Book Log 2020 Extra: The Popsugar Reading Challenge

As I've done in years past, I am retroactively taking the Popsugar Reading Challenge. You can see the full list by clicking the link, but here are the challenges that I believe I unknowingly met:

A book that's published in 2020 - The Glass Hotel, Emily St. John Mandel; The Office (Andy Greene); The Last Emperox (John Scalzi); The Warsaw Protocol (Steve Berry); The Splendid and the Vile (Erik Larson)

A book set in a city that's hosted the Olympics - The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins (London); The Splendid and the Vile (London); The Siberian Dilemma, Martin Cruz Smith (Moscow), The Imperfectionists, Tom Rachman (Rome); Midnight Riot, Ben Aaronovitch (London); Under Occupation, Alan Furst (Paris); SS-GB, Len Deighton (London); Pietr the Latvian, Georges Simenon (Paris), The Great Believers, Rebecca Makkai (Paris); Warlight, Michael Ondaatje (London), The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Barcelona); Agent Running in the Field, John Le Carre (London); The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen (Los Angeles)

A bildungsroman - Warlight and The Namesake (Jhumpa Lahiri) may qualify here.

A book with an upside-down image on the cover - Victim 2117 (Jussi Adler-Olsen) 

A book recommended by your favorite vlog, podcast, etc. - A Memory Called Empire (Arkady Martine) and Clyde Fans (Seth) were mentioned on So Many Damn Books, while the Rick Steves travel podcast had an interview with Dan Richards about Outpost. And I've already mentioned Palaces for the People (Eric Klinenberg) and the 99% Invisible episode on it.

A book that passes the Bechdel test - The Fated Sky (Mary Robinette Kowal), The Stone Sky (N. K. Jemisin), Picnic at Hanging Rock (Joan Lindsay), A Memory Called Empire, The Eight (Katherine Neville), Lands of Lost Borders (Kate Harris), Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts (Kate Racculia), Little Women (Louisa May Alcott), and Clean Hands (Patrick Hoffman) all included conversations between two female characters on a subject other than men.

A Book with a map - The Hermit of Eryton Forest, The Rose Rent, The Confession of Brother Haluin (Ellis Peters), as each book at least has a map of the abbey. Pretty sure both Armistice (Harry Turtledove) and Lands of Lost Borders had maps as well.

A book by an author with flora or fauna in their name- The Warsaw Protocol (Steve Berry) seems closest

A book about or involving social media - none of these books are really about social media, but Clean Hands, Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts, Victim 2117, The Siberian Dilemma, and The Glass Hote all have social media mentioned somewhere.

A book set in a country beginning with C - Lands of Lost Borders visits China, while The Glass Hotel and Clyde Fans both take place in Canada (at least in part). 

A book about or by a woman in STEM - The Eight (Katherine Neville) has a female main character who is a computer programmer, while The Fated Sky has several women serving as astronauts.

A book that won an award in 2019 - The Testaments (Margaret Atwood) was a co-winner of the 2019 Booker Prize. The Great Believers won a Stonewall Book Award and an Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and Non-Fiction. 

A book on a subject you know nothing about - Appetite for America (Stephen Fried) taught me everything I know about the subject of railroad hospitality. Rocket Men (Robert Kurson) is kind of a borderline pick here, as I knew of Apollo 8 and some of the astronauts involved, but none of the detail.

A book featuring one of the seven deadly sins - any of the books with a murder could qualify under wrath, I think, so The Rose Rent, Broken Harbor, His Bloody Project (Graeme Macrae Burnet), Black Diamond, The Sympathizer, A Memory Called Empire, The Girl on the Train, The Hermit of Eryton Forest, The Cold Cold Ground, The Ruin, The Confession of Brother Haluin, The Devil's Cave, Victim 2117, I Hear the Sirens in the Street, and The Secret Place. 

A book with a robot, cyborg, or AI character - The Last Emperox has a sort of holographic database where former emperors can talk about their reigns, give advice, etc. A Memory Called Empire may also fit here depending on how you define cyborg. 

A book with a bird on the cover - The Warsaw Protocol has Poland's double eagle on it.

A fiction or non-fiction book about a world leader - The Splendid and the Vile (Winston Churchill); American Spy, Lauren Wilkinson (Thomas Sankara)

A book by a WOC - American Spy, The Stone Sky, The Namesake.

A book with at least a four star rating on Goodreads - 38 of the books I read meet this, so rather than list all of them I'll mention the one with the highest average rating (4.53), Rocket Men. Honorable mention to The Things We Cannot Say (Kelly Rimmer), which had a 4.51 rating.

A book with a three word title - The Rose Rent, The Last Colony (John Scalzi), The Stone Sky, The Fated Sky, Even the Dead (Benjamin Black). Pietr the Latvian, The Second Sleep (Robert Harris), The Wordy Shipmates (Sarah Vowell), The Human Division (John Scalzi), The Glass Hotel, The Last Emperox, The Devil's Cave (Martin Walker), The Warsaw Protocol, The Lost Continent (Bill Bryson), The Secret Place (Tana French), The Great Believers (Rebecca Makkai)

A book by or about a journalist - The Imperfectionists looks like my only book about journalists, but I read several written by journalists, including The Devil's Cave, Black Diamond, Appetite for America, and An Elegant Defense (Matt Richtel)

Your favorite prompt from a past POPSUGAR Reading Challenge - rather than a favorite, I'm going to use one from 2019 that I didn't have a book for. The prompt was "a book revolving around a puzzle or game," which would fit for both The Eight and Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts. 

ADVANCED

A book with a character with vision impairment or enhancement - Notes from a Young Black Chef (Kwame Onwuachi) and Calypso (David Sedaris)

A book by an author who has written more than 20 books - The Rose Rent, The Hermit of Eryton Forest, and The Confession of Brother Haluin; Agent Running in the Field; Even the Dead (John Banville as Benjamin Black); The Last Colony, Zoe's Tale, and The Human Division; Diary of a Dead Man on Leave (David Downing)

A book with more than 20 letters in its title - Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts, The Splendid and the Vile, I Hear the Sirens in the Streets, The Confession of Brother Haluin, The Hermit of Eryton Forest, Diary of a Dead Man on Leave, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, Notes from a Young Black Chef, Agent Running in the Field

A book published in the 20th century - The Rose Rent, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Pietr the Latvian, Redwall, SS-GB, The Hermit of Eryton Forest, The Confession of Brother Haluin, The Eight, The Lost Continent

A book from a series with more than 20 books - The Rose Rent, The Hermit of Eryton Forest, and The Confession of Brother Haluin, as long as you count the short story collection A Rare Benedictine (aka The Advent of Brother Cadfael) as part of the series.

A book with a main character in their 20s - I don't know that any of the books I read gave ages, but several had characters who were, at least in part, in their 20s: The Glass Hotel, Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts, The Namesake, Midnight Riot, 32 Yolks (Eric Ripert), Notes from a Young Black Chef, among others.

 Book Log 2020 #73: Clean Hands by Patrick Hoffman

A lawyer representing a major bank learns that one of the associates working on the case has lost his phone - which happened to have copies of secret documents on it. While the phone is recovered, someone has copied the documents off of it, and is now blackmailing the law firm It's up to the lawyer - and the ex-CIA crisis manager hired to help - to deal with the mess in a way that keeps them - and the firm - out of trouble.

It's not a bad setup for a thriller that you don't want or need to think about too much, and in that sense the book fit the bill. It's not quite the edge of your seat thrill ride that the linked page makes it out to be, but it's entertaining enough. 

That's a wrap on 2020! See you next year!

 Book Log 2020 #72: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

I never read this in school, and decided to pick it up as it was a fitting choice for a reading challenge I was doing (it's also one of the free classics in Apple Books, which saved me from a trip to the library/library app).

It's not the most obvious choice for a middle aged man, being a story about four girls and their mother, and to be honest it didn't do much for me. It may have connected more if I had read this while in school, as I'd have been closer in age to most of the characters and could sympathize with the universal challenges of growing up.  

Though to be fair, I also don't read a lot of 19th century fiction, so that may have affected my reading experience too.

 Book Log 2020 #71: The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

If you didn't live through the 1980s, it may be hard to credit the way in which HIV/AIDS ran rampant through the gay community. With no antiretroviral or PrEP medication available, thousands died from diseases that would normally be stopped by our immune system. This book tells the story of that period through two characters and timelines - an art gallery development diretor living in 1980s Chicago, and a woman in the present day who has gone to Paris to find her daughter. 

The two stories cover the same ground of loss and grief, but in different scales. The 1980s timeline gives the immediate and varied reaction to what was happening, from fear of contracting HIV to the fatalism that led some to keep doing what they were doing. The present day timeline takes a longer look at how you come to grips with all of the lives and time lost, and how that shapes who you are today.

I did live through the 1980s, but was young enough where this was always a news story rather than a personal one. This book helped me understand the parts of the story that the news didn't show, and reminded me that for many, that story hasn't ended.

 Book Log 2020 #70: The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

The struggle to reconcile personal and cultural identies is at the center of this book, which tells the story of a newly-married couple that moves from India to the US to start a new life. When the couple have their first child, they try to wait for a name to be sent from a grandmother in India, but when the letter never arrives they opt for an unusual name that starts the child on what appears to be a lifelong battle to feel comfortable with himself.

There's a level at which the difficulties each member of the family face are relatable to anyone, as we've all had feelings of not belonging or being different. What sets this novel apart is the way in which the specific issues, be it cultural norms, language barrier, or the generation gap, are so finely and clearly detailed. It's not the easiest read emotionally - it can be quite a downer at times - but it's worth working through to see how each life unfolds.

 Book Log 2020 #69: The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein

If you want to be infuriated by a book, this would be an excellent choice. Not for the writing, but for the subject matter. Rothstein breaks down in meticulous detail how government agencies promoted the de jure segregation of neighborhoods through the discriminatory application of various financial and real estate laws. If you've heard of the practice of redlining, but wasn't sure what it meant, this book will give you all of information you need - and then some - to understand how generations of people who weren't white were locked out of home ownership and the accumulation of generational wealth.

This book helps explain how historical discrimination continues to affect Americans today, from lagging in personal wealth to education outcomes to social status. It is very much worth reading, as angry as it may make you.

 Book Log 2020 #68: Calypso by David Sedaris

This collection of essays proves that you can't go home again. Sedaris purchases a vacation home in North Carolina as a place where his siblings and their dad can get together and relax while enjoying each other's company, but it doesn't quite work out as planned. Themes of aging and mortality run through the collection, from essays recounting age-related medical issues to the passing of Sedaris's mother and sister.

As you might imagine the tone of the book is a bit more subdued, with significant helpings of melancholy and nostalgia. There is still plenty of wit and humor, though, which offsets the heavier emotions that come into play. It does make for a more thoughtful collection of essays, I think, especially if the reader is getting to a certain age.

 Book Log 2020 #67: Heirs of the Founders by H. W. Brands

This book examines the political careers of the three important American political figures of the early 19th century - Speaker of the House Henry Clay, Massachusetts Senator (and later Secretary of State) Daniel Webster, and South Carolina's John C. Calhoun, who would serve in multiple positions before becoming Vice President. We see how each man shaped the issues of the period, from tarriffs to nullification to slavery.

I do think Brands tried to do too much, in that there are a number of places where he'll mention something that begs for detail (like how Clay got himself named speaker in his first term). I also don't think there was enough balance between the three, as the narrative often favored one person over the other two to a significant degree. I don't think these are issues that are specific to this book - any survey of an historical era is going to have to play off detail for length and readability - but they were noticable during the reading.

 Book Log 2020 #66: Armistice by Harry Turtledove

I have almost no recollection of this book, the final in the Hot War series (where advice about using nuclear weapons during the Korean War starts World War III), though from the title it's a safe bet that the war is going to end.

I don't recall any particular highs or lows about the book - it's pretty much the same as his other books in this series - but I do think doing this right on the heels of the long The War that Came Early series about an alternate World War II caused the story lines to blur a bit. 

 Book Log 2020 #65: Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts by Kate Racculia

When a Boston billionaire dies and leaves his fortune to whoever can find it, Tuesday Mooney and an odd assortment of friends and acquaintances team up to solve the puzzles that will hopefully lead them to fame and fortune. Oh, and Tuesday may be being helped by the ghost of a friend who disappeared when they were teens growing up in Salem.

I'm not usually into supernatural stories, but as I grew up near Salem and lived in Boston for a while it was pretty easy for the local angle to win me over.  There's also some obvious similarities between this book and The Westing Game, which was a favorite growing up.

As it turned out, the amount of ghosts in this story worked for me, and I really enjoyed seeing the story unfold. 

 Book Log 2020 #64: The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson

This is, to my mind, a kind of sequel to In the Garden of Beasts, where Larson recounts the early days of Nazi Germany through the eyes of the US ambassador to Germany and his daughter. In that book, the characters were initially fascinated, and in some cases thrilled, by the energy and spirit of the Nazis, only to become horrified when their intentions became clear.

In this book, the Nazis have already started to put their intentions into action - they've invaded large parts of Europe and are starting to look across the English Channel - and newly-elected prime minister Winston Churchill has to figure out how to not only resist, but to get the help necessary to defeat the Nazis.

To do this, we get an in-depth look at the decisions Churchill made that bolstered public sentiment and the will to fight back. Along with this we get an intimate look at the personal lives of the Churchills, and how the choices made to fight the war had individual repercussions for each member of the family.

I did like this book quite a bit, just as I like pretty much all of Larson's books. I didn't know a great deal about Churchill prior to reading (and probably still don't know that much about him), but the book did give me a greater appreciation for him.

 Book Log 2020 #63: Palaces for the People by Erik Klinenberg

In this book, the author makes the case that the best way to repair our social fabric, and to redevelop shared values, is to create more and/or better shared spaces, such as parks and libraries. He also gives examples of how social infrastructure - resources and facilities that help communities develop and thrive - have made signficant improvements to quality of life.

This is a premise that I bought into pretty quickly (shocking for someone who regularly goes to the library), but as I read the book I found my enthusiasm waning.  Maybe I just didn't need that much convincing and got bored as the book continued to make a case that I already agreed with. Not sure. But it's worth a read if this is a subject that sounds interesting.

Of course, you can also listen to this episode of 99% Invisible, where the author talks with show host Roman Mars about the book and the ideas behind it, and then decide if you want to take a deeper dive with the book.

 Book Log 2020 #62: Milk! by Mark Kurlansky

Just as he did for cod and salt, Kurlansky offers a global history of milk, tracing how we went from really only getting breast milk as babies to drinking, eating, and licking the variety of milk products throughout our lives.

I kind of found that this book was less than the sum of its parts. Plenty of interesting facts and stories, but I never really got caught into the general narrative. This is kind of how his books have gone for me after Cod, so be forewarned.

 Book Log 2020 #61: The Secret Place by Tana French

A boy is killed on the grounds of a girls boarding school, and the case goes unsolved. A year after the death, Stephen Moran reopens the investigation after one of the students presents a flier from an anonymous bulletin board called "The Secret Place" where the person who posted it claims to know who killed the boy. 

Moran, teamed up with the standoffish Antoinette Conway, find that there are competing cliques that may be involved (of course, it's a high school), and as they make progress they run into a complication in the form of Frank Mackey, a fellow member of the Dublin Murder Squad, whose daughter is in one of those cliques.

One of the things I liked about this book is that while the title refers to a bulletin board, there's no shortage of secret places that get examined. There are other physical spaces that are secret. The cliques have their own secrets, and each student has secrets that they don't share within the clique. The police all seem to have their own secrets as well. This shouldn't be surprising from a series where the psychological is as much a part of the plot as the police work. 

It's also not surprising that this book is of the same quality as the previous entries in the series. 

 Book Log 2020 #60: The Lost Continent by Bill Bryson

There's an old saying that "you can't go home again," and this book kind of proves the point. After several years living in the UK, Bryson returned to the US and road tripped across the country to get an idea of what life is like in the non-touristy, small town, "real" America.  

What he finds apparently doesn't meet his expectations, as much of the book is darker and, frankly, ruder than what you might expect if you've previously read A Walk in the Woods or In a Sunburned Country. I was going to chalk this up to it being an early book, written before he developed a more positive style of humor, but I had similar reservations with The Road to Little Dribbling, which is one of his more recent books.

I wouldn't rush out to read this, unless you're a completist and want to check off all of Bryson's books.

 Book Log 2020 #59: I Hear the Sirens in the Street by Adrian McKinty

Still processing the personal and professional fallout from his last case, Sean Duffy gets assigned to what amounts to a portable locked room mystery: identifying a torso that was found in a suitcase. This being the early 1980s there's no DNA testing available, but luckily the torso still bears a tattoo, which is enough for Duffy to start figuring out who the torso is and who packed the suitcase.

I hadn't planned on returning to this series so quickly, but am glad I did.  The story is as interesting and engaging as the first one, and adds in Duffy's examination of his personal and emotional state. This is quickly becoming one of my favorite series.

 Book Log 2020 #58: Lands of Lost Borders by Kate Harris

The author, midway through a Ph.D. program with an eye towards becoming an astronaut, decided to reclaim her youthful fascination with explorers like Marco Polo. This book is the chronicle of her adventure of cycling the Silk Road from Europe to Asia with a friend from previous cycling trips.

Along the way, the author mixes her own thoughts of what it means to be an explorer in the modern age with a variety of historical, scientific, and personal details. This gives a much broader scope to what could have been a straightforward travelogue. The day to day also provides a lot of color, between funny things that happen on the road and the challenges of being two women on a continent-spanning bike trip. 

It doesn't appear that she's written any books since this one, but I am hopeful we'll hear more about her travels in the future.

 Book Log 2020 #57: The Eight by Katherine Neville

A computer programmer in the 1970s and a novice nun in revolutionary France both get swept up in the hunt for a chess set that used to belong to Charlemange and is said to give great power to whoever possesses it. In the older timeline, the goal is to disperse the set so no one can use it for their own ends, while in the modern timeline the goal is to find the set to keep it out of the hands of those who are seeking it, also to use it for their own ends.

This book was apparently quite a sensation when it was released in 1988, but I had a hard time getting through it. The book clocks in at over 600 pages, and often felt longer.  I didn't put too much thought into the idea of a magic chess set, which probably helped. Suffice it to say I'm not hunting down the sequel.

 Book Log 2020 #56: Victim 2117 by Jussi Adler-Olsen

As the migrant crisis in Europe continues to grow, a Danish newspaper shows a photo of someone only identified as Victim 2117, the number standing for how many migrants have died in the Mediterranean Sea trying to get to Europe. The photo has deeper meaning for three people - a Danish teen with an urge to kill, a terrorist for whom this marks a step in a years-long plot, and Department Q's own Assad. For Assad the body brings up issues from his mysterious past, which he'll now have to address.

I don't know if I liked this book as much as the earlier entries in the series - I feel like the newer books downplay the psychological aspects of the cold cases for more action - but I did like the book generally. I was glad to get more of Assad's story, which made him more of a fully realzied character and less of the goofy sidekick. 

 Book Log 2020 #55: The Warsaw Protocol by Steve Berry

The US wants to put a missile system in Poland, but can't get the approval of that country's president. But it turns out that someone has damaging information on the Polish president, and is looking to auction it off. The cost of getting into the auction? One of the Arma Christi, the seven relics of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The new US president orders Cotton Malone to steal one of these relics so he can gain entry into the auction and buy the information for the US, which will then use it to blackmail the Polish president into hosting the missiles.

Of course, there are others looking for this information, which makes his theft of the Holy Lance, and any potential success at the auction, a fairly dicey proposition.

It's all pretty much what you'd expect from a Cotton Malone novel at this point. I did find it humorous that these relics were the cost of entering the auction, as there are multiple claimants for each relic (for example, there are at least four Holy Lances out there). I can't remember if there was some way to tell if the relic was "real" or if the book just glossed over that detail. Not that it really matters, it's not like you read these books for their factual value.

 Book Log 2020 #54: The Devil's Cave by Martin Walker

An unexpected death once again disturbs St. Denis, this time with occult overtones: a naked woman is found dead in a boat floating on a local river, with markings and accessories that point towards a killing more sinister than usual. As local chief of police Bruno works to uncover the truth - which involves the local landmark of the title - he begins to suspect that the killing may be tied into a battle over a real estate deal.

This entry in the series has all of the usual hallmarks, from Bruno's management of the case to avoid too much outside interference to loving descriptions of the local cuisine. The publisher page I linked to tagged the book as a "cozy mystery," which I hadn't really thought of but it does fit. This series is as much about its idyllic setting as the actual mystery. In some ways I think this actually enhances the story, as I get more of an emotional reaction when something happens to a character in this series than I would in a series with a faster pace and a greater level of (often cartoonish) danger. 

 Book Log 2020 #53: The Confession of Brother Haluin by Ellis Peters

It's winter, and a heavy snowfall has caused damage to the guest hall roof at Shrewsbury Abbey. The monks go out to make repairs, and in the process Brother Haluin falls and is severely injured. He makes a deathbead confession to Abbot Radulfus and Brother Cadfael... but doesn't die.

As winter turns to spring, Haluin decides he must make a pilgrimage to receive penance, and gets permission to have Cadfael accompany him. And, as you likely expected, they encounter a dead body along the way.

I can't say I have much of an option of the book overall - it was fine, in line with the average entry in this series - but did appreciate the change of location. 

 Book Log 2020 #52 Outpost by Dan Richards

The author travels to some of the most isolated and undeveloped areas of the planet to ask why do people travel to (and stay) in such locations, and what is the value of keeping these places in the wild? There's a special emphasis here on isolation and the creative process, with a couple of the trips following in the steps of Jack Kerouac and Roald Dahl.

I did like this book, but admit to getting some fatigue by the end. Not sure why, this isn't a particularly long book. Maybe I just wasn't ready for so much solitude.

 Book Log 2020 #51: The Ruin by Dervla McTiernan

Early in his career in the Garda, the Irish national police, Cormac Reilly answers a call at a decrepit house, where he discovers two children whose mother is dead upstairs. He calls in for assistance, and files the case away.

Twenty years later, Reilly has returned to Galway, where he has to re-establish himself with the local Garda bosses after years working in Dublin. When he's given an apparent suicide to investigate, it turns out the death has a connection to those children from that early case. And it looks like it was no suicide.

This is kind of a bumper time for crime fiction set in Ireland, between Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad and Adrian McKinty's series with Northern Irish detective Sean Duffy. I don't think this book is quite up there with either of those, but it's a solid first outing that will likely see me pick up the second one. Eventually.

 Book Log 2020 #50: The Last Emperox by John Scalzi

With the Flow, the pathways that allowed the planets of the Interdependency to stay connected, continuing to dissipate, Emperor Grayland II has to figure out how to best save the billions of people who will become effectively cut off from other humans once it finally disappears. She has to do this while fending off threats to her crown (and her life) from powerful noble families who want to squeeze every last dollar out of the interstellar trade the Flow allows.

This is a fitting end to the trilogy, though I would have liked to spend more time in this universe. After getting another Lock In universe novel, though. 

 Book Log 2020 #49: The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish

A university researcher, nearing the end of her career, gets a call from a former student. Some documents were found during renovations to his home, and he thinks they fall into her area of expertise. She goes to see them, and instantly realizes their importance. Needing help to research the documents, she enlists a graduate student in her hunt to figure out who is Aleph, the name adopted by their scribe.

While this is playing out, we are also brought into a 17th century timeline, where we meet the scribe and learn how they got the job, and how entering the world of letters and intellectual pursuits changes the scribe's life. 

I liked the way the two story lines played off against each other, and the juxtaposition of the scribe (who is entering a world of knowledge) and the researcher (who is leaving it). Probably a little long, but a good read nevertheless.

 Book Log 2020 #48: The Cold Cold Ground by Adrian McKinty

Sean Duffy is a man of some contradictions. He attended university, but left to become a cop.  He's a Catholic serving in the Royal Ulster Constabulatory, which is almost uniformly staffed by Protestants. He's pledged to uphold the law, but enjoys the occasional illegal substance. He's a good cop, but often finds himself battling these contradictions, in both his work and personal lives.

Making this no easier is that it's the early 1980s, and the Troubles are still raging in Northern Ireland. He's a target for the IRA as a cop, and for loyalist paramilitaries as a Catholic working and living in largely Protestant spaces. Hardly a page goes by where he's not looking under his car for a bomb.

It's in this difficult, stressful environment that Duffy has to investigate what appears to be a publicity killing - probably of a informer or other collaborator - and a suicide in some local woods. There's nothing obviously linking the killings, but as Duffy picks up on inconsistencies in each case, he starts to see there's something larger at work.

This is the first in a series, and I can only hope future books are as good as this one. It's sharply written, and full of detail that comes from McKinty's years as a crime reporter. Duffy has all of the bluff and bluster of literary detectives like John Rebus, but has a very different set of personal vulnerabilities that round his character out more fully. Looking forward to see where this series goes.

 Book Log 2020 #47: The Siberian Dilemma by Martin Cruz Smith

Russian police detective Arkady Renko is worried about his semi-official girlfriend, journalist Tatiana Petrovna, who does not get off the train that was supposed to bring her back from a month in Siberia, where she was investigating an oligarch with plans to run for president. There's enough danger in the story - crossing an oligarch has consequences - that Renko wants to go and find her.

Luckily (?) for him, an official reason crops up for him to make the trip. Renko's superior sends him to Siberia to check on the oligarch himself, a case motivated more by politics than the law. He also has to interrogate a Chechen prisoner, with an eye towards making sure the questioning leads to the prisoner's conviction. 

Renko handles these cases, and the search for Tatiana, with his usual mix of humor, fatalism, and skill at working the system. It's been interesting to see Renko adapt his experiences as a cop in the Soviet Union to the reality of Putin's Russia, which seems much more dangerous.

 Book Log 2020 #46: The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman

An English-language daily newspaper in Rome is facing the same existential crisis plaguing print journalism the world over. Dwindling subscriber base, lower ad revenue, and the constant threat of having to close up shop. This novel tells the stories of the people who work for and read the paper, and how their personal and professional choices may impact the future of the publication they're all trying to save.

Rachman has a journalism background, so the details feel realistic. The book is more written like a series of stories than as an integrated novel, not sure if that was to mimic the serial/newspaper style but it may not work for everyone. I liked it overall, though I can't say it made a great impression on me. 

 Book Log 2020 #45: Football for a Buck by Jeff Pearlman

This book looks back at the history of the USFL, the renegade spring football league that sought to challenge the NFL for top talent and fan dollars. Built off of hundreds of interviews with people formerly involved in the league, it gives an entertaining look into what was an often chaotic and amaetur operation. It's not quite as good as Terry Pluto's oral history of the American Basketball Association, Loose Balls, but it does fill in some of the missing stories from The $1 League, which tells the USFL story from more of an executive/ownership perspective.

It's worth reading if you're interested in football history, and may be easier to find than The $1 League, which is out of print.

 Book Log 2020 #44: The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel

Mandel's novels center around people who are, one way or another, lost. In this case, we have a brother and sister who drift northwards and find work at a luxury hotel in British Columbia. Their lives take dramatic and opposite turns after an incident at the hotel, where the sister meets and becomes the partner of a billionaire, while the brother goes off into a less secure direction.

Or does he? As the events of the book unfold we see their fortunes change often (in some cases literally), and in one case tragically. For all the ups and downs, though, I never feel like either sibling is ever actually "found." They just temporarily inhabit states of being more or less lost.

I know that sounds bleak, but this is a really well-crafted and engaging book, depicting just how tenuous our hold on our present life can be. I think the book also says something about resilience, just maybe not the typical lesson that good things come to those who can weather adversity.

 Book Log 2020 #43: The Human Division by John Scalzi

The fifth novel in the Old Man's War series is actually a collection of stories orginally published electronically. They chronicle the aftermath of The Last Colony, with Earth learing everything that the Colonial Union hasn't told them and mulling becoming part of the Convlave, the alliance of planets that has been fighting the CU.  The crisis threatens both Earth and the future of all the colonzied worlds that the CU started.

My only issue with this book is that I keep getting confused between the novel and the various stories. I'll see references to a Human Division "series," think that there are more books coming, and relearn that "series" refers to the stories in this book. At some point I'll actually remember that.

 Book Log 2020 #42: Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch

Peter Grant is a constable with the Metropolitan police in London whose prospects are looking like he'll spend more time in the office than in the field. All of this changes, however, when in the course of an investigation he winds up interviewing a ghost. Turns out Peter has some magical abilities that he was unaware of, which completely changes the arc of his career.

Peter gets assigned to Thomas Nightingale, who is both a police officer (deputy chief inspector) and the last sanctioned wizard in England. Nightingale investigates crimes and other incidents with a magical component, and for the first time in roughly 70 years has an assistant to train and assist with investigations.

On top of his policing duties, and learning how to use magic, Peter also gets involved with a running feud between the gods and goddesses of the waterways in and around London (which is why the original title of this book, which also gives the series its name, is Rivers of London).

I'm not normally into fantasy, but I really enjoyed this book.  The fantastical and criminal elements of the story balanced well, and there's a fair bit of humor to boot. Looking forward to reading on in the series.

 Book Log 2020 #41: The Hermit of Eyton Forest by Ellis Peters

A young student at the Shrewsbury abbey school inherits his father's estate and title, as he has died of wounds suffered in the ongoing civil war. While his lands will be held in trust by the local sherrif until he's of age, the boy's grandmother looks to pull him out of school and marry him to a neighbor's daughter in order to expand their holdings. 

In the middle of this, a hermit and his helper arrive, and the grandmother give them use of a hermitage on the estate. This kicks off a series of events - murder among them, of course - that ties everything together in the usual style of a Brother Cadfael mystery.

Enjoyable as usual, though I am beginning to think about how close I am to the end of the series.

 Book Log 2020 #40: The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell

I had a much harder time getting into this look at the Puritans and how their religious outlook and experiences in the New World shapes the present US than Assassination Vacation, which was a problem given that I didn't feel like I fully connected with that book, either.  On some level it may just be that I don't connect with Vowell's writing style.

But in this case, I think the wordy shipmates can take part of the blame, too. These early Americans wrote at length and with a density of prose that is often mind-numbing. It's not hard to see how that might make a modern review of these writings similarly affected.

I do find myself in a bit of a bind, in that there was a lot I liked about the book - I do think Vowell is funny, and I appreciate how her personal visits to colonial sites provide context and contrast - but I don't know if I can recommend it. The best I can say is maybe read Assassination Vacation or one of her essay collections first and see if you want to continue on to this and other books she's written.

 Book Log 2020 #39: Rocket Men by Robert Kurson

This book tells the forgotten story of Apollo 8, the first mission in that program to reach the moon. The decision to do so was unexpected for NASA, but as the end of the 1960s loomed fears rose that the US would not land a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Or worse, that the Soviets would get there first.

This is very engaging telling of how NASA and the mission astronauts - including well-known figures like Frank Borman and Fred Lovell - accellerated the timeline for this first mission to the moon, giving themselves only four months to prepare. 

As this was the first manned mission to the moon, it was also the first time a live crew could test the procedures that would be used by future crews to make the trip and land on the moon. The book does a great job of detailing the dangers involved without being too sensational.

For anyone who is following our (eventual) return to the moon, this is a great reminder of what it actually takes to get there.

 Book Log 2020 #38: Diary of a Dead Man on Leave by David Downing

In 1938, a man claiming to have just returned from Argentina settles into a German boarding house. Fifty years later, the son of the woman who ran the house finds the man's diary, which reveals that the man had never been to Argentina, but was a Soviet agent sent to Germany in an attempt to revive the Communist party that had been ruthlessly suppressed by the Nazis.

The book unfolds as the man tries to reconnect with the people he knew in the German railroad industry and gague if they are willing to rejoin the struggle or not. We also see the man grow closer to the boarding house owner and her son, providing a personal counterpoint to his secret mission.

I enjoyed Downing's series set in and around Berlin during World War II (each book named for a different train station), and liked this one as well. 

 Book Log 2020 #37: Under Occupation by Alan Furst

This newest entry in the Night Soldiers series sees a noveliist who drifts into the French resistance when a man dying from Gestapo gunshots gives him a blueprint that is apparently worth killing over. The novelist becomes increasingly involved in resistance activities, eventually traveling into Germany to find the people who can best explain the drawing he was given.

As much as I've liked the books in this series, it's time for Furst to shake up the formula a bit, as this book feels like it's covering ground we've already covered. Maybe move out of France (I don't think any of the books in the series are set in the Low Countries), or drop the romantic angle, which doesn't always work well. I'll read whatever comes next, and will hope to be surprised.

 Book Log 2020 #36: SS-GB by Len Deighton

I've read a lot of alternate histories, but somehow never got around to this one from the 1970s. In it, the Germans launch a successful invasion of Great Britain at the start of World War II, prior to the US entry into the war. While there is still a nominal government, the country is run by the Nazis.

The main character is a British police detective who, while working for the Metropolitan Police, answers to a German superior. He is assigned a murder case, but has questions when the condition of the body doesn't quite align with the available evidence. His investigation winds up involving higher ups in the German administration, the British resistance, and weapons research that could change the shape of the war - and the future.

I did like this book quite a bit, and found it to be one of the better entries in the alt-history genre of Germany winning World War II (though I think technically in this book the war may still be on). It's also another data point for my Swastika Theory, where the size of the swastika on the cover is inverse to the quality of the writing. The original cover (and several reprints) have no swastika at all, while it tends to be smaller on most of the covers that do have one.

 Book Log 2020 #33: An Elegant Defense by Matt Richtel

Was it a little on the nose to pick up a book about the human immune system in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic? Maybe.  But it's also understandable that one might want to learn more about this system at the very time it was being so thoroughly bested.

In any case, the book looks at the immune system, and the ways modern medicine is manipulating it to fight and cure disease, through the cases of four people with different illnesses. Richtel writes for the New York Times on a variety of topics, and that experience comes through in how well he's able to explain the complexities of human immunity and immune response so that they're understandable to the layperson.

While I did like the book, immunology is a field that's evolving quickly (probably even moreso with the pandemic), so I wonder how long the book will be accurate. 

 Book Log 2020 #35: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

This book, Alexie's first young adult novel, is semi-autobiographical (Alexie once said it was "78 percent true"), following a Native American teen living on a Spokane reservation who decides to leave the reservation school and attend the all white high school in the nearest town. 

The book examines the expected challenges - the difficult life on the reservation and the challenges that come up when interacting with the non-reservation world - and some that are less expected, such as the physical manifestations of being born with hydroencepaly.  There's a lot of humor in the book, which is needed to balance the difficult depictions of alcoholism and poverty.

I liked the book, but wonder how I would have felt about it if I'd read it as a young adult. I'd like to think I was aware of the challenges faced by Native Americans today, but I'm sure I would have been surprised by at least some of what's depicted. 

Not surprisingly, a book that frankly depicts issues like alcoholism, racism, etc. get challenged quite a bit by people who don't think it's appropriate for young adults. I will say I'd feel comfortable with both of my kids (a teen and a tween) reading this, as I don't think any of the content was included to be sensational or salacious. There's also the matter of multiple allegations of sexual harrassment against Alexie, which sparked a semi-apology and a backlash among literary groups. I learned about these allegations while reading the book, and decided to finish it, but haven't chosen to read anything else by him. You can decide if that makes me a tool of cancel culture or not.

 Book Log 2020 #34: The Things We Cannot Say by Kelly Rimmer

One of the problems with keeping up with the Book Log in the way I have over the last few years - significant negelct leading to posts written years after I actually read the book - is that I don't have the memory to point out specific positive or negative issues. I have general feelings about the books, and do my best to shape those into something worthwhile.

You probably noticed. Assuming anyone is actually still reading this.

In some cases, even the general feelings aren't that strong. Such is the case with this book. When this happens, I do more reading of reviews to spark memory, but it didn't really help. One review I read mentioned how the reviewer thought she'd already read this book based on the title and cover, which do have that generic historical novel feel. 

I may be having a similar experience, as the plot elements I thought were in this book haven't shown up in the synopses or reviews that I've read. It could just be that these elements don't get mentioned as they're not pertinent to an overall review. Or they could be from a different book that also has dual timelines set during World War 2 and the present day.

Anyway, a lot of people seemed to like this book. It's Goodreads rating is just over 4.5, and I gave it a 4, so it must have worked for me on some level. Much of the book is set in Poland (both during the war and in present day), which isn't a common setting for war-related novels, so I may have given it a bonus for that. If you read this, leave a comment and let me know what I missed.

 Book Log 2020 #32: The Second Sleep by Robert Harris

In the year 1468 a young priest arrives at an English village to preside over the funeral of his predecesor and take his place as the village cleric. As he settles into life in the village he suspects that there was more to the other priest's death than meets the eye, and develops similar thoughts about the other villagers and the village itself. 

This is a bit of a departure for Harris, most of whose works are set in the recent past (with the occasional dip into ancient Rome), but he doesn't suffer for it. He also does a great job of taking the reader on the same journey of discovery as the main character.

Recommended, as is pretty much everything else Harris has written.

 Book Log 2020 #31: American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson

An FBI intelligence officer finds herself at loose ends. She's stuck doing paperwork, never getting to join an actual intelligence operation. Being young, Black, and female all count against her with the old, white, and male FBI hierarchy.

Until she gets an offer from the CIA to join the team plotting to overthrow Thomas Sankara, the communist president of Burkina Faso. While she joins the team, she's conflicted in doing so. She's assumes she was asked to join the team based only on being a Black woman, and as someone sympathetic to Sankara's views she's not sure taking him out is the right thing to do. She's also trying to process the death of her sister, and the role her new CIA boss may have had in it.

The book is framed as a letter from the main character to her sons, explaining why their lives have taken particular turns. Doing so requires detours into the 1960s and the 1980s, which help to flesh out the relationship between the main character and her sister and fully detail the plot against Sankara.

There was an actual coup against Sankara, and a Burkinabe court recently found several people guilty of his assassination. As far as I can tell the trial didn't bring up CIA involvement, but given that organization's history of deposing leaders it didn't like, their involvement would not be surprising.

Whether or not the CIA did play a role in the coup, this book paints a realistic, energetic, and highly engaging picture of how they could have. But the strength of the book is in the  main character's personal relationships and actions, which make the story more relatable and memorable.

 Book Log 2020 #30: The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

Rachel Watson commutes to London every day, and in the morning her train slows down right at the point where she can spend a minute looking at her former home, now occupied by her ex-husband and his new wife. She also gets to see a couple who live a few doors down, who are usually eating breakfast on their deck. Rachel creates a bit of a back story for them, names them, and enjoys her daily ritual.

Until the day she sees something while passing that changes everything (as the dust jacket would say). Rachel wants to intervene, but she's hampered by being an alcoholic, to the point that she regularly calls her ex while drunk and then has no memory of doing so. Turns out she may do more than just drunk dial, and she rapidly gets entangled in a missing persons case involving her ex, his wife, and the other couple.

This book was quite a phenomenon, which makes some sense given the plot twists and Rachel's role as a highly unreliable narrator (two other characters also narrate, to certain degrees of reliability). I do agree with some of the reivews that found Rachel's actions to be excessively illogical, but having never been in her mental state it's hard for me to say how legitimate that criticism is. If nothing else it's a reasonably well written mass market psychological thriller that will provide enough distraction to keep you from snooping on people during your commute.

 Book Log 2020 #29: Redwall by Brian Jacques

This is the first in a series of books about the animals of Mossflower Wood, and specifically in this case the mice of Redwall Abbey. One of their novices, Matthias, dreams of adventure and matching the exploits of the legendary Martin the Warrior. And as luck would have it, he gets a chance to live out his dreams when a pack of rats, led by the one-eyed Cluny the Scourge, arrive to attack the abbey.

There is a distinct Lord of the Rings meets Watership Down meets The Wind in the Willows vibe, but the book doesn't suffer by any comparisons. It's an enjoyable tale set in a fully developed world. I was drawn in almost immediately, and fantasy is not a genre I tend towards. The series is aimed at young adults, but is compelling enough to keep adults interested.

One decision you should make before starting this is whether or not you want to read the series in publication order or timeline order. Redwall is actually the ninth(!) book in timeline order. As someone who likes to read series from start to finish, I'm having a hard time deciding how to attack the rest of the books (as evidenced by not having read another book in the series as of the time of this writing). 

 Book Log 2020 #28: Pietr the Latvian by Georges Simenon

This is the first novel featuring Inspector Maigret, a police detective in pre-WW2 Paris, in which he is tasked with bringing in the titular Latvian, a master criminal who is currently on a train due to arrive at the Gare du Nord. Maigret heads to the station with a squad of police in tow. Once there he thinks he sees his man... only to learn that there's been a murder on the train, and the victim also appears to be his man.  It later turns out that there are at least two other people connected to the two potential Pietrs who also fit the description. Maigret has his hands full trying to figure out which one of these men - if any - is the actual Pietr.

This should be the set up for an interesting case, but I found the book pretty dull. Maigret's method of detection is apparently to play a hunch and then futz around with his pipe while waiting to see if the hunch pays off.  Part of me thinks that can't be all there is to him - there are 75 Maigret novels, published in a number of languages and adapted for the big and small screens - but based on this outing I don't feel compelled to find out.

 Book Log 2020 #27: The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s: An Oral History by Andy Greene

(I usually skip subtitles, but felt compelled to include it here for the rare subsubtitle.)

I thought it might be too soon to have an oral history of the US version of The Office, but then I realized that two of the more popular television oral histories of recent years - Live From New York about Saturday Night Live and These Guys Have All the Fun about ESPN - were written while both subjects were ongoing.

So maybe it's the amount of time being covered? Both SNLand ESPN had been around for decades when their histories were written, while The Office ran for seven seasons.

Whatever the reason for my trepidation, I was able to shake it off and enjoy this book. There is something to be said about compiling an oral history while everyone you want to talk to is still around to be talked to. I wouldn't say there were any real suprises in the book, but there's plenty of added detail for fans.

 Book Log 2020 #26: The Body by Bill Bryson

Similar to his approach in At Home, Bryson takes a tour around the human body, talking about various parts and systems and how they work, their histories, how things can go wrong, and so forth. And I had a similar reaction to this book as I did to that one: it's fine, has a lot of interesting bits, but isn't as funny as his earlier works. 

It could be that this style of non-fiction is less ripe for humor than books about his travels or his childhood. But I did enjoy One Summer: America, 1927, and found it funnier that either At Home or this book. 

One explanation for this, I think, is that Bryson was just losing interest in writing. He announced in 2020 that he was retiring from writing books, saying that he was enjoying reading for pleasure and not doing much else. How much of this came from being stuck at home due to the pandemic and how much came from his experiences writing these last couple of books I can't say, but I can see having time at home to reflect and do things for oneself might lead to a retirement.

I can't say I'd really recommend this book, but where it could be his last one maybe it's worth checking out.

 Book Log 2020 #25: 32 Yolks by Eric Ripert

Another chef memoir, this time by Eric Ripert, a multiple Michelin star-winning chef who may be best known to Americans for his appearances with Anthony Bourdain on shows like No Reservations. He's a pretty affable guy on screen, and gives off the same vibe on the page.

Though it would have been easy for him to cultivate some sort of edge or dark side based on his childhood. Like Kwame Onwuachi, Ripert found success through adversity as a child, though the issue here was a divorce, a less than supportive stepfather, and (spoiler alert) the unexpected death of his father.

Ripert found comfort in food, both in the home and in a local restaurant, where the chef would let him hang out and introduce him to new foods and what it's like to be a professional chef. Ripert worked through the drudgery of culinary school and survived the pressures and abuse of being a new line cook in Paris to become the celebrity chef he is today.

I liked the book, and found Ripert's story interesting, especially the parts that gave greater insight as to the culinary world in Europe (and France in particular). I do think it suffered a little bit from reading it so close to Kwame's book, though it could also be that being familiar with Ripert I was less invested in his personal struggles.

That being said I did enjoy the book, and think it would be a good read for anyone interested in chefs or the culinary world.

 Book Log 2020 #24: A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

The new ambassador from a small, independent mining station to the Teixcalaanli empire has a lot on her plate. She has to figure out how the previous ambassador died (no one will say it, but it seems like he was murdered), avoid being killed herself, navigate a looming succession crisis (the current emperor is quite old, while his likely successor is a child), and prevent the empire from taking over her station. She has to do all of this while protecting a state secret and trying to get used to living in a technologically advanced society where language and status are prized.

That all of this can be done in a book that's so entertaining is quite a feat. It also explains why this won the best novel Hugo in 2020. Martine's academic work focuses on the Byzantine Empire, which is put to good use here. If you are at all interested in science fiction you should read this book.

 Book Log 2020 #23: Notes from a Young Black Chef by Kwame Onwuachi

Like a lot of people, I first became familiar with Kwame through his appearance on Top Chef, where he finished sixth. He was probably my favorite chef from that season, and looked forward to reading about how he developed his interest in cooking, both generally and for the food from Nigeria.

Turns out both stem from a difficult childhood, which saw him sent to live in Nigeria for two years to "learn respect." That maybe didn't take as well as hoped - Kwame would continue to get into trouble - but it did set his culinary roots. Moving to Louisiana after getting expelled from college reconnected him with his interest in cooking as a career, which led to enrolling at the Culinary Institute of America, and everything that followed.

I do like that Kwame doesn't try to make excuses, or at least not transparent ones, about the choices he made. I also don't know if he would make different ones if given a second chance. As tough as it was to struggle and grind, it's quite possible he'd not be as successful as a chef if he'd taken an easier path. I did find this to be one of the more interesting chef memoirs I've read.

 Book Log 2020 #21: The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

In the last days of the Vietnam War, our narrator gets on a flight to the US with one of his friends and a South Vietnamese general. The group settle in southern California, where the general eventually opens a liquor store while continuing to plot a return to Vietnam to overthrow the communist government.

Little does he know, though, that the narrator is actually a mole for the communists. He continues to keep his handler apprised of the goings on with the general and their plans to foment rebellion, while working to maintain his cover.

I found this book fascinating. I know very little about how high-ranking Vietnamese refugees eventually settled in the US, and found the wishful thinking of returning in triumph (fueled by despair) an echo of the Cuban refugees who participated in the Bay of Pigs. I also found the narrator's constant balance of his roles engaging, as he not only had to deal with his professional cover, but by also being a mixed race person in the US (which sets him apart not only from white America but his fully Vietnamese friends). He's not an unreliable narrator, but you can see how his decision-making gets compromised by his dual life.

Nguyen won the Pulitzer Prize in 2016 for this novel, his first. Very much recommended.

 Book Log 2020 #20: Agent Running in the Field by John Le Carre

A veteran intelligence agent who has been more or less put out to pasture (a spiritual cousin of Slow Horses' Jackson Lamb) finds himself playing weekly badminton games with a younger opponent, whose post-match topic of conversation often lands upon Brexit, Trump, and his loathing of both. Our veteran agent mostly agrees with him, but mostly provides a sympathetic ear.

But then it turns out that the opponent may also be involved in giving secrets to the Russians, and the veteran agent suddenly finds himself both working to discover more about this betrayal while also proving to the higher ups that he's not involved. 

This was billed as le Carre's Brexit novel, and it's clear that le Carre was no fan. But he also used Brexit (and his distaste for politicians like Trump and Boris Johnson) to great effect. That in itself is no small feat, given that le Carre is 88 years old and could very easily have stuck to churning out novels that don't reflect, never mind address, current events.

It's not a perfect novel - there's some criticism over secondary characters and the ending - but it's still very much worth reading.

 Book Log 2020 #19: The Beat Goes On by Ian Rankin

This is a "complete" collection of short stories featuring Edinburgh DI John Rebus, with 30 tales spanning his early days with the police to his retirement. There appear to be some stories missing, at least if the list of short stories I've seen is correct, but don't let an interest in completeness deter you from reading these. Some are related to novels, most are stand-alone, and all contribute to a fuller picture of Rebus, his life, and his career. 

 Book Log 2020 #18: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Unknown to most people, Barcelona is the home to the Cemetary of Forgotten Books, a labyrinthine (and possibly magical?) library of obscure and abandoned books. A ten year-old Daniel Sempere is taken there by his father, and allowed to take out one book. He chooses The Shadow of the Wind by Julian Carax, and falls in love with the book after reading it.

Daniel looks for more works by Carax, but finds none. In fact, he learns that his copy of the book may be the only one left, as someone has been buying up copies and burning them. Daniel decides to learn more about Carax and why someone would want to destroy his work. This takes us back to 1919, where a story within the story tells us about Carax and how his life led to someone looking to erase his work forever.

This is the first book in a series, and if the rest of the books live up to this one it'll be well worth reading them all. It's not an easy book to define, as it's at points a mystery, a work of magical realism, and a Gothic novel. But it all works together, creating a higly engaging and atmospheric story. 

 Book Log 2020 #17: Warlight by Michael Ondaatje

When their parents have to go to Singapore for unexplained reasons at the end of World War II, a brother and sister wind up in the care of the family's lodger, who introduces the pair to his eccentric band of friends (and coworkers? fellow smugglers? criminals of some type?), all of whom seemed to have some ill-defined role in the war effort. The siblings are given a sort of practical education and helped to find work. The brother becomes convinced that their mother is still in Britain - perhaps even in London - and after more than a year of absence he sees her again, briefly, before being sent off to boarding school in the US.

Jump ahead a dozen years, and the brother is working for the Foreign Office in an intelligence capacity, and he uses that position to try to learn more about the work his mother (and the people who take care of him when she left) did during the war.

I enjoyed this book quite a bit, both as a mystery about what all of the adults were doing during the war and as an examination of how the past can shape your present. Very much recommended.

 Book Log 2020 #16: Black Diamond by Martin Walker

A wave of anti-Asian crime hits the French village of St. Denis, from an attack on Vietnamese shop vendors to the burning of a local restaurant. While this is going on, a local truffle expert (and former intelligence agent) is murdered. Does the influx of cheap Chinese truffles connect the crimes, or is it just a coincidence?

Once again, local police chief Bruno wades into the mysteries to find the guilty, dispense some local justice where appropriate, and, most importantly, keep the village running as close to normal as possible. We also get a healthy dose of Bruno's personal life as well, between a return of his former girlfriend (who is climbing the ranks of the national police) and interest in someone closer to home.

As with the previous entries in the series, this is a good mystery wrapped in a travelogue that make me wonder why I haven't moved to the Dordogne yet.

 Book Log 2020 #15: Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi

This isn't a completely new entry in the Old Man's War series, but a retelling of the previous entry, The Last Colony, from the viewpoint of Zoe Perry, the adopted daughter of John Perry and Jane Sagan. It does fill in a lot of gaps, and helps to explain Zoe's role in the events of that book. The book also marks the series transition away from the main characters and towards a broader story about the warring factions trying to claim parts (or all) of the universe.

I liked the book, and appreciate the transition to a different focus for the storytelling. If you like this series you should like this installment.

 Book Log 2020 #14: The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan

The main thesis of this book is that the east-west exchange fostered by the Silk Road - the trading routes between Asia and Europe - played a much larger role in the development of Western civilization than normally credited, and should be thought of on par with the influence of Greece and Rome. Or to riff off of another book about global interconnectedness, the world was flat well before Thomas Friedman came along.

I gave this book three stars on Goodreads, so there was something I found a little off about this book, but I don't know what it was. The book comes in at over 600 pages, so maybe I found it a bit repetitive? Or maybe I just wasn't a fan of Frankopan's writing style. Or I found the idea that Europeans were influenced by Persia and peoples farther east to not be that surprising. Don't know. It's probably worth a read (a 2018 update adds coverage of China's Belt and Road initiative).

 Book Log 2020 #13: His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet

I apparently had a thing going for fiction presenting as fact in 2020. In this example, we are presented with "found" documents relating to a 1869 triple murder in a Scottish village. There's no question that the killer is local teen Roderick Macrae. The real question is why he did it - did Roderick kill to take revenge against the constable that made his life a living hell, or did he have some sort of mental or moral defect that led him down the path to murder?

The documents provide various views of the motives for the crime, most notably the narrative penned by Roderick himself.  They also tell the story in a unique way, once that provides plenty of room for different interpretations of motive, as well as room for doubt as to the veracity of the narrators. It's also notable that the time the novel is set in is not that long after the development of the M'Naghten rule, a jury instruction developed in cases where an insantiy defense is given. This tension between crime as a moral failing or a sympton of illness adds to the conflict at the heart of the book.

This was short listed for the Booker Prize (it lost to Paul Beatty's The Sellout), and is apparently the best-selling book to be shortlisted (though I wonder if it was passed by The Testaments). It's easy to see why it became so popular, between the gripping murder story and the thorough depiction of grinding poverty in rural Scotland. Very much worth reading for fans of crime fiction or even true crime.

 Book Log 2020 #12: The Last Colony by John Scalzi

The third book in the Old Man's War series, we find former solider John Perry and his family settled down, at least until they're given an offer to lead a new colony, made up of residents from other previously colonized planets.

Only problem is that the Conclave, an alliance of races seeking to limit human expansion into the universe, discovered the location of the planned colony, forcing the Colonial Union to send the homesteaders to a new planet. Which they have to settle as damage to their ships prevents them from going home. And which they have to settle without the use of current technology, so the Conclave won't find them. 

And eventually, as you'd expect, the Concalve does find the colony, and it becomes embroiled in the politics between the Concclave and the CU, leading to an inspired - but possibly treasonous - solution.

As with most series, if you've liked previous books you'll like this one.

 Book Log 2020 #10: Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay

On Valentine's Day 1900, the students and some of the staff at an Australian girls' school go on the titual outing, which ends in tragendy. Several girls and one of the teachers have gone missing.  The search for the missing takes place on a backdrop of suspicion and mistrust, which as you might imagine wind up taking a toll on the school and those associated with it.

The book is written as if the events may actually be true, and most of the locations in the book actually exist. This, combined with the disappearances going unsolved, led to a bit of a national phenomenon with speculation over what happened to the missing women. This was answered by the eventual publication of the book's excised last chapter in 1987, which detailed what actually happened. That it was followed shortly by another book where other writers depicted their own alternate endings gives you a sense of how attached people in Australia were to this story.

I did not develop the same sort of attachment. The book is fine, I just never got that swept into the mystery. I also found the Victorian era manners and attitudes a bit irritating, but I suppose people of the age did as well.

 Book Log 2020 #9: The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

This sequel to The Handmaid's Tale is set 15 years after the original book, and tells of the beginnings - and end - of that theocratic state through the stories of three women. Two are younger and have little to no functional knowledge of a time before Gilead. The third, Aunt Lydia, tells of the beginnings of the state and how she earned her role within it. Their stories interact with each other - and with the history of the first book - leading to a world-changing conclusion.

I did re-read the first book before the sequel, and I think it's a worthwhile move if you haven't read it in a while. The original book felt a lot more personal to me - which I guess makes sense as it's one woman's personal story rather than the wider-ranging narrative of the sequel - but both are told powerfully and are very much worth reading, even if you've been watching the TV show.

 Book Log 2020 #8: Broken Harbor by Tana French

Once again a member of the Dublin Murder Squad has to balance an active murder investigation with events from their past. Here it's "Scorcher" Kennedy, who is investigating the deaths of a man and his two children, while their wife/mother is in intensive care. It appears to be a case of the man snapping under financial strain - the family lives in a development that's half-finished, a casualty of the Great Recession - but as Kennedy and his rookie partner look into the case, they find that it's not so open and shut.

The past comes in the form of Kennedy's sister Dina, who is prompted by the new case to dredge up an incident from their past that Kennedy believed he had under wraps. 

If this feels familiar it's because most (if not all) of the books in the Dublin Murder Squad series have this sort of set-up, where the main character is investigating a case that dredges up part of their past and brings it into the present. In lesser hands this would get formulaic, but French brings enough difference (both in terms of the narrative and the main character's persona) that the recurring framework doesn't feel old.

I think I've pretty enthusiastically recommended the books in this series in the past, and do so again here.

Book Log 2020 #7: The Stone Sky by N. K. Jemisin

This fitting climax to the Broken Earth trilogy sees the mother and daughter orogenes (humans who can control earth processes like quakes) square off in their plans to save or destroy Earth.  I won't go into details (mostly because I'm writing this up a good 2+ years after reading the book), but will say that this book was incredibly satisfying both on a storytelling level and on wrapping up lingering questions about the world of the Stillness. 

If for some reason you've not read these books you should do so at your earliest convenience.

 Book Log 2020 #6: The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal

Humans have established a foothold on the moon, and are now looking to make the jump to Mars. The first mission is being planned, but the powers that be have left women off of the crew, not wanting to put them in harm's way during such a dangerous mission.

This leaves the popular "Lady Astronaut" Elma York at her current job, flying between the Earth and the moon. She wants to go to Mars, but isn't sure how to get herself - never mind women in general - included. She's also not sure if she should go in the place of other astronauts, who like her have been passed up for not being a white male. On a more personal note, she's also trying to balance advancing her career against starting a family, as she'll definitely be grounded once she's pregnant.

It's interesting to see all of these challenges play out over the planning and eventual execution of the mission, though at times the issues feel more contemporary than those prevalent in the 1960s (though the international make-up of the astronaut corps and the looming planetary disaster would give some explanation for that).

I did like this book, and appreciated how it furthered the story and characters without being too obviously working to set up the third book. 

 Book Log 2020 #5: The Rose Rent by Ellis Peters

A local widow has given her home to the Abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, but on the condition of an annual rent payable to her of a single white rose from the house's garden. Which isn't normally a problem except for the year 1142, when the man renting the house returns from a job to find the rose bush hacked away at its base, and a young brother from the abbey (who had been asked to be released from his vows due to his feelings for the widow) dead beside it.

Just as Cadfael and the sheriff start their investigation, the widow who owns the house suddenly disappears. Both events appear related, and engineered to void the charter that rented the house to the abbey. Cadfael follows the clues and the consideration of who would stand to benefit from these events, with the expected results.

I generally liked this entry in the series, but it does have what may be the cheesiest ending of them all. Almost cheesy enough to put me off of the book. Be forewarned.

 Book Log 2020 #4 Even the Dead by Benjamin Black

Pathologist/amateur detective Quirke is back on the case, or cases, as he gets pulled into investigating the suspicious death of a young man (whose death is made to look like an accident or suicide) and the disappearance of a pregnant woman who is a friend of sorts of Quirke's daughter, Phoebe.  Quirke pairs up with police inspector Hackett to look into these cases, which appear to involve some old foes from the Catholic church. The involvement of the church also provides a personal connection for Quirke, whose time in an orphanage - and the treatment he received there from the priests running it - has led to medical issues as he moves further into middle age.

I like this series best when it delves into the power structure that ran Ireland in the mid-20th century, as I don't think the average reader would really understand how ingrained the Church was in the running of the country at that time. Those power structures also provide a more engaging - and often enraging - foe for Quirke. 

 Lentorama 2020: Forty Days of Food

Day 15: fanesca

I wrote about fanesca last year when talking about Easter traditions in Ecuador, it's a grain-based soup that's so popular during Lent that there are competitions between restaurants to see who makes the best version.

For this post I was going to write about this year's competition, except that there wasn't one. Covid-19 forced the closure of pretty much all of the restaurants. What this did lead to is a growth in people making the soup at home (note: the page is in Spanish). This also had some challenges, as people were restricted as to when they could go to the market, and the markets had to implement their own procedures to keep shoppers safe. The pandemic also made it hard to get some ingredients due to disruptions in the supply chain, but the prices of the ingredients were often lower than usual because the restaurants weren't buying them. Such are the connections between food, public health, and religion.

 Lentorama 2020: Forty Days of Food

Day 14: pinca

Pinca is a bread made in parts of Italy, Slovenia, and Croatia (Istria and Dalmatia primarily). It's made with an enriched dough, and using eggs and sugar means it's not repentant enough to be eaten until the end of Lent. 

It's kind of like a cross between a large hot cross bun and soda bread, with the dough being more like a hot cross bun and the preparation more like soda bread (loaf-sized and with a cross cut through the top). 

This page gives a short history of the bread and links to several recipes. It looks like the Easter bread is commonly flavored with citrus, and might have some alcohol added in for extra flavor.  You don't get the dried fruit, icing, or nuts that you can get with hot cross buns, but a version made for Christmas is likely to have raisins (or more properly sultanas, based on the recipes in the link). 

There are a number of regional names for the bread, one of which, pogača, is also the last name of the winning cyclist from the 2020 Tour de France (note: this was written after the race; if I actually knew about this in March I would have hit the betting shops hard). I imagine he got some grief from the other kids about this growing up.

 Lentorama 2020: 40 Days of Food

Day 13: colomba di Pasqua

There are a lot of breads specific to Easter, don't know why but I'm guessing it's something to do with making something that's risen. In any case, colomba di Pasqua is an Italian bread made at Easter, a springtime cousin to panettone or pandoro.

The reciepie for colomba di Pasqua is actually pretty similar to panettone, as far as the dough goes. The Easter bread uses candied peel rather than raisins, and it's topped with almonds and pearl sugar. It's also shaped into a dove (the name translates into English as Easter dove), rather than panettone's tall shape. 

This article from Eataly goes a little deeper into the history of the bread, and notes that it's something that's more often store bought than attempted at home. It mentions that the dough takes 30 hours to rise, which would certainly send me to the bakery for a loaf.  

 Lentorama 2020: 40 Days of Food

Day 12: sárgatúró 

Sárgatúró is a Hunarian dish whose name literally translates to "yellow curd cheese," though I think it's open to debate how much like cheese it really is.

To make it, you combine eggs, milk, and sugar, and boil until it starts to clump and resemble a curd cheese. You then add vanilla, and any other items you may want in it (other spices, raisins, etc.). You then put the solids into a cheesecloth and force out as much liquid as you can. After that, you hang it so the mass comes together, and to get more liquid to seep out.

Once it's in one solid piece, you can slice it and eat it with ham, bread, or whatever part of the Easter meal you'd like. Most of the web pages about sárgatúró are in Hungarian, but this page in English talks a little bit about it, has a recipie, and a good picture of the finished product. And by good I mean the quality of the photo; the actual appearance of the dish looks, to me, like a loaf of scrambled eggs.

 Lentorama 2020: 40 Days of Food

Day 11: hot cross buns

Hot cross buns have a long been traditional at Easter, when buns were made without dairy throughout Lent.  It's not clear when they were first made, at least in some form that we would recognize. There's some record of buns being made going back to the 6th century in Greece, while the English have an origin story that goes back to the 14th century at an abbey in St. Albans. 

Regardless of where they were first made, the buns do share a distinctive cross pattern, that could be put into the buns using shortcrust pastry, a paste made of flour and water, or just cutting the cross into the dough. All of these methods seem to have to have taken a back seat to sugar icing, which is a bit more acceptable if you have your buns at the end of Lent rather than during.

While early buns don't appear to have been flavored, over time various spices were introduced, with the idea that they represented the compounds used to prepare Jesus for entombing. This has also changed in more recent times, either with the addition of dried fruit or various flavors (like sticky toffee, apple cinnamon, chocolate, and so on). 

I have to admit that I'm pretty ambivalent about hot cross buns, and find the iced ones too sweet.

 Lentorama 2020: 40 Days of Food

Day 10: aquavit

Aquavit is a Scandinavian spirit brewed from grains or potato, like gin or vodka, but is flavored with various herbs and spices, with caraway typically the dominant flavor (this Eater article gives a good overview on aquavit and suggests a number of brands to try). I never associated it specifically with Easter, but it's apparently very traditional in countries like Norway and Denmark to have a glass with your Easter meal. It's just that it's also traditional to have it with your Christmas meal as well. Or any meal, really.

One thing I did know about aquavit is that there's a type called line aquavit, which is made by putting casks of the stuff on a ship and then sending it to Australia and back (the line in the name refers to the Equator). The conditions on the ship provide a specific character to the aquavit, which is not present in varieties aged on land only. There's been some attempt to recreate this process on land with machinery to mimic changes in humidity, the ship's motion, etc., but without success.

 Book Log 2020 #1: Clyde Fans by Seth

Before getting into Clyde Fans, I should note that I started 2020 by re-reading Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle and Cryptonomicon (which I had previously re-read in 2013), and I actually did read them chronologically this time around (which just means reading the cycle books in order and Cryptonomicon last), and I do think I was better at connecting people and references between the four books. I don't know that I liked any of the books any better this time around, but the rise of cryptocurrency did lend something to the Cryptonomicon re-read.

So my first new book of the year was Clyde Fans, a graphic novel about a pair of brothers who inherit the family's fan business after their father abandons them. Abe is the more natural businessman, and winds up more or less running the business on his own when Simon, after a failed business trip, becomes a recluse. The family's highly dysfunctional dynamic - between Abe's belittlement of Simon and Simon's co-dependent relationship with their mother - adds emotional weight to the eventual failure of the business.

I don't read a lot of graphic novels, but the format definitely enhanced the story, between the striking graphics and the moody (and often depressing) blue and grey colors of the art. I also found it interesting that Seth based the novel on an actual business (or the remains of one) in Toronto, where he saw a picture of two men, made an assumption that they were brothers, and developed the story from there over the course of several years. It's a sad and occasionally difficult story, but was worth the read.