JudiY's 100+ (probably) books in 2016
Conversazioni100 Books in 2016 Challenge
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1JudiY
Thanks for starting this again. I do use the group more to keep track of what I've read, but I'll try to be a little more active this year. Once I figure out how to mark the group and read the topics, anyway. :)
1. 1/2 Finished Atlantis Destroyed by Rodney Castleden. Since I've always thought Atlantis = Crete, I didn't take much convincing, and was hoping this would have more about current excavations on Santorini than it did. But he goes through Plato's story pretty thoroughly, and expands the Minoan empire to include both Crete and Santorini, and argues that the erruption would have seriously disturbed the trading routes which would have looked like the demise of the Minoans to the rest of the world. Convinced me.
2. 1/3 Finished Fire in the Sea This one's about the geology of the area around Santorini, which is much more interesting - and much more active - than I knew. Glad I was there in the 80's, because it sounds like it's fairly dismal now. Anyway, the book completly cured me of any desire to move to the area.
3. 1/6 Finished Bil Nye's Unstoppable. He's very direct about what's causing climate change - us, especially in the USA -, and a lot more sympathetic to the naysayers than I believe is warranted. Lots of ideas of relatively small things we could all do to cut down carbon emissions, several ideas that sound workable if we had some politicians with a modicum of sense and courage. Good book, but probably won't be read by the people that should read it.
4. 1/6 Read The Practical Guide to Patchwork based on comments in a Craftsy class. It's sort of an intro to quilting, but some of the techniques are cumbersome, and the patterns don't particularly appeal to me, although they would teach a lot of piecing. Glad I was smart enough to read the library copy instead of just buying it like I usually do!
5. 1/8 Finished Spooky Action at a Distance, expecting some explanation of entanglement. Instead, according to the book, entanglement may mean the end of space and time as we understand them now. And here I was just starting to feel like I might kinda-sorta understand the spacetime fabric idea.
6. 1/9 Finished E = mc2: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation. Gave this one 5 stars, even though LT refuses to admit it's in their database. A pretty thorough explanation of what the equation means, with a lot of quite interesting history thrown in. Not a biography of Einstein, rather, a history of how the theory came to be and how it came to be understood and used.
7. 1/20 Finished The Skeleton Room. Had to stretch a bit to fit the past and the present together in this one, but it works - sort of. Wanna-be gentry come up with not one, but two insurance frauds, a rogue cop gets his man in the worst possible way, and the murder and mayhem stretch far into the past. Also finished my quilt! :)
8. 1/26 Finally finished The Book of Universes. Interesting history of how our ideas of what really constitutes our universe evolved. Where we are now still seems a mish-mash and the end result seems to be "we don't know", but at least the reasons for proposing the multiverse are pretty clear. One off my TBR pile!
9. 2/7 Finally! I plowed my way through The Sleepwalkers. Other reviewers called this "well-written" - afraid I don't agree. A cast of characters would have been useful for those of us not intimately acquainted with European history in the early 20th centuary, for one thing. That said, it's a very detailed look at the personalities and procedures that allowed the war to happen. I think his conclusion is correct - "there's a smoking gun in every hand", and with hindsight, the greed, arrogance and downright stupidity of all the major players goes a long way to explaining the carnage caused, since the military didn't seem to be any better than the diplomats and politicians.
10. 2/9 So to reward myself for finishing #9, read The Plague Maiden. This one had a more obvious connection between the present, the recent and the long past. Neil becomes rather obnoxious, they're up to two kids now, and the whole cast is still interesting.
11. 2/12 Read Watch for the Dead, #4 in Shelia Connelly's Relatively Dead series. Ellie spends some time with them in a house in Cape Cod once owned by Abby's many-times great grandmother, and the book revolves around finding out why she was so sad - which she does, at the end. Then Ned makes a surprise announcement that promises a very interesting continuation of the series!
12. 2/14 Followed up with A Turn for the Bad Drugs in Ireland? How sad - but Maura gets involved with the rescue of a dairy farmer kidnapped by the dealers, manages to escape involvement with the law and all ends happily. Connolly does write a very good story.
13. 2/22 Quilting certainly cuts into my reading time! Finished A Cursed Inheritance, another interesting synthesis of old crimes and new - this time, the really old one is in Virginia, and Wesley solves an older crime by solving the new one. :)
14. 2/23 Read Paul Wignall's The Worst of Times. Very readable, and to me, anyway, a convincing argument showing how the combination of huge volcanic eruptions (LIPS - Large Igneous Provinces) and Pangaea's makeup which prevented erosion among other things, may have triggered the five mass extinctions. Good read and another one off my TBR pile!
15. 2/25 - yet another one off the TBR pile. Maybe I should also join the "read our own tomes" group:) Fininshed The Hunt for Vulcan. Really, an interesting look at both human perception and how the scientific method is supposed to work. Newton couldn't explain a slight variation in Mercury's orbit, and over the years, various mathematicians posited an unknown planet between the sun and Mercury to account for it. The planet, Vulcan, was "discovered" numerous times, and as Einstein worked out his theory of space-time, the fact that his work accounted for Mercury's orbit proved he was right. Interesting book - but somehow, I wish the solar system had a planet Vulcan.
16. 2/28 Worked my way through Black Holes & Time Warps, so cleared another one off the TBR pile. Not sure how much of this I really understood, but it's a history of working through the implications of Einstein's equations, at least up to 1992.
17. 2/29 Long waiting list, so I read No Shred of Evidence right away. Rutledge seems to be coming to terms with his war experience - not much Hamish in this one. While I'm reading these, they're very good stories, and quite well written. Only when I'm done do I realize that the solution doesn't always make sense... In this one, there are several crimes that finally tie together, although the main story line involves an accusation made purely for revenge and the murderer doesn't even appear in the story until the very last. Still, I don't read these as much as mysteries as I do for the characters. And will continue to do so!
18. 3/1 Finished 1177 B.C.. I don't think there's one definite statement in the entire book! But then, I suppose it's difficult to be definite about things that happened 3,000 years ago. It's a pretty exhaustive survey of what we do know, however, and makes a strong case for the first global economy. He seems to think this interdependance had a lot to do with it, along with natural catastrophes such as prolonged drought and earthquakes. Another point he makes, however, is that every empire we know about suffers the same cycle of rise and collapse, which seems to imply we as a species don't learn much from our mistakes. How discouraging. But it's another book off the TBR pile!
19. 3/8 Finished Death by Black Hole. I think his Inexplicable Universes Great Courses on Netflix is pretty much based on this. Whatever, it's a great read - so much so that when I finished the library book, I bought it, because I know I'll re-read this one.
20. 3/10 Read A Death in the Dales, the next Kate Shakleton. With her neice, who's recovering from diptheria, Kate solves the old mystery that the deceased owner of the house she's staying in and also the new murder that occurs while they're there. All while shedding the latest gentleman friend. I wish she'd write these a little faster!
21. 3/11 Finished The Science of Interstellar. Interesting, and now I suppose I'll have to watch the movie again.
22. 3/21 Watched a series on Netflix, so now I have to go back to Tony Hillerman and see how accurate they were. So started with The Blessing Way, which had way to little Leaphorn, and way to much violence but still good reading.
23. 3/23 Since the other two books I'm reading are basically boring, decided to keep on with Hillerman, so read Dance Hall of the Dead. A Navajo boy wants to become a Zuni, which leads to all sorts of complications and an archaeological theory leads to murders. Goodness, these scholars are odd people. More of the country, but I'll have to keep reading to get to Jim Chee and Emma. :)
24. 3/30 - I really have slowed down - must be the quilting. Finished Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World A fairly depressing book, considering when it was written - all about the dumbing-down of humanity, and America in particular. Sort of glad he's not aware of the current political situation. But another one off the TBR pile!
25. 4/1 All this reading about physics got me wondering about the difference between physics and chemistry. So got What is Chemistry by P.W, Atkins from the library and read it today. A pretty good (I think) overview of chemical processes and what chemists do, chemistry's contributions to the modern world and some of the warts. Ends with what sounds like an enlistment flyer. Anyway - physics is concerned with what makes up an atom, while chemistry is concerned with what the atoms can do. That's what I got out of it, anyway.
26. 4/2 So also finished The Disappearing Spoon to try to learn a bit more about the Periodic Table. Learned a bit about how it's constucted and why, many stories about the elements and their discoverers and a bit more about chemistry. Nicely written.
27. 4/5 Finished Listening Woman Still no Chee or Emma, but Leaphorn finds the kidnapped Boy Scouts, solves the murders and all in all behaves like a hero.
28. 4/7 Finished People of Darkness. Such a bad cold, even reading these is an effort, but Jim Chee finally appears! And meets Mary from Wisconsin, they both get stalked by a hired killer, Chee solves both the current mystery and one from many years ago and it ends as well as it can.
29. 4/9 Finished The Dark Wind a nice Jim Chee tale of drugs, vengence and setting things straight. Lots of Hopi in this one - I rather like Cowboy Dashee. :)
30. 4/11 Finished The Periodic Table: A Very Short Introduction. Not only a short book, but a tiny one with very small print - looks like it's meant to be carried in a shirt pocket. Fairly good basic explaination of how it came about, and why it's set up the way it is. Meant more for beginning students than curious laymen, I think. It would have been very helpful to have a list that linked the names with the symbols. I now know more than I really wanted to about chemistry.
31. 4/12 Read Sherlock Holmes and the Three Poisoned Pawns. Short stories by different authors, they did seem to conform with other Holmes & Watson stories. OK - passed the time.
32. 4/13 Finally finished The Launching of Modern American Science. Compared to other Pulitzer winners I've read, this was a real slog through a lot of data. Most interesting was Joseph Henry and the start of the Smithsonian, but it also followed the gradual improvements in education and professionalism in the various sciences. And indirectly bewailed American insistance of practical value over basic research. But it's another one off the TBR pile!
33. 4/14 Got Black Hole from the library yesterday. It was so interesting I finished it today. Marcia Bartusiak tells a very interesting story of how Black Holes came to be accepted as real, and the research that goes into them. Very well written.
34. 4/15 Finished Murder at Hatfield House, first in a series about a young Queen Elizabeth I. Interesting characters, nice plot, reasonably well written.
35. 4/16 A long waiting list for Treachery at Lancaster Gate, so I read it as soon as it became available. Wow! The toll taken on Pitt and Tellman in exposing police corruption was brilliantly written.
36. 4/17 Read Switcheroo, the new Gideon Oliver story. This one takes place on the island of Guernsey, and Gideon solves a pair of 50-year old murders as well as the most recent one. Delightful characters and a nice description of the island, as always.
37. 4/23 Finished The Day We Found the Universe Very well written story of the unfolding of our preception of the cosmos, concentrating on the 20s & 30s of course.
38. 4/25 Finished The Universe Within. Very well written recap of many of the other books I've read over the last few years. Enjoyable read.
39. 4/27 Finished Journey to Munich. Set in Germany just before the outbreak of WWII, Masie's back! At least the Masie that was around in the first books. Gives just a small bit of the atmosphere in Germany after the Nazis came to power, and of course, she not only solves the problem she set out to solve, but a couple more besides and gets her life back together.
40. 4/28 Read Murder in the Queen's Wardrobe, a mildly interesting book about life around the time of Elizabeth I. It needed more of the back story, and the plot was a tad thin, but OK.
41. 4/29 Finished a really interesting book, Nature's Clocks about how we figure out when things happen - from human history and pre-history to the Precambrian and before. Facinating book, and well-written.
42. 5/6 Finished The Murder of Mary Russell, the long-awaited next book in the series. Most of the book was about Mrs. Hudson's very surprising early life, and, I thought, a little boring. But nice insights into everyone's early life, and I finally found out what the murder was, and how Mary was involved.
43. 5/10 Finished Blood of Tyrants, the next-to-last book in the series, I guess. Didn't enjoy this one as much as the others - going from Japan to China to Napoleon's invasion of Russia, it seemed much more violent than the others. But now I'm prepared for the last one. Hope that means there'll be more in like her last one published.
44. 5/11 Finished The Story of Life in 25 Fossils. Interesting look at evolution through selected fossils. Very good sections on "further reading" for each chapter, and well written, but the latin names were hard to keep straight and in the library's copy anyway, the charts were small and hard to read.
45. 5/15 Re-read Richard Fortey's Earth, since I was in the mood for some geology and the library didn't seem to have anything more recent. Still a very good look at the evolution of the planet and how we untangled it, although I realized he completely skipped China and Japan - indeed most of the East. Maybe in 2002 not that much was known?
46. 5/18 I liked the PBS series, so got Your Inner Fish from the library and read it. Quite a bit more detail, and presented differently, but still understandable and fairly enjoyable. Shubin writes well.
47. 5/21 Finished Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. Nicely written, and lots of little details I didn't know. Good book.
48. 5/25 Decided to re-read Ken Scholes Psalms Of Isaak series, since it's rumored #5 will be out this year. So started with Lamentation, which is just as good as the first time around. Well-developed characters, interesting plot, well written and edited. On to #2
49. 6/4 Took a while, but finished Canticle. A lot more violence than I remember - or like - but still an intriguing story.
50. 6/15 At this rate, I might not even make 100 this year. :) Read The City of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, a reasonably recent look at excavations in Amarna. What I found most interesting is that the rest of the gods of Egypt still seemed to be around, which to my mind strengthens the idea that the temples of Amon were rivaling, if not threatening, the power of the Pharaoh. Interesting book though - doesn't seem the city was either well-thought out or well planned.
51. 6/16 Finally finished Antiphon. The world's in dire straits as well as all the characters I've come to like. Found out the last book won't be released until 2017, so I'm not really in a hurry to finish the series.
52. 6/20 Read Deadly Election the next Flavia Albia. I do like this series, and wonder if this is the next Marcus/Helena team. Anuway, this one involves a body in the auction house, an election that actually sounds pretty modern, at least here in the US, another body... and a bunch of domineering relatives. Fun story to read.
53. 7/8 At this rate, I might not even make 100 this year. Not sure if that's good or bad. Anyway, read Dead End Street, the latest Museum Mystery. This time Nell gets involved with seeing what current slums are like, and launches a plan to work with others to show the public what they used to be - along with making the Society relevant to modern concerns, getting involved with a murder and instrumental in solving it, cementing her relationship with James... All in all the kind of fun, exciting story I expect from Sheila Connolly.
54. 7/9 Read Haunted Ground, a very well-written story, set in Ireland that combines mysteries from the far past, the more recent past and the present with archaeology, forensics and a bit of gothic horror. Very enjoyable story.
55. 7/10 Finished The Ghostway. Jim Chee stars in this one, which involves a trip to LA, which I didn't enjoy much, a photograph that people are being murdered for, and Mary Landon throws him over! Good. :)
56. 7/10 Didn't feel like doing much productive today, so read Skinwalkers. Leaphorn & Chee finally meet, Emma will be OK, at least to the end of this book, and a string of murders are solved at great personal risk...along with the cat. Very enjoyable, and very different from the TV show.
57. 7/17 Enjoyed the first book, so got Lake of Sorrows from the library. I think the moral of this one is - tell the Guardi what you know and let them do the investigating. It's all about a gold collar, murders spaced over decades and of course, Nora solves it - while just about becoming a victim herself. The relationship with Cormac seems somewhat odd, and her inability to not let go of obsessions is also odd, but they're still nice peole.
58. 7/20 Interspersed some lighter reading, so got False Mermaid from the library. Turns out that's a plant, and the seeds finally help nail Nora's sister's murderer, but not until after more murders, old & new, attacks on Nora, complications with Cormac & his father, a neice found and lost - and hints of a selkie! At least it sounds like she's letting go of her obsession with her sister.
59. 7/22 Finished the series with The Book of Killowen. This one starts with a very old murder, segues into a new one, and it's all over a book. Everyone wants it - the crooked cop, a chintzy blackmailer, the National Museum & a couple of cheesemakers. Many adventurs, Cormac gets more family, and Nora starting to seem somewhat normal. Nice series.
60. 7/26 Finished the Temeraire series, too, with League of Dragons. The war is ended, the Czar and Napoleon are much nicer than they probably were in real life, honorable retirement is achieved and a seat in Parliment awaits - for Temeraire! Good series.
61. 8/1 Finally finished The Invention of Science. Exhaustively researched - he corrected the OED in several places! - and full of notes, I'm not sure who he's arguing with, but he makes a number of good points. That science as we know it couldn't begin until the teachings of the ancient greeks was called into question with the discovery of the americas which created the idea of "discovery", that the printing press allowed rapid dissemination of ideas and diagrams, that language had to evolve that allowed thinking in new ways, and technology extended our senses. Interesting book.
62. 8/3 Finished Jade Dragon Mountain. I think this was a LT recommendation. Anyway, a nice, gentle mystery and a lot of very good descriptions of China, scholars and the politics of the East India Trading Company. Enjoyable book.
63. 8/13 I've really slowed down this year! Finished Spy in Chancery, one of the Hugh Corbet books. The 13th century certainly was violent, but Hugh came through for King & Country. As usual. :) I like these books - Doherty gives a good sense of the times.
64. 8/18 Read London Rain. All the relationships are convoluted, but I suppose no more than in real life. And the ones surrounding the murder - set at the early days of the BBC and the Coronation of George VI - was really something. Haven't decided if the whole story line is ingeneous or depraved - but a good story, nonetheless. Sleeping on it, went for ingeneous, but horrifying. :)
65. 8/19 Finished Graveyard of the Hesperides, wherein Flavia solves a 10-year old mass murder and marries. Good story - I like it the Falco and Helena make an appearance every so often, and that the back story gets expanded a bit.
66. 9/4 Finished Black Hole Blues Interesting story of the eventual construction of LIGO and all the trials & tribulations of the people working on it. On the whole, though, I didn't really care for her writing style, though I'm glad I read the book.
67. 9/5 And finished Deer Hunting with Jesus. Read this in an effort to gain some understanding of how the radical right has managed to take over so much of American political life. It's a very thought-provoking book. More or less cemented my low opinion of the American style of business and what it's done to working people, a rather horrifiying look at the Christian? fundamentalist world-view, forced me to think about what I really think about gun control, and all in all made me glad that over the years I've evolved from conservative to more liberal. Although I don't think, after reading this, that what I considered conservative would be considered so today. Worth reading - I need to look up some of the websites he mentions.
68. 9/20 At this rate, unless I give up crafts, working on the house or reading heavy tomes, I may not even make 100 this year! Anyway, finished Lab Girl. Not quite sure what to think of it - the parts about plants were quite interesting, the autobiographical parts, not so much. Unless I think of it as the difficulties women scienctists face.
69. 9/22 Finished Island on Fire, a story of the Icelandic volcanos and their effect on both Iceland and the world. Interesting story, and a good intro to what's going on with the earth in Iceland. But I thought Tambora more exhaustive - maybe that one was easier to research, although this one has an excellent description of trying to live through an eruption like the one in 1790 or so.
70. 9/24 Read Getting Started Knitting Socks in conjunction with her Craftsy class. Often, I've found the basic classes are based on a book, but Ann expands the class way beyond this book, and the class materials have everything that's here. Good book if you've never knit socks, though.
71. 9/26 Finished The Big Picture, Sean Carroll's attempt to explain the meaning of life. He's an engaging writer, but he convinced me that whatever I am, I'm not a poetic naturalist. His books explaining physics are better, in my view.
72. 10/2 Read Louise Penny's new Gamache novel, A Great Reckoning. Just as engrossing as all the others - Gamache's taken on the Police Training Acadamy to finish what he started in the Surete, and almost bites off more than he can handle. Excellent writing, characters, plot - there aren't enough good things to say about this author!
73. 10/7 Read The White Mirror second in a series - I hope - set in ancient China. This one involves Tibet, China and the Tatars? - Ghengis Khan's people, anyway and eventually, a spy ring. The political intrigues between the three result in murder visiting a remote valley, and Lu Di, of course, solves it at the last minute.
74. 10/8 Long waiting list, so I spent the day reading The Shattered Tree, the latest Bess Crawford. She treats a wounded soldier on the front lines - wearing a French uniform and speaking German! Then she's shot by a sniper, sent to Paris to recover and of course, uncovers a decades-old horrific murder, sets more deadly attacks in motion by the murderer, then solves the whole thing in the last chapter. These stories do give something of a sense of what it must have been like in Europe during the First World War - well written.
75. 10/17 Didn't quite finish A Study in Murder because I really didn't like either the style or the story. But I read most of it, so I'll count it. :)
76. 10/29 Read most of Biocentrism in hopes it would be the antidote to Sean Carroll's Big Picture. It wasn't - to many arguements were conclusions drawn from what I read as incomplete or even incorrect premises and too many questions raised were simply glossed over. Gave up in disgust, finally, at about 80%.
77. 11/3 I may not even make 100 this year! That's what happens when I give up reading fluff and start watching TV via Curiosity Stream, I guess. Anyway, finished Genghis Khan, finally. Quite an interesting book and quite a bit I didn't know about both Eastern & Western history. Seems the original Khan was quite enlightened by our standards - religious tolerance, peaceful trade, state separated from church, powerful women - although their methods of making war & conquest sound pretty horrifying. Explained some things I've found confusing about Chinese history, too - the advances were made under Mongol rule, the retrenchments when Confucian Chinese took charge again. And the Mongols - Tartars by that time - were responsible for the Renaissance? Through the dissemination of ideas along with trade. And although 18th century slanders about Mongols being an inferior race seem to be the basis of the notion of a "superior" white race, Asians are taking Genghis Khan's ideas as a point of pride. Good for them!
78. 11/6 Read Revenge in a Cold River, the latest Monk novel. My goodness, but Anne Perry can plot! Not much Hester in this one, but Monk finds out he was a sailor in California during the gold rush. The "revenge" is doubled - the half-brother of a man Monk helped convict gets Monk accused of murder, and the wife of a California gold baron discovers her second husband murdered her first, and her testimony at Monk's trial not only exonerates Monk, but accuses her husband of the first man's murder. Thrilling ending, and Scruff makes a heroic appearance. Good story!
79. 11/8 Read Come Twilight. I generally don't care much for modern crime stories, but I rather like this author. The poor detective, Danny Beckett is rather a mess psychologically, and in this one, he manages to alienate both his partner and the girl he finally was building a relationship with. Solved the murder and the bombing, though.
80. 11/17 I've really slowed down! Might not even make 100 this year. Anyway, read A Terrible Beauty, the next Lady Emily. Enjoyed the scenery, since I've always remembered Santorini with fondness, but the story was a bit odd - the dead return? Anyway, nicely written.
81. 11/23 Finished The Inheritance, the next Charles Lennox, Very enjoyable story, with a lot of back story of school days, a glimpse of the Royal Society, and after a brilliant solution and a terrible accident, Dallworth and Polly finally get married. Good book - I wish he wrote faster.
82. 12/3 Finished Credo, a collection from William Sloane Coffin's sermons and papers. Much in this that I wish many adament "Christians" would listen to. Good thoughts for meditation.
83. 12/3 Read Midsummer Night. Billed as a novella, I'd call it more a short story, but it's the story of Julia & Brisbane's wedding, and a nice little vignette.
84. 12/3 So then I read Twelfth Night, another "novella" that brings back Lucy from one of the prior books and gives them a family! I may have to do some re-reading, because I thought they already had adopted a child. Nonetheless, a good story.
85. 12/4 Reread Miss Marple: the complete short stories. Delightful as always, and I always preferred Miss Marple to Poirot. Maybe because she knits. :)
86. 12/5 Seem to be in the mood for reading again, so re-read Spider Woman's Daughter. This is the one about the quest to find whomever shot Joe Leaphorn, and is something of a sequel to Thief of Time from the original series. I'll have to go back and re-read that one, too.
87. 12/5 Instead I re-read Rock With Wings, finally finding out what the title refers to - what we call Shiprock. An exciting story the second time around, too, and I love the descriptions of the landscape and the people.
88. 12/6 So now I've re-read A Thief of Time. The series is getting better - less overt violence, but plenty of mystery. Emma died unexpectedly, and Joe's mourning leads him to consider retirement, until a friend pulls him into a mystery that gets him interested in life again. And Jim Chee is a big part of both the investigation and the story. Doesn't really seem to support the motive in Anne Hillerman's sequel, but still a good read.
89. 12/7 On to re-read Talking God. Fascinating glimpse of Navajo myths. Starts with an odd murder on the reservation, but mostly takes place in Washington D.C. and involves Chilean politics, a paid assassin and Janet Peet. Ends with an attempt to blow up the Smithsonian! The series is working it's magic though, and letting me ignore what's happening in the world. As soon as I finish the next one, I think I'll re-watch the series on Netflix. I've always loved the Arizona geology, if not their politics.
90. 12/8 If I keep this up, maybe I'll hit 100 this year. :) Re-read Coyote Waits, a fairly powerful indictment of liquor, and a fairly convoluted search for Butch Cassidy, with a little Viet Nam thrown in. Chee and Leaphorn aren't really working together, but they both appear. The library ebook has some fairly interesting notes from Hillerman about his books and where the ideas come from
91. 12/9 Finished Sacred Clowns. Janet Pete figures prominently in this one - I'll have to keep reading to see where Bernie appears. This one's about two seemingly unrelated murders, counterfit cerimonial icons and Leaphorn and Chee working together.
92. 12/9 On to The Fallen Man No overt mythology in this one, but plenty of desecration of holy places. Leaphorn's retired, Chee's an acting Lieutenant and not liking it much, but they get together on an 11-year old missing person case when a skeleton is discovered on Shiprock. From there it goes to inheritences, pollution, modern crimes - Chee's ambushed, Janet Peet's deciding she's white, not Navajo, and Bernadette finally appears. And she & Chee also solve a long-term rustling mystery!
93. 12/9 Also read The First Eagle. There seem to be a lot of crazed scientists running around the South West. :) Here, Chee arrests a young Hopi when he finds him over a murdered Navajo policeman - then Leaphorn is hired to find a missing researcher, and, of course, it turns into the same mystery. Bernadette plays a bigger role and Janet Peet seems to be out. The people are becoming more interesting than the crimes, but the landscape descriptions are still incredible. Makes me feel like I'm there.
94. 12/10 Well, if I keep this up, I'll make 100, I think. Re-read Hunting Badger a fairly exciting tale of a casino robbery. Leaphorn solves it, but Chee is beginning to believe Leaphorn likes him, and Chee & Bernie look like the start of a relationship. Good story.
95. 12/11 I think I re-read The Wailing Wind. I think, because I really didn't remember it until the very end. A rich man obsessed with an abandoned gold mine, a murder, and the wife he apparently loved locked up for "insurance" by his victim. The saddest story of them all, I think. But to offset that, Chee is finally coming to terms with how he feels about Bernie! It's like binge-watching a soap opera. :)
96. 12/12 I can't say I re-read The Sinister Pig since I didn't remember the story at all. Bernie left the Navajo force and went to work for the Border Patrol. Meanwhile, a man is murdered in Chee's territory, Leaphorn gets involved because it might involve the money that's been diverted from the tribes and Bernie's taking some innocent pictures at a nearby ranch. Ends up with a corrupt D.C. bigwig getting killed while trying to kill Bernie, Chee and Cowboy Dashee to the rescue and Chee finally asks Bernie to marry him. Exciting story. An now I know that that's what Tony Hillerman intended, and his daughter didn't make that part up. :)
97. 12/16 Finally finished Skeleton Man. The Grand Canyon descriptions were great, but way to many whites involved in a search for bones and diamonds from a plane crash. Ends with a flash flood, but the good guys all live happily ever after.
98. 12/17 Well, if I can get interested in two more bits of fluff, I'll make 100 this year, since I won't have time to finish the heavier books I've been reading. Finished The Shape-Shifter, the last book Tony Hillerman wrote in the series. Interesting story about a bad 'un who started out in Viet Nam with the CIA and assumed various identities to commit his crimes after that. It all ends with justice done in a hunting camp. Bernie & Chee have returned from their honeymoon to hear all about it, so they're safely married.
99. 12/28 Maybe I should list all the quilting books I've read to make my brag of 100+ a true statement. Oh well. Read Jenn McKinlay's latest Library Lover, Better Late than Never in which she and Sully finally decide they're a team, the not-very-likable Robin finds a new interest, and they solve a 20-year old murder. And a rather telling look at the effects not only of unsolved murders, but gossip. Good fun.
100. 12/29 To make 100, I read Evan Can Wait - I think these are all the same story with the details changed a bit, but I like the descriptions of Wales landscape and the stereotypes are funny. Fun stories.
101. 12/30 I'll list this one, since I read it cover to cover, which I don't normally do. Pat Sloan's Teach Me to Machine Quilt has quite a bit of information and tips I haven't seen in other books. Got it from the library, but I think I'll be buying this one. Too.
102 12/31 Re-read Do We Not Bleed? since Patricia Finney is such a marvelous writer. She brings Elizabethan England to life and makes me very glad I didn't live there then. Hope this is the beginning of a series, though I see there's another Sir Robert Cary coming out next year.
1. 1/2 Finished Atlantis Destroyed by Rodney Castleden. Since I've always thought Atlantis = Crete, I didn't take much convincing, and was hoping this would have more about current excavations on Santorini than it did. But he goes through Plato's story pretty thoroughly, and expands the Minoan empire to include both Crete and Santorini, and argues that the erruption would have seriously disturbed the trading routes which would have looked like the demise of the Minoans to the rest of the world. Convinced me.
2. 1/3 Finished Fire in the Sea This one's about the geology of the area around Santorini, which is much more interesting - and much more active - than I knew. Glad I was there in the 80's, because it sounds like it's fairly dismal now. Anyway, the book completly cured me of any desire to move to the area.
3. 1/6 Finished Bil Nye's Unstoppable. He's very direct about what's causing climate change - us, especially in the USA -, and a lot more sympathetic to the naysayers than I believe is warranted. Lots of ideas of relatively small things we could all do to cut down carbon emissions, several ideas that sound workable if we had some politicians with a modicum of sense and courage. Good book, but probably won't be read by the people that should read it.
4. 1/6 Read The Practical Guide to Patchwork based on comments in a Craftsy class. It's sort of an intro to quilting, but some of the techniques are cumbersome, and the patterns don't particularly appeal to me, although they would teach a lot of piecing. Glad I was smart enough to read the library copy instead of just buying it like I usually do!
5. 1/8 Finished Spooky Action at a Distance, expecting some explanation of entanglement. Instead, according to the book, entanglement may mean the end of space and time as we understand them now. And here I was just starting to feel like I might kinda-sorta understand the spacetime fabric idea.
6. 1/9 Finished E = mc2: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation. Gave this one 5 stars, even though LT refuses to admit it's in their database. A pretty thorough explanation of what the equation means, with a lot of quite interesting history thrown in. Not a biography of Einstein, rather, a history of how the theory came to be and how it came to be understood and used.
7. 1/20 Finished The Skeleton Room. Had to stretch a bit to fit the past and the present together in this one, but it works - sort of. Wanna-be gentry come up with not one, but two insurance frauds, a rogue cop gets his man in the worst possible way, and the murder and mayhem stretch far into the past. Also finished my quilt! :)
8. 1/26 Finally finished The Book of Universes. Interesting history of how our ideas of what really constitutes our universe evolved. Where we are now still seems a mish-mash and the end result seems to be "we don't know", but at least the reasons for proposing the multiverse are pretty clear. One off my TBR pile!
9. 2/7 Finally! I plowed my way through The Sleepwalkers. Other reviewers called this "well-written" - afraid I don't agree. A cast of characters would have been useful for those of us not intimately acquainted with European history in the early 20th centuary, for one thing. That said, it's a very detailed look at the personalities and procedures that allowed the war to happen. I think his conclusion is correct - "there's a smoking gun in every hand", and with hindsight, the greed, arrogance and downright stupidity of all the major players goes a long way to explaining the carnage caused, since the military didn't seem to be any better than the diplomats and politicians.
10. 2/9 So to reward myself for finishing #9, read The Plague Maiden. This one had a more obvious connection between the present, the recent and the long past. Neil becomes rather obnoxious, they're up to two kids now, and the whole cast is still interesting.
11. 2/12 Read Watch for the Dead, #4 in Shelia Connelly's Relatively Dead series. Ellie spends some time with them in a house in Cape Cod once owned by Abby's many-times great grandmother, and the book revolves around finding out why she was so sad - which she does, at the end. Then Ned makes a surprise announcement that promises a very interesting continuation of the series!
12. 2/14 Followed up with A Turn for the Bad Drugs in Ireland? How sad - but Maura gets involved with the rescue of a dairy farmer kidnapped by the dealers, manages to escape involvement with the law and all ends happily. Connolly does write a very good story.
13. 2/22 Quilting certainly cuts into my reading time! Finished A Cursed Inheritance, another interesting synthesis of old crimes and new - this time, the really old one is in Virginia, and Wesley solves an older crime by solving the new one. :)
14. 2/23 Read Paul Wignall's The Worst of Times. Very readable, and to me, anyway, a convincing argument showing how the combination of huge volcanic eruptions (LIPS - Large Igneous Provinces) and Pangaea's makeup which prevented erosion among other things, may have triggered the five mass extinctions. Good read and another one off my TBR pile!
15. 2/25 - yet another one off the TBR pile. Maybe I should also join the "read our own tomes" group:) Fininshed The Hunt for Vulcan. Really, an interesting look at both human perception and how the scientific method is supposed to work. Newton couldn't explain a slight variation in Mercury's orbit, and over the years, various mathematicians posited an unknown planet between the sun and Mercury to account for it. The planet, Vulcan, was "discovered" numerous times, and as Einstein worked out his theory of space-time, the fact that his work accounted for Mercury's orbit proved he was right. Interesting book - but somehow, I wish the solar system had a planet Vulcan.
16. 2/28 Worked my way through Black Holes & Time Warps, so cleared another one off the TBR pile. Not sure how much of this I really understood, but it's a history of working through the implications of Einstein's equations, at least up to 1992.
17. 2/29 Long waiting list, so I read No Shred of Evidence right away. Rutledge seems to be coming to terms with his war experience - not much Hamish in this one. While I'm reading these, they're very good stories, and quite well written. Only when I'm done do I realize that the solution doesn't always make sense... In this one, there are several crimes that finally tie together, although the main story line involves an accusation made purely for revenge and the murderer doesn't even appear in the story until the very last. Still, I don't read these as much as mysteries as I do for the characters. And will continue to do so!
18. 3/1 Finished 1177 B.C.. I don't think there's one definite statement in the entire book! But then, I suppose it's difficult to be definite about things that happened 3,000 years ago. It's a pretty exhaustive survey of what we do know, however, and makes a strong case for the first global economy. He seems to think this interdependance had a lot to do with it, along with natural catastrophes such as prolonged drought and earthquakes. Another point he makes, however, is that every empire we know about suffers the same cycle of rise and collapse, which seems to imply we as a species don't learn much from our mistakes. How discouraging. But it's another book off the TBR pile!
19. 3/8 Finished Death by Black Hole. I think his Inexplicable Universes Great Courses on Netflix is pretty much based on this. Whatever, it's a great read - so much so that when I finished the library book, I bought it, because I know I'll re-read this one.
20. 3/10 Read A Death in the Dales, the next Kate Shakleton. With her neice, who's recovering from diptheria, Kate solves the old mystery that the deceased owner of the house she's staying in and also the new murder that occurs while they're there. All while shedding the latest gentleman friend. I wish she'd write these a little faster!
21. 3/11 Finished The Science of Interstellar. Interesting, and now I suppose I'll have to watch the movie again.
22. 3/21 Watched a series on Netflix, so now I have to go back to Tony Hillerman and see how accurate they were. So started with The Blessing Way, which had way to little Leaphorn, and way to much violence but still good reading.
23. 3/23 Since the other two books I'm reading are basically boring, decided to keep on with Hillerman, so read Dance Hall of the Dead. A Navajo boy wants to become a Zuni, which leads to all sorts of complications and an archaeological theory leads to murders. Goodness, these scholars are odd people. More of the country, but I'll have to keep reading to get to Jim Chee and Emma. :)
24. 3/30 - I really have slowed down - must be the quilting. Finished Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World A fairly depressing book, considering when it was written - all about the dumbing-down of humanity, and America in particular. Sort of glad he's not aware of the current political situation. But another one off the TBR pile!
25. 4/1 All this reading about physics got me wondering about the difference between physics and chemistry. So got What is Chemistry by P.W, Atkins from the library and read it today. A pretty good (I think) overview of chemical processes and what chemists do, chemistry's contributions to the modern world and some of the warts. Ends with what sounds like an enlistment flyer. Anyway - physics is concerned with what makes up an atom, while chemistry is concerned with what the atoms can do. That's what I got out of it, anyway.
26. 4/2 So also finished The Disappearing Spoon to try to learn a bit more about the Periodic Table. Learned a bit about how it's constucted and why, many stories about the elements and their discoverers and a bit more about chemistry. Nicely written.
27. 4/5 Finished Listening Woman Still no Chee or Emma, but Leaphorn finds the kidnapped Boy Scouts, solves the murders and all in all behaves like a hero.
28. 4/7 Finished People of Darkness. Such a bad cold, even reading these is an effort, but Jim Chee finally appears! And meets Mary from Wisconsin, they both get stalked by a hired killer, Chee solves both the current mystery and one from many years ago and it ends as well as it can.
29. 4/9 Finished The Dark Wind a nice Jim Chee tale of drugs, vengence and setting things straight. Lots of Hopi in this one - I rather like Cowboy Dashee. :)
30. 4/11 Finished The Periodic Table: A Very Short Introduction. Not only a short book, but a tiny one with very small print - looks like it's meant to be carried in a shirt pocket. Fairly good basic explaination of how it came about, and why it's set up the way it is. Meant more for beginning students than curious laymen, I think. It would have been very helpful to have a list that linked the names with the symbols. I now know more than I really wanted to about chemistry.
31. 4/12 Read Sherlock Holmes and the Three Poisoned Pawns. Short stories by different authors, they did seem to conform with other Holmes & Watson stories. OK - passed the time.
32. 4/13 Finally finished The Launching of Modern American Science. Compared to other Pulitzer winners I've read, this was a real slog through a lot of data. Most interesting was Joseph Henry and the start of the Smithsonian, but it also followed the gradual improvements in education and professionalism in the various sciences. And indirectly bewailed American insistance of practical value over basic research. But it's another one off the TBR pile!
33. 4/14 Got Black Hole from the library yesterday. It was so interesting I finished it today. Marcia Bartusiak tells a very interesting story of how Black Holes came to be accepted as real, and the research that goes into them. Very well written.
34. 4/15 Finished Murder at Hatfield House, first in a series about a young Queen Elizabeth I. Interesting characters, nice plot, reasonably well written.
35. 4/16 A long waiting list for Treachery at Lancaster Gate, so I read it as soon as it became available. Wow! The toll taken on Pitt and Tellman in exposing police corruption was brilliantly written.
36. 4/17 Read Switcheroo, the new Gideon Oliver story. This one takes place on the island of Guernsey, and Gideon solves a pair of 50-year old murders as well as the most recent one. Delightful characters and a nice description of the island, as always.
37. 4/23 Finished The Day We Found the Universe Very well written story of the unfolding of our preception of the cosmos, concentrating on the 20s & 30s of course.
38. 4/25 Finished The Universe Within. Very well written recap of many of the other books I've read over the last few years. Enjoyable read.
39. 4/27 Finished Journey to Munich. Set in Germany just before the outbreak of WWII, Masie's back! At least the Masie that was around in the first books. Gives just a small bit of the atmosphere in Germany after the Nazis came to power, and of course, she not only solves the problem she set out to solve, but a couple more besides and gets her life back together.
40. 4/28 Read Murder in the Queen's Wardrobe, a mildly interesting book about life around the time of Elizabeth I. It needed more of the back story, and the plot was a tad thin, but OK.
41. 4/29 Finished a really interesting book, Nature's Clocks about how we figure out when things happen - from human history and pre-history to the Precambrian and before. Facinating book, and well-written.
42. 5/6 Finished The Murder of Mary Russell, the long-awaited next book in the series. Most of the book was about Mrs. Hudson's very surprising early life, and, I thought, a little boring. But nice insights into everyone's early life, and I finally found out what the murder was, and how Mary was involved.
43. 5/10 Finished Blood of Tyrants, the next-to-last book in the series, I guess. Didn't enjoy this one as much as the others - going from Japan to China to Napoleon's invasion of Russia, it seemed much more violent than the others. But now I'm prepared for the last one. Hope that means there'll be more in like her last one published.
44. 5/11 Finished The Story of Life in 25 Fossils. Interesting look at evolution through selected fossils. Very good sections on "further reading" for each chapter, and well written, but the latin names were hard to keep straight and in the library's copy anyway, the charts were small and hard to read.
45. 5/15 Re-read Richard Fortey's Earth, since I was in the mood for some geology and the library didn't seem to have anything more recent. Still a very good look at the evolution of the planet and how we untangled it, although I realized he completely skipped China and Japan - indeed most of the East. Maybe in 2002 not that much was known?
46. 5/18 I liked the PBS series, so got Your Inner Fish from the library and read it. Quite a bit more detail, and presented differently, but still understandable and fairly enjoyable. Shubin writes well.
47. 5/21 Finished Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. Nicely written, and lots of little details I didn't know. Good book.
48. 5/25 Decided to re-read Ken Scholes Psalms Of Isaak series, since it's rumored #5 will be out this year. So started with Lamentation, which is just as good as the first time around. Well-developed characters, interesting plot, well written and edited. On to #2
49. 6/4 Took a while, but finished Canticle. A lot more violence than I remember - or like - but still an intriguing story.
50. 6/15 At this rate, I might not even make 100 this year. :) Read The City of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, a reasonably recent look at excavations in Amarna. What I found most interesting is that the rest of the gods of Egypt still seemed to be around, which to my mind strengthens the idea that the temples of Amon were rivaling, if not threatening, the power of the Pharaoh. Interesting book though - doesn't seem the city was either well-thought out or well planned.
51. 6/16 Finally finished Antiphon. The world's in dire straits as well as all the characters I've come to like. Found out the last book won't be released until 2017, so I'm not really in a hurry to finish the series.
52. 6/20 Read Deadly Election the next Flavia Albia. I do like this series, and wonder if this is the next Marcus/Helena team. Anuway, this one involves a body in the auction house, an election that actually sounds pretty modern, at least here in the US, another body... and a bunch of domineering relatives. Fun story to read.
53. 7/8 At this rate, I might not even make 100 this year. Not sure if that's good or bad. Anyway, read Dead End Street, the latest Museum Mystery. This time Nell gets involved with seeing what current slums are like, and launches a plan to work with others to show the public what they used to be - along with making the Society relevant to modern concerns, getting involved with a murder and instrumental in solving it, cementing her relationship with James... All in all the kind of fun, exciting story I expect from Sheila Connolly.
54. 7/9 Read Haunted Ground, a very well-written story, set in Ireland that combines mysteries from the far past, the more recent past and the present with archaeology, forensics and a bit of gothic horror. Very enjoyable story.
55. 7/10 Finished The Ghostway. Jim Chee stars in this one, which involves a trip to LA, which I didn't enjoy much, a photograph that people are being murdered for, and Mary Landon throws him over! Good. :)
56. 7/10 Didn't feel like doing much productive today, so read Skinwalkers. Leaphorn & Chee finally meet, Emma will be OK, at least to the end of this book, and a string of murders are solved at great personal risk...along with the cat. Very enjoyable, and very different from the TV show.
57. 7/17 Enjoyed the first book, so got Lake of Sorrows from the library. I think the moral of this one is - tell the Guardi what you know and let them do the investigating. It's all about a gold collar, murders spaced over decades and of course, Nora solves it - while just about becoming a victim herself. The relationship with Cormac seems somewhat odd, and her inability to not let go of obsessions is also odd, but they're still nice peole.
58. 7/20 Interspersed some lighter reading, so got False Mermaid from the library. Turns out that's a plant, and the seeds finally help nail Nora's sister's murderer, but not until after more murders, old & new, attacks on Nora, complications with Cormac & his father, a neice found and lost - and hints of a selkie! At least it sounds like she's letting go of her obsession with her sister.
59. 7/22 Finished the series with The Book of Killowen. This one starts with a very old murder, segues into a new one, and it's all over a book. Everyone wants it - the crooked cop, a chintzy blackmailer, the National Museum & a couple of cheesemakers. Many adventurs, Cormac gets more family, and Nora starting to seem somewhat normal. Nice series.
60. 7/26 Finished the Temeraire series, too, with League of Dragons. The war is ended, the Czar and Napoleon are much nicer than they probably were in real life, honorable retirement is achieved and a seat in Parliment awaits - for Temeraire! Good series.
61. 8/1 Finally finished The Invention of Science. Exhaustively researched - he corrected the OED in several places! - and full of notes, I'm not sure who he's arguing with, but he makes a number of good points. That science as we know it couldn't begin until the teachings of the ancient greeks was called into question with the discovery of the americas which created the idea of "discovery", that the printing press allowed rapid dissemination of ideas and diagrams, that language had to evolve that allowed thinking in new ways, and technology extended our senses. Interesting book.
62. 8/3 Finished Jade Dragon Mountain. I think this was a LT recommendation. Anyway, a nice, gentle mystery and a lot of very good descriptions of China, scholars and the politics of the East India Trading Company. Enjoyable book.
63. 8/13 I've really slowed down this year! Finished Spy in Chancery, one of the Hugh Corbet books. The 13th century certainly was violent, but Hugh came through for King & Country. As usual. :) I like these books - Doherty gives a good sense of the times.
64. 8/18 Read London Rain. All the relationships are convoluted, but I suppose no more than in real life. And the ones surrounding the murder - set at the early days of the BBC and the Coronation of George VI - was really something. Haven't decided if the whole story line is ingeneous or depraved - but a good story, nonetheless. Sleeping on it, went for ingeneous, but horrifying. :)
65. 8/19 Finished Graveyard of the Hesperides, wherein Flavia solves a 10-year old mass murder and marries. Good story - I like it the Falco and Helena make an appearance every so often, and that the back story gets expanded a bit.
66. 9/4 Finished Black Hole Blues Interesting story of the eventual construction of LIGO and all the trials & tribulations of the people working on it. On the whole, though, I didn't really care for her writing style, though I'm glad I read the book.
67. 9/5 And finished Deer Hunting with Jesus. Read this in an effort to gain some understanding of how the radical right has managed to take over so much of American political life. It's a very thought-provoking book. More or less cemented my low opinion of the American style of business and what it's done to working people, a rather horrifiying look at the Christian? fundamentalist world-view, forced me to think about what I really think about gun control, and all in all made me glad that over the years I've evolved from conservative to more liberal. Although I don't think, after reading this, that what I considered conservative would be considered so today. Worth reading - I need to look up some of the websites he mentions.
68. 9/20 At this rate, unless I give up crafts, working on the house or reading heavy tomes, I may not even make 100 this year! Anyway, finished Lab Girl. Not quite sure what to think of it - the parts about plants were quite interesting, the autobiographical parts, not so much. Unless I think of it as the difficulties women scienctists face.
69. 9/22 Finished Island on Fire, a story of the Icelandic volcanos and their effect on both Iceland and the world. Interesting story, and a good intro to what's going on with the earth in Iceland. But I thought Tambora more exhaustive - maybe that one was easier to research, although this one has an excellent description of trying to live through an eruption like the one in 1790 or so.
70. 9/24 Read Getting Started Knitting Socks in conjunction with her Craftsy class. Often, I've found the basic classes are based on a book, but Ann expands the class way beyond this book, and the class materials have everything that's here. Good book if you've never knit socks, though.
71. 9/26 Finished The Big Picture, Sean Carroll's attempt to explain the meaning of life. He's an engaging writer, but he convinced me that whatever I am, I'm not a poetic naturalist. His books explaining physics are better, in my view.
72. 10/2 Read Louise Penny's new Gamache novel, A Great Reckoning. Just as engrossing as all the others - Gamache's taken on the Police Training Acadamy to finish what he started in the Surete, and almost bites off more than he can handle. Excellent writing, characters, plot - there aren't enough good things to say about this author!
73. 10/7 Read The White Mirror second in a series - I hope - set in ancient China. This one involves Tibet, China and the Tatars? - Ghengis Khan's people, anyway and eventually, a spy ring. The political intrigues between the three result in murder visiting a remote valley, and Lu Di, of course, solves it at the last minute.
74. 10/8 Long waiting list, so I spent the day reading The Shattered Tree, the latest Bess Crawford. She treats a wounded soldier on the front lines - wearing a French uniform and speaking German! Then she's shot by a sniper, sent to Paris to recover and of course, uncovers a decades-old horrific murder, sets more deadly attacks in motion by the murderer, then solves the whole thing in the last chapter. These stories do give something of a sense of what it must have been like in Europe during the First World War - well written.
75. 10/17 Didn't quite finish A Study in Murder because I really didn't like either the style or the story. But I read most of it, so I'll count it. :)
76. 10/29 Read most of Biocentrism in hopes it would be the antidote to Sean Carroll's Big Picture. It wasn't - to many arguements were conclusions drawn from what I read as incomplete or even incorrect premises and too many questions raised were simply glossed over. Gave up in disgust, finally, at about 80%.
77. 11/3 I may not even make 100 this year! That's what happens when I give up reading fluff and start watching TV via Curiosity Stream, I guess. Anyway, finished Genghis Khan, finally. Quite an interesting book and quite a bit I didn't know about both Eastern & Western history. Seems the original Khan was quite enlightened by our standards - religious tolerance, peaceful trade, state separated from church, powerful women - although their methods of making war & conquest sound pretty horrifying. Explained some things I've found confusing about Chinese history, too - the advances were made under Mongol rule, the retrenchments when Confucian Chinese took charge again. And the Mongols - Tartars by that time - were responsible for the Renaissance? Through the dissemination of ideas along with trade. And although 18th century slanders about Mongols being an inferior race seem to be the basis of the notion of a "superior" white race, Asians are taking Genghis Khan's ideas as a point of pride. Good for them!
78. 11/6 Read Revenge in a Cold River, the latest Monk novel. My goodness, but Anne Perry can plot! Not much Hester in this one, but Monk finds out he was a sailor in California during the gold rush. The "revenge" is doubled - the half-brother of a man Monk helped convict gets Monk accused of murder, and the wife of a California gold baron discovers her second husband murdered her first, and her testimony at Monk's trial not only exonerates Monk, but accuses her husband of the first man's murder. Thrilling ending, and Scruff makes a heroic appearance. Good story!
79. 11/8 Read Come Twilight. I generally don't care much for modern crime stories, but I rather like this author. The poor detective, Danny Beckett is rather a mess psychologically, and in this one, he manages to alienate both his partner and the girl he finally was building a relationship with. Solved the murder and the bombing, though.
80. 11/17 I've really slowed down! Might not even make 100 this year. Anyway, read A Terrible Beauty, the next Lady Emily. Enjoyed the scenery, since I've always remembered Santorini with fondness, but the story was a bit odd - the dead return? Anyway, nicely written.
81. 11/23 Finished The Inheritance, the next Charles Lennox, Very enjoyable story, with a lot of back story of school days, a glimpse of the Royal Society, and after a brilliant solution and a terrible accident, Dallworth and Polly finally get married. Good book - I wish he wrote faster.
82. 12/3 Finished Credo, a collection from William Sloane Coffin's sermons and papers. Much in this that I wish many adament "Christians" would listen to. Good thoughts for meditation.
83. 12/3 Read Midsummer Night. Billed as a novella, I'd call it more a short story, but it's the story of Julia & Brisbane's wedding, and a nice little vignette.
84. 12/3 So then I read Twelfth Night, another "novella" that brings back Lucy from one of the prior books and gives them a family! I may have to do some re-reading, because I thought they already had adopted a child. Nonetheless, a good story.
85. 12/4 Reread Miss Marple: the complete short stories. Delightful as always, and I always preferred Miss Marple to Poirot. Maybe because she knits. :)
86. 12/5 Seem to be in the mood for reading again, so re-read Spider Woman's Daughter. This is the one about the quest to find whomever shot Joe Leaphorn, and is something of a sequel to Thief of Time from the original series. I'll have to go back and re-read that one, too.
87. 12/5 Instead I re-read Rock With Wings, finally finding out what the title refers to - what we call Shiprock. An exciting story the second time around, too, and I love the descriptions of the landscape and the people.
88. 12/6 So now I've re-read A Thief of Time. The series is getting better - less overt violence, but plenty of mystery. Emma died unexpectedly, and Joe's mourning leads him to consider retirement, until a friend pulls him into a mystery that gets him interested in life again. And Jim Chee is a big part of both the investigation and the story. Doesn't really seem to support the motive in Anne Hillerman's sequel, but still a good read.
89. 12/7 On to re-read Talking God. Fascinating glimpse of Navajo myths. Starts with an odd murder on the reservation, but mostly takes place in Washington D.C. and involves Chilean politics, a paid assassin and Janet Peet. Ends with an attempt to blow up the Smithsonian! The series is working it's magic though, and letting me ignore what's happening in the world. As soon as I finish the next one, I think I'll re-watch the series on Netflix. I've always loved the Arizona geology, if not their politics.
90. 12/8 If I keep this up, maybe I'll hit 100 this year. :) Re-read Coyote Waits, a fairly powerful indictment of liquor, and a fairly convoluted search for Butch Cassidy, with a little Viet Nam thrown in. Chee and Leaphorn aren't really working together, but they both appear. The library ebook has some fairly interesting notes from Hillerman about his books and where the ideas come from
91. 12/9 Finished Sacred Clowns. Janet Pete figures prominently in this one - I'll have to keep reading to see where Bernie appears. This one's about two seemingly unrelated murders, counterfit cerimonial icons and Leaphorn and Chee working together.
92. 12/9 On to The Fallen Man No overt mythology in this one, but plenty of desecration of holy places. Leaphorn's retired, Chee's an acting Lieutenant and not liking it much, but they get together on an 11-year old missing person case when a skeleton is discovered on Shiprock. From there it goes to inheritences, pollution, modern crimes - Chee's ambushed, Janet Peet's deciding she's white, not Navajo, and Bernadette finally appears. And she & Chee also solve a long-term rustling mystery!
93. 12/9 Also read The First Eagle. There seem to be a lot of crazed scientists running around the South West. :) Here, Chee arrests a young Hopi when he finds him over a murdered Navajo policeman - then Leaphorn is hired to find a missing researcher, and, of course, it turns into the same mystery. Bernadette plays a bigger role and Janet Peet seems to be out. The people are becoming more interesting than the crimes, but the landscape descriptions are still incredible. Makes me feel like I'm there.
94. 12/10 Well, if I keep this up, I'll make 100, I think. Re-read Hunting Badger a fairly exciting tale of a casino robbery. Leaphorn solves it, but Chee is beginning to believe Leaphorn likes him, and Chee & Bernie look like the start of a relationship. Good story.
95. 12/11 I think I re-read The Wailing Wind. I think, because I really didn't remember it until the very end. A rich man obsessed with an abandoned gold mine, a murder, and the wife he apparently loved locked up for "insurance" by his victim. The saddest story of them all, I think. But to offset that, Chee is finally coming to terms with how he feels about Bernie! It's like binge-watching a soap opera. :)
96. 12/12 I can't say I re-read The Sinister Pig since I didn't remember the story at all. Bernie left the Navajo force and went to work for the Border Patrol. Meanwhile, a man is murdered in Chee's territory, Leaphorn gets involved because it might involve the money that's been diverted from the tribes and Bernie's taking some innocent pictures at a nearby ranch. Ends up with a corrupt D.C. bigwig getting killed while trying to kill Bernie, Chee and Cowboy Dashee to the rescue and Chee finally asks Bernie to marry him. Exciting story. An now I know that that's what Tony Hillerman intended, and his daughter didn't make that part up. :)
97. 12/16 Finally finished Skeleton Man. The Grand Canyon descriptions were great, but way to many whites involved in a search for bones and diamonds from a plane crash. Ends with a flash flood, but the good guys all live happily ever after.
98. 12/17 Well, if I can get interested in two more bits of fluff, I'll make 100 this year, since I won't have time to finish the heavier books I've been reading. Finished The Shape-Shifter, the last book Tony Hillerman wrote in the series. Interesting story about a bad 'un who started out in Viet Nam with the CIA and assumed various identities to commit his crimes after that. It all ends with justice done in a hunting camp. Bernie & Chee have returned from their honeymoon to hear all about it, so they're safely married.
99. 12/28 Maybe I should list all the quilting books I've read to make my brag of 100+ a true statement. Oh well. Read Jenn McKinlay's latest Library Lover, Better Late than Never in which she and Sully finally decide they're a team, the not-very-likable Robin finds a new interest, and they solve a 20-year old murder. And a rather telling look at the effects not only of unsolved murders, but gossip. Good fun.
100. 12/29 To make 100, I read Evan Can Wait - I think these are all the same story with the details changed a bit, but I like the descriptions of Wales landscape and the stereotypes are funny. Fun stories.
101. 12/30 I'll list this one, since I read it cover to cover, which I don't normally do. Pat Sloan's Teach Me to Machine Quilt has quite a bit of information and tips I haven't seen in other books. Got it from the library, but I think I'll be buying this one. Too.
102 12/31 Re-read Do We Not Bleed? since Patricia Finney is such a marvelous writer. She brings Elizabethan England to life and makes me very glad I didn't live there then. Hope this is the beginning of a series, though I see there's another Sir Robert Cary coming out next year.
2saraslibrary
>1 JudiY: I had used LT, too, just to keep track of my books, but then one day I clicked on the Talk tab at the top of the pages and well... :) I spend quite a bit of time on LT now. If you were wondering how to find groups, etc, that's pretty much how you do it: click Talk in the header, then choose a link on the left. Under "Your world," you can click on "Your groups" and that will give you a long list of threads. There's a faint little star (
) you can click to favorite a thread, even your own. ;) I could probably talk on and on, but I won't bore you. Just enjoy and browse around. Happy reading, too, of course! :)
) you can click to favorite a thread, even your own. ;) I could probably talk on and on, but I won't bore you. Just enjoy and browse around. Happy reading, too, of course! :)3JudiY
Thank you! I've wondered how to read through all the threads without losing track of my own list. Now I know, so I don't have any more excuses. Hope I don't find too many more books that sound like they really need to be read, though. :)
4swimmergirl1
That's always the problem!
5saraslibrary
>3 JudiY: You're welcome. :) You could always put your thread's URL on your profile page. I see a lot of LTers do that; I do it as well.
>4 swimmergirl1: What she said. :)
>4 swimmergirl1: What she said. :)
