I didn't read as much as I usually do, but June was a busy month. I had a mix of print books, e-books, and audiobooks as well as an assortment of genres--mysteries, short stories, a dystopia, poetry, and a play. At the beginning of the month, before and at the start of the moving process, as we were back and forth between dwellings, I read a few books that I knew I didn't plan to keep. These have already been re-donated to the charity shop and last time I was there they were gone, so it looks like they have new homes, which is great!
Simisola by Ruth Rendell (charity shop acquisition which has been donated)
This is the 17th Inspector Wexford novel and involves a young Black woman who is missing. This young woman is the daughter of Wexford's doctor. During the course of the investigation, Wexford encounters racism and misogyny, including his own. This wasn't the best Rendell book I've ever read and at times it felt a little dated, but it did deal with some important topics that, sadly and horrifically seem to have only gotten worse since the book was published.
Behold, Here's Poison by Georgette Heyer (e-audiobook borrowed from the library BorrowBox site)
I was aware of Heyer as a romance novelist and that's not really my thing, so I'd never read any of her work. Then I discovered that she also wrote 12 detective novels. Classic mystery may be my very favorite genre, so of course I had to try one out. BorrowBox has several of these, so I am listening to the ones they have and will see about borrowing the rest in book form from the library. I'm enjoying the audiobooks--the narrator is Ulli Birve and she's pleasant to listen to. In this book, Inspector Hannasyde is investigating the death of a wealthy elderly man who is the head of an eccentric extended family when it's revealed that the cause of death was not his high blood pressure, but poison.
A Blunt Instrument by Georgette Heyer (BorrowBox e-audiobook)
Inspector Hannasyde investigates the death of a well-respected and much liked gentleman who met his end when he was hit with--you guessed it--a blunt instrument. As usual, there are some very weird characters involved. This was a pretty humorous book--in places I laughed out loud. I can't say that Heyer's mysteries are the best classics of the genre that I've read, but they are enjoyable and perfect to sit and listen to while I do some stitching.
Not the End of the World by Kate Atkinson (charity shop acquisition, re-donated)
I first came across Kate Atkinson's work in a charity shop several years ago when I picked up one of her Jackson Brodie novels, One Good Turn. I fell into that book and was gripped until literally the very last sentence. After that, I picked up any Kate Atkinson book I came across, whether in a charity shop or in the library. I still have a few of her books to read, a couple of them here at home, which makes me very happy indeed. This is her first collection of short stories and it didn't disappoint. They're quirky, weird, and wonderful. They are loosely connected and some characters from earlier stories appear in the later ones--the last story circles around and continues the first story.
The Spy Coast by Tess Gerritsen (charity shop acquisition, re-donated)
I bought this book because Bill read it last year and has been telling me ever since that he thinks I'd like it. I did. The story revolves around a group of friends and former colleagues who were all spies for the US. They're now retired and have settled in the same small community in rural Maine. However, one of them, Maggie, gets sucked back into a case that she thought was finished when the body of a stranger is found in her driveway. As the book goes on, the story flips from the present to the past--mostly Maggie's past--as we learn the details of this unfinished case. Bill is a big fan of Tess Gerritsen, and I did enjoy this book enough to read the next one in the series at some point. But in the past I started a different one of her books and stopped reading before I was done with page 2. The book opened with a very graphic description of surgery and I had no desire to read on. So I'd advise anyone thinking of trying one of her books to be aware that her books are apparently quite different with regard to the level of graphic content. I think she used to be s surgeon, so it makes sense that she would include graphic descriptions in her books and I'm not suggesting this is gratuitous by any means. It's just not my thing. But The Spy Coast wasn't like that at all. There was violence, of course, but it made sense within the context of the story and didn't make me queasy.
The Fell by Sarah Moss (e-audiobook from BorrowBox)
During the pandemic, a single mother and her son are in isolation because someone at the mother's workplace had COVID. As someone who has a need to be outdoors a lot, this woman is struggling and decides it'll do no harm to go for a walk one autumn evening at dusk. She knows the area inside and out, after all. She tells no one where she's going or even that she's going, but her neighbor, an elderly woman undergoing cancer treatment, sees her walking by. As darkness falls, this woman knows she should go home, but can't bring herself to turn around. When she finally starts for home, she falls and injures herself. Rescuers are called out, but will they find her in time? The story alternates between the points of view of the mother, the son, the neighbor, and one of the guys on the rescue team. This is a short book which I found gripping from start to finish.
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton (charity shop acquisition, will be re-donated)
There's been an earthquake in New Zealand and an area of the country is very difficult to access. In this area lies a farm, inherited by Lady Darvish. She and her husband decide to sell part of the land to a tech billionaire, Robert, who wants to build a bunker to survive climate catastrophe, among other things. He meets Mira, one of the founders of Birnam Wood, a guerrilla gardening collective who plant crops on unused land, with or without permission. Robert makes Mira an offer she can't refuse and some members of the collective move to this farmland--not yet officially Robert's and unbeknownst to the Darvishes--and start to plant things. One of the collective, who is just back from teaching overseas, is an aspiring journalist and he sees trouble ahead. There's clearly some shady stuff happening, but what is it and who's behind it? The story goes on from there. I must say, I was not expecting that ending!
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie (re-read in installments on the Serial Reader app)
One of Christie's most well-regarded works. As the title says, Roger Ackroyd has been murdered. Hercule Poirot, new to the village and retired to grow vegetable marrows, happens to be on the spot to investigate. One interesting facet of this book is the character of Caroline Shepherd, who may have been a precursor to Miss Marple.
This Crowded Earth by Robert Bloch (read on the Serial Reader app)
One of the fun parts about Serial Reader is finding these older dystopian novels that I might not want to sit down to read cover to cover, but are quite fascinating when read in small daily chunks. In this book, as the title says, there are too many people around. This is because nuclear weapons have ended the threat of war (!!!) and advances in food production and medicine mean that people don't get sick and die like they used to. But people are unhappy nonetheless. There's no room and no access to nature--or is there? Frank is slowly going mad at the situation and one day propels himself out of a window at his office. When he wakes up, he's in a mental hospital where there is green space everywhere. After a while, he starts to wonder why he is still there and why some other things are happening. The book goes on from there. The book was published in 1958 and I find it interesting to learn about what some people thought the future would be like.
The Anchorage by Bernard O' Donoghue (e-book from BorrowBox)
A poetry collection by an Irish author. Here's a blurb from the publisher:
'Poetry of how we shape what is lost or past, and how it shapes us. Bernard O'Donoghue investigates anchorage as a place we build for ourselves out of memory and story. The Ireland of his youth is rich in colour and precise in detail, and while he acknowledges the power of the past, he also brings it into question: 'I wish I'd never started on this story; / It may have been a dream, or maybe not . . .' O'Donoghue's informal and at times playful tone is that of a poet disarming themselves as well as their reader. Here are the paradoxes at the heart of human nature: what we are most attached to can be, in the end, what ties us down; the reluctance to return can arise out of the fear of finding ourselves locked out.'
The Brightening Air by Conor McPherson (e-book from BorrowBox)
In this play, we meet a brother and sister living in a crumbling house in rural Ireland with the housekeeper. A relative, who is a priest with unconventional views, shows up to reclaim the family property. A cast of supporting characters enters and exits the scene. Sad, but hopeful.
That's my June reading. Onward into July!
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