The Snake, the Crocodile and the Dog

The Snake, the Crocodile and the Dog 

by Elizabeth Peters
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is book #7 in this 20-book series but it is the 18th one I have read. I love the character of Amelia Peabody--she is practical and sensible, and completely over-the-top. 

“It is much more sensible to be an optimist instead of a pessimist, for if one is doomed to disappointment, why experience it in advance?”

In this adventure she and her beloved Emerson return to the remote desert site where they first fell in love: Amarna, the holy city of Akhenaton and his beautiful queen, Nefertiti. 

This historical mystery counts toward the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.

Birds of a Feather

Birds of a Feather 

by Jacqueline Winspear
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the second entry in the Maisie Dobbs series and was a well crafted mystery along side a good amount of character development for both Maisie and her assistant Billy. There was an episode in the history of WWI Britain explored in this novel which I found very interesting (it's important to the mystery so I won't spoil anything by saying what it was). I look forward to reading more of this series, which is good because a friend cleaning out her shelves gifted me with the next several books in the series.

This title is set in post-WWI Britain and counts toward the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge. 

Challenge Check-in: Odds and Ends

 In hopes of completing my various reading challenges by the end of the year I posted check-ins this week on the various challenges and what I have left to read if I am going to complete them. This is my final check-in post.

Cruisin' Through the Cozies Challenge

I have one book left to read for this: a paranormal mystery. I am currently reading a book that fits this category so I should be all set with this. 

Historical Fiction Reading Challenge

I was done with this months ago and foolishly decided to increase my goal from 5 to 10. I have 4 books left to read to meet the new goal. My current audio-book is an historical mystery so that will leave 3 more to read in the next 12 weeks. (Yes, there are only 12 weeks left in 2022!)

Turtle Recall

I have read 4 Terry Pratchett books so far this year: Eric, Jingo, Pyramids, and Soul Music (the only one I blogged about). That leaves one book left to complete this challenge and I picked up Interesting Times at the library this week so I am in good shape with this challenge.

TBR Pile Challenge

I have read 10 out of the required 12 books for this challenge. I'm not sure this one will get finished, but it is already MUCH closer than I have ever gotten to finishing this particular challenge so I am pleased. These are my remaining options for completing this:

• Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson 
• Grave Secrets by Kathy Reichs 
• Walden by Henry David Thoreau
• Biography: Fiction, Fact, and Form by Ira Nadel (I started this, but it is slow going)

The Christie Affair

The Christie Affair 

by Nina de Gramont
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am familiar with the basic biography of Agatha Christie and have read/seen several works that purport to explain what happened during the days she was missing in the 1920s. This is the most impressive spin on that question that I have read. Instead of focusing on the Christie's exclusively this story delves deeply into the life of Archie Christie's mistress, Nan. There are quite a few very compelling and well developed characters in this novel and the twist that is put on the few known facts about Agatha's Christie's disappearance is absolutely brilliant. 

This book is one of my 20 Books of Summer and it counts towards the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.

Things Fall Apart

Things Fall Apart 

by Chinua Achebe
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Written in the late 1950s this book is the story of Okonkwo and his Ibo village in Nigeria at the turn of the 20th century. It is beautifully written and slowly draws the reader into the life and customs of this African community through stories that feel almost fable-like and become more narrative once the reader is firmly settled into the time and place. 

In his introduction to this novel Kwame Anthony Appiah describes perfectly the power of this book:

"Not only does Achebe draw a compelling picture of life in one part of Iboland before the arrival of Christianity and colonialism; he manages to convey to all of us, Ibo or not, both the tragedy and the loss of that world and the possibilities created by the new situation. Achebe's rigorous accounting includes columns both for profit and for loss." 

This is the first of Achebe's Africa trilogy which continues the story of Okonkwo's family in No Longer at Ease (1960) and Arrow of God (1964). I plan to continue reading the trilogy. 

This novel counts toward the Back to the Classics Challenge (as a classic by a BIPOC author) and towards the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.

The Stone Carvers

The Stone Carvers 

by Jane Urquhart
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"In 1867 Pater Archangel Gstir is sent by God to the Canadian wilds. Soon the backwoods are transformed into a parish and Joseph Becker, a woodcarver, is brought together with his future wife. Decades later when an architect plans a memorial to the Canadian dead in France, their grandchild Klara must use her family skills - to carve, and to create." --publishers blurb

This is a beautifully written novel that tells the story of a variety of Canadian carvers and how they intertwined with one another over time. This is the second historical novel I have read by Urquart and I plan to read more. She is a Canadian author and her stories of life in the wilds of Canada are full of interesting details and appealing characters.

This book is one of my 20 Books of Summer; it counts toward the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge; and it counts toward the Canadian Reading Challenge.

The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven

The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven 

by Nathaniel Ian Miller
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"The captivating story of one man who banishes himself to a solitary life in the Arctic Circle and is saved by good friends, a loyal dog, and a surprise visit that changes everything." --jacket copy

This fictional memoir takes place between 1916 and 1946, mostly on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard. On my own I would not have picked up this book, but I had to read it for a project at work and I am extremely glad I did because it was a beautiful book. The writing is elegant and the frozen world of the Arctic is stunningly described. This is a story filled with the details of wilderness adventures (polar bears, mining accidents, murder, and a lot of animal carcasses come into it). Despite that, it is a quiet book with a lot of philosophy mixed in and a wonderful cast of characters.  

"Fate is empty. Any Arctic explorer or common sailor can tell you this. So you must make the best choices you can, knowing they may lead you astray, but proceeding boldly lest your life become one long monotonous drift between death and your last interesting choice." (p. 170)

This book counts toward the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge. 

The Jane Austen Society

The Jane Austen Society 

by Natalie Jenner
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was a wonderful book about a group of people living in Chawton England in the 1940s. They each have their own struggles and tragedies and they come together to preserve the memory of Jane Austen, whose novels they all love and who lived in Chawton at the end of her life. Every character in this story is well drawn and I felt like the interconnections between them made the story very believable. 

“We love Jane Austen because her characters, as sparkling as they are, are no better and no worse than us. They’re so eminently, so completely, human. I, for one, find it greatly consoling that she had us all figured out.”

Jenner's characters are the same way. If you love Jane Austen this is a not-to-be-missed novel. If you don't love Austen this book might make you reconsider.

Jenner was raised in Toronto and lives in Ontario so this book counts toward the Canadian Reading Challenge. It also counts toward the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge. 

Matrix

Matrix 

by Lauren Groff
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Cast out of the royal court by Eleanor of Aquitaine, deemed too coarse and rough-hewn for marriage or courtly life, 17-year-old Marie de France is sent to England to be the new prioress of an impoverished abbey, its nuns on the brink of starvation and beset by disease." --jacket copy

I have always been intrigued by Eleanor of Aquitaine (because of the Katharine Hepburn movie) and this book didn't focus on her as much as I expected it to. The focus was on Marie, who proved to be a fascinating person and I was quickly drawn into her world. She was dropped into a place in life that was not at all what she wanted and part of the strength of this novel was watching her come to terms with this truth. 

The focus on the inner lives of this group of religious women in an isolated place reminded me of Black Narcissus; the time period and the geography in the two novels is very different though.

This book counts toward the 2022 Historical Reading Challenge.

Lust for Life

Lust for Life 

by Irving Stone
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This novel was published in 1934 and tells the story of the life of Vincent Van Gogh. In writing it, according to the author's note, Stone relied heavily on the letters Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo.

I didn't know a lot about Van Gogh's life, but what I did know was sad so I was hesitant to read this. There was a lot of sadness and hardship in the book, but it was not as depressing as I expected because of the way Van Gogh saw his own life which was fairly hopeful as long as he could make his art. I enjoyed this novel and I learned a lot about both Van Gogh and the art world of the late 19th century. It moved through the action fairly quickly, but overall was a quiet book filled with ruminations on life and art and love. The places are beautifully described as they appear in Van Gogh's paintings. 

"He could not yet face his own life, so he turned to the lives of others. He returned to his books. Reading had always been his finest and most constant pleasure, and now in the stories of other people's triumphs and failures, sufferings and joys, he found surcease from the ever haunting spectre of his own fiasco." (p. 71)

This book is on my Classics Club list and it counts toward the 2022 Historical Reading Challenge.

Readers' Advisory Guide to Historical Fiction

The Readers' Advisory Guide to Historical Fiction 

by Jennifer S. Baker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As I mentioned in my sign-up post for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge I am not a big reader of this genre. I have been working on my readers' advisory skills recently for work and I read this book as part of that project. I found it very interesting -- particularly the definitions of sub-genres and what seemed to be a tremendous struggle to get these massive tomes to fit into any kind of classification structure. Ultimately I'm not sure they do. I was somewhat reassured by the numerous books discussed in this volume that I have read. 

One of the key pieces of advice in this book is that to get to know this genre (or any other) you need to read in it. A reading plan is provided at the end of the book, but as I was reading I kept notes of titles that appealed to me so have constructed my own Historical Fiction reading plan. This list constitutes thousands of pages of reading, even if I don't continue with any of these series,  so I am not setting any time-frame for completing it, but am compiling a list of potential reading for future reference.

There are a few authors that I want to read something by, but don't have a specific title in mind:

• Howard Fast (I remember my Mom reading his books when I was a kid)
• Jean Plaidy 
• Mazo de la Roche (the Whiteoaks of Jalna series--set in Canada)

Then there are specific books that looked interesting to me:

• Stonehenge by Bernard Cornwell (set in pre-history)
• I, Claudius by Robert Graves (set in the ancient world)
• A Sudden Country by Susan Fisher (the Oregon Trail -19th century)
• Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernieres (fall of the Ottoman Empire -20th century)
• The Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan (set in Canada -early 20th century)
• Lionheart by Sharon Kay Penman (biographical fiction, historical figure)
• The Painted Kiss by Elizabeth Hickey (biographical fiction, artist)
• The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver (from section on Latino fiction)
• The Outlander by Gil Adamson (set in the Canadian West)
• And Only to Deceive by Tasha Alexander (a mystery series for Amelia Peabody fans) 
• Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree by Tariq Ali (first book in a time-sweep series about a Muslim family in Granada in 1492)

There were also some titles that were already on my TBR list that I am even more excited about now:

• Lust for Life by Irving Stone
• Passing by Nella Larsen
• New York by Edward Rutherford

2022 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge

#histficreadingchallenge

The 2022 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge is being hosted at The Intrepid Reader and I am going to give it a try. I don't think of historical fiction as a genre that I read a lot of, but in 2021 (so far) I have read 10 books that I would call historical fiction and I enjoyed all of them. I also seem to have quite a few works of historical fiction sitting unread on my shelf. This may be my mother's fault, she loved this genre and several of these books belonged to her.

Here are some of the titles already on my shelves that I might consider for this challenge:

• Charlotte Grey by Sebastian Faulks
• On Green Dolphin Street by Sebastian Faulks
• Split Thirty by Michael Davidow
• New York by Edward Rutherford
• A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
• The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston
• Madame Picasso by Anne Girard
• And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hooven Santmyer
• Texas by James A. Michener

I am going to try to complete this challenge at the Victorian level (5 books). Most of these books are really long so I don't want to be too ambitious.