The TBR 22 in '22 Challenge -- My Wrap Up Post

 

TBR 22 IN '22 CHALLENGE

My Wrap Up Post

COMPLETED

Sign up for the TBR 23 in '23 Challenge here!

The TBR 22 in '22 Challenge was simple -- read 22 books off your TBR shelf in 2022. You could pick them ahead of time, like I did, pick them as you went, or any combination you like. Or pick ahead of time and then switch! The only "rule" is that the 22 books had to be books you owned before January 1, 2022.

Here is the list of the 22 book I read for the challenge, in alphabetical order by author, not the order in which I read them:

• These Ruins are Inhabited by Margaret Beadle, a memoir by an American living in England in the 1950s

• Dangling Man by Saul Bellow, on my Classics Club list

• Atlantic High by William F. Buckley, Jr., the second of his four sailing memoirs. I read the first one last year and planned to read them all but didn't get to them. 2022 will be the year I finally do. 

• Racing through Paradise by William F. Buckley, Jr., the third of the four

• Windfall by William F. Buckley, Jr., the last one

• The Master and the Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakow, on my Classics Club list

• The Waterfall by Margaret Drabble, on my Classics Club list

• A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, which won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award

• Rat Race by Dick Francis, on my Classics Club list

• Bunny Mellon: The Life of an American Style Legend by Meryl Gordon

• French Women Don't get Fat by Mireille Guiliano

• The Wall by John Hersey, on my Classics Club list

• The Bostonians by Henry James, on my Classics Club list

• A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream by Yuval Levin

• When She was Good by Philip Roth, on my Classics Club list

• Zuckerman Unbound by Philip RothThe Anatomy Lesson by Philip Roth

• The Prague Orgy by Philip Roth

• The Masters by C. P. Snow is the fourth book in his Strangers and Brothers series, which I started years ago and want to finish. This one is on my Classics Club list because it won the James Tait Black Prize in 1954.

• If Morning Ever Comes by Anne Tyler, on my Classics Club list

• God Save the Mark by Donald Westlake, which won the Edgar Award and is on my Classics Club list

• Anglo-Saxon Attitudes by Angus Wilson, a campus novel on my Classics Club list

 

Book List: Books Read in 2021

 

BOOKS READ IN 2021

Every January, I try to remember to post a list of the books I read the prior year. Somehow, I completely forgot to post my list of 2021 books. I was really busy at work in early 2022, getting ready for a big trial that started in March. A lot of non-work stuff fell out of my brain. I didn't realize that my 2021 list was missing until I went to post my 2022 list. Oh well. Life happens. 

Here now, a year late, is the lit of the 134 books I read in 2021, in the order I read them. I usually read 100 - 110 books a year and have no idea how I read so many in 2021. You can find an explanation of my rating system below the list. 

• The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Red and the Black by Stendhal 🌹🌹🌹

• Billy Bathgate by E. L. Doctrow 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Not Now, But Now by M. F. K. Fisher 🌹🌹🌹

• Ship of Fools by Katherine Ann Porter 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis 🌹🌹🌹🌹1/2

• The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Pale Morning Light with Violet Swan by Deborah Reed (reviewed here)🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman by Elizabeth Buchan 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Time Machine by H. G. Wells 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjöwall 🌹🌹

• On All Fronts: The Education of a Journalist by Clarissa Ward 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Murder in the Bastille by Cara Black 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Reflex by Dick Francis 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• At Home with Books: How Booklovers Live with and Care for Their Libraries by Estelle Ellis 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Fear of Fifty: A Midlife Memoir by Erica Jong 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) by Jerome K. Jerome 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Three Men on the Bummel by Jerome K. Jerome 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Shugie Bain by Stuart Douglas 🌹🌹🌹

• Whip Hand by Dick Francis 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Valley of Fear by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Bibliophile: An Illustrated Miscellany by Jane Mount 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Lighthouse by P. D. James 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Anglophile's Notebook by Sunday Taylor 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Midnight Line by Lee Child 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• The Library Book by Susan Orlean 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Charlotte Moss: A Visual Life: Scrapbooks, Collages, and Inspirations by Charlotte Moss 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Missing Joseph by Elizabeth George 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Old Filth by Jane Gardam 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• On The Wealth of Nations: Books That Changed the World by P. J. O'Rourke 🌹🌹🌹🌹1/2

• One Corpse Too Many by Ellis Peters 🌹🌹🌹

• Mystery Man by Colin Bateman 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Dead Cert by Dick Francis 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Man in the Wooden Hat by Jane Gardam 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Slightly Foxed, Vol. 60 (Winter 2018) 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Apropos of Nothing by Woody Allen 🌹🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Last Friends by Jane Gardam 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Obasan by Joy Kogawa 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Wisdom of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Florence King Reader by Florence King 🌹🌹🌹🌹1/2

• How They Decorated: Inspiration from Great Women of the Twentieth Century by Gaye P. Tapp 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Faithful Place by Tana French 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt by Arthur C. Brooks 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Consequences by Penelope Lively 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Day of the Jack Russell by Colin Bateman 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Orchids & Salami: A Gay and Impudent Memoir by Eva Gabor 🌹🌹🌹

• The Kingdom of Speech by Tom Wolfe 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Jeeves in the Offing by P. G. Woodhouse 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Dead Bell by Reid Winslow (reviewed here) 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• The Tender Bar by J. R. Moehringer 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• A Really Big Lunch: The Roving Gourmand on Food and Life by Jim Harrison 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Private Patient by P. D. James 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Mark Hampton: An American Decorator by Duane Hampton 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. 🌹🌹🌹

• Skios by Michael Frayn 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Purpose-Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? by Rick Warren 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific by Maarten J. Troost 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Book That Changed My Life: 71 Remarkable Writers Celebrate the Books That Matter Most to Them, edited by Roxanne J. Coady 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Conservative Sensibility by George F. Will 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Eat Cake for Breakfast: And 99 Other Small Acts of Happiness by Viola Stanto 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• A Place in the World by Amy Maroney 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Twice Shy by Dick Francis 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• A Little Book of Japanese Contentments: Ikigai, Forest Bathing, Wabi-sabi, and More by Erin Niimi Longhurst 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture by Ross King 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Jolie Blon's Bounce by James Lee Burke 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Bruno: Chief of Police by Martin Walker 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Fork It Over: The Intrepid Adventures of a Professional Eater by Alan Richman 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• What French Women Know: About Love, Sex, and Other Matters of the Heart and Mind by Debra Ollivier 🌹🌹🌹

• Mysteries of Pittsburg by Michael Chabon 🌹🌹🌹

• Slightly Foxed, Vol. 69 (Spring 2021) 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Shape of the Journey: New & Collected Poems by Jim Harrison 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Passenger to Frankfurt by Agatha Christie 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Wry Martinis by Christopher Buckley 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Labyrinth by Kate Mosse 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Strapless: John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X by Deborah Davis 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Anxious People by Fredrik Backman 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year by Sue Townsend 🌹🌹🌹

• The Darlings by Cristina Alger 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Choir by Joanna Trollope 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity―and Why This Harms Everybody by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Uncommon Clay by Margaret Maron 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• An Alphabet for Gourmets by M. F. K. Fisher 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Noah's Compass by Anne Tyler 🌹🌹🌹

• Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose by Flannery O'Connor 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• A Changed Man by Francine Prose 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Split Images by Leonard Elmore 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• May We be Forgiven by A. M. Holmes 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Theban Mysteries by Amanda Cross 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age by Sherry Turkle 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• BUtterfield 8 by John O'Hara 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Building Beauty: The Alchemy of Design by Michael S. Smith 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Incredulity of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Funerals are Fatal (aka After the Funeral) by Agatha Christie 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Slightly Foxed, Vol. 71 (Autumn 2021) 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• French Lessons by Ellen Sussman 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Rizzio: A Novella by Denise Mina 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie 🌹🌹🌹🌹1/2

• House Made of Dawn by Scott N. Momaday 🌹🌹🌹

• Peril at End House by Agatha Christie 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Past Tense by Lee Child 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Walden by Henry David Thoreau 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The French Chef in America: Julia Child's Second Act by Alex Prud'homme 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• March Violets by Philip Kerr 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Dr. Yes by Colin Bateman 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Plum Sauce: A Wodehouse Companion by Richard Usborne 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Reflections on the Psalms by C. S. Lewis 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• My Man Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• LaBrava by Elmore Leonard 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Final Curtain by Ngaio Marsh 🌹🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Gertie: The Fabulous Life of Gertrude Sanford Legendre, Heiress, Explorer, Socialite, Spy by Kathryn Smith 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Secret of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Scandal of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Maison: French Country Style by Elizabeth Hilliard 🌹🌹🌹

• Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This? by Marion Meade 🌹🌹🌹🌹

MY RATING SYSTEM

In 2020, I switched to using roses for my rating system, since this is Rose City Reader. My rating system is idiosyncratic and ever-changing. It is a mix of how a book subjectively appeals to me when I read it, its technical merits, and whether I would recommend it to other people. For example, I might rate a book highly if it's a social comedy set in a British country house because that kind of story checks all my boxes. On the other hand, I will probably rate a book on the low end if it lacks any humor, takes itself too seriously, or intolerantly espouses a point of view I disagree with ("intolerantly" is key in that sentence). 

With those general guidelines in mind:

🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹 Five roses for books I loved, or would recommend to anyone, or I think are worthy of classic "must read" status." Examples would be Lucky Jim (personal favorite), A Gentleman in Moscow (universal recommendation), and Great Expectations (must read).

🌹🌹🌹🌹 Four roses for books I really enjoyed and/or would recommend to people who enjoy that type of book. So I give a lot of four roses because I might really like a book, but it isn't an all-time favorite. And while I'd recommend it to someone who likes that genre -- mystery, historical fiction, food writing, whatever -- I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who asked me for a "good book."

🌹🌹🌹 Three roses for books I was lukewarm on or maybe was glad I read but wouldn't recommend. This is where my subjectivity really shows because I will often give a book three roses simply because it isn't a genre I like. I will read sci-fi books, for example, because they are on some Must read list I'm working on, then not enjoy them because I don't like sci-fi. So when I give a sci-fi book three roses, take it with a big grain of salt.  

🌹🌹 Two roses if I didn't like it. I like most of the book I read because I chose to read them and I read what I like. But I occasionally pick a clunker. And I often dislike the book my Book Club picks. 😉

🌹 One rose if I really didn't like it. I don't know if I've ever rated a book this low. The Magus might be my only example and I read it before I started keeping my lists.

I use half roses if a book falls between categories. I can't explain what that half rose might mean, it's just a feeling.

Here is a link to the star rating system I used for years. I include it because the stars I used in years past meant something different than these roses, so if you look at my lists from past years, the ratings won't mean quite the same thing.

2021 Vintage Mystery Challenge - My Wrap Up Post

VINTAGE MYSTERY CHALLENGE 2021

VINTAGE SCATTEGORIES

MY WRAP UP POST

COMPLETED

The Vintage Mystery Challenge on My Reader's Block is one of my favorite challenges. The idea is to read at least eight vintage mysteries, either from the Golden Age of mysteries (those published prior to 1960) or the Silver Age of mysteries (those published from 1960 to 1989). 

Each year, Bev makes some kind of game out of it. This year the game is Vintage Scattegories. Participants are to read one book from at least eight of various categories. I signed up for both the Golden Age and Silver Age to try to read 16 books. 

MY VINTAGE MYSTERY CHALLENGE BOOKS - GOLD

In 2021, I read 13 vintage mysteries published before 1960. I was on a mission to read all the Father Brown books, having read the first one in December 2020 and wanting to go straight through, so Fr. Brown shows up a lot in this list. 

• Colorful Crime: The Scandal of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton

• Murder by the Numbers: The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers 

• Amateur Night: The Wisdom of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton 

• Jolly Old England: The Secret of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton

• Dangerous Beasts: Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie 

• Staging the Crime: Final Curtain by Ngaio Marsh

• Cops & Robbers: The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins 

• Locked Room: The Incredulity of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton 

• Murder is Academic: Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers 

• Repeat Offenders: Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers 

• A Mystery by Any Other Name: Funerals are Fatal by Agatha Christie (aka After the Funeral and Murder at the Gallop)

• Country House Criminals: Peril at End House by Agatha Christie 

• Dynamic Duos: The Valley of Fear by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 

MY VINTAGE MYSTERY CHALLENGE BOOKS - SILVER

I read 11 vintage mysteries in 2021 that were published between 1960 and 1989. Most of them were by Dick Francis because he's my favorite. 

• Murder by the Numbers: Twice Shy by Dick Francis 

• Amateur Night: Dead Cert by Dick Francis 

• Jolly Old England: One Corpse Too Many by Ellis Peters

• Yankee Doodle Dandy: Split Images by Elmore Leonard 

• World Traveler: Passenger to Frankfurt by Agatha Christie 

• A Calendar of Crime: March Violets by Philip Kerr 

• Malicious Men: LaBrava by Elmore Leonard

• Murder is Academic: The Theban Mysteries by Amanda Cross 

• Repeat Offenders: Whip Hand by Dick Francis 

• Killed in Translation: The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö 

• Hobbies Can be Murder: Reflex by Dick Francis 

I didn't review any of these books, so my challenge participation was minimal. But I had a terrific time reading them. I look forward to joining the 2022 version of the Vintage Mystery Challenge and will sign up soon!

The Edgar Award for Best Novel -- LIST

 

THE EDGAR AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL

2021 was the 75th anniversary of the Edgar Awards, the prestigious award for mystery writing from the  Mystery Writers of America. I'm working my way through the list of winners of the Edgar Award for Best Novel.

The Edgar Award is named in honor of Edgar Allen Poe, 19th Century American author of spooky stories. Watchful at Night by Julius Fast won the first Edgar Award, then in the category of "Best First Novel by an American Author." The "Best Novel" category has been around since 1954.

I am not going to keep updating the winners after 2022. My enthusiasm for prize-winners is waning with the 2020s. I plan to focus my efforts on reading the winners up to 2020 then declare victory and move on to other bookish projects.

So far, I've read 41 of the Best Novel winners, more than half. Those I've read or are on my TBR shelf are noted in the list below.

2022 Five Decembers by James Kestrel

2021 Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara ON OVERDRIVE

2020 The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths ON OVERDRIVE

2019 Down the River Unto the Sea by Walter Mosley ON OVERDRIVE

2018 Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke FINISHED

2017 Before the Fall by Noah Hawley FINISHED

2016 Let Me Die in His Footsteps by Lori Roy FINISHED

2015 Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King FINISHED

2014 Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger ON OVERDRIVE

2013 Live by Night by Dennis Lehane FINISHED

2012 Gone by Mo Hayder ON OVERDRIVE

2011 The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton

2010 The Last Child by John Hart ON OVERDRIVE

2009 Blue Heaven by C. J. Box FINISHED

2008 Down River by John Hart FINISHED

2007 The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin FINISHED

2006 Citizen Vince by Jess Walter (reviewed here) FINISHED

2005 California Girl by T. Jefferson Parker FINISHED

2004 Resurrection Men by Ian Rankin FINISHED

2003 Winter and Night by S.J. Rozan FINISHED

2002 Silent Joe by T. Jefferson Parker FINISHED

2001 The Bottoms by Joe R. Lansdale

2000 Bones by Jan Burke

1999 Mr. White's Confession by Robert Clark FINISHED

1998 Cimarron Rose by James Lee Burke FINISHED

1997 The Chatham School Affair by Thomas H. Cook (reviewed here) FINISHED

1996 Come to Grief by Dick Francis FINISHED

1995 The Red Scream by Mary Willis Walker TBR SHELF

1994 The Sculptress by Minette Walters

1993 Bootlegger's Daughter by Margaret Maron FINISHED

1992 A Dance at the Slaughterhouse by Lawrence Block FINISHED

1991 New Orleans Mourning by Julie Smith FINISHED

1990 Black Cherry Blues by James Lee Burke FINISHED

1989 A Cold Red Sunrise by Stuart M. Kaminsky

1988 Old Bones by Aaron Elkins FINISHED

1987 A Dark-Adapted Eye by Barbara Vine TBR SHELF

1986 The Suspect by L.R. Wright

1985 Briar Patch by Ross Thomas

1984 La Brava by Elmore Leonard FINISHED

1983 Billingsgate Shoal by Rick Boyer FINISHED

1982 Peregrine by William Bayer TBR SHELF

1981 Whip Hand by Dick Francis FINISHED

1980 The Rheingold Route by Arthur Maling

1979 The Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett FINISHED

1978 Catch Me: Kill Me by William H. Hallahan TBR SHELF

1977 Promised Land by Robert B. Parker FINISHED

1976 Hopscotch by Brian Garfield TBR SHELF

1975 Peter's Pence by Jon Cleary

1974 Dance Hall of the Dead by Tony Hillerman FINISHED

1973 The Lingala Code by Warren Kiefer

1972 The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth TBR SHELF

1971 The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjowall, Per Wahloo FINISHED

1970 Forfeit by Dick Francis FINISHED

1969 A Case of Need by Micheal Crichton (as Jeffery Hudson) FINISHED

1968 God Save the Mark by Donald E. Westlake FINISHED

1967 The King of the Rainy Country by Nicolas Freeling FINISHED

1966 The Quiller Memorandum by Adam Hall FINISHED

1965 The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carre FINISHED

1964 The Light of Day by Eric Ambler FINISHED

1963 Death and the Joyful Woman by Ellis Peters FINISHED

1962 Gideon's Fire by J.J. Marric

1961 The Progress of a Crime by Julian Symons

1960 The Hours Before Dawn by Celia Fremlin TBR SHELF

1959 The Eighth Circle by Stanley Ellin

1958 Room to Swing by Ed Lacy

1957 A Dram of Poison by Charlotte Armstrong FINISHED

1956 Beast in View by Margaret Millar FINISHED

1955 The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler FINISHED

1954 Beat Not the Bones by Charlotte Jay  FINISHED

NOTE

Updated September 15, 2025.  

OTHERS READING THESE BOOKS

If you are also reading Edgar winners, please leave comments with related posts like your lists and reviews and I will list them here. 

June Wrap Up - My June Books

 

JUNE WRAP UP

My June reading was a real mishmash! I read book from the lists I'm working on, challenges for 2021, things that caught my eye, and just at random. 

Here are the ten books I read in June, in the order I read them, not as they appear in the picture.

MY JUNE BOOKS

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr., a sci-fi classic. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, but I’m still not a sci-fi fan. This is one of the 50 books on my Classics Club list. 🌹🌹🌹🌹

Skios by Michael Frayn was a reread for me, for my book club’s first post-corona in-person get-together. This Greek island farce was just as fun the second time. 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth am I Here For? by Rick Warren. This has been on my TBR shelf forever and I am glad I finally read it. 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

The Sex Lives of Cannibals by J. Martin Troost, a hilarious memoir and one of the best titles ever. He wrote two more memoirs about his expatriate adventures and now I want to finish the trilogy. 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

The Book That Changed My Life: 71 Remarkable Writers Celebrate the Books That Matter Most to Them by Roxanne J. Coady and Joy Johannessen. I love books about books, so this was right up my alley. 🌹🌹🌹🌹

The Conservative Sensibility by George F. Will - not pictured because I read it with my ears. Will's new history of American conservative thought I mostly found interesting although it got very long. He included an endless chapter on his own atheism and why conservatism doesn't depend on a belief in God. I agree you don't have to be a believer to be conservative, but I don't think the argument needed the long digression he gave it, especially when he got down in the weeds about Charles Darwin. 🌹🌹🌹🌹

Eat Cake for Breakfast: And 99 Other Small Acts of Happiness by Viola Sutanto. This adorable new book is filled with happy illustrations. I needed a light spacer after Will's tome. 🌹🌹🌹🌹

A Place in the World by Amy Marone is the final book her Miramonde series and first-rate historical fiction. Read my interview with Amy Marone here. Her new series launches in September with the first book, Island of Gold, and it looks terrific! 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

Busman’s Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers, another audiobook, so not in the picture. This is the final novel in her Lord Peter Wimsey mystery series. I made an effort to finish the novels in the the series this year and have only the short stories to read. I have an omnibus edition of those and hope to finish them before the end of the year but don't know if I will get to them. 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

Twice Shy by Dick Francis, another horse-themed mystery, this one with a startlingly dated computer theme. Anyone remember learning to code Basic? 🌹🌹🌹🌹

BEST COVER THIS MONTH

April Wrap Up -- My April Books

APRIL WRAP UP

April showers brought these May flowers! And a basket of books I read in April.

I continued to make progress on my TBR 21 in '21 and Mt. TBR Challenges and the Vintage Mystery Challenge. I read one that could count for the European Reading Challenge, although it is not a challenging pick. I am not making much progress on the Back to the Classics Challenge so need to pay more attention to that one in the months ahead.

Here are the 11 books I read in April, in the order I read them, not the order in the picture. There wasn't a dull read in the bunch. 

See any favorites or anything that looks good?

MY APRIL BOOKS

The Man in the Wooden Hat by Jane Gardam. This is the second in her Old Filth trilogy. I read the first, Old Filth, last month. Wonderful books! 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

Last Friends  by Jane Gardam, the last book in the trilogy. I am glad I read them straight through to get the most out of the experience. 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

Slightly Foxed, No. 60, edited by Gail Pirkis. Hubby got me a subscription for my birthday and this 2018 back issue from eBay so he would have something to wrap. I started by reading it and loved it, of course. I'm counting these as "books" read so I can keep track of which ones I finish. 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

Apropos of Nothing, Woody Allen’s new autobiography (not shown because I read it with my ears). I wanted to read this because of all the controversy and am glad I did. He reads the audiobook himself, which I like with nonfiction. It is also really funny. This was a surprising highlight of the month. 🌹🌹🌹🌹

Dead Cert by Dick Francis, his first novel, published in 1962 and showing the hallmarks of his always-satisfying stories. 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers, more vintage mystery. This one a deserved classic. 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

Obasan by Joy Kogawa is on the Erica Jong Top 100 20th Century Novels by Women list and has been on my TBR shelf a long time. It is about Japanese Canadians during WWII. I am familiar with the history of interned Japanese Americans during WWII, but knew nothing about what happened to Japanese Canadians living in British Columbia during and after the war. Heartbreaking. It is excellent novel and a moving novel. 🌹🌹🌹🌹

The Wisdom of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton, vintage mystery short stories. (Free on Kindle, by the way.) 🌹🌹🌹🌹

The Florence King Reader is an introduction to this eccentric, hilarious, impossible to categorize writer. It has samples from all her books. 🌹🌹🌹🌹

Faithful Place by Tana French. I’m slowly making my way through Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad series. This one is the third in the series and my favorite so far. In general, I enjoy them tremendously but find they all get a bit soft in the middle. This counts as my "Ireland" book for the European Reading Challenge. 

How They Decorated: Inspiration from Great Women of the Twentieth Century by P. Gaye Tapp, Foreword by Charlotte Moss, is another beautiful book published by Rizzoli. This was  part of my project to read all my coffee table books. This one inspired a mantel makeover, which was long overdue. 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

What were your favorite April books? Or are you already deep into your May reading?

MOST BEAUTIFUL APRIL COVER

February Wrap Up -- My February Books

FEBRUARY WRAP UP

Um, March is speeding along, almost over, and I just realized I forgot to post my February wrap up post! This is why I skipped bookish New Year's resolutions in the past -- just like all New Year's resolutions, they never last longer than a month.

But it takes repetition to create a new habit. So I am posting now, several weeks late. My intention is to post my March wrap up post in a timely manner and try to get in the habit of posting a wrap up post of the prior month's reads early each month. Baby steps.

In February, I continued my plan to try to choose as audiobooks (which I borrow from the library for the most part) those books already on my TBR shelf. It may seem silly to borrow a book I already own, but there are so many books on my TBR shelves it will take me at least 15 years to read them all at the rate I'm going. I need to speed things up and borrowing the audiobook edition from the library is my plan for doing it. 

I'm also trying to finish, or at least work on, some of the mystery series I've started. And I'm trying to read at least one coffee table book each month to justify my ever-expanding collection of these oversized beauties.

Here are the 13 books I read in February, in the order I read them, not the order in the picture.

MY FEBRUARY BOOKS

 
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman. I was slow to get on the Backman bandwagon, but I’m all on now. 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers, a Lord Peter Wimsey mystery and highlight of the month. I read this one with my ears and it is one of the few in the series I do not own in a paper edition. I am close to finishing the series and hope to do so this year. 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

Murder in the Bastille by Cara Black, who does for Paris what Donna Leon does for Venice. This was another audiobook not on my TBR shelf. I own several from later in the series and want to fill in so I can read them. 🌹🌹🌹🌹

Reflex by Dick Francis. I love his horse-racing themed mysteries. I read this one with my ears although I had a beat up paperback as you can see in the picture. 🌹🌹🌹🌹

At Home with Books: How Booklovers Live with and Care for their Libraries by Estelle Ellis, Caroline Seebohm, and Christopher Simon Sykes. A gorgeous coffee table book with useful information and lots of inspiration. 🌹🌹🌹🌹

Fear of Fifty by Erica Jong. I meant to read this, her midlife memoir, when I turned 50 and finally got to it now for my 55th birthday last month. 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart, the one new book I read last month. I read it because it won the Booker Prize. I could have done with 100 times more Shuggie and one tenth of Agnes. Grim. 🌹🌹🌹

Whip Hand, also by Dick Francis, which won the Edgar Award for best mystery in 1980. I read the three Sid Halley books out of order (3, 1, 2) and they were all great, but I wish I had read them in order. 🌹🌹🌹🌹

 
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome, which was a reread for me and I loved it even more this time around. It is so funny! 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

The Valley of Fear by Arthur Conan Doyle, the fourth and final Sherlock Holmes novel. It was very good! I set out to read all the Sherlock Holmes books in order. I still have two books of short stories to get through and then I’ll be finished. 🌹🌹🌹🌹

Three Men on the Bummel, also by Jerome K. Jerome. Also really funny, especially his descriptions of Germans liking to tidy up their forests – so true! He wrote it in 1900 and we tease our German cousins today about tidying the forests. 🌹🌹🌹🌹

Bibliophile: An Illustrated Miscellany by Jane Mount. This was beautiful and entertaining – and greatly expanded my wish list. 🌹🌹🌹🌹

Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell, which I’m glad I finally read. I don’t understand the Spanish Civil War any better than before, but at least I understand why I don’t understand it. This will be my Spain book for the 2021 European Reading Challenge. 🌹🌹🌹🌹

The prettiest cover of the month!

List: Edgar Award Winners for Best Novel

Every year, the Mystery Writers of America award the "Edgar" Award in nine categories of mystery and crime writing, plus a handful of special awards. I'm reading through the list of winners of Edgar Award for Best Novel.

The award is named in honor of Edgar Allen Poe, born in 1809. The first Edgar Award went to Watchful at Night by Julius Fast in 1947 for Best First Novel by an American Author. The "Best Novel" Award has been around since 1954.

Although I enjoy a good mystery, there are few on this list that I have read. Why is this? There may be many clues, but I suspect foul play.

I you are also reading Edgar winners and have a related post, leave a link in a comment and I will add your link in a list at the bottom of this post.

Those I have read are in red. Those on my TBR shelf are in blue.

2020 The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths

2019 House Witness by Mike Lawson

2018 Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke

2017 Before the Fall by Noah Hawley

2016 Let Me Die in His Footsteps by Lori Roy

2015 Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King

2014 Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger

2013 Live by Night by Dennis Lehane

2012 Gone by Mo Hayder

2011 The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton

2010 The Last Child by John Hart

2009 Blue Heaven by C. J. Box

2008 Down River by John Hart

2007 The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin

2006 Citizen Vince by Jess Walter (reviewed here)

2005 California Girl by T. Jefferson Parker

2004 Resurrection Men by Ian Rankin

2003 Winter and Night by S.J. Rozan

2002 Silent Joe by T. Jefferson Parker

2001 The Bottoms by Joe R. Lansdale

2000 Bones by Jan Burke

1999 Mr. White's Confession by Robert Clark

1998 Cimarron Rose by James Lee Burke

1997 The Chatham School Affair by Thomas H. Cook (reviewed here)

1996 Come to Grief by Dick Francis

1995 The Red Scream by Mary Willis Walker

1994 The Sculptress by Minette Walters

1993 Bootlegger's Daughter by Margaret Maron

1992 A Dance at the Slaughterhouse by Lawrence Block

1991 New Orleans Mourning by Julie Smith

1990 Black Cherry Blues by James Lee Burke

1989 A Cold Red Sunrise by Stuart M. Kaminsky

1988 Old Bones by Aaron Elkins

1987 A Dark-Adapted Eye by Barbara Vine

1986 The Suspect by L.R. Wright

1985 Briar Patch by Ross Thomas

1984 La Brava by Elmore Leonard

1983 Billingsgate Shoal by Rick Boyer

1982 Peregrine by William Bayer

1981 Whip Hand by Dick Francis

1980 The Rheingold Route by Arthur Maling

1979 The Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett

1978 Catch Me: Kill Me by William H. Hallahan

1977 Promised Land by Robert B. Parker

1976 Hopscotch by Brian Garfield

1975 Peter's Pence by Jon Cleary

1974 Dance Hall of the Dead by Tony Hillerman

1973 The Lingala Code by Warren Kiefer

1972 The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth

1971 The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjowall, Per Wahloo

1970 Forfeit by Dick Francis

1969 A Case of Need by Micheal Crichton (as Jeffery Hudson)

1968 God Save the Mark by Donald E. Westlake

1967 The King of the Rainy Country by Nicolas Freeling

1966 The Quiller Memorandum by Adam Hall

1965 The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carre

1964 The Light of Day by Eric Ambler

1963 Death and the Joyful Woman by Ellis Peters

1962 Gideon's Fire by J.J. Marric

1961 The Progress of a Crime by Julian Symons

1960 The Hours Before Dawn by Celia Fremlin

1959 The Eighth Circle by Stanley Ellin

1958 Room to Swing by Ed Lacy

1957 A Dram of Poison by Charlotte Armstrong

1956 Beast in View by Margaret Millar

1955 The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler

1954 Beat Not the Bones by Charlotte Jay




OTHERS READING THESE BOOKS

If you would like to be listed here, please leave a comment with your links to any progress reports or reviews and I will add them.

What Are They Reading? Slay Ride by Dick Francis

Authors tend to be readers, so it is natural for them to create characters who like to read. It is always interesting to me to read what books the characters are reading in the books I read. Even if I can't say that ten times fast.

Usually, the characters' choice of books reflects the author's tastes or, I sometimes think, what the author was reading at the time. But sometimes the character's reading material is a clue to the character's personality, or is even a part of the story.

This is an occasional blog event. If anyone wants to join in, grab the button, put up a post, and leave leave a comment with a link to your post.

SLAY RIDE BY DICK FRANCIS

I'm a big Dick Francis fan and am working my way through his 47 mystery novels. His mysteries are known for their horse racing themes, a subject he came to naturally after his own career as a prize-winning jockey. He is the only author to win the Edgar Award three times.

Slay Ride is one of his earlier books, published in 1973. David Cleveland, chief investigator for the British Jockey Club, goes to Norway to investigate the disappearance of an English jockey. While there, the local police detective sets him up with a driver, the officer's brother, described as an author who doesn't make much money so would like the work. The author-turned-driver is quite literary, and while he sits in his car waiting for Cleveland, he reads The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing.

The choice struck me because, unlike some authors, Dick Francis doesn't do a lot of book name dropping. His characters are usually racing horses, making movies, climbing mountains, or doing other hands-on activities that make for action-filled plots. So having a middle-aged Norwegian man reading Lessing's 1962 feminist classic jumped out at me.

Score!

Every once in a while a diligent used book hound can hit it lucky. I did today when I happened to stop by Secondhand Prose, the Friends of the Library store in Oregon City.

I found a stash of Dick Francis books that someone had recently dropped off and they landed on the 25¢ shelf.  I grabbed all 24 of them for the whopping price of $6!

Eleven of them are duplicates for me -- I'll pass them on to my sister -- but thirteen are those I've been looking for, including two of his three Edgar winners, Whip Hand and Forfeit.  The list of those new to me are:

Dead Cert (1962)

Flying Finish (1966)

Forfeit (1968) (Edgar winner)

Slayride (1970)

Rat Race (1970)

Bonecrack (1971)

Risk (1977)

Trial Run (1978)

Whip Hand (1979) (Edgar winner featuring Sid Halley)

Reflex (1980)

Twice Shy (1981)

The Danger (1983)

Straight (1989)

Mailbox Monday

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia at A girl and her books (fka The Printed Page), who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring meme (details here).

This month, Mailbox Monday is hosted by Martha's Bookshelf.  Please take the time to visit her wonderfully eclectic blog.

Last week, I was down in Salem to give a CLE on Oregon's rules for mandatory child abuse reporters to a group of attorneys. Whenever I am in a different town, I try to swing by the local library to see what it's like and check out the Friends' sale shelf.

I lucked out in Salem.  They have a Friends' store, not just a shelf, and it had an impressive stock of used -- but not ex-library -- books at very good prices. I got a nice little stack of books.




Independent People by Halldor Laxness (Nobel Prize winner and an Iceland choice for the European Reading Challenge)



The Field of Vision by Wright Morris (1957 National Book Award winner and possible choice for the Battle of the Prizes, American Version, Challenge)



Longshot and For Kicks by Dick Francis (always my favorite)



The Vintage Caper by Peter Mayle (I can't resist)



Rumpole and the Reign of Terror and The Summer of a Dormouse (a memoir) by John Mortimer (I keep buying his books because they sound good to me, but I haven't read any of them yet -- hope I like them!)



A Good Hanging by Ian Rankin (a short story collection from the John Rebus series)

Also, not from the library store, I got my copy of Jim Harrison's latest. He is an all-time favorite of mine -- so much that I am willing to buy a new hardback.



The Great Leader by Jim Harrison