Lord Peter: The Complete Lord Peter Wimsey Stories by Dorothy L. Sayers -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends! I hope you are enjoying this long holiday weekend. I love Thanksgiving because it is such an American tradition and it is the gateway to Christmas!

I am particularly thankful this Thanksgiving because I just finished by final appellate brief in the Boy Scouts sex abuse bankruptcy.  I've been working on Boy Scout sex abuse cases for 17 years, these particular cases for 13 years, and this bankruptcy for almost four years.  It has been a long, hard slog.  It is not over yet, but getting this last brief done is a huge step. 

What are you thankful for this Thanksgiving?  

Thank you also for joining me for Book Beginnings on Fridays this holiday weekend. Please share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, or just a book that caught your eye. 

MY BOOK BEGINNING

The Egoists’ Club is one of the most genial places in London. It is a place to which you may go when you want to tell that odd dream you had last night, or to announce what a good dentist you have discovered.

- from "The Abominable History of the Man with Copper Fingers," the first story in Lord Peter: The Complete Lord Peter Wimsey Stories by Dorothy L. Sayers. 

I love Sayers's Lord Peter mysteries. I finished the novels a couple of years back but the short stories still sit on my TBR shelf. I am never drawn to short stories, so often find myself with a favorite author's collection of stories left to read after I've finished the novels I was drawn to.  I often just skip them. But Sayers is such a favorite of mine that I want to read these. The long Thanksgiving weekend is the perfect opportunity to get cracking. 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

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

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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 if 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 Lord Peter:

"Bless you, child, I didn’t send out the invitations, but I suppose your brother and that tiresome wife of his will be there. Do come, of course, if you want to."

-- from the story, "The Interesting Episode of the Article in Question."

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.

TBR 23 in '23 and Mt. TBR Challenges -- My Sign Up Post & Wrap Up Post

 

THE TBR 23 IN '23 CHALLENGE

COMPLETED

This is my sign up post for the TBR 23 in '23 Challenge. The simple idea is to read 23 books off your TBR shelves between January 1 and December 31, 2023. If you want to join me (and I hope you do), go to the main challenge page here to sign up. You can participate through your blog, social media, or just in the comments on the challenge pages.

You do not have to pick all your TBR 23 in '23 books ahead of time. I like to, so I do. You can pick them now. Or you can pick some now and some as you go. You can pick them all at whim. Or you can pick now and then change your mind. The only real rule is that you read books that you already owned before January 1, 2023. Find all the rules on the challenge page.

MY TBR 23 IN '23 BOOKS

I like to pick my books ahead of time and keep them stacked by my bedside to motivate me through the year. These are all books that have been on my shelves for so long I want to read them so I can stop looking at them! One has been on my shelf since 1982!!

Here's a list of what is in this basket, listed in alphabetical order by author name, not as shown in the picture above. I may read them in this order because I have no other plan.

• The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury. Campus novels are my favorite sub-genre and this one is a classic.

• Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There by David Brooks, now out of date social commentary, which happens when I leave books on my TBR shelf for so long. 

• Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen by Laurie Colwin. I can't wait to get to this one and have More Home Cooking I plan to slip in as well. 

• The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy is a NYRB Classic that gets lots of social media love for it's awesome cover. 

• Mrs. Ted Bliss by Stanley Elkin. This is on my shelf because it won the National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award in 1995. I want to read it now because I read Francine Prose's praise of Elkin in her book, What to Read and Why.

• A Cordiall Water: A Garland of Odd and Old Receipts to Assuage the Ills of Man and Beast by M.F.K. Fisher, one of her few books I haven't read yet.

• In Search of a Character: Two African Journals by Graham Greene. He's a big favorite of mine but I've not read his nonfiction before.

• The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff is a book I found in a Little Free Library and it looked interesting, if not my usual cup of tea. I'll give it a go, although I did not like Fates & Furies. 

• Mystical Paths by Susan Howatch is the last of five novels in her Church of England series, which I really enjoyed.

• Mystic River by Dennis Lehane. I can't believe I've never read this. 

• Scandinavian Noir: In Pursuit of a Mystery by Wendy Lesser. My law partner gave this to me for Christmas two years ago and I forgot about it!

• Black Dogs by Ian McEwan is one of his earliest books and has sat on my shelf a long time. 

• The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession by Susan Orlean. Another contemporary classic I can't believe I haven't read yet.

• Oregon Confetti by Lee Oser is a book that caught my eye a few years back then got lost on my shelf. It looks excellent. 

• The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade. This is the one I bought in high school in 1982 and have carted around ever since. It is time I finally read it!

• The Tuscan Year: Life and Food in an Italian Valley by Elizabeth Romer is one of the many ex pat memoirs lingering on my shelves. 

• The Complete Lord Peter Wimsey Stories by Dorothy L. Sayers. I finished the last of the Wimsey novels last year but never get around to the short stories. Time to fix that. 

• The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark looks terrific. 

• S. by John Updike is a modern retelling of The Scarlet Letter, which sounds very good. 

• Know Your Style: Mix It, Match It, Love It by Alyson Walsh is a fun little book about fashion for women of a certain age. 

• The Spring by Megan Weiler is a novel about an American ex pat living Tuscany. It's a book club pick so i will read it sooner rather than later, and maybe follow it with the Tuscan memoir.

• The Bear Comes Home by Rafi Zabor won the 1998 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction and is about a jazz saxophone playing bear in New York City. OK. I'll give it a try.

THE MT. TBR CHALLENGE

COMPLETED

This TBR 23 in '23 Challenge dovetails nicely with the Mt TBR Challenge that Bev at My Reader's Block hosts every year. Like I've done for the past couple of years, I am signing up for the "Mt. Kilimanjaro" Level in 2023 to read a total of 60 books off my TBR shelves. That means 37 books in addition to those listed above.

MY MT. TBR BOOKS

I will try to remember to list my Mt. TBR books here as I read them, although I completely forgot this last year.

UPDATE: Indeed, I forgot to list the books as I went along, but here they are. I read 63 books off my TBR shelves, in addition to my 23 TBR 23 in '23 books, for a total of 86 books off my TBR shelves -- my best year ever!

• Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan

• Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens (abridged)

• The Big Four by Agatha Christie

• Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh

• Playing for the Ashes by Elizabeth George

• A German Requiem by Philip Kerr

• Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene

• Waverley by Sir Walter Scott

• Resurrection Men by Ian Rankin

• The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister

• Rule Britannia by Daphne du Maurier

• The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton

• Winston Churchill: Painting on the French Riviera by Paul Rafferty

• Slightly Foxed, No. 25, Edited by Gail Pirkis

• A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne

• The Flight of the Falcon by Daphne du Maurier

• The Holy Bible, King James Version

• On Cussing: Bad Words and Creative Cursing by Katherine Dunn

• In the Presence of the Enemy by Elizabeth George

• Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

• So Big by Edna Ferber

• The Magic Barrel by Bernard Malamud

• Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz

• Mapp & Lucia by E. F. Benson

• Deception on His Mind by Elizabeth George

• More Home Cooking: A Writer Returns to the Kitchen by Laurie Colwin

• Lucia's Progress by E. F. Benson

• Kingdom of the Blind by Louise Penny

• Trouble for Lucia by E. F. Benson

• The Grave Gourmet by Alexander Campion

• Assignment in Brittany by Helen MacInnes

• A Simple Country Murder by Blythe Baker

• In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner by Elizabeth George

• Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh

• The Sellout by Paul Beatty

• A Better Man by Louise Penny

• The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham

• The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

• Dusk and Other Stories by James Salter

• Snow by John Banville

• After Many a Summer Dies the Swan by Aldous Huxley

• My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier

• The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron

• Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham

• A Traitor to Memory by Elizabeth George

• Mating by Norman Rush

• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte

• The Chosen by Chaim Potok

• Hungry Hill by Daphne du Maurier

• The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens

• The Collected Poems by W. B. Yeats

• The Long Good-Bye by Raymond Chandler

• Black Mischief by Evelyn Waugh

• The Man with Two Left Feet by P. G. Wodehouse

• Lost for Words by Edward St. Aubyn

• A Place of Hiding by Elizabeth George

• Innocent Blood by P. D. James

• Straight Man by Richard Russo

• Piccadilly Jim by P. G. Wodehouse

• The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham

• Even Dogs in the Wild by Ian Rankin

• Aqua Alta by Donna Leon

• War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Dorothy L. Sayers' Dante -- MAILBOX MONDAY

MAILBOX MONDAY

Well, isn’t this divine?

Dorothy L. Sayers was one of the Queens of the Golden Age of mysteries, along with Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham, Ngaio Marsh, and Josephine Tey. Her series featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and (in some of them) Harriet Vane, is one of my very favorites.

But Sayers was also a classical scholar. In her 50s, she undertook to translate Dante’s Divine Comedy from the 14th Century Italian. She worked on the project until her death in 1957, completing the first and second volumes and most of the third before handing the project to Italian scholar Barbara Reynolds to complete.

Unlike other English translations, including the one I read in college, Sayers maintained the aba bcb cdc rhyming scheme of the original. Not an easy task! But it makes hers a more lively translation. She also included an explanation and notes after each canto. Her essays make the epic poems accessible to ordinary readers.

Sayers’ translation of Hell (Inferno) was published in 1949 as one of the first Penguin Classics. Purgatory (Purgatorio) followed in 1955. Paradise (Paradiso) was published after Reynolds completed it in 1962. Penguin Classics has continued to offer Sayers’ translation of The Divine Comedy ever since.

I was excited to find this set of blue and white Penguin Classic editions of the Sayers’ Dante at the Rose City Book & Paper Fair a couple of weeks back, at the Arches Book House booth. My goal is to do a deep dive and reread them, with all her notes and essays. But we will see when I get around to that. I may “read in” them rather than “read” them.

How about you? Have you read The Divine Comedy or plan to? What translation?

YOUR MAILBOX MONDAY BOOKS

Join other book lovers on Mailbox Monday to share the books that came into your house last week. Visit the Mailbox Monday website to find links to all the participants' posts and read more about Books that Caught our Eye.

Serena of Savvy Verse & Wit, Martha of Reviews by Martha's Bookshelf, and Velvet of vvb32reads graciously host Mailbox Monday.

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!

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

Dorothy L. Sayers -- FAVORITE AUTHOR

 

Dorothy L. Sayers (1893 – 1957) was one of the four Queens of Crime of the Golden Age of detective fiction, along with Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham, and Ngaio Marsh. Sayers wrote a series of mystery novels and short stories featuring amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey. Four of the novels also feature Lord Peter's love interest Harriet Vane.

Sayers went to Oxford University where she studied modern languages and medieval literature. She graduated in 1915 with first class honors in modern languages. He received a masters degree from Oxford in 1920. Sayers also wrote plays and poetry. After the success of her mystery novels, she turned to more nonfiction work, writing articles and essays, mostly exploring theological subjects. She also translated classic works, including Dante's Divine Comedy. 

I started reading Sayers's Peter Wimsey series a few years back and am almost finished with it. Wimsey has a lot of Bertie Wooster in him and Sayers can be very funny. My favorites are Clouds of Witness and The Nine Tailors. I have yet to read the short stories but will read them all as soon as I finish the last two novels.

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

Whose Body? (1923)

Clouds of Witness (1926) (reviewed here)

Unnatural Death (1927).

The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (1928) (reviewed here)

Lord Peter Views the Body (1928) (short stories)

Strong Poison (1930)

Five Red Herrings (1931)

Have His Carcase (1932)

Hangman's Holiday (1933) (short stories, 4 with Lord Peter)

Murder Must Advertise (1933)

The Nine Tailors (1934)

Gaudy Night (1935)

Busman's Honeymoon (1937)

In the Teeth of the Evidence (1939) (short stories, only two with Lord Peter)

Striding Folly (1972) (short stories)

NOTES

Read my interview here of Carole Vanderhoof, the editor of The Gospel in Dorothy L. Sayers: Selections from Her Novels, Plays, Letters, and Essays, an anthology from Plough Publishing House.

Updated on March 30, 2021.

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!

The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers - BOOK BEGINNING

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Back again for another Book Beginnings on Fridays. I don't know what it's like where you are, but here in Portland, it is cold! Cold and damp and the rain is coming back tomorrow. This is exactly the kind of winter weekend that calls for an old-fashioned murder mystery.

Which is why I'm hunkering down with The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers. This is the ninth novel in Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey series and was published in 1934. It is my first read for the 2021 Vintage Mystery Challenge hosted by Bev at My Reader's Block. It counts as my "Murder by the Numbers" entry in the Golden Era category (mysteries published before 1960).

Please share your book beginning here by sharing a link to the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are highlighting this week. Share a link to your blog post or social media post if you play along on Instagram, Facebook, or some other social media that generates a link. If you just want to leave your opening sentence in a comment below, that's fine too! Make sure to tell us the name of the book and th author!

If you link to social media or post on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

From The Nine Tailors:

"That's torn it!" said Lord Peter Wimsey.

That first line doesn't tell you much, but the opening scene is a good one. Lord Peter and his butler Bunter have driven into a ditch in a snowstorm on New Year's Eve. They take refuge with the parson of the local church and become embroiled in a local murder that may be linked to the theft of an emerald necklace 15 years earlier. 

The title has nothing to do with sewing clothes. Nine Tailors refers to the tradition of tolling nine church bells when a man dies. 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING

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THE FRIDAY 56 

Another weekly teaser event is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda's Voice, where you can find details and add a link to your post. The idea is to share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of the book you are featuring. You can also find a teaser from 56% of the way through your ebook or audiobook.

MY FRIDAY 56

Fenchurch St. Paul is the smallest village, and has neither river nor railway; it is, however, the oldest; its church is by far the largest and the noblest, and its bells beyond question the finest. This is due to the fact that St. Paul is the original abbey foundation.

There is a lot about bells, the old church, and village life in this one. It is right up my alley!

Any other Dorothy L. Sayers fans? It's one of my favorite series. I hope to finish all the novels this year -- I only have two more to go after this. I haven't read the short stories yet and will save them for another day.