A Life of Reading Words
DATE: 1/6/26
Challenge Titles Finished (Totals To Date):
Titles Finished: Totals for 2025:
All titles left to go for Challenge: 3,540
Next count: 1/1/27
Stout, Rex. In the Best Families. Bantam Books, 1950.
Reason read: to continue the series started in November in honor of Rex Stout’s birth month.
It all starts when Nero Wolfe is contacted by Mrs. Barry Rackham for a case. She wants to hire him to find out where her husband is getting all of his spending cash. She holds the purse strings in the marriage and has admitted to doling out less than he asks for each month; sometimes giving him nothing at all. Since Mrs. Rackham doesn’t want her husband to know she is aware of his spending habits she tells Wolfe he is needed to investigate the death of one of her dogs as cover. Of course it is up to Archie Goodwin to travel to Westchester to investigate the dogs and the money. Of course it wouldn’t be a Nero Wolfe mystery without a murder, but that comes later.
For those of you who love Archie Goodwin’s sarcasm, wit and humor, fear not! Archie continues to make his audiences chuckle. Here is an example: he needed to look up the word “handsome” after a female character used the word to describe Nero Wolfe. Surely there was some kind of mistake? Nero handsome? But no, handsome can also mean “moderately large.” When Archie learned this he was sufficiently placated. Needless to say, it is always funny when Archie tries to get a rise out of his boss. Sometimes he is successful. Other times, not so much.
The biggest twist in In the Best Families is Nero leaving his beloved brownstone. Everyone knows Nero is loathe to leave the confines of his abode. He takes some drastic measures this time around. There are some other surprising twists that break away from the typical formulaic Stout mystery.
It is always a great joy when there is continuity between books in a series. I especially love when characters come back again and again. Arnold Zeck, first seen in And Be a Villain came back in Second Confession and reappeared in In the Best Families.
Lines that made me laugh, “Have I impressed you as the sort of boob who would jump off a building just to hear his spine crack?” (p 57).
Book trivia: Introduction was written by Julian Symons. My copy had in call-caps: NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED. Thanks!
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe: Too Good To Miss” (p 226).
Walker, Alice. Possessing the Secret of Joy. Washington Square Press, 1992.
Reason read: February is Alice Walker’s birth month. Read in her honor.
Alice Walker admits there is a connection between Possessing the Secret of Joy and The Color Purple. If you know your Purple you might remember Tashi as a minor character. She, among others, is back in Possessing the Secret of Joy to tell her own heartbreaking story. Except, told from the first person perspective of several different characters, Possessing the Secret of Joy is more of an ode to culture, courage, identity, and resilience. Do not be fooled by the short and deceptively simple chapters. Read carefully because details can be disjointed. One minute you are in Paris, France. The next you are in a London courtroom. Every chapter is packed with a deeper meaning. Self mutilation hints of a much larger trauma hidden beneath the surface.
At the heart of the story is Tashi/Evelyn Johnson, a tribal African woman. Despite being married to Adam, Tashi/Evelyn has Olinka society taboos tattooed in her brain. She knows is it wrong to make love in an open field; genital mutilation is the norm despite missionaries being against any kind of scarification. The mythology surrounding female circumcision and the price one pays for noncompliance is akin to the ancient practice of Chinese foot binding. When are ancestral cultural norms abolished for their cruelty and antiquity? Should ancient practices continue just because of the history? Are tribal roots deep enough to forego life-altering violence?
Confessional: Even though the list of characters is relatively short I wanted to keep notes on them, especially since Tashi is also Evelyn. Her best friend is Olivia, the sister of Adam to whom Tashi is married. Tashi and Adam have a son, Benny. Lisette is Adam’s lover. Together, they have a son, Pierre.
Lines I loved, “That her soul had been dealt a mortal blow was plain to anyone who dared look into her eyes” (p 65), “World wars have been fought and lost; for every war is against the world and every war against the world is lost” (p 152), and “This confession, or lie, stayed my hand for many a day” (p 204).
Author fact: I think everyone knows Alice Walker also wrote The Color Purple and The Temple of My Familiar.
Book trivia: Walker dedicates Possessing the Secret of Joy “with tenderness and respect to the blameless vulva.” As an aside, through Walker I was introduced to the American artists, Horace Pippen and the yarn painting of the Huichol people.
Music: “It’s a High Way to Heaven,”
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “A…My Name is Alice” (p 1).
MacDonald, Ross. The Blue Hammer. Alfred A. Knopf, 1976.
Reason read: Arizona became a state in the month of February.
Blue Hammer is part of the Lew Archer series. Like any good character series, the reader gets to know Lew in increments. We know he is a loner and was previously married. In The Blue Hammer is era is also another character. The 1970s were a time when strangers could enter apartment buildings and ride the elevator freely; hotel keys were returned to the front desk every time guests left their rooms; librarians had no qualms about giving out personal information like where someone lived or their phone number. Lew Archer has been hired to retrieve a stolen painting by Richard Chantry, a man who has been missing for twenty-five years. Doris Biemeyer seems to be at the center of the mystery of the missing painting. She readily admits she let her boyfriend Fred steal it from her parents. The same painting was later stolen from Fred’s bedroom (He lives with his patents.). But, the painting is only the beginning of the mystery. When the bodies start piling up Lew knows this case is bigger than just art theft. Paul Grimes is beaten to death, but before his murder he mistakes Lew Archer for Richard Chantry. Why? Then Jacob Whitmore is drowned seemingly in a bathtub before thrown into the ocean. Are these murders connected? What about missing man Richard Chantry? Is he dead, too? Then Lew’s love interest, a nosy reporter, goes missing.
Blue Hammer is the kind of mystery that prompted me to keep notes on every character and event. The twists and turns come at you fast and furious. I sensed the connection between people and their actions were too important to be overlooked. Everyone has a story to tell and everyone seems to be connected one way or another…
Confessional: Colonel Aspinwall, Dr. and Mrs. Ian Innes, Jeremy and Molly Rader, Jackie Pratt Mackendrick, Betty Jo Siddon, These are people at the party. Will they be important later on?
Lew Archer goes to a party where he is introduced to Arthur Planter,…Will these people be important later in the story or are they decoys with the only purpose of confusing me?
Line I liked, “She can go to hell and copulate with spiders” (p 25). Interesting. Is this a insult specific to the 1970s? Here’s another line, “We walked slowly around the block, as if we had inherited the morning and were looking for a place to spend it” (p 241).
Author fact: Ross MacDonald was an educator.
Book trivia: the title of Blue Hammer comes from a very small detail at the end of the book. Lew Archer is watching his reporter girlfriend sleep. the blue vein at her temple pulses with a steady beat…just like a blue hammer. You’re welcome.
Music: “Someone to Watch Over Me.”
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “AZ You Like It” (p 30), a chapter about Arizona which is annoying because not much of Blue Hammer takes place in Arizona.
Thomas, Ross. Briarpatch. St. Martin’s Press, 1984.
Reason read: Ross Thomas was born in the month of February. Read in his honor.
We are introduced to Rusty/Felicity Dill as landlady and detective. Not two minutes after trying to collect on a late rent she is murdered by a car bomb outside of her building. Felicity’s brother, Benjamin Dill, while on assignment for the Senate Subcommittee for a separate matter, comes back to his hometown to investigate her murder. In the midst of grieving for his sister Dill must confront his best and oldest friend who might be an illegal arms dealer. Apart from being a great whodunnit, Briarpatch is also a game of double and triple cross. It is hard to say who can and cannot be trusted.
While the reader does not know the exact location of Dill’s hometown (somewhere in the Midwest is the guess), Thomas is sure to keep an eye on the thermometer. The constant high temperatures were almost another character in the story.
All in all, I felt that Thomas was hoping to have a trick ending; one crafty enough to surprise everyone. Unfortunately, he pulled back the curtain a little too far and a little too early in the plot. Thomas revealed too much for the ending to be much of a shock.
Odd musings: I identified with the one character who dies within the first few pages. You could say I built a rapport with her ghost. As a kid Felicity would read eight or nine books at a time…sometimes as many as ten in a week. She took notes as she read and kept a dictionary on hand. This is me to a tee.
A childhood memory – when Ben visits Felicity’s apartment he sees a TV Guide on the coffee table. When I was growing up I had a neighbor who collected TV Guides. Stacks and stacks of them lined her bedroom floor. What she ever did with them, I have no idea.
As an aside, was the misspelling of Jim Beam deliberate?
As another aside, I thought a bread knife was an odd choice for a weapon. Wasn’t there anything a little sharper lying around.
Author fact: Ross Thomas was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma which is why some people think Ben and Felicity Dill were from Oklahoma City.
Book trivia: my copy of Briarpatch promised a “television series coming soon.” That was in 1984. I had to look it up. On IMDB I found a television series starring Rosario Dawson. Briarpatch won an Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1985.
Music: “September Song,” Bach, Beatles, Beethoven, Yves Montand, “Blue Skies,” “Amazing Grace,” “Abide with Me,” “Taps,” and “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Ross Thomas: Too Good To Miss” (p 234).
Taylor, Bayard. Views Afoot, Or Europe Seen with a Knapsack and Staff. Sampson, Low, Martson, Low, and Searle, 1872.
Reason read: Taylor was born in January. Read in his honor.
As a teenager, Bayard Taylor was fascinated with the microcosms around him as well as the greater world he could not see. On January 1844 he got the opportunity to travel with a cousin to Europe. Sailing aboard the Oxford they traveled abroad to Europe. Once in Bruges, Taylor wrote about visiting the Cathedral of Notre Dame. I think he was referring to Onze Lieve Vrouwekerk. Taylor went on to have so many unique adventures like witnessing a burial by torchlight, dancing with friends on rooftops across Germany, traipsing through the Black Forest, and after nearly a year in Germany, moving on to Switzerland to visit an exiled poet named Freiligrath. Italy become a love of his when visiting the Royal Gallery in Florence. He spent four glorious months in Tuscany. As an aside, it was fascinating to hear Taylor’s descriptions of the same art I experienced two years ago. Most stunning is his description of an area I plan to see this May: “Colossus of the Apennines” by John of Bologna outside Florence. I wonder if you can still climb on the rocks of his back, enter his body and peer out of his ear?
Since Views Afoot is comprised of journal entries and letters sent during Taylor’s first two years of travel I did not expect to find a sense of humor, but Taylor is funny. After a night’s stay in a posh establishment Taylor was surprised by the bill and quipped he was charged three francs for “the honor of breathing an aristocratic atmosphere” (p 52).
Despite the title of his book Taylor was not always on foot. Sometimes he and his companions traveled by boat and carriage whenever necessary.
The best part of Views Afoot was the section on travel advice. You must be content to sleep on hard beds. You must be willing to partake of course fare. You must be comfortable traveling for hours in hard rain or worse. Watch your traveling expenses closely. Sounds pretty reasonable for the 1800s.
As an aside, I love it when my books collide. I am reading a book by Kavenna called The Ice Museum in which Kavanna goes searching for the mysterious land of Thule. In Views Afoot Taylor mentions a poem called “The King of Thule.”
Another aside, I want to know if the Christmas market in Romerberg Square still exists. Because if it does I would like to go.
Line I liked, “We breathed an air of poetry” (p 160). I am not even sure I know what that means, but I liked it.
Author fact: Taylor has a sense of humor. He wrote a book called Blah, Blah, Blah. Too bad I am not reading it for the Challenge. I am only reading Views Afoot.
Book trivia: my copy of Views Afoot costs eighteen pence and was first published as a “boy’s record of first travels” in 1847.
Natalie connection: Bayard visited Loch Lomond and I couldn’t help but think of the song of the same name that she sings with Dan Zanes.
Confessional: when Bayard reached Scotland and met with the McGregor family I wondered if they were related to Ewan.
Music: “Hail Columbia,” “Exile of Erin,” the Mountain Boys, Mendelssohn, “Walpurgisnacht,” “Landsfather,” Schubert, Strauss, Beethoven, “Ave Maria,”
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the fun chapter called “Explaining Europe: The Grand Tour” (p 82). Confessional: I keep wanting to call this chapter Exploring Europe.
Weimer, Anissa. Composting Simplified for Beginners: A Complete Guide to Fix Common Compost Pitfalls, Create Fertile Soil and Enjoy a Lush Productive Garden. W4 Publishing LLC, 2024.
Reason read: as a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing I often get to read interesting books. This is one such book.
Why I Requested This Book: I have a very modest raised garden and a few containers where I grow tons of herbs, tomatoes, jalapenos, and the occasional tomatillo. I would like to expand the annual bounty.
This book is true to it’s title. Simple and to the point. Despite its beginner language and content I did learn a few things. For example, never heard of Bokashi composting before. I also never considered composting to have its own mythology, but I am glad Weimer separated fact from fiction. Additionally, I appreciated Weimer mentioning browns and greens and making sure there is an even balance of the two, but she mentions this a lot. There is a little repetition to Composting Simplified for Beginners. Weimer mentions landfill methane gas more than once and don’t get me started on how many times odors or smells were covered. She spends a lot of time addressing the potential smelliness of composting.
The most useful section (for me) was the pest prevention information. I currently deal with woodchucks, squirrels, racoons, chipmunks, rabbits, coyotes, deer, bears, voles, mice, foxes, stray dogs and cats, snakes, skunks, opossums, and even a mountain lion has been in my yard once. Knowing how to keep these critters away from my composting is critical.
The second section most useful to me was the 30 Day Checklist. Knowing when and how to start being spelled out makes the process less daunting. Watching for the different colors of mold was also helpful information.
Less helpful was all the information about involving family members. What if the reader is a single male with no children or even roommates? Least helpful were the testimonials by fellow composters. They seem to reiterate the information already given. Despite the book only being 160 pages long, I skipped these sections.
As an aside, I wasn’t sure of the purpose of the QR code to scan for the supply guide. If the information is included in the book, why do I need to download the information as well? The list of supplies looks pretty straightforward and logical: outdoor bin, indoor bin, pitchfork, thermometer, and tarp.
Author fact: Kasey Bayr’s name is on the cover while in the copyright Anissa Weimer “has the moral right to be identified as the author.”
Book trivia: there are some great photographs and illustrations to emphasize the information.
Lovelace, Maud Hart. Betsy and the Great World. Harper Collins Publishers, 1952.
Reason read: Reason read: In February there is a carnival in Venice. Betsy and the Great World takes place partly in Venice.
Elizabeth “Betsy” Ray wants to see the world instead of the four walls of a classroom. After two short years in college she convinces her family she needs to travel. At twenty-one years old there is little her parents can say so Betsy sets sail to discover the world. She spends the first part of her adventure aboard the Columbic, a floating society of friendships and crushes.
Despite being an adult, Betsy travels with companions who are not really part of the story. She spends a considerable amount of time in Bavarian Germany and Austria. She turns twenty-two in Sonneberg, the doll capital of Europe. She spends six weeks in Venice and takes Italian lessons. [As an aside, there are a bunch of locations in Venice I would like to visit while I am there.] She spends another four weeks in Paris, France. Along the way her family and friends send her letters, money, and gifts. But the one person she does not hear from is joe, her ex-beau. Throughout the entire journey she thinks of him.
Betsy demonstrates a combination of naivete and intelligence. She speaks up for the campaigning for votes for women and in every country she visits she tries to learn the native language. Throughout her journey she refused to worry about much except for Joe.
We leave Betsy just before the start of World War I.
As an aside, I want Betsy to demonstrate her debutante slouch, the move she kept practicing throughout the story.
Author fact: Lovelace wrote a bunch of “Betsy” books. I am only reading Betsy and the Great World for the Challenge.
Book trivia: Betsy and the Great World are full of wonderful illustrations, but I have to admit the one on the cover makes me think Betsy is trying to strangle herself with her own scarf.
Music: Straus, Debussy, “O Sole Mio,” Ravel, “Debutant Slouch,” Stravinsky, Madame Butterfly, “Long Way to Tipperary,” La Boheme, Tales of Hoffman, Beethoven, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Wagner, Carmen, Barber of Seville, Die Meistersinger, “Annie Laurie,” Tavern in Town,” “Down By the Old Mill Stream,” Shine On Harvest Moon,” Peg O My Heart,” “Trail of the Lonesome Pine,” Giannina Mia,” Kathleen Mavourneen,” “The Harp That Once Through Tara’s Halls,” “Over the Wave,” “Beautiful Blue Danube,” Ossip Gabrilowitsch, Il Trovatore, “Funiculi, Funicula,” “Marseille,” “Rule Britannia,” “Rock of Ages,” and “God Save the King.”
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “”Veni, Vidi, Venice”” (p).
Card, Orson Scott. Ender’s Shadow. Starscape, 2002.
Reason read: even though the Ender series ended with Children of the Mind many people consider Ender’s Shadow book #5. Orson Scott Card admitted Ender’s Shadow is not sequential to Children of the Mind because it does not continue the story, but rather goes back to the beginning of Ender’s Game.
In a dystopian world of twelve year old hookers and grade school street gangs, this is the story of undersized and super smart Bean. You might remember him as a minor character from Ender’s Game when Bean was in battle school with Ender. In Ender’s Shadow Orson Scott Card takes us back to Bean’s beginning where survival was only for the smartest. Bean is so smart you have to wonder if he is indeed human and not some genetically altered freak. This was my favorite Card book yet. I loved the character of Bean. I liked seeing a different side of the same story as Ender’s Game. The end of Ender’s Shadow was also a welcomed surprise.
Line I liked was actually spoken by Bean when talking to Sister Carlotta, “He can kiss you and kill you, if he hates you enough” (p 52).
Book trivia: Card said that Ender’s Shadow is a companion read to Ender’s Game. They are actually the exact same story, just told from different points of view. It reminded me of Yellow Raft in Blue Water by Michael Dorris. The same story told three different ways.
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror” (p 213).
Thirkell, Angela. Pomfret Towers. Virago Press, 2013.
Reason read: Angela Thirkell was born in the month of January.
Taking place in Anthony Trollope’s fictional Barsetshire, Pomfret Towers is Thirkell’s sixth book in her series. First and foremost, it is not a book with an adventurous plot. Not a whole lot happens at Pomfret Towers. The entire book is based on human relationships and their interactions with each other.
Lord Pomfret is considered rude, but for the sake of status no one will turn down an invitation to dine at the Towers with him. They put aside their pride and self worth to grovel at the feet of an annoying man. He likes to invite the townsmen (without their wives) to dine with him. Considering Pomfret does not have chain stores or even cinemas, what else does the community have to do?
Teenager Alice Barton with no small trepidation accepts an invitation to a weekend-long party at the famed Pomfret Towers. Her nervousness over Lord Pomfret’s invitation borders on a deep psychological phobia. Even though Alice would be accompanied by her brother, Guy, Alice has always been a timid girl and dreads going to this party. She simply cannot picture herself laughing and carrying on with the other guests no matter who they were in society. Meanwhile her mother thinks a social event of this magnitude might do her daughter some good. Lord Pomfret has quite the weekend was planned: Friday – guests arrive in time for playing games.
Saturday – the men go shooting while the women go to see a castle. At night there is dancing, which Alice is surprisingly good at.
Sunday – guests can attend church, enjoy a luncheon and look at horses.
When Alice develops a crush on the one man everyone else thinks is horrible she finds her voice to defend her love. This is a pivotal moment for the young girl. [As an aside, I found Alice to be annoying for the following descriptions of her: delicate, uneducated, timid, semi-invalid, miserable, terrified, unhappy, despairing, hopeless, frightened, dreading, horrified, cowardice, mortified, shy, fearful, humble, meek, anxious, nervous, cautious, scared, alarmed, bewildered, and oblivious.]
A secondary plot in Pomfret Towers is about Mrs. Rivers negotiating her advance on her next book. She claims she found someone else who will give her two hundred pounds.
Pomfret end with the hint of a relationship moving in the right direction. That’s all I’ll say about that.
Author fact: Thirkell also wrote What did It All Mean (#23 in the Barsetshire series). This is the only other Thirkell I am reading for the Challenge. A second author fact: I consulted the Angela Thirkell Society of North America website to make sure I was reading the Barsetshire books in order.
Book trivia: The New York Times called Pomfret Towers a “gay and sparkling social comedy.”
BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Barsetshire and Beyond” (p 15).
O’Brien, Shannon. Stray. Roam Light Publishing, 2025.
Reason: as a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing I get to read fun books. This is one such book.
When her ex-boyfriend John committed suicide in 2006, his sudden death prompted Shannon O’Brien to live her life a little differently: she became more fully aware of life passing her by. She decided to see the world with eyes wide open and a promise to be ready for anything. For more than fifteen years she has been doing exactly that. As a Lonely Planet enthusiast she planned to to spend six months in South America, traveling through Peru, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and Bolivia.
Shannon kicks off Stray with her best friend and a tour of La Paz’s famous prison (and tourist attraction) where the prisoners give tours and rule the prison. In Bolivia the pair volunteer for Comunidad Inti Wara Yassi – a nonprofit deep in the jungle which cares for exotic animals of all kinds. Fun fact: O’Brien was in charge of feeding twenty spider monkeys. Next, she and a new travel companion named Noah get lost hiking in a canyon without food or water. They celebrate their survival with a trip to Argentina to rent bicycles and drink Malbec and fernet con cocoa before moving on to the Australian Outback for a year. After Noah came teaching in Nepal and experiencing the Teej festival. After meeting Xander, it’s to India in time for the Diwali festival. Her experiences in Thailand are harrowing. Then she meets Blake in Cambodia. They travel to Thailand before partying and paying for it in Portugal. Where she ended up is anyone’s guess. The story ends there.
What I appreciated most was that throughout Stray Shannon displays a deep knowledge about the cultures and histories of each region she visits. While it took me a very long to finish Stray is/was enjoyable.
As an aside, some of Shannon’s details didn’t make sense to me. For example, it seemed as if she and her family (father and sister) were staying in a little town two hours south of Bangkok. When her sister and father had a tragic swimming accident Shannon traveled between Hua Hin and a Bangkok hospital to see them. Does that mean she spent four hours a day going back and forth between the two Thai towns?
Music: The Doors, The Who, U2, Dark Angels, Los Blinkers, Fleetwood Mac, Arctic Monkeys, Backstreet Boys, “Sexual Healing,” and Keith Richards.
Stark, Freya. Valleys of the Assassins, and Other Persian Travels. Century Publishing Company, 1936.
Reason read: Stark was born in the month of January. Read in her honor.
There is no doubt that Freya wanted to live a life full of adventure that was challenging, rewarding, and more than a little dangerous. While she carried letters of introduction to give her access to key people, Freya relied heavily on her own wits to maintain her safety while in Persia. She recognized villains when she saw them. She played upon her novelty, knowing no European woman had ever been in various regions before. She would further confound the natives by putting the fragments of a skull in a jar as a keepsake or best them at their customs of all possible polite greetings and the responses one could go through. Freya demonstrated her sense of humor even when she was in sticky situations. Her attempt to find hidden treasure in a cave was both heroic and hilarious.
When people asked Freya why she wanted to travel the way that she did she blamed “the trouble” on an aunt after this relative sent Freya a copy of Arabian Nights for her 9th birthday. Freya was instantly bitten by the adventure bug. Most children would snuggle down in their beds and dream of spitting camels and endless sand, but Stark’s dreams took her to ride real camels across real deserts. Confessional: Freya never mentions camels. Her mode of transportation was a mule.
Part One takes the reader through Luristan, as it was a country where one is less frequently murdered, but the threat is not completely out of the question. As Freya maps the area for British Intelligence her actions put her in constant danger of being thought of as a spy. At the same time, Freya becomes a healer of sorts; being called upon to parse out quinine and castor oil; administer care for for snake bites, broken limbs and mysterious ailments.
Throughout Valleys of the Assassins are wonderful full page photographs. My favorite is of Keram Khan with his majestic horse and magnificent coat.
Lines I loved, “…looking at me with the calm innocence of a Persian telling lies” (p 38), “This would have proved a perfectly sound and successful theory if a buried treasure had not come to complicate my plans” (p 62) and “The study of history necessarily leads one into lonely places” (p 136).
Who knew Stark had such a sense of humor, “The great and almost only comfort to being a women is that one can always pretend to be more stupid than one in and no one is surprised” (p 67). She says this while trying to argue the truth about a lunar eclipse.
Here’s one more, “So kind is fortune if you trust her” (p 195).
Author fact: Stark wrote a plethora of books about her various adventures. I am reading a total of five for the Challenge. I have finished all but one.
Book trivia: the reprint of Valleys of the Assassins coincided with Freya’s 90th birthday and the cover is of a Garabagh carpet in detail.
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Lady Travelers” (p 142). Pearl says this is the one to read if you are only going to read one Freya Stark book.
Peace, Jeff. The Wrong Kind of Son: Salty Driftwood Publishing, 2025.
Reason read: as a member of the Early Review program for LibraryThing, I get to read heartwarming books. This is one such book.
Jeff Peace wanted nothing more than to purge the past to “[name] what it felt like.” It took real courage for him to lay it all out in the pages of Wrong Kind of Son. What started as a letter to his father turned into a book about surviving abuse. [Confessional: I also wrote a letter that turned into a publication. I only wanted my parents to understand where I was coming from without having the necessary confrontation.] Wrong Kind of Son opens with Peace wanting to connect with his father during the holidays. I say wanting because there is a sense of family obligation that cannot be ignored no matter how one tries. Father and son live thirty minutes from each other but hadn’t seen each other in a year. The connection goes badly as it always does. That is the pattern. Throughout Wrong Kind of Son Peace illustrates the anatomy of neglect without being overly dramatic or playing the martyr. There is a difference between stating simple fact and hurling blame. Peace sticks to the former. By the end of Wrong Kind of Son Peace finds the strength to break the patterns of abuse. Through other avenues of love he is able to forge a new path. His courage is astounding.
As an aside, this is my third early review book about a narcissistic parent. By reading the stories of backhanded compliments, off-color jokes, and empty promises my own story has become clearer.
Author fact: Peace is a thoughtful author. He has a disclaimer about the abuse depicted in Wrong Kind of Son, urging his readers to take care.
Book trivia: there were so many brilliant lines I wanted to quote. Intelligence without empathy is a good one. Hope being a habit is another.
Music: Nickelback
Card, Orson Scott. Children of the Mind. Tor Books, 2002.
Reason read: started in October in honor of Science Fiction Month.
Children of the Mind is the second half of Xenocide which explains why the residents of planet Luistania are still looking for a way to escape the decimation of their planet. This is also the final book in the Ender quartet. The survival of the children of the mind hinges on Computer Jane’s ability to move the humans, buggers, and pequeninos to a more hospital planet for colonization without overtaxing her bandwidth. Every jump takes her down a notch. Meanwhile, Peter Wiggin, Ender’s older brother, travels to meet with the Starways Congress to convince them to stop their campaign to destroy Lusitania. Only Peter isn’t Peter. He is another entity of Ender. In fact, Ender has three bodies: his own, Peter’s and Young Valentine’s. Children of the Mind, like the other books in the series gets a little didactic and preachy.
I have to wonder how many people freaked out when they got to the demise of Ender as we know him.
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror” (p 224).
Kavenna, Joanna. The Ice Museum: In Search of the Lost Land of Thule. Viking, 2006.
Reason read: I read somewhere that the Shetland Viking Fire Festival takes place every January.
Kavenna blames her obsession with Thule on Pytheas, stating he began the story when he claimed he had been to the mythical land of Thule by way of Marseilles. But what or where exactly is Thule? Is it a place of barren rocks, howling winds, and flinty skies? Is it a Nazi organization, a secret society borne out of prejudices and hate? Is it an ancient calling to barbaric Vikings and long-forgotten mythologies? Kavenna travels the globe looking for answers. She meets with the former president of Estonia, Lennart Meri, searching for the true Thule. She travels to a former Thule settlement in Greenland and talks with scientists about global warming and the threat to the region’s polar bears.
Throughout Kavenna’s journey her descriptions of the landscape and people are stunning. Her words crackle with the cold and demonstrate the warmth of the people.
Eye opening moment: I guess I never thought about it before. Nazis believed Iceland was the cradle of Germanic culture. That makes sense with the blond hair, blue eyes, and fair skin of its residents.
Favorite description of Iceland, “A land like a disaster film, a natural gore-flick- the country scattered with the innards of the earth” (p 68).
Here is another line I liked, “the past and the future lurked at the edges of the day time dusk” (p 288).
Author fact: even as a small child Kavenna was urging her parents to travel with her.
Book trivia: there are no photographs or illustrations of any king in The Ice Museum. Not even the author has representation.
Music: “I Do Like to be Beside the Seaside.”
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Sheltering in the Shetlands” (p 204).
Cherryh, C.J. Downbelow Station or the Company Wars. Daw Books, 1981.
Reason read: January is another science fiction month.
Confessional: I felt like Cherryh was speaking directly to me when she said she wanted to write a book for readers who love to detect connections between books. Cherryh called Downbelow Station a “novel of interstellar conflict and ambition” as part of the Alliance-Union Universe series. Above all else, it is a human story, a love story even. Cherryh wanted to create a wider universe that would be consistent in a series set in the future a few centuries from now. Her story is populated with tribes of spacefarers and groundlings. We begin Downbelow Station with Book One Earth and Outward between the years 2005 and 2352 but most of the action is nestled comfortably between the years of 2352 and 2353 on a space station orbiting the Downbelow in the Tau Ceti star system. During this time space is not explored by NASA or the like. Private corporations rule the galaxies with their exorbitant wealth. Sound familiar? Old River is angry and the mill is not to be lost. The surviving companies need to plot an attack against the Union or else become refugees and, if that happens, where would they go?
Downbelow Station is packed with action, but as I mentioned earlier, hidden amongst the sci-fi is a human story and maybe a little romance. I appreciated the friendship Damon and Elene extend to Josh Talley, the prisoner who had his memories erased. He becomes the unlikely hero in the story. More human emotion is displayed when Elene Quen goes missing.
Author fact: C.J. Cherryh is Carolyn Janice Cherryh. I loved, loved, loved C.J. Cherryh’s advice at the end of her introduction – go out to where city lights don’t block your view and look up. Interesting fact about Downbelow Station – the stars are in real locations. Another fact – Cherryh worked with multiple cardboard clocks to make the multiple timelines agree.
Book trivia: Downbelow Station won a Hugo award and the story was so popular it was made into a board game.
BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Space Operas” (p 210).
~*LunaSea*~ 