July Monthly Challenge

 

July # A book with an author whose first or last name begins with p, l, a, n, or t.

Magpie Murders

Author: Anthony Horowitz

Genre: meta mystery

Page number: 464

First published: 2016

Rating: 3 stars

First sentence: A bottle of wine.

One sentence comment: The idea of a mystery within a mystery is a genius invention; however, the structure of the book is dull.

 

          I ordered the book because the same name TV program adapted from the novel is brilliant so I wonder how Horowitz wrote it. However, I am disappointed because his way of presenting the two mysteries are rigid and can not compare with the TV program. I have a theory that if a TV program is better than a novel then the novel is not successful. Besides, I hardly see any witty sentences while reading. With so many repeated ideas and sentences, the book should be cut in half.

 

 

July # A book with plants on the cover

Persuasion

Author: Jane Austen

Genre: classic romance

Page number: 295

First published: 1817

Rating: 3 stars

First sentence: Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Boronetage; there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one; there his faculties were roused into admiration and respect, by contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest patents; there any unwelcome sensations, arising from domestic affairs changed naturally into pity and contempt as he turned over the almost endless creations of the last century; and there, if every other leaf were powerless, he could read his own history with an interest which never failed.

One sentence comment: This book is the least persuading romance among Austen’s novels.

 

I can see why Persuasion is the least popular novel among Austen’s six major works. There is a serious discrepancy in the book. On the one hand, the book is far away from Austen's previous romantic novels because it tackles realistic financial matters gravely from the very beginning without jokes. Therefore, it was meant to be treated seriously. On the other hand, the happy ending between Anne and Wenworth is too incredible for modern day readers. In fact, there isn’t much difference between marriages then and now in terms of a trade-off between wealth and youth. It is not unusual for women to chase after well-off men even they are ten years or above older. How could it be possible that Wentworth, considered a capital match for young women with admiration, should come back to Ann, whose beauty and family wealth are both dwindling?

     Persuasion is Austen's last completed novel and published posthumously. I suspect that she intended to review it and to make it as entertaining as her previous books but death came unexpectedly. Therefore, without disguise, we can see Austen's core theme more clearly. It is lament for life going downward without hope when wealth and youth are both used up. However, as a romantic novelist, she still designed a favorable solution for the happiness of the heroine.

     I am not against romantic love but it must be plausible in a novel. Austen is a romantic writer but she is beyond romantic writing and renowned for her realistic social accounts so I expect more from her. Romantic love in P&P and S&S are all plausible, more or less, because male protagonists all have weaknesses so that they are attracted to women inferior to their social and monetary status, but Wentworth just seems self-contained and has no needs to return to Ann. Unless Austen decided to write a pious novel that used Wentworth as a metaphor of Jesus. That’s the only explanation because Jesus is perfect and he comes to save anyone who is repentant.

 

July # a book from your TBR

By Book or by Crook (Lighthouse Library Mystery #1)

Author: Eva Gates

Genre: cozy mystery

Page number: 327

First published: 2015

Rating: 3 stars

First sentence: Only in the very back of my mind, in my most secret dreams, did I ever dare hope I’d have such a moment.

One sentence comment: Using Jane Austen‘s first print collection as a gimmick, this book has turned a mystery into a comedy.

 

I had chosen this book among a few book-related cozy mystery series, perhaps for its book cover, or perhaps for its title, whatever reason I can not remember well. I adore the book cover - a sunny blue view near the sea and I think the title is clever. It is a play of a pun, by hook or by crook. Obviously, this book series use a similar way to glamor each book. Reading this book, sometimes I see witty sentences; sometimes it reads like a boring diary. Characters are described vividly but the protagonist is too young and girl-minded to raise my interest. The plot is terrible, because it's neither effective nor affective. How could a mystery mingle murder, book theft, and ghost stories, along with a detective noted for his handsome appearance and dating attempt to one of the suspects. It's absurd. However, I value this book for its well-written English.

 

 

July # DNF

Silver Pigs ( a Marcus Didius Falco Novel #1)

Author: Lindsey Davis

Genre: historical mystery

Page number: 328

First published: 1989

Rating: 1 star

First sentence: When the girl came rushing up the steps, I decided she was wearing far too many clothes.

One sentence comment: Who would be interested in a frivolous man as a protagonist?

 

          Look at the first sentence, and you will be surprised to see how many pages the protagonist was rambling on the clothes of the woman who ran for her life. As if time stopped. I should really admire the author for her writing technique.

          It took me a long time to wonder: what’s the meaning of this series. Perhaps it tried to tell me that Britain was full of brutal killings during the Roman reign in AD 70; perhaps it tried to show me what the mines and slaves who worked in them were like. Perhaps it told us modern readers that it had divorces and women could live independently at the golden age of Roman Empire. However, I don’t intend to read the Roman history. As a mystery series, it doesn’t propel me to want to read more about the protagonists and the plot.

 

 

Monthly Challenges for June

 

June # title contains at least 5 of the letters of supercalifragilcexpialidocious

The Last of Her Kind

Author: Sigrid Nunez

Genre: fiction

Page number: 407

First published: 2006

Rating: four stars

First sentence: We had been living together for about a week when my roommate told me she had asked specifically to be paired with a girl from a world as different as possible from her own.

One sentence comment: It’s like an American social history from 60’s to 80’s seen through the lives of two women from contrasting social background.

 

I spent three weeks reading this book slowly because I felt the protagonists were so real and their lives penetrated into my mental picture of American culture, which was so sophisticated at the time that I, as Taiwanese, could hardly imagine it before. 

 

June # Goodreads rating 4.0 plus

The Giver

Author: Lois Lowry

Genre: Dystopian fiction

Page number: 225

First published: 1993

Rating: 3 stars

First sentence: It was almost December, and Jonas was beginning to be frightened.

One sentence comment: I never like dystopian fiction except the novel 1984 by George Orwell; however, I can see this book is well structured, enlightening and easy to read.

 

June # a book with a cover you love

Murder on Mulberry Bend (Gaslight mystery #5)

Author: Victoria Thompson

Genre: historical mystery

Page number: 343

First published: 2003

Rating: 4 stars

First sentence: “I hope you enjoy the evening.”

One sentence comment: Like in other books of the series, the protagonists are fun and intriguing.

 

I have been following the series, which give a midwife the role of detective, and this is the fifth book in the series. This book becomes my favorite among its predecessors.  It has the longest length, while others are less than 300 pages. It encompasses various elements that make the book most interesting. First, it delineates psychological complexity humorously of both protagonists, Sarah and Frank, from the very beginning. Second, it shows a charity at the time to save girls in the Italian district 200 years ago. Third, it provides religious wisdom and  crude reality at the same time, but Sarah combats both with her sense of justice and reasoning. However, I am disappointed about the ending, which I think is a cliché and incredible. That’s why I only give this book four stars.

 

 

Wh prompts for May

 

May # Who – person with a person’s name in the title

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

Author: Conan Doyle

Genre: short stories

Page number: 281

First published: 1894

Rating: two stars

First sentence: “I am afraid, Watson, that I shall have to go,” said Holmes, as we sat down together to our breakfast one morning.

One sentence comment: Sherlock Homes book series were among my favorite classics when I was a kid, but I have obviously grown out of it after reading many modern mysteries in recent years.

May # What – a book title indicating what the person is/does

Call the Midwife

Author: Jennifer Worth

Genre: nonfiction

Page number: 340

First published: 2002

5ating: 5 stars

First sentence: Nonnatus House was situated in the heart of the London Docklands.

One sentence comment: East Enders’ bitter but heartwarming history in the 1950’s survived becaue of the author who saved their babies during that time.

 

It’s a marvelous accounts about a lost world, including the convent and the workhouse. Both of them are institutes of Christianity but carrying opposite effects. Children were brought to the world safely by midwives sent from the convent. However, many children died from separanting from their parents, who entered the workhouse in order to survive from hunger. I realize that perhaps it is better to be paupers than staying in a workhouse. The work condition was so appaling that human beings were downgraded into working animals. I guess that’s why social welfare developed first in the Christian countries.

 

The author must have a good system of recording events. She brought to us many memorable characters that lived half centuries ago.

 

 May # Where – a book that is currently located in your home

A Clue for the Puzzle Lady

Author: Parnell Hall

Genre: mystery

Page number: 323

First published: 1999

Rating: 4 stars

First sentence: The first clue came with a corpse.

One sentence comment: I have been fascinated to find a mystery combined with puzzles even though I am not a puzzle fan.

 

I have always thought that a crossword puzzle maker is a genius. It was out of my imagination how a crossword puzzle could be embedded into a cozy mystery. The author did it and made the story twist and fun. The intuitive old lady in the title role is fun and nasty at the same time but that won’t deter me from reading more about her.

 

Two books about Ireland and two Canadian debuts

 

Echoes

Author: Maeve Binchy

Genre: historical fiction

Page number: 737

First published: 1985

Rating: stars: five stars

First sentence: It was sometimes called Brigid’s Cave, the echo cave, and if you shouted your question loud enough in the right direction you got an answer instead of an echo.

One sentence comment: This is a book that makes me care about all the characters.

 

Echoes is another terrific book by Maeve Binchy. The title echoed in a few parts of the books to imply the deep aspiration from two protagonists, Angela and Clare, to have someone close to share their burden of life. These two women with about ten years between them, were caught by dilemmas and had to make decisions of their owns.

 

I love the characters that are strong and warm-hearted. Binchy had a great talent to tell Irish stories in which people’s lives were rocky and bitter but with humor and mutual understanding.

 

The book is also tinged with mystery. How will Angela and Clare be settled in their small town life when both of them seem to be misfits. How can Clare fall in love with David and give up her high hope of career? How will the pains of both family, the brothers of the two women, face their town people in the end? And how will Gerry, the lady's man through the book, die in the coast, according to the beginning of the book?

 

Absolution by Murder

Author: Peter Tremayne

Genre: historical mystery

Page number: 272

First published: 1994

Rating: stars: four stars

First sentence: The man had not been dead long.

One sentence comment: I was surprised that Ireland had such a glorious history as a religious leader in the 7^th century.

 

While reading the book, I suddenly realized that Ireland had a historical glory over England where it was a religious leader at that part of world.

 

Set in the 7th century, a Northern Kingdom in England was torn by religious forces between Ireland and Rome. Therefore a debate was held among religious leaders in order to decide which religious rituals to follow for the country. A series of murders happened during the time.

 

The heavy research involved in the book is marvelous. My criticism is that the author is not a great plotter, because the culprit was so obvious in the beginning of the investigation.

Still Life

Author: Louise Penny

Genre: mystery

Page number: 318

First published: 2005

Rating: 5 stars

First sentence: Miss Jane Neal met her maker in the early morning mist of Thanksgiving Sunday.

One sentence comment: I had never read a modern mystery like this book, so elegant worded with touching thoughts.

 

Beyond a beautiful cover of the misty October, this book has brought to me an experience of a remote Canadian village. Published in the beginning of the 21st century, this book deals with the issues of our present time - rogue teens, lone elderlies, feeling animals and people of faltering faith of God. Reading the author's elegant language combined with elements of art and poetry, I feel the reading week  has been a real treat.

 

The Push

Author: Ashley Audrain

Genre: fiction

Page number: 303

First published: 2021

Rating: 3 stars

First sentence: Your house glows at night like everything inside is on fire.

One sentence comment: This book reminds me of the kids I met who played pranks on their friends but were unaffected by their suffering.

 

The narrative of this book is sometimes vivid and thrilling, but superfluous in many parts.

 

March Mysteries

 

The Riviera Express (#1 of A Miss Dimont Mystery)

Author: TP Fielden

Genre: Mystery

Page number: 364

First published: 2017

Rating: 4 stars

First sentence: When Miss Dimont smiled, which she did a lot, she was beautiful.

One sentence comment: The author’s humorous language make the story a real fun. 

MM book picking is such a fun game! I played the game right away after I watched Janelle’s video. I have got blue - setting, yellow – travelling, yellow – cover, and green. I happen to have some green-cover mysteries on my TBR, and one of them I know it definitely fit: The Riviera Express by TP Fielden.

 The Riviera Express is about life at the local paper in a small tourist town of Britain in the 50's. I enjoy reading the delightful characters and the author's delicate language. The way the author describes the main characters makes them, good or bad guyes, all attractive. The daily work of a local paper at the time came at me vividly, including attending the court, announcing the local affairs in the paper, and reporting the local events. The tension between workers and the boss and between colleagues is part of the fun, too.

Wicked Autumn

Author: G. M. Malliet

Genre: mystery

Page number: 297

Rating: 3 stars

First sentence: Wanda Batton-Smythe, head of the Women’s Institute of Nether Monkslip, liked to say she was not one to mince words.

One sentence comment: All the characters sound fake to me so the plot cannot get better.

 

It is unusual to read a small village mystery set in the early twenty first century but the life stays the same as in the 50’s except the internet. Woman Institute is still working and people car about the Anglican priest. Perhaps this kind of village life is a modern heaven.

When Gods Die (#2 of A Sabastian St. Cyre Mystery)

Author: C. S. Harris

Genre: mystery

Page number: 379

Rating: 5 stars

First sentence: He knew she’d come to him.

One sentence comment: It’s fabulous to read about how Harris describes buffoons.

 

The book has an enticing opening as the murder happens in the Pavilion of the Prince Regent. I have read that Jane Austen was invited to the Pavilion by the Regent’s secretary and was suggested to write a book about the Regent. Of course Austen rejected the idea politely. The news was later leaked and it became another scandal of the Regent.

 When Gods Die, the second in the Sabastian St. Cyre series, is marvelous from the beginning to the end. My favorite characters in the series are honest majestrate Sir Henry Livejoy, morally compromised Lord Harvis, and his idealistic daughter, Hero. Hopefully Hero will soon take a major role in subsequent books. Harris gives these people flash and bone to make them realistic and representative, bringing out historical accounts in the early 19th century.Harris achieves pinnacles in describing mentality of bafoons.

 My only critical comment is, Sabastian's love obsession is annoying and superfluous.  Like Lovejoy said, "he never makes to his own bed." The problem with his affairs with an actress is that the English version of The Lady of the Camillias cannot move the readers in the 21st century.

 

Books, Friend’s Visit and Bible Study in February

 

# 4 Title starting with the letter “H”

Hangsaman

Author: Shirley Jackson

Genre: Fiction

Page number: 218

Rating: 1 star

One sentence comment: I am not convinced why this book is necessary since lots of the plot is either not important or clear.

 

I adored Jackson’s The Hunting Hill House even though I don’t read horror normally. However, about this book, I was confused right from the beginning. When the protagonist talked to her parents, ‘a detective’ suddenly spoke to her. The author seemed to use Stream of consciousness in her writing. I just dislike this type of writing. I dragged myself to page 70 then gave it up.

 

#5 Title starting with the letter “I”

Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944 - 1956

Author: Anne Applebaum

Genre: Non-fiction

Page number: 470

Rating: 4 stars

First sentence: Among many other things, the year 1945 marked one of the most extraordinary population movements in European history.

One sentence comment: What happened in the Eastern Europe was formidable with persecution, resistance and sacrifice.

 I’m not used to reading books about communism. I bought the book from the internet in the beginning of the Ukrainian war last year when there was lots of talks about the author, and then I put it on my shelf. This book club prompt motivated me to read the book finally.

 Before reading the book, I have never imagined the devastated state in Eastern Europe after the war. “During the occupation, it became normal to change one’s name and profession, to travel on false papers, to memorize a fabricate biography, to watch all of one’s money lose its value overnight, to see people rounded up in the street like cattle.” Nither have I ever imagined the Russian Red Army were such brutal soldiers. The second chapter is about the occupation in 1945. “They appeared so shocked by the material wealth of Eastern Europe…. They found ordinary peasants who owned several chickens, a couple of cows, and more thatn one change of clothes. They found small contry towns with stone churches, cobbled streets, and people riding bicycles, which were then still unkown to most of Russia….What they don’t steal, they often destroyed…. In Poland, Soviet tanks deliberately destroyed a thousand-year-old cathedral that had no military significance…. Burning to the ground the priceless book collection of the university library…. Angry soldiers of the Red Army seemed consumed by a desire of revenge…. Women of all ages were subjected to gang rape and sometimes murdered afterward.” Communist leaders from Easter Europe endured purges and policy changed then survived, but most of them stayed loyal to Stalin, which is implausible to me.

 The postwar mass deportation of ethnic Germans was diabolical. They were treated inhuman, starved and beaten as a result of revenge by the Eastern European people. Some of them “moved into Polish or Jewish homes, following the muder or eviction the owners.” Therefore Churchill and Roosevelt approved of the ethnic cleansing policy. Then deportation camps transformed to prisons and communists were in charge of the distribution of German property. Stalin also forced Poles to leave towns and cities that had been Polish-speaking for centuries to colonize in German-speaking places. Ukrainians were also sent to Soviet Ukraine. “By 1950, not much remained of multiethnic Eastern Europe."

 There bound to be countless traumatic cases. In postwar Poland, a Jew was found abusing German prisoners, including women and children, and was responsible for an epidemic. He was arrested for war crime, but later he was identified as a victim, who had suffered from Nazi genocide. Many Jews left their countries for America, Western Europe, and Palestine, because it was impossible “to live in the towns and villages that had become cemetries of their families.” Besides, there were still brutal attacks on Jews after the war.

 The above is only the beginning of the book. Later there are more persecution towards people’s belief. Numerous political leaders and religious priests were put in prison and tortured. This book is full of stories about many different people at the time. It reads like a condensed novels with various layers.

#9     A book with a dedication

City of Lies (#1 of the counterfeit lady series)

Author: Victoria Thompson

Genre: Historical history

Page number: 325

Rating: 3 stars

First sentence: Jake looked much too SMUG.

One sentence comment: An unrealistic protagonist can not make a brilliant story.

 

The story begins with a suffragist movement, in which we get the pictures of prison, starve strike and force feeding. It carries a mission of the important history at the time, but can be boring and pretentious, because the protagonist was too unrealistic. However, the writer was able to keep her humorous tone all over the book so that there was still fun in reading.

 

My friend’s visit

It was the first time that my friend stayed at my flat in spite of our long-term friendship. On one of the five days, we went to our university where we had attended classes in different classrooms more than thirty years ago. There were many people and things we could talk about as if they stayed the same but the university has gone through lots of physical changes. I found my friend changed very little, still giggling like a girl. She is still not treating life seriously. She has knowledge about many things but doesn’t have a clue about her own matters. She cried with tears when talking about her husband but she didn’t have a strong motivation to solve the problem of their relationship. I wonder whether it is the same whenever one is tangled in an unhappy marriage. She asks so little from life and simply content with the basic need purely in terms of materialism.

 

Bible study

After my friend left, my church friend, Mayling, and I started to take Bible lessons from Paster Kim. I have been inspired by Kim’s Sunday sermon and realized that I’d paied too little attention to the structure of Kingdom of God. By listening to Kim more often, I am amazed by his spiritual level. He was sent to spread the Good News as a missionary in the southeast of China, and he spent time living with Hmong people in an unsanitary and uncivilized environment. In the end he was sent to prison by the government. I am glad that this study has brought me closer to God, and I began to pray for people I meet everyday. It changes the way I see things when I encounter difficult students, because now I am concious of their need and of my positive reaction towards them.

 

Books, Hobby and Lone Woman in January

 

This year I’ve picked books from my shelf to read mostly according to the prompts provided by The 52 Book Club – 2023 Reading Challenge. I know I can’t read 52 books a year so I skip some unfavorable prompts. 

 

# 1 A book with a subtitle

The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things

Author: Paula Byrne

Genre: Biography

Rating: five stars

* First sentence: This is a watercolour of Lyme Regis on the southern coast of England.

* One sentence comment: This is the most detailed and intimate account of my favorite classic writer, Jane Austen.

It was this prompt that gave me the urge to read this non-fiction I meant to read for some time. I bought this book for a while, but among fantastic looking fictions, this book with a quiet looking cover had been put off for perhaps a year. However, this year I made it my first book to read, and it is a real treat for a new year. Through the objects of Jane Austen’s time, I got close to the daily life, joy and plight of my favorite classic writer. I have read a few biographies about Jane Auten, but never had a book given me such vivid accounts about her romance, friendship and travels, especially her linkage to the West Indies.  

 Against my previous knowledge, Jane Austen actually had quite a few suitors, and one of the proposals was accepted but turned down overnight. The real Austen chose love over heritage just like her heroines in her novels. Austen had a few close friends with whom she corresponded with letters. They became important sources for us to understand her life and thoughts. We know she was playful but stern in her principles. Her experiences with Prince Regent was extraordianry. Reading it put a smile on my face because I was reminded what was written in a previous book I read, about a sycophant to the Prince. I am looking forwards to reading on the book series, A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery.

 The book made me fantasize to visit all the places Austen had stayed, such as Bath, Chawton, and Brighton.

 #2   Featuring an inheritance

The Dutch House

Author: Ann Patchett

Genre: Novel

Rating: two stars

The characters are all too dramatic and unrealistic. The father was too stupid, the mother was too saint like and the stepmother, too ruthless. The plot is boring and the reason why I continued to the end was I wanted to find the ending. After I read it I thought perhaps there was a point in the story.

 #3 Title starting with the letter “G”

Giving Up the Ghost

Author: Hilary Mantel

Genre: Memoir

Rating: four stars

First sentence: It is a Saturday, late July 2000; we are in Reepham, Norfork, at Owl Cottage.

One sentence comment: Mantel’s prose is full of wonders.

 Hilary Mantel was a modern legend that had won the Booker Prize twice in a row. I have read a couple of book reviews written by her and was affected by her prose. More surprisingly, I got to know she’d suffered from chronic illness since her teenage years from her memoir. Endometriosis came back at her mid age, and she described how she had felt as well as how she had seen herself, “My skin turned gray and my weight began to fall so that one day when I saw myself sideways through a mirror, I shocked myself: I looked like one of those beaten dogs that the RSPCA used to photograph, with bones sticking through the hide.”

Near the end of the book, she wrote, “everything about me - my physiology, my psychology, feels constantly under assault: I am a shabby old building in an area of heavy shelling, which the inhabitants have vacated years ago.” I think her words about writing have revealed the innermost longing of many writers, “I feel that every morning it is necessary to write myself into being…. When you have committed enough words to paper you feel you have a spine stiff enough to stand up in the wind.”

 

I couldn’t help wondering what if the ill fate happened to me, and I was touched by her words: “We were taught to be thankful that, whatever is in store for us, it wasn’t crucifixion: unless you were a missionary or really unlucky.”

 

 Fun with the Bookish Pictionary for Once upon a Bookish Club

The author's first memory was her mother walking backwards to take a picture.😛

“I don’t understand why she goes backward, back and aslant, tracking to one side. The tree overhead make a noise of urgent conversation, to quick to catch; the leaves part, the sky moves, the sun peers down at me.”

 

My hobby: making cake

On the 22th of January, it happened to be the Lunar New Year, so we played a game after the church service. I also made a chocolate cake the day before. I seldom made a chocolate cake, and this time I couldn’t get confectioners' sugar in the supermarket to make Creamy Chocolate Frosting. I decided to bake the chocolate frosting; otherwise we would have tasted the sugar’s granular texture. The base was baked for too long; therefore, it tasted a bit hard.

 

A Lone Woman at the Convenience Store

It was a late afternoon on the second day of the Lunar New Year. I went into a convenience store to withdraw some money. Then I strolled to the shelf for food to look for a dinner box. I saw a woman squatting by the shelf, holding a cup of hot soup, supposedly having just bought it from the store. At first I thought she was an old tramp, but when she started to talk to me, I found that she was too well dressed to be a tramp. She recommended me to buy a curry, which she considered very tasty and she often bought it since she just lived in the building next to the store. I told her that I often had curry and today I hoped to buy something I rarely had. I know the building she mentioned is an expensive complex, so I realized that the reason she was squatting there was to look for a chance to talk to someone like me, who looked for one-person food during New Year so that she could converse with another lone woman.