What are you reading the week of March 9, 2024?

I keep finding myself vegetating away on the sofa watching police procedurals from various European countries: France, Germany, Belgium, etc. I keep thinking how nice it would be to live in some of these beautiful cities. Anywhere other than where I am. I took a vacation day today and napped for four hours. Spring can't get here soon enough. I kept trying to read, but I would give up after a paragraph or two. *sigh*

>1 fredbacon: I hope the approaching Springtime weather will get your reading sap running again soon.

I'm about 2/3 through the gloriously written but very unsettling (it's about enslaved people) novel The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr. It's particularly astounding in that it's a first novel.

Having wrapped up "On the Wing: Insects, Pterosaurus, Birds, Bats and the Evolution of Animal Flight' (stupid link is stupid) I'm now working on Civil War Field Artillery: Promise and Performance on the Battlefield; Mechanical Failure will come after that. I figure that I'll get to The Normans before the end of this reporting period.

>1 fredbacon: I hope you get your reading mojo back soon, Fred. I, too am dying for spring. There are daffodil shoots in my front garden, but now it's snowing, so who knows when spring will arrive.

I read a novella this week: Take a Look at the Five and Ten by Connie Willis; it was enjoyable but predictable. I finished Anna Burns's Milkman, which initially intrigued me, but got dull halfway through. Yesterday and today I re-read The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune for the fourth time. I never get tired of the story.

Now I'm listening to Pride and Prejudice fan-fic: Mary B. by Katherine J. Chan - it's not bad. It paints a friendlier Darcy than I'm used to. I don't know yet what physical book I will read yet.

Busy week of parent/teacher conferences and report cards so I'm still reading The Guest List by Lucy Foley. Hoping to get a lot more reading done now that I'm on spring break!

Have opted for Gone with the Wind as my paper-bound book this week. I suspect it will take longer than a week to read!

A Natural History of Dragons– Marie Brennan
Digital audio performed by Kate Reading
4****

Subtitle: A Memoir by Lady Trent

From the book jacket: All the world, from Scirland to the farthest reaches of Eriga, knows Isabella, Lady Trent, to be the world’s preeminent dragon naturalist. She is the remarkable woman who brought the study of dragons out of the misty shadows of myth and misunderstanding into the clear light of modern science. But before she became the illustrious figure we know today, there was a bookish young woman whose passion for learning, natural history, and yes, dragons defied the stifling conventions of her day.

My reactions:
Well, this was a wonderful romp of an adventure. We learn how Isabella became interested in natural history, and dragons in particular. As the only daughter in a family of six children, she struggled to be ladylike, but her curiosity would not be dampened. Her father suggested she try book learning rather than “field work” and when she came of age to marry she was fortunate to find a man whose intellectual curiosity matched hers and who was more than willing to have her continue her research. And that is how they come to take a thrilling expedition to foreign lands in search of dragons.

Isabella is a wonderful heroine. She’s intelligent, tenacious, curious, and determined. She makes sure that she is of value to the expedition by honing her skill at anatomical drawing so as to record the expedition forces’ findings. But she also is a keen observer on her own. Of course, it is she who solves the great mystery at the center of this adventure.

While the time is set in approximately the Victorian era, Brennan has really created a marvelous world where dragons roam. She includes much information about the various sub-species and their differences in both appearance and behavior. I was completely engaged from beginning to end. I’ll definitely continue with the series.

Kate Reading does a marvelous job of narrating the audiobook. Her diction is clear and easy to understand. She really brings these characters to life.

I picked up a book from the library display when I went to pick up some "hold" books and read most of it last night. It's called Girls and Their Monsters and is absolutely fascinating. One of the books I read and re-read in high school was I Never Promised You a Rose Garden and seeing how treatment (and diagnosis) of schizophrenia was done at the time, and then with an 80 year distance (the women were diagnosed in the 1950's) is just fascinating.

I might be able to finish Dangerous Rhythms this week as well.

No Exit – Taylor Adams
4****

College student Darby Thorne is on her way to see her dying mother when she gets caught in a blizzard in the Colorado Rockies. She manages to pull into a rest stop where four other people are also waiting out the storm. There’s no cell phone signal, but at least there’s a bathroom, a vending machine and coffee. When she goes outside in hopes of getting a signal, she makes a horrifying discovery. There is a child locked in a cage in the back of one of the vehicles. Can Darby figure out whose car this is and get the child to safety? It will be a long night.

This is a gripping psychological thriller, with several twists and turns. Darby is a courageous, if naïve, young woman. She never stops thinking of ways to save herself, the child, and the innocent people in the shelter. But she makes several mistaken assumptions that compromise her plan(s) and may just lead to massive casualties.

I was completely caught up in this scenario, although there were times when I wanted to shake Darby to get her away from what I saw as an obvious mistake. She certainly got one thing right – the criminal is NOT really smart, just determined and callous. The question is whether Darby can last the night, and that kept me turning pages long past my bedtime.

>6 ahef1963:

The audio is 50 hours long!

Revisiting this audio via Audible ~

The Mystery Guest: A Maid Novel (Molly the Maid, #2)
by Nita Prose

The Song of Achilles – Madeline Miller
Digital audiobook performed by Frazer Douglas
4****

Miller turns her remarkable talent to Greek mythology in this retelling of events leading up to and including the Trojan War. The novel is narrated by Petroclus, a young prince who has been exiled to the court of King Peleus, where he meets Achilles. The two become friends and are schooled together by the centaur Chiron, who teaches them the arts of war and of medicine. But then Helen of Sparta is kidnapped, and the call goes out for all the men of Greece to battle Troy. Where Achilles goes, Petroclus will follow.

Of course, I knew the basic storyline of the Trojan War going into the book, but Miller makes this such an intimate tale that I felt I was first hearing this story. There are two young men learning about life, honor, duty, and love. I was initially taken aback by Miller’s choice to have Petroclus narrate the tale, but I quickly came to love his point of view.

Frazer Douglas does a marvelous job of narrating the audiobook. He really brings these characters to life.

The Elementals
Michael McDowell
4/5 stars
This is a haunted house story revolving around the McCray and Savage families. Matriarch Marian Savage has died and the family has escaped to their summer homes for respite. There are three homes but only two are livable. The third home is sinking and is uninhabitable. The family members are scared of the third home and rarely enter it until this summer when unexplained things are happening to the home and the family members. Horror Novels

I finished The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr. This beautiful, painful, heartbreaking novel about the spiritual and physical lives of the members of an enslaved community on a Mississippi cotton plantation in the 1830s was shortlisted for the National Book Award in 2021. The story revolves around the love between Samuel and Isaiah, enslaved men who have grown together from boyhood and who have long worked together, mostly isolated from the rest of the community, in the plantation's barn, taking care of the animals and doing the many attendant chores and growing physically strong in the process. Mostly, the other enslaved folks consider Samuel and Isiah's relationship to be benign, referring to them as Those Two and either leaving them be or considering them friends. In a flashback to their ancestors' lives in Africa, we see that such relationships were not considered in the least remarkable. But the two men, and particularly Samuel, have stubborn streaks, and quietly refuse to follow the plantation owner's directive to help him breed more slaves. The narrative revolves around this tension, but within the context of the entire enslaved community, as the inner lives of many of the people here are brought vividly alive.

My somewhat longer review can be found on my 50-Book Challenge thread.

Next up for me will be George Orwell's classic memoir of the Spanish Civil War, Homage to Catalonia.

The new thread is up over here.