that he knows the new neighbor’s identity. Holmes and Watson accompany their client to the cottage, where they discover the tenant is not the person Holmes thought it was. As things turned out well for his client, Holmes is happy to have been wrong.

I have mixed feelings about this one. Doyle was ahead of many of his time in portraying a mixed race marriage, yet it’s disappointing that a Victorian woman who had the courage to marry an African American man would choose as her second husband a man that she didn’t think could accept her biracial child. She was wrong about her second husband, but what damage had she already done to her child by keeping her hidden for so long?

3 stars

Asian Authors; Reading Projects
Last Train to Istanbul by Ayse Kulin

Last Train to Istanbul was slow to leave the station, but once it took off, what a ride it was! The first third of the book introduces various characters and their back stories. Older sister Sabiha and her diplomat husband, Macit, live in Ankara with their young daughter and Sabiha’s parents. Younger sister Selva married Rafael, a Jew, against her Muslim family’s wishes. Selva and Rafo found it more comfortable to live in Marseilles where they won’t have to face the disapproval from both families. Sabiha is the French tutor for Tarik, a young diplomat in her husband’s office, who develops an unrequited passion for Sabiha. His new language skills have him prepared when he’s promoted to a position in the Paris embassy.

The German occupation of France changes everything for Selva and Rafo. Their Turkish citizenship is the only thing keeping Rafo from being interred with the other Jews in France. As neutral Turkey faces pressure from both sides in the conflict, their diplomats in France don’t know how long they’ll be able to protect their Jewish citizens on French soil, so they begin to make plans for a train to take the Jews to Istanbul and out of German reach.

Although the characters in this novel are fictional, many are based on real people. The Turkish diplomats in France are said to have saved many Jews from the Holocaust. For instance, Necdet Kent, a Turkish consul in Marseilles during the war who died the year of this book’s release, claimed to have board a train filled with Jews (some Turkish) being deported to secure their release.

If I were a film producer, I’d option the film rights for this book. My film version would write out Sabiha, since I think the book would be stronger without her and her neuroses. Her diplomat husband, Macit, might become Selva’s brother, or maybe I’d have her father still working instead of retired. Tarik’s unrequited passion would be for Selva, who chose Rafo instead, and this love would inspire his actions to aid the Turkish Jews in fleeing France.

This is really a 3 ½ star book, but I’ve boosted it by half a star since I loved the last half so much.

4 stars

https://www.raoulwallenberg.net/highlights/turks-saved-jews-nazi/

>68 cbl_tn: I read that in 2016. I thought it wasn't bad, wasn't good; giving it 3 stars. It almost seemed like separate stories to me. I'm glad you enjoyed it. I love the link! I did not know there was a Raoul Wallenberg Foundation. I've read several books and even researched Wallenberg. He certainly was a "hero." It's a shame that we will never know what became of him.

>69 Tess_W: I agree about the separate stories. I think the book would have been stronger if it had just focused on Selva and Rafo.

I haven't read anything about Wallenberg, but I'd like to. What would you recommend?

>68 cbl_tn: I've already added this to my wishlist, after checking it out when I saw you had added to the TIOLI Challenges, it sounds like something I would enjoy.

>71 DeltaQueen50: Oh, I hope you enjoy it whenever you get to it!

>70 cbl_tn: I've only read a couple of books. Most of what I read were letters and documents. As I remember, the books were dry, but I can remember I read Righteous Gentile: The Story of Raoul Wallenberg, Missing Hero of the Holocaust. I also watched the movie starring Richard Chamberlain as Wallenberg.

>73 Tess_W: That sounds good! One of my public libraries owns a copy so I've added it to my library wishlist.

Everything Else
I Could Chew on This: And Other Poems by Dogs by Francesco Marciuliano

Anyone with a dog in their life knows that dogs view the world differently than we humans do. The poems in this collection explore everything from doorbells to separation anxiety from a dog’s perspective. I think my favorite is “Another Bag”, in which the dog poet reflects on the love his human has for picking up and saving his waste in a bag.

The poems are accompanied by adorable illustrations of dogs of various breeds and sizes. However, it’s disappointing that there isn’t a Shih Tzu in the bunch. Any dog lover would welcome this book as a gift, and it’s just the right size for a stocking stuffer.

3.5 stars

Nonfiction Challenge
CATwoman
Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro

When author Dani Shapiro learned that her biological father was a stranger rather than the dad she grew up with, there probably was no question that her search for information would end up as a memoir. That’s her genre.

Blonde haired, blue eyed Shapiro grew up in an Orthodox Jewish household as her parents’ only child, with an older half-sister from her father’s first marriage. All her life, she had been defending her Jewish identity when friends and strangers told her that she didn’t look Jewish. She also remembered spending hours in front of a mirror as a child, studying the image reflected there. It seems that, subconsciously, she agreed with those who said she didn’t look Jewish.

When an Ancestry DNA test revealed that she was, in fact, only half Jewish, the new knowledge upended her sense of identity. The search for her biological father was only a part of her quest for self-understanding. She also had questions about how much her parents understood about their fertility treatments, whether they knew about the sperm donor, and, if so, how they reached their decision to use a sperm donor and why this knowledge had been withheld from her.

The awkwardness of Shapiro’s connection with her biological father – the man who had donated sperm more than 50 years earlier and forgotten all about it – comes across in her writing. I can only imagine how unsettling it must be to see your physical traits and mannerisms reflected in a total stranger.

This book resonated with me since I read it during a time of year when my father is in my thoughts. I would be celebrating his birthday next week if he were still living. Shapiro was very young when her father died from injuries sustained in an automobile accident (the subject of another memoir). In the process of finding her biological father, she also learned more about the man who raised her and drew his memory closer.

4..5 stars

18. The Adventure of the Dying Detective by Arthur Conan Doyle

When Mrs. Hudson sends for Dr. Watson, telling him that there’s no time to lose if he wants to save his friend Sherlock Holmes’s life, Watson rushes to his friend’s aid. He finds a very weak Holmes, who won’t let Watson examine him but insists that Watson call in a specialist in exotic diseases. A deeply hurt Watson does as his friend requests, summoning the man named to Holmes’s bedside. It seems this man and Holmes had crossed paths before. From his deathbed, Holmes solves another case.

I like this story because of how well it depicts Watson’s devotion to Holmes, and how much Holmes trusts the loyal Watson.

4 stars

>75 cbl_tn: I have read the feline version of this. Sorry I Barfed On Your Bed

>78 lowelibrary: My dog does that too!

Reading Projects
The Adventure of the Norwood Builder by Arthur Conan Doyle

A young lawyer is hired by a stranger to draw up a will. To the lawyer’s surprise, the client makes him the sole beneficiary. The next day the lawyer is alarmed to read of the man’s murder in the newspaper. Knowing that the police are likely to suspect him of the crime, he calls on Sherlock Holmes. Before he can finish his story, Inspector Lestrade arrives, hot on his trail. Lestrade is sure that Holmes has got it wrong this time. Of course, Holmes proves him wrong but allows Lestrade to take credit for solving the crime.

This case is almost too easy for Holmes. It doesn’t take a lot of effort for him to solve the crime. He usually finds pleasure in the intellectual stimulation of solving a complex puzzle. In this case, his pleasure seems to come from listening to Lestrade repeatedly draw the wrong conclusions about the case.

3.5 stars

I see that you are still enjoying Holmes' adventures.

>81 hailelib: Yes, I am! And there are more to come!

This morning I went to the grand opening of the remodeled branch library in my town. I wish I had before and after pictures to post. Before, it was tiny and bursting at the seams. The new extension made more room for the children's area, and increased the meeting space capacity. There is more room for the collections, and the staff area is more roomy and has better traffic flow. In the past I've used it mainly to pick up and drop off books and to use the public meeting space for meetings and early voting. Now it's a place I might linger in for a while!

Reading Projects
A Case of Identity by Arthur Conan Doyle

A young woman whose fiance disappeared on the day of their wedding asks Sherlock Holmes for help finding the missing man. Then her young stepfather tries to talk Holmes out of investigating the case. The young woman’s story, Holmes’s observations, and an inquiry or two are all the great detective needs to deduce what happened to the missing man.

This seems to be one of Holmes’s most frustrating cases. While he solved the mystery, the responsible party hadn’t broken any laws and couldn’t be brought to justice. The solution to the problem is unusual enough that I remembered it as soon as the young woman started telling her story. Conan Doyle was certainly creative!

4 stars

The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans by Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes’s brother, Mycroft, is the client in this story. Mycroft works for the government, and when some sensitive plans for a submarine are lost, he turns to his detective brother for help in finding these secret documents. A young clerk’s body had been discovered by a railway track with several of the missing pages in his pocket, but the most vital three pages are still missing. Did the young clerk steal the plans, or is his death a cover-up for someone else?

I started listening to a LibriVox recording of this story, but it’s a long one, and I ran out of time before my family got home from shopping. So, I persuaded them to watch the Jeremy Brett TV adaptation with me. Based on the half of the story I had listened to, the TV adaptation was pretty faithful to Conan Doyle’s plot. I really like the stories that include Mycroft since they add depth to Sherlock’s character, so this one is a favorite in the Holmes canon.

The Adventure of the Crooked Man by Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes investigates the death of a colonel, who was overheard arguing with his wife in a locked room. Other household members, alarmed by the wife’s scream, managed to gain entrance through the window and found the colonel dead and his wife in a faint. It seems that the wife must have killed her husband, but how and why? Sherlock Holmes finds that there is more to the case than meets the eye.

My brother, sister-in-law and I watched the television adaptation with Jeremy Brett. My sister-in-law predicted some of the story elements despite little familiarity with Sherlock Holmes, and my brother commented at the end that Holmes really didn’t do much, yet we all enjoyed it and we want to watch more episodes.

3.5 stars

Reading Projects
His Last Bow by Arthur Conan Doyle

Readers get their last view of Sherlock Holmes just before the Great War, as he leaves retirement to outwit a German spy. For me, a lot of the fun in reading a Sherlock Holmes case is in looking for new expressions of familiar characteristics. This story is so different from the rest of the canon that Holmes seems unfamiliar. Consequently, I didn’t find it as enjoyable as many of the other Holmes stories.

3 stars

How fun to have read all of the Sherlock stories in one go.

>88 RidgewayGirl: I'm enjoying it immensely!

Reading Projects
The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle

Holmes gains a client but loses a roommate in this novel-length adventure. Miss Mary Morstan’s father, a military officer, had disappeared several years earlier. Then she started receiving a valuable pearl on the same date every year. She turns to Holmes for help in solving these mysteries. The one tangible clue she has is a map her father had possessed, signed with four names. Holmes’s investigation leads him to possibly the ugliest twins in England, hidden treasure, an unusually small person wielding a deadly blow dart, and the hunt for a missing boat.

There are enough broad similarities to plot elements of The Moonstone that it seems like more than coincidence. It suffers from the same weakness as many of the Holmes stories, in that the culprit reveals most of the details of the motive and crime in a long information dump after he’s caught.

3.5 stars

Group Reads
The Resistance Man by Martin Walker

Bruno is called in to assist at the death of an elderly resident who had been in the Resistance during World War II. A bank note in the dead man’s hand turns out to be tied to the Neuvic train robbery. Bruno is also juggling investigations into a break-in at the home of a retired British spy and the murder of a gay antiques dealer, who is also a British expat. As usual, all of these dissimilar cases converge into a thrilling climax. On the personal front, Bruno’s friend with benefits, Pamela, returns from Scotland and his ex-lover Isabelle is back in town as part of one of the investigations.

It’s always enjoyable to visit with Bruno and his St. Denis friends and neighbors. Life usually moves at a slower pace, with time to cook and enjoy a delicious meal with friends. Bruno didn’t seem to have as much time to enjoy the good things of life in this outing, and I missed that. This was also the first of the books that I’ve listened to in audio, and I found it hard to follow the multiple plot threads. I wish there had been more about the Neuvic train robbery. That thread seemed to fizzle out before the end of the book.

3.5 stars

When Miss Violet Hunter receives an offer for a governess position, the well-above-average wages and the unusual extra duties have her seeking the advice of Sherlock Holmes. As she has already decided to accept the position no matter what Holmes says to her, Holmes simply reminds her that she can send for him at any time should she run into trouble. Sure enough, it isn’t long before a very frightened Miss Hunter summons Holmes to Copper Beeches.

Since I still have guests, I watched this one instead of listening to the audio version, and I knew from the opening credits that I’d be glad I did. This episode featured Natasha Richardson as Violet Hunter in one of her earliest credited roles, as well as Joss Ackland in the part of her employer, Mr. Rucastle. What a fun episode!

ShakespeareCAT; Reading Projects Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac

Père Goriot is, as much as anything, a character study of several residents of a Paris boarding house during the Bourbon Restoration. The title character is a retired vermicelli manufacturer sliding deeper and deeper into poverty as his two daughters, a comtesse and a baroness, divest him of everything he owns of value to fund their lavish lifestyles. The protagonist of the novel is actually the young law student Eugène de Rastignac, son of a noble but poor provincial family. Eugène’s sympathy for Old Goriot grows as he learns more of Goriot’s circumstances and of his love for his daughters. Goriot welcomes Eugène into his affections and encourages his affair with the younger daughter, the baroness de Nucingen. It’s also a tale of Eugène’s gradual corruption under the influence of the crook Vautrin. It’s an interesting glimpse of Parisian society at that point in time. I would have enjoyed it more without the melodrama.

3.5 stars

AuthorCAT; Reading Projects The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

This coming-of-age YA novel follows Arnold Spirit “Junior” through his freshman year of high school as he makes a momentous choice to leave the reservation school to attend a mostly-white high school off the reservation. Junior’s new friend, Gordy, verbalizes Junior’s dilemma as the “struggle between being an individual and being a member of the community.” Readers will root for Junior as he meets each new challenge head-on.

I think readers will pick up different themes and aspects of the characters depending on their stage in life, background, and experiences. I’m pretty sure my adolescent self would have put this book down after the first few pages. The expressions of teenage male sexuality would have been too much for me at that age. I might not have picked it up again, and I would have missed out on a rewarding read.

4 stars

January Recap
American Authors (75 Books group)
Love, Loss, and What I Wore by Ilene Beckerman (3.5)
To the Heart of the Storm by Will Eisner (4)

British Authors (75 Books group)
A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley (5)

Asian Authors (75 Books group)
Last Train to Istanbul by Ayse Kulin (4)

Non-Fiction (75 Books group)
Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro (4.5)

AuthorCAT
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (4)

CATWoman
Love, Loss, and What I Wore by Ilene Beckerman (3.5)
Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro (4.5)

ShakespeareCAT
Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac (3.5)

Group Reads
The Resistance Man by Martin Walker (3.5)

Reading Projects
Last Train to Istanbul by Ayse Kulin (4)
Love, Loss, and What I Wore by Ilene Beckerman (3.5)
Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac (3.5)
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (4)
By Arthur Conan Doyle:
The Adventure of the Cardboard Box(short story)
A Scandal in Bohemia (short story)
The Adventure of the Abbey Grange (short story) (4)
The Man with the Twisted Lip (short story) (3.5)
The Valley of Fear (4)
Silver Blaze (short story) (4)
The Adventure of the Red-Headed League (short story) (4)
The Adventure of the Empty House (short story) (3.5)
The Final Problem (short story)(3.5)
The Adventure of the Yellow Face (short story) (3)
The Adventure of the Dying Detective (short story) (4)
The Adventure of the Norwood Builder (short story) (3.5)
A Case of Identity (short story) (4)
His Last Bow (short story) (3)
The Sign of the Four (3.5)

Everything else
So Many Beginnings by Bethany C. Morrow (3)
I Could Chew on This: And Other Poems by Dogs by Francesco Marciuliano (3.5)

Books owned: 4
Books borrowed: 3
Ebooks owned: 2
Ebooks borrowed: 2
eAudiobooks borrowed: 14
Short stories: 13

Best of the month: A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley
Worst of the month: So Many Beginnings by Bethany C. Morrow

What a great reading month!

>96 Tess_W: Thanks! I hope I can keep it up!

Reading Projects
The Adventure of Black Peter by Arthur Conan Doyle

When the police are baffled by a harpoon murder, they call on Sherlock Holmes for assistance. The murdered man is a retired sea captain known as Black Peter. Clues at the scene seem to point to a young man who believed his missing banker father might have been murdered by Black Peter. However, Holmes isn’t convinced that this man could have wielded a harpoon so expertly, and he sets a trap to flush out the real murderer.

I didn’t find any of the characters appealing in this one. The sailors and their accessories seem like stereotypes rather than well-rounded characters. I had a hard time following the audio as the story didn’t hold my interest very well.

3 stars

Reading Projects
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Charles Baskerville has just died on his Dartmoor estate, seemingly the victim of a generations-old curse on the Baskervilles and the giant hound that haunts the moor. His heir, Sir Henry Baskerville, is due to arrive to take possession of the estate, and the neighborhood doctor fears for his life. Sherlock Holmes sends Watson to accompany Sir Henry to Baskerville Hall and to keep watch over him while Holmes attends to urgent business in London. As if a ghostly beast wasn’t enough, an escaped convict is also loose somewhere on the moor. Watson does his best in Holmes’s absence, but it will take the great detective to put an end to the curse.

All of the story elements work together to create one of the most memorable mysteries ever written. Baskerville Hall and Dartmoor are described so vividly that I could imagine I was actually there. I would recognize the characters on the street from the thorough descriptions of their physical characteristics and mannerisms. The atmosphere is a perfect blend of horror, suspense, and intrigue, with just a dash of humor. I regret that I had only one chance to experience this book for the first time, and this wasn’t it. Re-readings can’t recapture the thrill of the first time around.

5 stars

Reading Projects Hana's Suitcase by Karen Levine

In 2000, the director of the newly-established Tokyo Holocaust Education Resource Center received a few artifacts belonging to children in response to appeals to museums around the world. One of the precious few artifacts loaned to her was a suitcase from Auschwitz with a polka dot lining and marked with the name Hanna Brady.

The director, Fumiko, and the center children wanted to know more about Hana. Where was she from? What did she look like? Did she survive the Holocaust? Fumiko wrote letters, made phone calls, and even traveled to Europe to find information.

By reassembling Hana’s life and recovering Hana’s voice, Fumiko and the center children have allowed her to speak to new generations of children to foster tolerance and peace so that the evils of the Holocaust will not be repeated. This book extends the center’s reach far beyond Tokyo, as all who read it will be inspired by Fumiko and the children she teaches as well as by Hana’s story.

4.5 stars

ShakespeareCAT
Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare

Treachery and misunderstandings separate a young couple in love and bring together another couple who had professed mutual antipathy. This is one of Shakespeare’s comedies, so readers/listeners are assured of a happy ending. I listened to a BBC Audio recording featuring David Tennant in the role of Benedick. It’s an outstanding production, but I’m of the generation for which the definitive adaptation may always be the 1993 Kenneth Branagh film.

4 stars

> I agree about the Branagh version.

>102 hailelib: I think I'll try to find it and watch it again before the end of the month. It's been too long.

CATWoman
The Chalk Circle Man by Fred Vargas

Newly arrived in Paris as commissaire of the 5th arrondissement, Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg is troubled by the mysterious actions of the “chalk circle man.” Once or twice a week in different sections of Paris, someone discovers a chalk circle drawn around an inanimate object, always with the same saying surrounding the circle. Adamsberg senses something cruel behind the action. He is drawn to oceanographer Mathilde Forestier, as odd in her own way as he is, and who seems to have more knowledge of the chalk circle man than anyone else in Paris. Events finally prove Adamsberg’s concern justified, as one day a body is discovered inside a chalk circle.

This is a satisfyingly complex mystery peopled with quirky characters, including the neurodiverse Commissaire Adamsberg. The scholars/academics in the book are convincing, perhaps because the author herself is a historian and archaeologist. Adamsberg’s physical description and some of his mannerisms remind me of Peter Falk’s Columbo. I think a lot of Columbo fans would enjoy meeting Adamsberg as much as I did.

4 stars

>104 cbl_tn: a BB for me!

>104 cbl_tn: Great review! I've had this on my tbr list for too long.

>105 Tess_W: >106 VivienneR: Glad to help! If you're doing the CATWoman challenge, it fits this month's Women in Translation theme. Just sayin'! ;-)

Reading Projects
The Five Orange Pips by Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes is consulted by the nephew and heir of a man who had lived in Florida during the Civil War and had served in the confederate army. He had suddenly moved back to England in 1869, where he had lived quietly until he received a mysterious letter marked K.K.K. and containing five orange pips. Soon afterward, the uncle died. Then his brother (the nephew’s father) received a similar communication and died shortly thereafter. Now the nephew has received a similar letter. Holmes knows that there is no time to waste.

This story recounts one of Sherlock Holmes’s few failures. He deduces the identity of the sender and the meaning of the five orange pips, but not in time to save his client’s life. Perhaps that’s why I find it unsatisfying compared to most of the other Holmes stories. While modern readers immediately understand the KKK association, its history was not as well-known at the time of its initial publication.

3 stars

I love that you're reading all the Sherlock Holmes stories. It makes me want to do a reread of them too!

>109 mathgirl40: I'm enjoying it so much that I think everyone needs to do it! I will not be rereading The Adventure of the Speckled Band, though. Once is enough for that one. I hate snakes!

The Adventure of the Creeping Man by Arthur Conan Doyle

A young man consults Sherlock Holmes about the odd happenings in the home of his employer and future father-in-law. His fiancee was frightened by the appearance of a man in her second floor bedroom window in the middle of the night, and her father offered her no comfort. The father is engaged to be married to a young woman about his daughter’s age. Holmes rightly deduces that the father’s odd behavior is the result of an experimental treatment derived from monkeys, to make himself more attractive to his much-younger fiancee. I watched the TV adaptation with Jeremy Brett in the role of Sherlock Holmes. It’s not one of the best episodes in the series, but then again, it’s not one of the best stories in the canon, either.

Group Reads
A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life by Allyson Hobbs

This book is a history of racial passing from the antebellum period until the civil rights era, with an epilogue commenting on the present era (late 20th to early 21st century). The first chapter presents passing in the antebellum period as status-based (from slavery to freedom) rather than race-based (from black to white). The second chapter covers Reconstruction, when the author contends that light-skinned African Americans who could have passed as white chose not to because of the optimism of the era. Chapter 3 looks at the establishment of the Jim Crow era that eroded the progress of the Reconstruction era, and the choices that some African Americans made to pass as white to pursue careers and other opportunities that were denied to African Americans. Chapter 4 provides case studies of three mixed race individuals (Jean Toomer, Nella Larsen, and Langston Hughes) and the racial identities they formed during the Harlem Renaissance. Chapter 5 examines the psychological impact of passing and provides examples of African Americans who chose to stop passing for white and to reassume black identities in the post-World War II era.

I found the premise of the book more interesting than its execution. If this were a theological argument, I would describe it as proof texting. It seems like the author chose examples to fit her hypotheses, rather than basing her hypotheses on assembled evidence. This is particularly apparent in chapter 2, which is all about individuals who chose not to pass during Reconstruction. Is it true that virtually no mixed race African Americans chose to pass in this era? Or did they pass so successfully that they didn’t leave a record trail for the author to find?

3 stars

>110 cbl_tn: Thanks for reminding me about The Adventure of the Speckled Band! I actually really like that one, even if (or maybe because) it's so scary. It just occurred to me that I could reread it for the February ScaredyKIT.

>113 mathgirl40: Oh, great idea!

Asian Authors; CATWoman; Reading Projects The Property by Rutu Modan

A couple of months after her father’s death, Mica accompanies her grandmother, Regina, to Warsaw to recover the property her great-grandparents owned before the Holocaust. This is Regina’s first visit to Warsaw since she emigrated to Israel as a young woman before the war. Once they arrive in Warsaw, Regina doesn’t seem to want to accompany Mica anywhere or to do anything about the lost property. Mica is attracted to a tour guide she meets on the first day of their visit, and Regina reconnects with someone from her past. And why is the cantor from her father’s funeral following Mica everywhere after they ran into him on the plane? This lovely graphic novel explores relationships, loss, and memory. Despite the underlying sadness and loss, the novel ends on a hopeful note as both Mica and Regina seem to have found what they sought from their journey.

4 stars

Reading Projects
The Boscombe Valley Mystery by Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes is called to Boscombe Valley in Herefordshire at the request of a young woman. A neighbor who had known her father in Australia has been killed, apparently by his son. Holmes’s client is in love with the son and believes that he is innocent. Even with all the circumstantial evidence pointing to the son’s guilt, Holmes believes the evidence may actually point to his innocence. While the outcome is predictable, Holmes is at his best as he deduces the killer’s physical characteristics and habits from the clues that everyone else has missed.

3.5 star

Reading Projects
The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge by Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes receives a visit from a man puzzled by the happenings at Wisteria Lodge where he had been a guest. A Spaniard of his acquaintance, a Mr. Garcia, invited him to stay at the lodge. Mr. Scott Eccles awoke that morning to an empty house. Mr. Garcia and his servants had disappeared. The police arrive at Holmes’s lodging shortly after Mr. Scott Eccles to investigate the murder of Mr. Garcia. Holmes pursues a line of inquiry starting at Wisteria Lodge, while the local inspector conducts his own investigation.

This is an odd story. Mr. Scott Eccles characterizes the case as “grotesque.” The story includes racial stereotypes that 21st century readers will find distasteful. One notable feature of this story is that the local inspector reaches the same conclusion as Holmes in his parallel investigation, unlike the Scotland Yard detectives whom Holmes regularly has to correct

3 stars

The Sherlock project seems to be going well.

>118 hailelib: It is! It may slow down in March after I finish all the stories tied to the devotional book I'm reading, but now that I've started, I'll likely finish.

AuthorCAT The Perpetual Curate by Margaret Oliphant

It seems that Frank Wentworth, the curate of St. Roque’s, is to be a perpetual curate, unable ever to afford to marry and so his love for Lucy Wodehouse must remain undeclared. The new rector of Carlingford has taken an almost instant dislike to Frank, and he does everything in his power to make Frank miserable. Frank’s maiden aunts have a living that they could bestow on him, but Frank is too Romish for his domineering aunt Leonora’s evangelical taste. Frank unwittingly becomes the center of a scandal in Carlingford, while at the same time he’s called upon to manage a Wentworth family crisis. Through it all, Frank never loses his optimism about the future or his devotion to his duty.

Carlingford’s residents are by now familiar to readers of the previous stories and novels, and Frank and Lucy are some of its most likable citizens. There’s enough humor throughout that it wouldn’t be wrong to describe it as a romantic comedy. The characterizations are well-drawn, with echoes of both Austen and Dickens. Its primary flaw is in the pacing, with a suspenseful plot that line resolves earlier than it should.

4.5 stars

>120 cbl_tn: I've got about 10 Oliphants on my shelf. I really need to get to them!

>121 Tess_W: There will be group read of The Perpetual Curate next month in the Virago group. I decided to read it early since it fit the February AuthorCAT. I would recommend reading the short story The Rector first.

>122 cbl_tn: TY I will try to do that!

>123 Tess_W: The more the merrier!

Reading Projects
The Adventure of the Red Circle by Arthur Conan Doyle

A landlady with a mysterious lodger consults with Sherlock Holmes when she cannot bear the lodger’s strange behavior any longer. The lodger offered her twice her usual rate but only as long as she adhered strictly to his terms. He was to have a key to the house and was not to be interfered with at all. She had not seen the lodger since the day he arrived, but heard him endlessly pacing in his rooms. What could it mean?

Holmes takes a slender thread and follows it to a matter of international intrigue involving three nationalities, yet he travels no more than a couple of miles from his Baker Street home. I’ve read enough of the Holmes stories to compare myself favorably with Watson, who missed several clues that both Holmes and I spotted. However, Holmes’s powers of deduction still far exceed my own.

4 stars

Group Reads
The Children Return by Martin Walker

St. Denis’s town policeman, Bruno Courrèges, gets a tip from an old army friend that a young Muslim from St. Denis has been found in Afghanistan and he wants to come home. Sami is autistic and had been raised by his aunt and uncle after the death of his parents in Algeria. But Sami was supposed to be at a special school in a Toulouse mosque. How did he get from there to Afghanistan? Has he become a jihadist? In a secondary plot line, the family of two Jewish children who were sheltered in St. Denis during World War II want to revisit the local sites where the children stayed. None of the local residents have any memory of this, so Bruno helps with the research to identify the family who provided them with shelter.

I was more interested in the World War II story than the terrorism plot, and I wish there had been more of it. The author wrote himself into a corner with the story of the autistic boy, and there was really only one way to resolve it. I wish it had been less predictable. I’m also getting annoyed with Bruno’s love life. He says he wants children, but he keeps getting involved with women who have no intention of settling down and starting a family. He’s finally moved on from Isabelle. He’s still seeing Pamela, but things have been a little strained between them. Now he meets Nancy, an American friend of Isabelle’s who’s heard a lot about him from Isabelle, and he flirts with her in Pamela’s presence. Readers expect better of Bruno. He should have the decency to end one relationship before starting another.

3.5 stars

American Authors Challenge
The Body Farm by Patricia Cornwell

Forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta is part of an FBI team called in to assist in the investigation of the abduction and murder of an 11-year-old girl in Black Mountain, North Carolina. The circumstances of the murder suggest that wanted killer Temple Gault is behind it. A strange mark on the girl’s corpse prompts Dr. Scarpetta to consult Dr. Shade at the University of Tennessee’s “Body Farm”, where they conduct an experiment to help Dr. Scarpetta. Meanwhile, the lines between personal and professional blur as Kay draws closer to FBI profiler Benton Wesley and tries to navigate through the jealousy of her comrade, detective Pete Marino. Kay’s niece, Lucy, a Quantico intern, also gets into trouble and needs her aunt’s help.

Given this book’s title, I expected the Body Farm to play a larger role in the book than it did. Dr. Scarpetta spent very little time in Knoxville or with Dr. Shade. There were a couple of bloopers that continue to nag at me. First of all, the novel opens on October 16, and the child was last seen alive on October 1. She had already been buried and had a headstone by the time Scarpetta got to Black Mountain a day or two later. Anyone who has ever buried a loved one knows that you can’t get a headstone erected that quickly. Secondly, Dr. Scarpetta visited Knoxville on homecoming Saturday and stayed at the Hyatt. How did she manage to get a room there at the last minute? All of the local hotels would have been fully booked for months, especially a hotel that close to Neyland Stadium.

I think I would tire out on this series if I read the books too close together. It’s the type of book that makes good airplane reading, so I might revisit Dr. Scarpetta’s world on some future trip.

4 stars

Reading Projects
The Reigate Puzzle by Arthur Conan Doyle

Finding his friend Sherlock Holmes in need of rest at the conclusion of a strenuous case, Dr. Watson takes him to the country home of an old army friend. Soon after their arrival they hear about a recent burglary in the neighborhood, and not long after that, a coachman is murdered at another neighboring estate. Despite Watson’s admonitions, Holmes can’t resist investigating the murder. This story shows Holmes at less than his physical best, yet his powers of deduction are as sharp as ever.

4 stars

Everything Else
A Market Tale by Martin Walker

This gentle story set in St. Denis features the market in the town square, a disabled widower, and a Swiss newcomer. As the widower and the Swiss woman fall in love, his sister’s jealousy threatens their relationship. Town policeman Bruno finds a creative solution to bring them to harmony.

I’ve said before that Bruno reminds me in a way of Mayberry sheriff Andy Taylor. Like Andy, Bruno is more interested in enforcing the spirit of the law than the letter of the law. This story highlights the Mayberry aspect of the series. As an added bonus, there are no terrorists in this story, no pets are killed, and no girlfriends are wounded or maimed.

4 stars

Reading Projects
The Adventure of the Priory School by Arthur Conan Doyle

The headmaster of the Priory School consults Sherlock Holmes about a pupil who has disappeared. The 10-year-old is the son and heir of the Duke of Holdernesse, whose estate, Holdernesse Hall, is just a few miles from the school. A German teacher and his bicycle have also disappeared from the school, so kidnapping is a possibility. The Duke is less than enthusiastic about Holmes’s aid, which Watson interprets as a noble’s reluctance to open his private life to the inspection of commoners. The motive behind the crime case defies the reader’s deduction, yet it poses no obstacle to Sherlock Holmes.

4 stars

Reading Projects
The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor by Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes is consulted by Lord St. Simon, whose American bride disappeared during the wedding breakfast. If the bride had cold feet, why would she wait until after the ceremony to disappear? What can this mean? It’s a puzzle to everyone but Sherlock Holmes, who correctly deduces the motive behind the bride’s disappearance and tracks her down.

It’s easy to forget that Holmes is a private detective who solves mysteries of all kinds, not just crimes. This is one of his cases that doesn’t involve a crime (well, possibly bigamy, but the bride learns her first husband is still alive before her marriage is consummated), yet it’s every bit as entertaining as the stories involving murders.

4 stars

Reading Projects
The Adventure of the Second Stain by Arthur Conan Doyle

When an important document goes missing from a government official’s dispatch box, the official turns to Sherlock Holmes to recover the document. It’s a matter of national – even international – security. Holmes intends to start his investigation with a man known to him as a spy, but Watson surprises him for once with news of the man’s murder. It’s not long before Inspector Lestrade seeks Holmes’s assistance at the murder scene. It seems that the murdered man bled on the carpet. When the carpet was removed, however, there was no corresponding stain on the floor underneath, but there was a stain on the floor on the opposite side of the room. This is the clue Holmes needs to locate and restore the missing document. Holmes’s solution reveals a chivalrous aspect to his character that he would probably deny.

4 stars

Reading Projects
The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle by Arthur Conan Doyle

At Christmastime, Sherlock Holmes is tasked with returning a lost goose to its rightful owner, whose identity Holmes deduces from the hat he lost with the goose. The case gains a new urgency when the goose is discovered to hold a valuable secret. This is one of the more familiar Holmes stories since it’s often included in anthologies of Christmas mysteries. It’s a good entry point to the Holmes canon. Holmes gives a magical performance as he extracts a man from his hat!

4.5 stars

Asian Authors Challenge; Non-Fiction Challenge
Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari

A historian author makes predictions of the future based on the life sciences. He warns us at the outset that we tend to view the world in terms of the predominant technology. So, for example, industrial age philosophers tended to view the world and its systems as machines. According to the author, today’s life scientists view humans, as well as other life forms, as a set of algorithms, which leads to dataism. Roughly 400 pages later, in which he predicts the irrelevance and obsolescence of Homo sapiens in comparison with artificial intelligence that will outperform them at virtually every endeavor, he concludes that humans may not in fact not be algorithms. Did he really need 400 pages to reach that conclusion?

2.5 stars

Reading Projects
The Adventure of the Three Students by Arthur Conan Doyle

Holmes and Watson are in an unnamed university town when they are approached by a tutor who wants Holmes to discreetly investigate the theft of the proofs for an exam scheduled for the next morning. If the culprit isn’t found, the exam will have to be postponed, bringing disrepute to the college. The prime suspects are the three students who live in the same building. This isn’t one of Holmes’s best showings, maybe because he’s out of his familiar Baker Street territory, but I did enjoy the academic setting. I have a fondness for mysteries set in schools and colleges.

4 stars

>134 cbl_tn: Somebody gave me that book. I leafed through it several times, started chapter one and said, "nope, life is too short!" I, in turn, gave it to someone else!

February Recap
American Authors (75 Books group)
The Body Farm by Patricia Cornwell (4)

British Authors (75 Books group)
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle (5)

Asian Authors (75 Books group)
The Property by Rutu Modan (4)
Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari (2.5)

Non-Fiction (75 Books group)
Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari (2.5)

AuthorCAT
The Perpetual Curate by Margaret Oliphant (4.5)

CATWoman
The Chalk Circle Man by Fred Vargas (4)
The Property by Rutu Modan (4)

ShakespeareCAT
Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare (4)

Group Reads
A Chosen Exile by Allyson Hobbs (3)
The Children Return by Martin Walker (3.5)

Reading Projects
Hana’s Suitcase by Karen Levine (4.5)
The Property by Rutu Modan (4)

By Arthur Conan Doyle:
The Adventure of Black Peter (short story) (3)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (5)
The Five Orange Pips (short story) (3)
The Boscombe Valley Mystery (short story) (3.5)
The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge (short story) (3)
The Adventure of the Red Circle (short story) (4)
The Reigate Puzzle (short story) (4)
The Adventure of the Priory School (short story) (4)
The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor (short story) (4)
The Adventure of the Second Stain (short story) (4)
The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle (short story) (4.5)
The Adventure of the Three Students (short story) (4)

Everything else
A Market Tale by Martin Walker (4)

Books owned: 3
Books borrowed: 2
Ebooks owned: 1
Ebooks borrowed: 3
eAudiobooks borrowed: 13

Best of the month: The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
Worst of the month: Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari

>127 cbl_tn: After 4 or 5 of Cornwell's books I moved on and haven't been tempted to revisit Scarpetta since.

>138 hailelib: This is the only one I've read. I enjoyed it well enough, but it's dated now so I don't know that I'll be tempted to read more.

Reading Projects
A Sherlock Holmes Devotional by Trisha White Priebe

This devotional collection should have been right up my alley as a mystery fan, but it failed to meet my expectations. Most of the devotions were weak in application, which is really the whole point of a devotional. Each selection is headed by a short quotation from one of the Holmes stories or novels. It seemed reasonable to expect that the story quoted from would be related to that meditation, so I made an effort to read the Holmes story before reading its connected meditation. I soon discovered that some of the devotions are connected to a different story than the one from which the quotation is drawn. Some of the beginning quotations are drawn from previously used stories, so at this point I’ve only read about half of the Holmes canon. (Actually, I listened to LibriVox recordings for most of them.) I’m enjoying it so much that I’m going to finish the rest of the stories.

2.5 stars

Reading Projects
The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb by Arthur Conan Doyle

One of Dr. Watson’s patients who works at Paddington Station brings him another patient one morning, a passenger who had just arrived at the station missing his thumb. The young man has a strange story to tell, and Dr. Watson takes him to his friend Sherlock Holmes. The young man is a hydraulic engineer. Work has been scarce, so he jumped at an opportunity that presented itself the day before to examine a machine in a Berkshire village used for processing fuller’s earth. The fee offered seems too good to be true. That should have been the engineer’s first cue to decline the job. He goes where he’s instructed, and he pays for his experience with the loss of his thumb. Sherlock Holmes sees behind the bizarre events of the night before to determine their cause. Conan Doyle uses the descending ceiling trope in this story. Perhaps it wasn’t as much of a cliché then as it has become now.

4 stars

Reading Projects
A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro

Two 21st-century descendants of the Holmes and Watson clans meet at a Connecticut boarding school. It isn’t long before Charlotte Holmes and Jamie Watson are blamed for the murder of a fellow student. Will anyone, especially the police, believe they’re being framed? And who is behind it? Perhaps a Moriarty?

Jamie Watson narrates most of the story, just as his ancestor did for Sherlock Holmes’s cases. Jamie is a much more believable teenager than Charlotte. It’s hard to buy into someone as young as Charlotte having so much knowledge and expertise in so many areas. Jamie’s back story had the most appeal for me. Jamie’s parents are divorced. He’s been living in London with his mother and younger sister. His father lives in Connecticut near the school with his new family. Jamie hasn’t seen his father in several years, and his peril provides an opportunity for them to reconnect.

The crimes in the book are taken from the pages of the Holmes canon. The details include spoilers for several of the Sherlock Holmes stories: The Adventure of the Speckled Band, The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, and The Adventure of the Dying Detective. If you haven’t read the stories, the plot details of this book will be spoilery. If you have read these stories, naming them would be spoilery for this book.

3.5 stars

Reading Projects
The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet by Arthur Conan Doyle

A Streatham banker consults Holmes when jewels disappear from a nearly priceless beryl coronet he was keeping as collateral for a loan. The banker didn’t want to leave such a valuable item in the bank, so he took it to his home for safe keeping. He made the mistake of telling his family at dinner that the coronet was in the house. To his horror, he woke up during the night to find his son in his room, with the damaged coronet in his hands. He’s convinced his son is guilty of theft, but since his son won’t disclose the whereabouts of the missing gems, he asks Sherlock Holmes to find them. Naturally, Holmes questions the inferences the banker has made from the facts at hand. Either I’ve read this story before, or I’m starting to think like Holmes, because I knew instantly which household member must have been involved in the theft of the jewels.

3.5 stars

AuthorCAT; CATWoman
The Doctors Blackwell by Janice P. Nimura

“I love mankind...it’s people I can’t stand!!” (Linus Van Pelt, 1959). Elizabeth Blackwell, America’s first woman M.D., wrote something similar to her brother one hundred years before Linus made his famous statement. Samuel Blackwell moved his large family – his wife, their eight children, and other relatives – from England to the United States in the 1830s. The Blackwells were a clannish, intellectual family, who preferred their own company above the company of others.

Elizabeth was the first in the family, and the first woman in the United States, to receive a medical degree. Elizabeth had a low opinion of women in general, and she set out to improve women by setting the example for other women to follow. Elizabeth decided that her sister, Emily, was worthy to follow in her footsteps and assist her in her lofty aspirations, so she pushed Emily into the medical field as well.

This is a well-written biography, with an impressive use of correspondence, diaries, and other archival sources. Its biggest problem is its subject, Elizabeth Blackwell. She wasn’t a likable person. Her contemporaries must have felt the same way about her, because she never achieved the accolades she thought were her due. She earned respect through her determined pursuit of her medical profession, but she was not the inspiration she set out to be at the beginning of her career.

4 stars

>144 cbl_tn: I'm not finding Elizabeth very likable either.

>145 thornton37814: She comes across as an elitist snob.

You've about convinced me to read some Sherlock stories.

>144 cbl_tn: I wonder if Stockwell had to be hardheaded in order to succeed at that time. I suspect a lot of the people who forged new ground against harsh opposition were probably not likeable or easy-going.

>148 RidgewayGirl: I tried to give her as much allowance as I could, but the biograpy includes so many quotes from her letters and journals that the conclusion seemed inevitable. She didn't like other women, she didn't like Americans. She really didn't like much of anybody except other Blackwells, and she looked down on some of them, too.

>149 cbl_tn: She definitely looks down on some of her own family members. I should finish this one today. Not my favorite book, but it is well-researched.

>150 thornton37814: I think the author's done such a good job of revealing Elizabeth's personality, warts and all, that it's paradoxically made it a difficult book to read!

Nonfiction Challenge; Reading Projects
The Nazi Hunters by Neal Bascomb

Some fifteen years after the end of World War II, Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi official responsible for transporting millions of Jews to their deaths, was spotted in Argentina. After receiving a tip on Eichmann’s whereabouts, Israeli spies tried to confirm Eichmann’s identity. Their first attempt was inconclusive. Three years later, they tried again, and this time they positively identified the man as Eichmann. The Israelis then conceived of and launched a plan to kidnap Eichmann and take him to Israel to stand trial for his war crimes.

This is a revision of Bascomb’s Hunting Eichmann for a young adult audience. It’s a powerful, utterly absorbing account of the Israeli mission. The bibliography and notes provide evidence of Bascomb’s extensive archival research and interviews with participants. Photographs of documents and physical artifacts allow readers to view some of the physical evidence that eventually led to Eichmann’s conviction and execution. Bascomb successfully conveys the emotional impact of the Israeli mission. Unlike the operatives involved, many of whom suffered and lost close family members as result of Eichmann’s wartime actions, I can only claim a general feeling of loss to the extent that the Holocaust was a loss for all of humanity, and this account deeply stirred me.

4.5 stars

>147 hailelib: I almost missed you there! I am still enjoying the Holmes stories very much. I listen to the LibriVox recordings while I knit. The ones read by David Clarke are very good.

Group Reads
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson

The stories in Winesburg, Ohio, tell of a restless longing for something that the characters can’t quite define, but which may be community or connection. It has an aura of disappointment verging on despair. The town is filled with lonely souls who seem detached from everyone around them, except for young reporter George Willard, who seems to be the last remaining thread connecting the people of Winesburg. What will happen to the town when George Willard leaves?

Anderson seems to capture the beginning of the Midwest’s shift from agricultural economy to manufacturing economy and the waning of its small towns. Everyone with Midwestern roots ought to read this book.

4 stars

Reading Projects
The Adventure of the Stockbroker's Clerk by Arthur Conan Doyle

A young clerk consults Holmes when he develops misgivings about his new employer. He had been laid off from his last position, and was lucky enough to secure a new position fairly quickly. Before he started his new position, he received another offer from a man who, with his brother, was just starting a hardware business. This firm was willing to pay more than the firm where he was due to start the next week, so he accepted the position, and agreed to the odd request that he not resign from the other position he was to start the next week. Holmes and Watson accompany the clerk to Birmingham, where they meet his new employer and Holmes deduces the reason for the young clerk’s suspicion. It’s a good story, but it suffers due to its similarity to the better Adventure of the Red-Headed League.

3.5 stars

AuthorCAT; CATWoman; Reading Projects Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

A very young Laura Ingalls (she celebrates her 5th birthday in the book) tells about life in a Wisconsin cabin with her Pa, her Ma, her older sister Mary, and her baby sister Carrie. Over the course of about a year, Laura describes the hard work of frontier life, interspersed with times for play and family gatherings.

My fourth grade teacher read this to the class and I was bored to tears at that age. It didn’t speak to this child of the TV generation. I had no frame of reference for the kinds of chores that were part of the Ingalls family’s daily existence, and Laura was too young to interest a 9-year-old.

My adult self relished the vivid descriptions of farm living. My own Midwestern ancestors likely lived in much the same way. I was struck especially by Laura’s description of her mother, who worked with joy and had just the right blend of firmness and gentleness with her children.

I highly recommend listening to the audio version if you can get your hands on it. Cherry Jones’ superb narration enhanced the experience, as did Paul Woodiel’s fiddle interludes.

4 stars

AuthorCAT; Reading Projects Unto Us a Son Is Given by Donna Leon

Commissario Brunetti’s father-in-law, Conte Orazio Falier, rarely asks his son-in-law for a favor, so Brunetti is both surprised and alarmed when the Conte asks Brunetti to look into the affairs of one of the Conte’s oldest friends. Gonzalo Rodriguez de Tejada, a Spaniard by birth, has plans to adopt a much younger man to allow the younger man to inherit his fortune. Italian inheritance laws don’t allow people to will their wealth and possessions to anyone. The law requires most of the estate to go to a person’s relatives.

The crime is very slow to develop in this book, but that’s OK. Brunetti’s family is front and center in this one, making up for other books in the series where they hardly appear. The identity of the murderer was not a surprise to me, but the motive for the murder was. It’s nice that Leon can still surprise her readers after so many books in the series.

4 stars

>156 cbl_tn: In third grade, my teacher, Mr. Shinbein, read The Farmer's Boy to the class and I loved every minute of it.

>158 RidgewayGirl: I probably wouldn't have liked that one at that age, either. Not enough action. Left to my own devices, I read fairy tales, Bobbsey Twins mysteries, and Miss Pickerell adventures.

I'm pretty sure that I read some of the Little House books but I have no memory of them. Bobbsey Twins were big though and later Hardy Boys as soon as someone gave those to my brothers. Maybe Little House is worth a visit!

>160 hailelib: Little House books are my very favorite series, ever!

>160 hailelib: I moved on from the Bobbsey Twins to Trixie Belden and Nancy Drew. Trixie Belden was my favorite!

>161 Tess_W: I need to read the series. I believe I read a couple of them years ago, but I have no memory of reading them. It seems I had a strong preference for plot-driven stories in my younger days.

Reading Projects
The Adventure of the Gloria Scott by Arthur Conan Doyle

In this story, Holmes tells Watson about his very first case from his university days. On a visit to a friend’s home, he astounds his friend’s father with deductions made from his appearance. One of his deductions hits a little too close to home, and Holmes takes his leave. A few weeks later, Holmes’s friend summons him back to the Norfolk estate. His father is dying, and his illness was triggered by the receipt of a mysterious letter.

This story has some similarities to The Valley of Fear, with the mystery rooted in the past and the decoding of a secret message. Holmes’s methods seem to require a sidekick to ask questions and receive explanations. The school chum had to do since Holmes hadn’t yet met Watson, but he was an inferior substitute.

3.5 stars

Reading Projects
Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

Alice in Wonderland was the first book I remember reading after learning to read. It was time to revisit it! There’s nothing quite like this fantasy about a little girl who falls down a rabbit hole and meets all manner of strange creatures and adventures. I was just as delighted this time around as I was as a child. I don’t recall ever having read Through the Looking Glass before, although I am very familiar with many of its characters and elements. I’ve had Jabberwocky memorized since high school, when my choir performed a musical adaptation.

The stories might initially seem like pointless nonsense, but both are journey/exploration stories. Alice overcomes a series of obstacles in her first journey of exploration, such as growing very large and shrinking very small. In her second adventure, Alice is trying to reach the eighth square in order to become a queen in the living chess game she finds herself in.

Alice in Wonderland gets a full five stars. Through the Looking Glass doesn’t have quite the same magic, so I give it four stars.

4.5 stars

British Authors Challenge; Reading Projects
Diary of a Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield

A diarist writes of everyday life in interwar rural England, where she and her husband live above their means with their two children, a governess, a cook, a maid, and a gardener. I am not sure if Robert, the husband, works or if they’re a member of a social class that doesn’t work. The author’s humor is sometimes self-deprecating, and other times directed at others. The work feels like it’s written for insiders in the author’s social group, and I felt like an outsider. There seemed to be a distance between the author and myself that I couldn’t cross. While I did enjoy some of the episodes recounted in this book, I can’t see myself going out of my way to track down any of this author’s other works.

3 stars

CATWoman; Reading Projects
Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Pruitt Stewart

In the early 20th century, a widow with a young daughter takes up a homestead claim in Wyoming and writes letters about her life and adventures to her former employer in Denver. Elinore wanted to prove that a woman could ranch on her own. She claimed success in her letters, but she really wasn’t on her own since she married the Scotsman with the neighboring claim almost as soon as she arrived. She did show how much a generous-hearted homesteader could accomplish with the aid of equally generous neighbors. Her down-to-earth descriptions of her home, her neighbors and their homes, her travels and the people she met, and holidays and special events will quickly captivate most readers.

I listened to the audio version. The reader’s voice reminded me of a voice mail assistant or GPS navigator so much that I wondered at first if it was being read by a computer. Since she changed accents when someone else was speaking, I decided it was a real person speaking and not a computer!

4 stars

Asian Reading Challenge
The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf by Mohja Kahf

This is a coming-of-age novel about Khadra Shamy, the daughter of Syrian Muslim immigrants in Indiana. Khadra’s father works at the Muslim center in an Indianapolis suburb, and she is steeped in Muslim faith and practice in her childhood and adolescence. After a brief failed marriage in college, Khadra suddenly sees shades of gray where there used to be black and white. A trip to Syria, the barely-remembered land of her birth, confuses her even more. She discovers customs that she thought were Muslim are actually Syrian/Arab. She begins to see similarities between adherents of different faiths where before she only saw their outward differences. She needs to work out for herself what it means to be a Muslim woman in late 20th-century America.

I have mixed feelings about this book. It’s longer than it needs to be. Eliminating the repetitiveness and a number of the characters would likely make it a stronger novel. However, I identified with Khadra, who shares enough characteristics with the author to be considered at least partially autobiographical. Based on the timeline of the novel, she seems to be very close to my age. I spent a lot of time in Indiana during the years covered in the novel. My family made the trip north several times a year to visit my mother’s parents and her very large extended family. I sometimes felt like an outsider since the rest of the family knew each other in a way that I didn’t since I lived so far away, so I was very interested in another outsider’s view of Indiana. If I had run into Khadra on one of my visits, I wonder if we could have broken through the cultural barriers to find common ground?

3.5 stars

>166 cbl_tn: I read this in 2019. What I found interesting (odd) was that both her and her husband both had claims and Elinore ran her own claim by herself. She also traveled extensively without her husband and stayed away for long periods of time. Quite unordinary for the date and time!

>168 Tess_W: Yes, she was an extraordinary woman! Have you seen the movie based on the book?

>167 cbl_tn: Very interesting comments on this book, Carrie. I'll keep an eye out for it. I found the same thing moving from Canada to the US as a teenager and discovering that there was a lot of cultural things that were seen as integral to faith that I had never even heard of and things I'd taken for granted that were absent. It was an adjustment.

>170 RidgewayGirl: It's a good book, not a great one, and it certainly made me think. It was well worth the time I spent reading it. I failed to mention in my review the eclectic epigraphs at the beginning of each chapter. I enjoyed those almost as much as I enjoyed the book.

I don't intend to keep this one, so I'd be happy to send it your way if you like.

>169 cbl_tn: No, I generally do not watch TV at all. However, I will now look for this movie!

>172 Tess_W: It doesn't seem to be widely available. One of my public libraries has a copy, though, so I'll try to borrow it sometime.

American Authors Challenge The Fixer by Bernard Malamud

During Yakov’s first days in the courthouse jail the accusation had seemed to him almost an irrelevancy, nothing much to do with his life or deeds. But after the visit to the cave he had stopped thinking of relevancy, truth, or even proof. There was no “reason,” there was only their plot against a Jew, any Jew; he was the accidental choice for the sacrifice. He would be tried because the accusation had been made, there didn’t have to be another reason. Being born a Jew meant being vulnerable to history, including its worst errors. Accident and history had involved Yakov Bok as he had never dreamed he could be involved. The involvement was, in a way of speaking, impersonal, but the effect, his misery and suffering, were not. The suffering was personal, painful, and possibly endless.

In early 20th century Tsarist Russia, a restless young Jewish man, a fixer by trade, leaves the shtetl for Kiev. Yakov Bok hopes to improve his mind, earn some money, and maybe immigrate to somewhere better like America. Yakov is not a religious man, but he is basically a moral man. A couple of good deeds involve Yakov in a chain of events much larger than himself. Accused of a crime he did not commit, Yakov spends months, years in jail resisting state pressure to confess for the welfare of all the Jews in Russia.

This novel’s religious themes and the suffering that Yakov endures as the state pressures him to make a statement against his will echo similar themes in Shusaku Endo’s Silence. Both novels wrestle with the silence or absence of God in the face of unrelenting suffering. Interestingly, both novels were first published in 1966. Maybe there’s a thesis there for some aspiring scholar of literature.

4 stars

>174 cbl_tn: I loved Endo's Silence. Will put this one on my WL

>175 Tess_W: I didn't like this one quite as well as Silence, but it's still very good.

I want to ask my LT friends to pray for my community. A wildfire started yesterday near Pigeon Forge on a day of very strong winds. Fire crews have been unable to contain the fire due to the weather conditions. I have friends who live in the evacuation zone, and a coworker who lives just outside the evacuation zone. The evacuation zone expanded overnight to within 4 1/2 miles of my home (a little over 7 km). The wind advisory expired at 6 a.m., and we have about an hour of moderate rain forecast for my location starting just after 8 a.m. I'd love to have a good, soaking rain right now.

If you would like to know more about the fire, it's being called the Indigo Lane fire or the Hatcher Mountain/Indigo Lane fire.

>177 cbl_tn: - Oh, Carrie - that's awful. I will be praying for you. And for rain.

>178 dudes22: Thanks! I just took Adrian out and saw that we've already had some rain, although it's not raining now. Enough to leave puddles on the street. I also learned that there was a second fire much closer to me, which is why the evacuation zone is so close. That fire is out now.

I posted on your other thread about a faculty member who is in the evacuation zone. I'd learned of three more families with close ties to colleagues who were evacuated since we opened about 20 minutes ago.

>180 thornton37814: The power is out on campus so we are on a delayed class schedule today. I am working from home since I have power and internet here!

Just heard from my coworker who is closest to the fire. He is about a mile outside the evacuation area so that's good, but he has no power. We're getting a pretty good rain right now, but it's still windy.

>181 cbl_tn: I was worried about power issues last night because of the high winds, but mine managed to stay on. I did set my phone's alarm as a backup to the regular alarm -- although, to be honest, I don't need either because of the furry alarms.

>183 thornton37814: My power went off briefly a couple of times during the night. I always use the alarm on my phone so it wasn't a problem for me.

>177 cbl_tn: Praying for your community, and thankful to hear that there's been some rain!

>185 christina_reads: Thank you!

One of the latest updates: https://weather.com/news/news/2022-03-31-wildfires-gatlinburg-tennessee-pigeon-f...

The fire closest to me is contained. I have friends whose homes are threatened by the Indigo Lane fire. They have evacuated and are safe. Just waiting on news about their homes.

The fire close to me that I thought was contained isn't. It's about 5 1/2 to 6 miles from me. Praying that it will be contained soon.

The fire near me is now 800 acres and 0% contained. No more rain in the forecast until Tuesday.

Just got some great news about the fire closest to me! I'm not on Facebook, so one of my friends let me know that the fire chief's wife (a mutual friend) posted that she got to ride along with the chief on his inspection this morning. The fire appears to be 90% contained, only one home was lost and it was the one where the fire started when the power lines went down.

Thinking about you, Carrie, and praying that this fire gets totally contained and shut down soon.

>190 DeltaQueen50: Thanks, Judy!

ShakespeareCAT
The Storm by Frederick Buechner

Kenzie and his third wife, Willow, live on a privately developed Florida island. Kenzie will be turning seventy soon, and Willow is planning a big birthday bash. They learn that Kenzie’s estranged older brother, Dalton, will be on the island the weekend of the party. Kenzie and Dalton haven’t spoken in twenty years, since the birth of Kenzie’s illegitimate daughter with a 17-year-old street dweller. A tropical storm may put an end to the brothers’ reconciliation before it begins.

This short novel is a loose retelling of The Tempest. The characters all seem to be loners or misfits. Buechner gives readers a glimpse inside each one’s head. I like Buechner’s style, but I couldn’t get past the ick factor of a middle-aged Kenzie’s infatuation with a barely 17-year-old girl.

3.5 stars

March Recap
American Authors (75 Books group)
The Fixer by Bernard Malamud (4)

British Authors (75 Books group)
Diary of a Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield (3)

Asian Authors (75 Books group)
The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf by Mohja Kahf (3.5)

Non-Fiction (75 Books group)
The Nazi Hunters by Neal Bascomb (4.5)

AuthorCAT
The Doctors Blackwell by Janice P. Nimura (4)
Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder (4)
Unto Us a Son Is Given by Donna Leon (4)

CATWoman
The Doctors Blackwell by Janice P. Nimura (4)
Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder (4)
Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Pruitt Stewart (4)

ShakespeareCAT
The Storm by Frederick Buechner (3.5)

Group Reads
The Doctors Blackwell by Janice P. Nimura (4)
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson (4)
Unto Us a Son Is Given by Donna Leon (4)

Reading Projects
The Nazi Hunters by Neal Bascomb (4.5)
Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder (4)
Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll (4.5)
Diary of a Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield (3)
Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Pruitt Stewart (4)

By, about, or inspired by Arthur Conan Doyle:
A Sherlock Holmes Devotional by Trisha White Priebe (2.5)
The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb (4)
A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro (3.5)
The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet (3.5)
The Adventure of the Stockbroker’s Clerk (3.5)
The Adventure of the Gloria Scott (3.5)

Everything else

Books owned: 4
Books borrowed: 1
Ebooks borrowed: 4
eAudiobooks borrowed: 8

Best of the month: The Nazi Hunters by Neal Bascomb
Worst of the month: A Sherlock Holmes Devotional by Trisha White Priebe