Julius by Daphne du Maurier -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Julius by Daphne du Maurier

Thank you for joining me for Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

His first instinct was to stretch out his hands towards the sky.

-- from Julius by Daphne du Maurier. This is the current book I'm reading as part of a Du Maurier Deep Dive group I'm in on Instagram. We are getting down the the last few of du Maurier's books. This is the third book she wrote.  Julius, the protagonist, is an unpleasant person, but the story moves along at a clip and is much more entertaining than what we read last month, I'll Never be Young Again (perhaps universally disliked by our group, a first). 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 is a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings. The idea is to share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of your featured book. If you are reading an ebook or audiobook, find your teaser from the 56% mark.

Freda at Freda's Voice started and hosted The Friday 56 for a long, long time. She is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. Please visit Anne's blog and link to your Friday 56 post.

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from Julius:

The driver stopped before a humble white building, almost hidden, squeezed between two projecting houses. “This is a synagogue,” he said, and he spat disdainfully, holding out his hand already for his money.

What makes a story so interesting is Julius's struggle with his Jewish heritage and antisemitism. That is a sympathetic storyline, even though he is so horrible otherwise. The conflict between the two sides of his character gives weight to the story.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

A chilling story of ambition, Daphne du Maurier's third novel has lost none of its ability to unsettle and disturb. Julius Lévy has grown up in a peasant family in a village on the banks of the Seine. A quick-witted urchin caught up in the Franco-Prussian War, he is soon forced by tragedy to escape to Algeria. Once there, he learns the ease of swindling, the rewards of love affairs, and the value of secrecy. Before he’s 20, he’s in London, where his empire-building begins in earnest. Driven by a lifelong hunger for power, he becomes a rich and ruthless man. His one weakness is his daughter Gabriel.

Rut or Routine? -- BOOK THOUGHTS

 

BOOK THOUGHTS

Rut or Routine?

I’m a creature of habit, for sure. There are some things I like to do over and over, the same way, for years. For example, I’m on a board that meets four times a year at an office in the suburbs. I may pass that building 12 or 15 times a year, but only after the quarterly board meeting do I regularly do three nearby things: (1) stop at the Cat Fanciers’ Thrift Shop, (2) pick up yummy things to eat at the Ukrainian grocery store, and (3) fill up with slightly less expensive suburban gas. I’ve been on this board for over ten years and have done those same things after every meeting.

So, should I branch out? Explore other things to do out that way? Break it up and run those errands on a non-board meeting day? Or should I stick with what I know makes me happy? I read an article once that stuck with me. It described some real study that looked to determine whether people were happier when, on repeated visits to the same restaurant, they ordered the same, favorite thing or they tried new things each time. The conclusion was that most people were happier ordering the same favorite and not exploring the menu.

That’s me to a T! I’m often up for some exploring and even a little adventure, but I love my routines. I’ll banish the idea of calling them ruts. Maybe I should call them traditions, not routines, because that has a nobler ring to it. What about you? Do you prefer a familiar routine or are you always finding and trying new things?

Why do I bring this up? Well, because on my post-board meeting rounds last Friday, I found this book at the Cat Fanciers’ shop. (I also found a beautiful pink and green porcelain tea cup and saucer, but my tableware obsession is a different topic!) The book, The Royal Secret by Lucinda Riley (called The Love Letter in the UK), looks terrific. It’s a mystery with a lot of suspense and some romance about “an ambitious young journalist [who] unravels a dangerous mystery that threatens to devastate the British monarchy.” Sounds like quite a yarn!

Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art by Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Thank you for joining me for Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

One sunny April afternoon in 1990 two Englishman strode up the steps of London's Tate Gallery, passed beneath the imposing statues atop the pediment — Britannia, the lion, and the unicorn — and made their way through the grand portico into one of the world's great museums.

-- from Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art by Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo. 

I just started this nonfiction book about an elaborate art scam and am completely sucked in. 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 is a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings. The idea is to share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of your featured book. If you are reading an ebook or audiobook, find your teaser from the 56% mark.

Freda at Freda's Voice started and hosted The Friday 56 for a long, long time. She is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. Please visit Anne's blog and link to your Friday 56 post.

MY FRIDAY 56

From Provenance: 

After several more visits to Jane Drew's country home, Drewe began systematically widening his circle of art world acquaintances by dropping her name and inviting members of the establishment to lunch with them. He reserved tables at Claridge's or at L'Escargot in Soho for such eminent Londoners as the former head of the Tate Gallery, Alan Bowness — Ben Nicholson's son-in-law — and the art critic David Sylvester, who had once had his portrait painted by Giacometti.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

Filled with extraordinary characters and told at breakneck speed, Provenance reads like a well-plotted thriller. But this is most certainly not fiction. It is the astonishing narrative of one of the most far-reaching and elaborate cons in the history of art forgery. Stretching from London to Paris to New York, investigative reporters Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo recount the tale of infamous con man and unforgettable villain John Drewe and his accomplice, the affable artist John Myatt. Together they exploited the archives of British art institutions to irrevocably legitimize the hundreds of pieces they forged, many of which are still considered genuine and hang in prominent museums and private collections today.

Book and Birthdays -- BOOK THOUGHTS

BOOK THOUGHTS

Books and Birthdays

Today is my husband’s birthday so I baked his favorite German chocolate cake! 

I have other birthday plans in the works, but I'm going to take a book break first. I plan to put my feet up for a few minutes with this terrific book, Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art by husband and wife writing team Laney Salisbury and Aly Sugo. I've only just started it and am completely sucked in. It’s mesmerizing.

Here’s a bit of baking trivia for you. Every time I make this cake for my husband, I am reminded that “German chocolate cake” has nothing to do with Germany. “German’s Sweet Chocolate” is a type of baking chocolate developed in the US by Samuel German in 1852 for his employer, Baker’s Chocolate.

A newspaper invented the recipe for German chocolate cake in the 1950s. It is a popular cake, mostly because of the coconut pecan frosting. But don’t try to order it in Germany! They don’t know what you are talking about.

I don’t know if German chocolate cake is even a thing outside the US. Is it?

To be honest, this is a "Perfect All American Chocolate Butter Cake" from The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. Hubby likes any chocolate cake with this frosting (which I make with toasted, unsweetened coconut and toasted walnuts instead of pecans). I find a real German chocolate cake to be a little pale and sweet. I picked this recipe because it isn't difficult and doesn't require the eggs to be separated. I am always put off by having to whip and fold in the egg whites separately.  

And to be even more completely honest, I messed it up. Despite baking chocolate cake for my husband at least a dozen times, not to mention baking in general for about 55 years, I had some kind of brain blip yesterday and put in half the butter! That’s why the layers are so thin. I was ready to start over and make another cake, but Hubby saved me from myself. He said he would like it no matter what, even if it was more like a giant cookie. Fortunately, we tried it this morning and it is good. A little dry, yes, but not bad. The frosting is delicious and saves the cake.

Kingsley Amis, Favorite Author -- BOOK THOUGHTS

 

BOOK THOUGHTS

Kingsley Amis, Favorite Author

"If you can't annoy somebody, there is little point in writing."
~ Kingsley Amis in Lucky Jim

Kingsley Amis was born on this day in 1922. He is in my pantheon of favorite authors, right up there with Graham Greene, Jim Harrison, Iris Murdoch, Philip Roth, Muriel Spark, and Evelyn Waugh.

But Amis holds a special place in my reader’s heart. His Lucky Jim book, which I first read in a college lit class, opened my eyes to the idea that “literature” could be funny. Until then – after books in school like The Grapes of Wrath, A Separate Peace, and Othello – I assumed all “good” writing was stone cold serious. I even missed the funny bits in books like Huckleberry Finn and Oliver Twist because I was sure anything I thought was funny must be a mistake on my part, not intentional. 

Then a professor assigned Lucky Jim and I couldn’t help laughing. Here was poor Jim Dixon, bumbling his way through college (as a new professor) just like me and my friends: Jim trying to go to class hungover, struggling through a lecture while drunk, getting rejected in love, wanting to impress the adults, and making embarrassing gaffes. I was laughing and my professor was explaining how the novel was a turning point in English literature. Turn away, I thought. I want more of this.

Because of Amis, I learned to read "good books" for pleasure, not just because I should. So I’ve been an Amis fan going on 40 years. I’m still less than halfway through all his books because he was prolific. He was fortunate to live in a time when the publishing industry tolerated popular authors writing anything they wanted, as long as they turned out a new book on a regular basis. Along with the comic novels of which he was the master, he turned his hand to mystery, sci-fi, fantasy, alternate history, poetry, biography, and essays. He was also a prodigious letter writer, especially with his buddy Philip Larkin.

The picture above is my collection of Amis books. Those I’ve read are on the left. This includes four volumes of Lucky Jim, which even I recognize is excessive, but I love the Penguin triband and the later Penguin with the Edward Gorey cover. Those in the stack on the right are the ones on my TBR shelf, including two biographies.

Have you read anything by Kingsley Amis? What’s your favorite? 

I keep a bibliography of Kingsley Amis books here on Rose City Reader, noting those I've finished, those on my TBR shelf, and those I have yet to track down. 

Last Chance in Paris by Lynda Marron -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Thank you for joining me for Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

Only an idiot would travel without a book.

-- from Last Chance in Paris by Lynda Marron. Well, that sentence caught my fancy! I don't know exactly where she is going with this idea, but I appreciate the sentiment. 

Last Chance in Paris is Marron's debut novel. It is the story of a couple who goes to Paris to save their marriage and crosses paths with several others on their own adventures in the city. Sounds like a fun read and it's getting a lot of buzz in Ireland where Marron lives. 

I am adding Last Chance in Paris to my "French Connections" list of books set in France. 

The book isn’t out in the US yet. But I ordered a copy from Blackwell's in the UK. The price was reasonable and free shipping to the US – can’t beat that! I may have been tempted to order several other book while I was at it – love those British editions we can’t get over here. Shopping at Blackwell's, even online, brings back happy memories of shopping for my school books at the original Blackwell's in Oxford when I was there for a year of college. 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 is a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings. The idea is to share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of your featured book. If you are reading an ebook or audiobook, find your teaser from the 56% mark.

Freda at Freda's Voice started and hosted The Friday 56 for a long, long time. She is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. Please visit Anne's blog and link to your Friday 56 post.

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from Last Chance in Paris:

There was, rising in her gut, a feeling of guilt that she had led him on and was about to let him down, combined with irritation that she was somehow responsible for first stalling his disappointment.

“C'mon, Claire — we're nearly there.”

PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

When her husband suggests a romantic break, Claire feels obliged to say yes but immediately regrets it. After the tragedy they've been through, how can one weekend in Paris save their marriage? Claire and Ronan aren't the only people on a make-or-break visit to the City of Love. There is a big-shot movie producer from Hollywood, full of regret for a life ill-lived; a student from Boston, torn between love and duty; a Ukrainian refugee struggling to protect her little sister; and an old woman from Dijon, hoping to be braver than she has ever had to be before. When their lives briefly intertwine, something extraordinary happens...

On Commingling -- BOOK THOUGHTS

BOOK THOUGHTS

On Commingling

Do you commingle your books?

 
My husband and I commingle our finances, and even our music CDs. But we would no sooner commingle our books as we would our socks!

The picture above is a snapshot of my husband's shelves in our home library. We may keep our books separate, but I get the lion’s share of shelf space. He gets this wall. I, on the other hand, get two walls in this room, another wall in a den downstairs, two built in bookcases in the living room plus a freestanding bookcase, a bedroom bookcase, shelves in my home office, and built in shelves in the kitchen for my cookbooks. 

The inequity in distributed shelf space is perfectly justifiable, even reasonable. I simply own and read more books than he does. He mostly reads history books, which are on these shelves. They are dense and big and take a long time to get through. He just finished a biography of Oliver Cromwell that, I swear, weighed four pounds. When he wants a “light” read, he turns to general nonfiction or adventure nonfiction. He loves a good shipwreck or mountain adventure. There is nothing he likes better than getting to the part of an adventure book where the explorer's journal notes, "And then we had to eat the sled dogs." 

When he does read fiction, which is rarely, he visits my shelves. I did get him to start reading Slow Horses right now, before we watch the show. However, he's already creased the spine, which makes me shudder every time I see it. I think I prefer it when he doesn't read my books, even if it means we can never share the experience of reading the same book. Unless I want to read about ship wreaks and sled dogs. 

There's another reason Hubby can't complain about me hoggin the bookshelf space. He has a vinyl LP collection (jazz mostly) that takes up almost as much room as my books. 

So, do you share shelf space with your family or do you all stake out your own territory? Or, as Anne Fadiman describes it, are you a lumper or a splitter?

Cabaret Macabre by Tom Mead -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Well, what happened last week? Beats me! I totally spaced Book Beginnings! I must have had my mind on Easter. Sorry!

Thank you for coming back this week for Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now.

Hopefully I'll pay a little more attention going forward and not skip a week. 

MY BOOK BEGINNING

The steamer trunk had leather handles, brass fittings, and a dark, hardboard shell.

-- from Cabaret Macabre by Tom Mead. I like that opening sentence. It doesn't plunk you right into the middle of the action, but it hints at the mood of the book. Steamer trunks are long gone, so it points to an earlier age. And there is something romantic and adventurous about a steamer trunk. 

What do you think? Would you keep reading? It jumps right in to explain that the steamer trunk was found washed up on a beach, which is enough to drag me into the story. What could be inside?

Cabaret Macabre is the third book in Tom Mead's historical mystery series featuring Joseph Spector, an "illusionist" turned sleuth. The first two books are Death and the Conjuror and The Murder Wheel. Cabaret Macabre comes out on July 16th from Mysterious Press and is available for preorder now. I was fortunate to get my hands on an early review copy. I also want to read the first two and there is time before this one comes out. 

Tom Mead is an English author and fan of Golden Age mysteries. His Joseph Spector books are "locked room" mysteries that pay homage to the classic mystery books of the 1920s and '30s. 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add a link to your Book Beginnings post in the linky box below. If you share on social media, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag so we can find each other. 

Mister Linky's Magical Widgets -- Thumb-Linky widget will appear right here!
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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 is a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings. The idea is to share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of your featured book. If you are reading an ebook or audiobook, find your teaser from the 56% mark.

Freda at Freda's Voice started and hosted The Friday 56 for a long, long time. She is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. Please visit Anne's blog and link to your Friday 56 post.

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from Cabaret Macabre:

The gunman was gone, but he could not have got far. The returning footprints terminated abruptly by a side window.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

Victor Silvius has spent nine years as an inmate at The Grange, a private sanatorium, for the crime of attacking judge Sir Giles Drury. Now, the judge's wife, Lady Elspeth Drury, believes that Silvius is the one responsible for a series of threatening letters her husband has recently received. Eager to avoid the scandal that involving the local police would entail, Lady Elspeth seeks out retired stage magician Joseph Spector, whose discreet involvement in a case Sir Giles recently presided over greatly impressed her.

Meanwhile, Miss Caroline Silvius is disturbed after a recent visit to her brother Victor, convinced that he isn't safe at The Grange. Someone is trying to kill him and she suspects the judge, who has already made Silvius' life a living hell, may be behind it. Caroline hires Inspector George Flint of Scotland Yard to investigate.

The two cases collide at Marchbanks, the Drury family seat of over four hundred years, where a series of unnerving events interrupt the peace and quiet of the snowy countryside.

March 2024 -- MONTHLY WRAP UP

 

MONTHLY WRAP UP

March 2024

Thanks to an unexpected, unusual, but much appreciated lull in my workload, I read more books in March than I’ve ever read in one month as an adult. I now have a glimpse of what retirement might look like and am looking forward to it all the more!

See any here you’ve read and enjoyed, or want to?

Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope, the second book in the the Palliser Series, which I am reading this year as part of a group read on Instagram. 

Fay Weldon’s Love & Inheritance Trilogy: Habits of the House, Long Live the King, and The New Countess. The novels are set in London society at the turn of the 20th Century. They have strong Upstairs, Downstairs themes, which makes sense because Weldon wrote several episodes of Upstairs, Downstairs, including the first, prize-winning episode. She published these three books in 2012 and 2013, shortly after Downton Abbey captured the collective imagination, and there are many similarities! The trilogy was thoroughly entertaining, if light fare compared to Trollope.

An Omelette and a Glass of Wine by Elizabeth David, Britain's foremost food writer. This is a collection of food, restaurant, and travel essays, many from newspaper columns and magazine assignments.

My Kind of Place by Susan Orlean is a collection of travel-inspired essays. This is one of my #TBR24in24 books. It reminded me that Orlean used to live here in Portland where she wrote for our weekly alternative paper, Willamette Week. 

The Way We Lived Then: Recollections of a Well-Known Name Dropper by Dominick Dunne. Before he reinvented himself as a novelist, Dunne was a television producer in Hollywood. This memoir, chock-o-block with personal snapshots of celebrity society in Hollywood in the 1950s and ‘60s, would be insufferable without Dunne's charm and frank admission of how badly he messed up his life later on.

The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas by Paul Theroux, about his 1978 train journey from Boston, through North and South America, to Patagonia, another TBR 24 in '24 read.

The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Getting Ahead: Dos and Don’ts of Right Behavior, Tough Thinking, Clear Writing, and Living a Good Life by Charles Murray, a common sense guide to adulthood, which I wrote about here.

Menagerie Manor by Gerald Durrell, about starting a private zoo on Jersey, was the first first book by him I've read, but won’t be my last. Another TBR 23 in ’24 read. I'm going to pass this on to my daughter-in-law who is a vet at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. because I think she will find interesting the comparison between a private zoo in the 1960s and '70s and a public zoo now. 

I’ll Never be Young Again by Daphne du Maurier. This is du Maurier's second novel and I found it tough going. I'm in a Du Maurier Deep Dive reading group on Instagram and we are down to the last few books. This one is my least favorite DDM book so far. The main character is unattractively immature and I wanted nothing to do with him. If I weren't a du Maurier completist, I would not have finished it. 

The Vintage Caper by Peter Mayle, a wine-themed cozy mystery set in Marseille. Loved it. 

Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto was my book club pick for March. I am pleased to report that everyone in the group enjoyed it, which is unusual for book club! 

Songbook by Nick Hornby, the only author I like enough to read a 20+ year old book about pop music.

The Horse’s Mouth by Joyce Cary. I read this because it is on Anthony Burgess's list of Top 99 Novels in English, one of my favorite lists for reading inspiration. It might be a classic about the life of an artist, but there is a reason you don’t see it around much anymore. The protagonist, artist Gully Jimson, is highly unlikeable, which made the book a slog for me. Oddly, by one of those reading coincidences, in The Old Patagonian Express, Paul Theroux mentions in passing and without context that some wall art he sees from the train window would make Gully Jimson proud. I am happy to cross this one off my TBR 24 in ’24 list.

Slightly Foxed, Issue 81, Spring 2024. I like to include these in my lists of books read so I can keep track of which ones I've finished.  

His Last Bow by Arthur Conan Doyle, which brings me to the end of the Sherlock Holmes series. Several years ago, I found a boxed set at an estate sale and jumped right on it, intending to read (and reread) them straight through. But my enthusiasm waned and it's taken me almost 14 years to get through all of them. 

NOT PICTURED (READ WITH MY EARS)

Foster by Claire Keegan, my other book club’s latest pick. This is an excellent novella about a young girl in Ireland sent to live with foster parents. We don't meet until April, but I am sure the book will be a popular one. 

A Song for the Dark Times by Ian Rankin. I have been working my way steadily through his John Rebus books, making a concerted effort the past year and a half. This is book 23 of 24 (so far), so I am close to wrapping up the series. I love the books, but it's a long series! 

What were your March reading highlights?

I'll Never be Young Again by Daphne du Maurier -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Thank you for joining me for Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

When the sun had gone, I saw that the water was streaked with great patches of crimson and gold.

-- from I'll Never be Young Again by Daphne du Maurier.

This is du Maurier's second novel. I'm reading it as part of a  group read on Instagram. We've been reading through her books for the last year and a half. I greatly enjoy this deep dive into the work of an author I had dabbled with before (Rebecca and Jamaica Inn) but had not explored extensively.

I'll Never be Young Again tells the story of a 21-year-old man estranged from his father and trying to find himself. I'm about a third of the way through. I enjoy it, because she can really spin a yarn, but it is not my favorite. The protagonist is extremely irritating.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag.

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This preview will disappear when the widget is displayed on your site.
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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 is a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings. The idea is to share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of your featured book. If you are reading an ebook or audiobook, find your teaser from the 56% mark.

Freda at Freda's Voice started and hosted The Friday 56 for a long, long time. She is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. Please visit Anne's blog and link to your Friday 56 post.

MY FRIDAY 56

From I'll Never be Young Again:

There was something terrible in the way Jake talked about the man he had murdered. Seemed impossible and unreal.

Like I said, she knows how to tell a good story! If only the main character wasn't such a sap.

It's My Blogiversary! 16 years of Rose City Reader

IT'S MY BLOGIVERSARY!

Rose City Reader turns sweet 16 today. I started this blog 16 years ago and it is hard for me to think it has been around for so long. I celebrated my blogiversary by taping an episode of the Rare Book Cafe, a book vlog you can find on Facebook here or Instagram here. Give them a follow!

I started Rose City Reader to keep track of all the book lists I was working on. I had finished the Modern Library's list of Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century. While working on that project, I found that there were many other book lists that appealed to me and I started to gather them up. Some were admitted knock offs of the Modern Library list, like the Radcliffe list. Some were prize winners, like the Pulitzer and Booker Prizes. Some were "must read" lists, like those compiled by Erica Jong or Anthony Burgess. I needed a place to keep the lists and track my progress in reading the books. 

As I went along, I added some lists of my own, like bibliographies of favorite authors and theme lists. I now have my own lists of Campus Novels, books with a French twist, books set in Venice, and others. You can find a list of all the lists I'm working on at the tab at the top of the page or here. I also started reviewing books in addition to listing them; participating in annual reading challenges; and playing along with a few weekly events, like Book Beginnings on Fridays, hosted by me here on Rose City Reader. 

Over these past 16 years, book blogging seems to have waxed and waned in popularity. Other social media platforms have lured away bloggers and potential bloggers with shiny new options, some which faded away themselves and some which are going strong like Instagram. I like both "bookstagramming" on Instagram and traditional blogging. Instagram is fast and short, but with pretty pictures. Blogging is less visual, but offers the opportunity for longer, hopefully more thoughtful, posts.  

My own blogging activity changes over time, depending on what else is going on in my life. Since I started my own law firm, I have had less time to blog. No kidding! But I plug along with Rose City Reader because I love it. As I spend less time in the office and my law partner takes on more responsibility, I look forward to spending more time reading and blogging.

The Curmudgeon's Guide to Getting Ahead by Charles Murray -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Thank you for joining me for Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

The first thing you need to understand is that most large organizations in the private sector are run by curmudgeons like me.

-- from The Curmudgeon's Guide to Getting Ahead: Dos and Don'ts of Right Behavior, Tough Thinking, Clear Writing, and Living a Good Life by Charles Murray. 

This little book of wisdom is short and quick, so only took me a couple of hours to read this week. Murray offers common sense advice, and plenty of home truths, to young people starting independent lives as adults. His target audience is college graduates from privileged backgrounds, but it is good advice for all young people. 

The Curmudgeon's Guide is the kind of book I wish someone had handed to me when I was a college senior. It would have provided much needed guidance and saved me some of the embarrassment, annoyance, and grief of my 20s. I plan to give it to the young people in my life, if I think they will read it. 

He offers plenty of serious advice, but ends with the recommendation to watch the movie Groundhog Day over and over. He says you could, instead, study Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, but you can get the same lessons from Groundhog Day and it's a lot more fun. 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 is a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings. The idea is to share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of your featured book. If you are reading an ebook or audiobook, find your teaser from the 56% mark.

Freda at Freda's Voice started and hosted The Friday 56 for a long, long time. She is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. Please visit Anne's blog and link to your Friday 56 post.

MY FRIDAY 56

From The Curmudgeon's Guide:

But in all cases when you have problems in your interactions with your boss, there’s one more question you have to ask yourself: To what extent is your boss at fault, and to what extent are you a neophyte about supervisor-subordinate relationships? Some of you have reached your twenties without ever having been treated as a subordinate and you are not used to it.

Now that I am in my 50s, I also wish I had read this book earlier so I would have been better prepared to be a boss! I would have had a better understanding of the younger people I supervised. 

Women Authors -- BOOK THOUGHTS

BOOK THOUGHTS

Women Authors

March is Women's History Month, so I thought I'd highlight some of the women authors sitting on my TBR shelves. My reading is split pretty evenly between male and female authors and this is reflected in the books on my TBR shelves. 

Who are some of your favorite women writers? Or those you want to try?

Here’s are two stacks of books by women. In the stack on the left are ten books by women writers whose books I’ve already tried. Some of these, like Iris Murdoch and Muriel Spark, are favorites and I've read most of their books. Others, like Margaret Atwood and Elizabeth Strout, are those I've only dipped into but want to read more of their work. In the right stack are ten book by women writers whose work is new to me. There are many other women authors I love, but I limited myself to ten of each. 

FAVORITE AUTHORS

Kate Atkinson, Transcription. I love everything by Atkinson. I really like her Jackson Brodie mystery series, but I also like her historical fiction. 

Margaret Atwood, Hag-Seed. This is Atwood's retelling of William Shakespeare's last play, The Tempest. I've read and enjoyed a few other books from the Hogarth Shakespeare series so am really looking forward to this one. 

Joanne Harris, Five Quarters of the Orange. I've only read one Joanne Harris book and can't remember which one, other than it wasn't Chocolat. I need to remedy this situation. 

Patricia Highsmith, Ripley Under Ground and Ripley’s Game. My book club read her first Ripley book a few years ago and I intended to read the others straight through, but I got off track.

Iris Murdoch, Nuns and Soldiers. I love Murdoch's books but she was so prolific! I feel like I must have read them all but I'm only halfway through. 

Ann Patchett, State of Wonder. I read Bel Canto right when it came out and didn't like it so never read any more books by Anne Patchett. Then my book club read The Dutch House and I loved it, so I read Tom Lake when it came out. Now I want to go back and read her earlier books. 

Annie Proulx, Bad Dirt. The Shipping News is one of my very favorite books. I think I've read almost everything Proulx has written. I don't gravitate to short stories, so what is left on my TBR shelf are a coup of sort story collections, like this one.

Barbara Pym, An Academic Question. Pym is another author I love but have not read as many of her books as I think I have. Time to catch up!

Muriel Spark, The Comforters. I love Spark's snarky, dark humor but have never read this, her first novel. 

Elizabeth Strout, Oh William! I'm not wild about the two other Strout books I've read, but I found this one in a little free library so want to give her another chance. 

NEW-TO-ME 

Ann Beattie, Chilly Scenes of Winter. This one is on Erica Jong's list of Top 20th Century Novels by Women, one of my favorite sources of women authors. 

Suzanne Berne, A Crime in the Neighborhood. This one won the 1999 Women's Prize for Fiction (then the Orange Prize), my other favorite source for finding women writers.

Gina Berriault, Women in Their Beds. Again, I am not drawn to short stories. But this one won both the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and I am working my way through both those lists. 

Harriet Doerr, Stones for Ibarra. Another Erica Jong listed book.

Shirley Hazzard, The Transit of Venus. This has been on my TBR shelf for years, even though it sounds like a wonderful ovel about two sisters. 

Sarah Orne Jewett, The Country of Pointed Firs. It isn't easy to find classic books by women so I don't know why I haven't read this before now. 

Hiromi Kawakami, The Nakano Thrift Shop. I don't know anything about this, but bought it on a whim because I liked the cover and title. 

Molly Keane, Good Behaviour. This one gets a lot of love on Instagram so I am excited to read it. 

Olivia Manning, The Balkan Trilogy. Anthony Burgess included this trilogy on his list of the Best 99 Novels in English Since 1939 (to 1984), another list I'm working on.

Jody Picoult, Keeping Faith. Despite Picoult's enormous popularity, I have yet to read any of her books. 

Do any of these look good to you? Where would you start?

Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Thank you for joining me for Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

Dr. Finn, of Killaloe, in county Clare, was as well known in those parts,—the confines, that is, of the counties Clare, Limerick, Tipperary, and Galway,—as was the bishop himself who lived in the same town, and was as much respected.

-- from Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope. This is the second book in Anthony Trollope's "Palliser Series" of six novels also known as the "Parliamentary Novels." 

This one involves the rising political career of Phineas Finn, only son of the Dr. Finn in the opening sentence. Phineas was studying to be a lawyer when he had the opportunity to be elected as a Member of the House of Commons. The only problem is that the job doesn't pay -- anything. Phineas takes the risk, hoping that being elected to the House will let him reach the "first rung of the ladder" to success as a paid government official. 

If this sounds dry, it isn't! All the politics is balanced by soap-opera level romantic intrigues. Phineas falls in love with at least three women who marry and dally with others. There are plenty of proposals, broken hearts, and even a duel. The female characters are as prominent in the story as the male. Although the women are limited in their options (career, political, financial), they feel contemporary in their thinking and emotions. 

I love this book. I'm reading the Palliser series as a group read on Instagram and know the experience will be a highlight of this reading year. 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 is a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings. The idea is to share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of your featured book. If you are reading an ebook or audiobook, find your teaser from the 56% mark.

Freda at Freda's Voice started and hosted The Friday 56 for a long, long time. She is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. Please visit Anne's blog and link to your Friday 56 post.

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from Phineas Finn:

"Wait a moment, you impetuous Irish boy, and hear me out." Phineas liked being called an impetuous Irish boy, and came close to her, sitting where he could look up into her face; and there came a smile upon his own, and he was very handsome.

Towering Tsundoku -- BOOK THOUGHTS

 

BOOK THOUGHTS

Towering Tsundoku

"To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life."
– W. Somerset Maugham in Books and You.

After a sort through the other day, my unread nonfiction books are newly organized. Of course, my shelf space did not grow, so they are still stacked on the floor of my home library. But at least they are stacked in a more orderly way, not teetering and toppling when anyone goes near and not blocking the overflowing shelves.

I love nonfiction, including travel writing, books about food, books about books, general memoir, expatriate memoir, biography, house and home books, popular history, and general nonfiction. Some of my favorite nonfiction authors are Simon Winchester, Susan Orlean, Nora Ephron, Peter Mayle, and M.F.K. Fisher. The nonfiction authors most represented in my TBR stacks and on my TBR shelves are William F. Buckey (from my dad), Elizabeth David, Nancy Mitford, Mark Twain, and John Updike. I do not have as many matching sets as I do with fiction books, but I am a sucker for NYRB Classics, especially the nonfiction ones. 

But two things keep my TBR nonfiction stacked on the floor instead of arranged in alphabetical order (by author) on my shelves, like I do with my TBR fiction. First, when we build our home library, I had way more fiction than nonfiction. So I dedicated one whole wall to my unread fiction books and only one bank of shelves along the opposite wall for unread nonfiction. I had no room for any more nonfiction books, but of course acquired more faster than I could read them and make space. Second, as much as I enjoy nonfiction, I always end up reading more fiction than nonfiction, resulting in tsundoku towers wherever I find space.

I daydream about a time in my life when I can start reading at the top of one of these stacks and read straight down the stack, right to the bottom. 

My current nonfiction read is An Omelette and a Glass of Wine by Elizabeth David. I had hoped to finish it last weekend, but am savoring it slowly. Next up is Menagerie Manor by Gerald Durrell. 

Alley Pond Park by Zachary Todd Gordon -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Happy Leap Day! It feels like we are getting an extra Book Beginnings on Fridays this Leap Year. Thank you for joining me. Please share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

Jake's secretary called. Her brusque "Twelve o'clock sharp" unnerved me, more command than invitation to lunch in the partner's dining room.

-- From the Prologue to Alley Pond Park by Zachary Todd Gordon.

I wanted to give a two-sentence opening this week because that very fist sentence is too short to provide any sense of the book or even the scene. That second sentence pulls you more into the setting. We know the narrator is an employee, not a customer or client of Jake's. And from her tone, it sounds like there is tension in the workplace. That opening has potential. 

Alley Pond Park is the debut novel from Zachary "Zak" Gordon. Zak turned his hand to fiction writing after retiring from a career in finance and investment. His wife Wendy Gordon is the author of the dystopian adventure, It's Always 9/11, and the domestic thriller, Wrong Highway. 

Alley Pond Park launches March 26, 2024, and is available for pre-order through Itasca Books.  

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginnings post in the box below. Please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings if you share on social media.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 is a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings. The idea is to share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of your featured book. If you are reading an ebook or audiobook, find your teaser from the 56% mark.

Freda at Freda's Voice started and hosted The Friday 56 for a long, long time. She is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. Please visit Anne's blog and link to your Friday 56 post.

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from Alley Pond Park:

After he left, I tried to get back to work but couldn't concentrate. I paced about the library, my sanctuary, and dear Mrs. Nichols the librarian, busy at the front desk ensuring everything was as it should be, updating index cards, alphabetizing everything by author and subject, noted my distress, approached me and asked if everything was ok.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

Seth Matthews was sixteen when his older brother Jonah sped away on his motorcycle and never returned. Seth blames himself, but does he know the whole truth as he sets off on a journey to find Jonah and beg his forgiveness? He yearns to be a good person but his inner demons keep tripping him up. Neither success nor a loving marriage can satisfy the emptiness at his core as he navigates secrets, guilt, and obsessions through two tumultuous decades.

A Thank You Windfall -- BOOK HAUL

BOOK HAUL

A Thank You Windfall

A lawyer colleague sent me an Amazon gift card as a thank you for referring a client to him. That was very nice of him! I used it to buy this stack of books I’ve had my eye on. Apparently I was hungry when I ordered, since all but one of these is a food book. 

See any here that catch your eye?

• Greenfeast: Spring, Summer and Autumn, Winter by Nigel Slater. I've had in mind for a while to find a new vegetarian cookbook (or two). I only have two on my shelves, The Greens Cookbook from the famous vegetarian restaurant in San Francisco, and The Moosewood Cookbook from the famous vegetarian restaurant in Ithaca. Both are classics and I bought both at the restaurants, after eating in them. But I need some new ideas!

• Elizabeth David’s Christmas, edited by Jill Norman, with a Foreword by Alice Waters. David pulled together a collection of articles she wrote about Christmas cooking and traditions, along with related recipes, planning to publish it all as a book, but died before she completed the project. Her literary executor Jill Norman completed the book after David died in 1992. This edition is edited for American readers. I am currently reading and completely enjoying David’s essay collection, An Omelette and a Glass of Wine. It makes me want to read more of her work, although I plan to save this one until Christmastime. I added it to my stack of Christmas-themed books.

• The Ha-Ha by Jennifer Dawson (1961) is my only non-food book in this stack. Dawson won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for this autobiographical debut novel. I’m working my way through the list of winners. I haven't been able to find a used copy of this one.  

• Bedside Companion for Food Lovers: An Anthology of Food Delights for Every Night of the Year, edited by Jane McMoreland Hunter. I’m a sucker for a day-by-day anthology, especially one as pretty as this. Now I want to get the other two books in the series, Bedside Companion for Book Lovers and Bedside Companion for Gardeners (even though I don't garden!). 

I almost never buy new books, almost always used. How about you? A stack of spiffy new books is a real treat for me.

It’s my turn to host book club tonight. Which explains why my dining room table is all gussied up, with flowers and everything. The book is Lost for Words by Edward St. Aubyn, a very funny book by the author of the very serious Patrick Melrose books. Apparently St. Aubyn wrote Lost for Words, a comic satire about literary prizes, after he was passed over for a Booker Prize for one of his Patrick Melrose novels. Lost for Words deservedly won the P.G. Wodehouse Prize for best comic novel.  

New-to-Me Mystery Series -- 10 ON MY TBR

 

10 ON MY TBR

New-to-Me Mystery Series

When it comes to mysteries, do you reach for standalones or do you prefer series?

I love a good mystery series because I like to spend time with the same characters from book to book. But like most mystery readers, I find series easier to start than to finish. I made a big effort over the last couple of years to finish several series before I start any more new ones. I wrapped up: Lee Child’s Jack Reacher (up to when his brother started writing them), Dorothy L. Sayers’s Lord Peter Wimsey, Louise Penny’s Three Pines (until she writes another), P. D. James’s Adam Dalgleish, Benjamin Black/John Banville's Quirke, and G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown.

There are several other mystery series I'm actively chipping away at, including Elizabeth George's Peter Lynley, Cara Black's Aimée Leduc, Ian Rankin's John Rebus, and Donna Leon's Commissario Brunetti. There are probably a dozen or more I've dabbled in or at least started. 

But now that I've finished off so many, I have a little more mental capacity to start at least one more new series. This week I started Mick Herron's Slow Hoses series because I want to read the books before I watch the show.

As further inspiration for me to finish up some more series, I pulled this stack of ten mysteries from my TBR shelves. These are all published by Soho Crime, an imprint of Soho Press. I love collecting these in their original candy-colored editions. 

I plan to tackle all these series at some point. The ones in the picture and listed below are the first books in each series:

🔍 The Last Kashmiri Rose by Barbara Cleverly, featuring Scotland Yard detective Joe Sandilands, set in 1920s India. There are 13 books in the series and the last was published in 2017, so it looks like that's it.

🔍 The Pericles Commission by Gary Corby, an “Athenian Mystery” set in ancient Greece. There are seven in the series and, likewise, the last was in 2017.

🔍 The Coroner’s Lunch by Colin Cotterill, featuring Dr. Siri Paiboun, set in 1970s Laos. There are 15 in the series, the last in 2020. 

🔍 Jack of Spies by David Downing, featuring Jack McColl, a WWI-era Scottish car salesman turned British spy. There are four in the series although he has lots of other books. 

🔍 Slow Horses by Mick Herron, set in the present day and featuring a team of washed-up MI5 spies. There are 13 so far, including five novellas. 

🔍 Jade Lady Burning by Martin Limón, featuring Sergeants George Sueño and Ernie Bascom, set in 1970s South Korea. There are 16 so far, the last in 2021. 

🔍 The Last Detective by Peter Lovesey, the 1991 debut of a long series featuring Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond. There are 21 books, the last in 2022.

🔍 Death in the Off-Season by Francine Mathews, set on Nantucket Island in current times, featuring police detective Merry Folger. There are 7 so far, the last in 2023. 

🔍 The Ghosts of Belfast by Stuart Neville, set in contemporary Northern Ireland, featuring several recurring characters. There are six books in the series, the last in 2017.

🔍 Death of a Red Heroine by Qiu Xiaolong, set in present-day China, featuring Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Police. There are 13 books so far, the last in 2023. 

Have you read any of these series? Do any look good to you?