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.

Lentorama 2020: 40 Days of Food

Day 9: simnel cake

The English love their fruitcake. The traditional Christmas pudding is a fruitcake, as is the traditional wedding cake. The simnel cake is Easter's fruitcake. Though it wasn't always for Easter.

The simnel cake was originally made for Laetare Sunday, or Refreshment Sunday. The fourth Sunday in Lent, on this day the fast and other restrictions of the period are relaxed. Priests can wear rose colored vestments, flowers can appear on the altar, and the people could enjoy foods that they'd otherwise avoid.

Over time, the British holiday Mothering Sunday would also be held on the fourth Sunday in Lent, and the simnel cake became associated with that day as well.

The cake itself is a light fruitcake (I assume the lightness is relative to other fruitcakes), two layered with marzipan between the layers and on the top. The cake is decorated with 11 or 12 balls of marzipan (often shaped like eggs), representing either the apostles alone or Jesus and the apostles, in both cases without Judas. The cake is baked, and will spend some time under a broiler or grill to brown the marzipan.

But why is it called a simnel cake? No one really knows. There's a theory that the word has something to do with the fine, white flour made to make the cake. It does not appear to be related to the pretender to the throne Lambert Simnel, as the word first appeared a couple of centuries before his birth. This page from Anglican Way magazine gives various theories, and if the Anglicans can't sort this out no one can.

Lentorama 2020: 40 Days of Food

Day 8: hollow chocolate Easter bunny

While it didn't quite stack up to Christmas morning - then as now the gold standard for childhood nervous energy - Easter morning had its own excitement, not the least of which was the Easter basket. Full of sweet treats and the occasional present, the crowing glory of most baskets was a chocolate rabbit. You'd unwrap it from its shiny foil, take a big bite... and it would be hollow. Why would chocolate makers play such a cruel trick?

Simple. Hollow bunnies are easier to eat than solid ones.

As noted in this article, there is a point where chocolate can be too thick to eat easily, especially for kids. Hollow bunnies are easier to bite through and break apart as needed, which is a much more positive experience. The manufacturer also benefits from being able to make larger bunnies with less chocolate, which entices the eater. Even if it winds up being a lie.

Lentorama 2020: 40 Days of Food

Day 7: figolli

Malta has a few baked goods associated with Lent and Easter, but figolli are the most festive. With roots apparently going back to pagan times, modern figolli are filled with marzipan, iced in festive colors, and often given holiday-appropriate shapes (fish, lambs, etc.). They are topped with half a chocolate egg, still wearing its foil wrapper.

It's common for kids to bring figolli to church to be blessed, and they're also often given as gifts.

Here's one of several recipes for figolli that are out there, which I include as it has links to two other Maltese Easter foods, a Lenten cake and a fish soup.

Lentorama 2020: 40 Days of Food

Day 6: zurek

Unlike yesterday's entry, which in its early days was considered a "dry soup" to start a meal, today's entry is an actual soup from Poland. While it's possible to find it year round now, it is most associated with Lent and Easter.

Unlike soups that use a meat or vegetable stock as its base, zurek uses a liquid made by soaking rye bread in water, creating a started called zakwas (check here if you want to take a shot at making it yourself). Traditionally the soup includes sausage, herbs, and hard boiled eggs, though that can vary depending on when you serve it (no meat on Fridays during Lent, of course).

According to this list of Polish Easter foods, zurek is often consumed with herring, another common Lenten food in Poland. There's also a tradition of having a funeral for zurek after Easter is over, either by burying a pot of it or dumping it on the ground. This reminded me a little bit of the fish funeral in Ireland, as people are sick enough of eating something to want it gone and buried.

Lentorama 2020: 40 Days of Food

Day 5: capirotada

Capirotada is a bread pudding commonly served in Mexico during Lent and on Easter, though it appears to have roots going back to Moorish Spain, where it was served as a savory dish before the meal, rather than as a dessert as most of us would expect from a bread pudding. The main spices in the dish - cinnamon and cloves - were also found in savory dishes cooked in the region at the time. Even today, when the dish is mostly served as a dessert, there are versions that include ingredients like tomato, onion, and (when permitted) meat.

Unlike standard bread pudding, capirotada uses a sugar syrup to hydrate the bread, rather than milk and eggs. The cinnamon and cloves are used to flavor the syrup, which also darkens it. This lends to a Christian interpretation of the dish where the bread represents Jesus, the syrup his blood, cinnamon the wood of the cross, and cloves the nails used in the crucifixion.

Fruit (often dried, though fresh pineapple or banana is also used) and nuts can also be added, while some versions also include a cheese (not sure if this is the Mexican Easter cheese I've seen referenced in a few places or something more like queso fresco).

This article (which I've liberally ripped off for this entry) includes a recipe, not sure how authentic it is. This one may be better, as the writer has personal experience with the dish.  Or you could go with Rick Bayless. Really, there are a ton of recipes online if you want to give it a go yourself.

Lentorama 2020: 40 Days of Food

Day 4: Cadbury Creme Egg

The history of this confection - a milk chocolate egg containing a white and yellow fondant yolk - goes back to the 19th century, when John Cadbury and Joseph Fry had competing chocolate companies in the UK.  The companies pushed each other to create new treats, with Cadbury putting out the first filled egg in 1875 (though it was filled with other candies rather than a candy yolk).

The two companies merged in 1921, and in 1923 started to produce creme-filled eggs, though eggs like those you get today weren't made until the 1960s. Since then the eggs have become an Easter staple in the UK and other parts of the English-speaking world (and beyond). Adding to their appeal is their seasonal availability, although there have been versions made for other holidays (like a "scream" egg for Halloween).

Cadbury's purchase by Kraft in 2010, and its spinning off of its confection businesses as Mondelez International in 2014 led to changes that were not always welcome. There was an attempt to make the chocolate shell using powdered cocoa, which saw a drop in sales. Mondelez also moved production out of established factories in places like Ireland and New Zealand in favor of places like China and Brazil, where costs are lower. Not sure if that changed the product, but there was outcry over moving the production of such a traditional product to non-traditional locations.

Personally, I don't care for these eggs. Too sickly sweet for me. My wife loves them, and I'm happy to leave them to her.

Lentorama 2020: 40 Days of Food

Day 3: Peeps

Much like candy corn at Halloween, there is little to no middle ground when you ask people about whether or not they like this iconic Easter candy.

(Though I have to admit, I may be in that middle. I don't hate Peeps the way that I hate candy corn, but I don't exactly look for opportunities to eat Peeps either.)

Peeps are a marshmallow candy shaped, originally at least, as chicks (with their name coming from the distinctive sound made by chicks). They've been made by the Just Born company since the mid-1950s, when they bought the company that originally produced them. The folks at Just Born figured out a way to make what was a hand-formed candy into something that could be mass produced, and they quickly became ubiquitous at Easter.

The chick was joined by a rabbit in the 1960s, and new shapes, colors, and flavors would be added over the years. The company would later create Peeps merchandise (with products from lip balm to nail polish to plush toys and pillows), and even open some Peeps-branded retail outlets.

But going back to the original Peep, why is it so divisive? Part of it is the flavor; the marshmallow taste isn't that strong, and I find the coloring adds a bitter note (or at least I did the last time I had one). There's also a texture question, as Peeps can go stale quickly, though there's a notable segment of Peep eaters who specifically want them to be a little stale so there's a little firmness and crunch. But they're cheap and handy to fill out an Easter basket, so I don't think Peeps will be going away any time soon.

Lentorama 2020: 40 Days of Food

Day 2: lamb

Unlike the relatively recent adoption of ham as an Easter food, eating lamb was adapted from tradition that pre-dates Christianity. The use of sacrificial lamb's blood to mark doorways on the original Passover led to lamb becoming part of the seder (though there is some disagreement as to whether or not lamb should be eaten at Passover).

As Christianity grew and the lamb became a symbol for Jesus, it's not surprising that lamb would continue to be a part of the meal celebrating Easter.  At some point in the middle ages the pope included lamb as part of his Easter meal, which cemented its place on tables worldwide. That practice continues today, though animal rights groups have asked Pope Francis to end it.

It's the ashiest of Wednesdays today, meaning it's time to kick off Lentorama 2020:  40 Days of Food

The theme this year is food that one might eat during Lent, inspired by the number of food-related traditions that came up last year. Expect to see some (or all) of those foods again this year. But to start, a food that's not specific to Easter but is an Easter favorite.

Day 1: ham

Ham is kind of a strange choice of meat to celebrate the resurrection of the world's most famous Jewish person, but it came about from practicality.  Early Christians living in more temperate climates would most often have lamb at the center of their Easter feast (more on that in a later post). Once the religion moved into more temperate climates, where spring wasn't always in full bloom at Easter, lamb was not always available.

What was available was ham, which had been curing during the fall and winter. There's some evidence that ham was enjoyed at Easter as far back as the 6th century (and may have already been the entree at pre-Christian spring feasts).

I ran across one page claiming that ham is an Easter meat due to a pig killing the Mesopotamian god Tammuz (or Dmuzid). The source also said that a 40 day mourning period set by his wife, Inanna (or Ishtar) was the foundation of Lent. I'm not sure about either of these stories, as most sources that I found have Tammuz being killed by demons, and don't mention a 40 day mourning period. But there are also apparently a number of alternative stories around the death of Tammuz, so I could have just missed the one involving pigs.

Book Log 2019 Extra: Popsugar Reading Challenge

In past years I've kind of done the Popsugar Reading Challenge, but rather than make an actual attempt (or use it to pick books whenever I remember), I decided to take the 2019 list and see how well what I actually read fit the challenge topics. As I've done in the past, I will count a book more than once if it meets more than one (which seems fair as I'm doing this after the fact).


A book becoming a movie in 2019
A book that makes you nostalgic
A book written by a musician (fiction or nonfiction)
A book you think should be turned into a movie - We That are Young by Preti Taneja
A book with at least one million ratings on Goodreads

A book with a plant in the title or on the cover - A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury

A reread of a favorite book - Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson (not really a favorite, but it's the only re-read I have in 2019)

A book about a hobby

A book you meant to read in 2018 - The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe (which I'd been meaning to read in 2018, 2017, 2016...)

A book with "pop," "sugar," or "challenge" in the title

A book with an item of clothing or accessory on the cover - Slaying the Badger by Richard Moore

A book inspired by mythology, legend, or folklore - The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal

A book published posthumously

A book set in space - The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi

A book by two female authors - Seeing Further, edited by Bill Bryson (probably not what was intended, but there are several essays written by women in this collection)

A book with a title that contains "salty," "sweet," "bitter," or "spicy"

A book set in Scandinavia - The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye by David Lagercrantz

A book that takes place in a single day

A debut novel - Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel

A book that's published in 2019 - Fall, or Dodge in Hell by Neal Stephenson

A book featuring an extinct or imaginary creature - Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

A book recommended by a celebrity you admire

A book with "love" in the title

A book featuring an amateur detective - Holy Orders by Benjamin Black

A book about a family - Faithful Place by Tana French (book 3 in the Dublin Murder Squad series)

A book written by an author from Asia, Africa, or South America - Death's End by Liu Cixin

A book with a zodiac sign or astrology term in the title
A book you see someone reading on TV or in a movie

A retelling of a classic - We That Are Young by Preti Taneja (based on King Lear)

A book with a question in the title

A book set on a college or university campus - The Incendiaries by R. O. Kwan

A book about someone with a superpower - Fall, or Dodge in Hell by Neal Stephenson

A book told from multiple character POVs - Slaying the Badger by Richard Moore (which looks at the 1986 Tour de France from the viewpoints of several of the people involved, including legendary cyclists Bernard Hinault and Greg LeMond).

A book that includes a wedding

A book by an author whose first and last names start with the same letter - The Quiet American by Graham Greene

A ghost story - Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

A book with a two-word title - Unnatural Causes by P. D. James

A novel based on a true story - The Throne of Caesar by Steven Saylor

A book revolving around a puzzle or game

Your favorite prompt from a past POPSUGAR Reading Challenge

Advanced:

A "cli-fi" (climate fiction) book - The Obelisk Gate by N. K. Jemesin (this is a bit of a stretch, I suppose, but there's a climate angle in there)

A "choose-your-own-adventure" book
An "own voices" book
Read a book during the season it is set in - Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel (based on the part of the book set in the present)
A LitRPG book
A book with no chapters, unusual chapter headings, or unconventionally numbered chapters
Two books wit the same title
A book that inspired a common phrase or idiom (e.g. Big Brother from 1984)

A book set in an abbey, cloister, monastery, vicarage, or convent - The Cloister by James Carroll

 Bok Log 2019 #55: Seeing Further by Bill Bryson (editor)

This collection of essays was compiled for the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society, the UK's national academy of the sciences. Each of its authors goes into detail about a specific topic or area of scientific inquiry, looking mostly at where things stand today and what the future may hold. 

While there is some historical writing, this book is not a retrospective on how the Society furthered the cause of science over the last three and a half centuries. Which is probably in keeping with the idea of the Society and its promotion of learning and discovery.

Some of the essays are pretty heavy, and I'll admit to doing some skimming along the way. From what I've read this is probably something you'll want to tackle in print, as it's got a number of illustrations that, based on my experience, didn't translate well to an electronic format. 

Book Log 2019 #54: Slaying the Badger by Richard Moore

It was hard to follow the Tour de France in the US in the 1980s. You'd get an hour or so of coverage on a Sunday afternoon, getting what CBS thought was the highlights of the week. Even with this limited access, I was taken with the race pretty much the second I learned it existed. Which made it all the more exciting when an American - an American! - won the race.

This book covers that 1986 race, where Greg LeMond became the first non-European to win the overall title, besting teammate (and five time winner) Bernard Hinault (the Badger of the title), whose pledge to ride in support of LeMond was not apparent in the actual racing. The book follows the race and the growing animosity between the riders (which of course spread throughout their whole team), and then catches up with the riders in the present for their recollections and thoughts about what happened.

This probably isn't LeMond's best-known Tour win to Americans (that would probably be the 1989 win where he made up a 50 second deficit to Laurent Fignon on the last day's time trial into Paris), but for history and drama it's hard to top. Anyone with an interest in competitive cycling should read this. There is also a 30 for 30 documentary by the same name which I've not watched but will hopefully get around to someday.

Sadly, Moore passed away unexpectedly in March 2022. 

 Book Log 2019 #53: Faithful Place by Tana French

A teenaged Frank Mackey (who we met in The Likeness as the main character's handler in the Dublin police) makes plans to run away to London with his girlfriend, but on the night of their planned departure she never shows. Thinking she dumped him due to his family, he leaves home (on the titular Faithful Place) and never returns.

At least not until two decades later, when Mackey's sister calls him out of the blue to say that a suitcase was found behind a fireplace in the abandoned house where Mackey and his girlfriend were going to meet. That bring Mackey back to the old neighborhood, and into an investigation as to what actually happened to his girlfriend.

This might be my favorite novel in the Dublin Murder Squad series, due to how the case and Mackey's family history intertwine.  While all the cases to this point had a personal element to them, this one is the most personal, and that may be what elevates the story for me. As with Rebus, this is a series you should be reading if you aren't already (although be forewarned that it's a very different series in terms of tone and emotional impact).

 Book Log 2019 #52: Rather Be the Devil by Ian Rankin

Old and new cases entwine, as John Rebus picks up a 40 year old murder that has connections to an attack on Darryl Christie, the apparent new underworld boss in Edinburgh. As Rebus again teams up with Siobhan Clarke and Malcolm Fox to investigate the cases, he has to deal with his personal health and long-time nemesis Gerald "Big Ger" Cafferty, who may not be as retired as he seems.

At this point I'm just happy we're still getting Rebus novels. Start reading them if you haven't already.

 Book Log 2019 #51: Milkman by Anna Burns

A girl growing up in Troubles-era Northern Ireland attracts the attention of a paramilitary member known as "milkman," though she is resistant to his advances as he's older and married and she has a kinda-sorta boyfriend. As the interest turns into stalking, the girl has to face increased gossip about her relationship with milkman, which also hurts her familial relationships, most notably with her mother. The story plays out in a very Troubles sort of way, though the ending does offer a bit of a surprise as to how the girl is able to return to a normal life (or as normal as could be during the Troubles).

I see I only gave this three stars on Goodreads, and I don't remember why. I do recall a feeling of annoyance at how the plot was driven by rumor and gossip, but that's probably true to how things would have gone at the time. I did like the book overall, so it could be my middle aged man's point of view that's the problem.

 Book Log 2019 #50: Unnatural Causes by P.D. James

Adam Dalgliesh is on holiday, spending some time in his aunt's cabin on the Suffolk coast. But of course someone has to turn up dead, and in this case it's a local crime writer. Suspects abound, from the local literary circle to the family of the deceased, and when the evidence points in contradictory directions, Dalgliesh is compelled to help the local detectives figure out whodunit.

Three books in and I'm still not really feeling this series. I may re-read the Morse novels again before moving on to the next installment here.

Book Log 2019 #49: Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel

This is Mandel's first novel, and if you've read other books by her prior to this one you'll feel comfortable with the transient and somewhat mysterious female protagonist Lilia . A criminal act committed by her father when Lilia was young leads to a life in motion, one which continues into her adulthood. This seems almost needless, except that a detective hired to find Lilia is still trying to find her, having become obsessed with finally finding her.

One night in New York, Lilia decides it's time to leave again, but in doing so her boyfriend Eli decides he needs to track her down to figure out why she left. As you might have guessed from the title, all parties wind up in Montreal, where things come to a head.

While the main character here is similar to those in later works, this is a very different book from Station Eleven, so adjust your expectations accordingly. I did enjoy it, although I was often at odds with the idea that the detective and Eli were both so committed to finding Lilia. Maybe I just don't understand obsession that well.

 Book Log 2019 #48: The Quiet American by Graham Greene

I haven't read a lot of Greene's work, but picked this up remembering how much I liked Our Man in Havana. This is a very different book from that one, but I enjoyed it just as much, just in a different way.

The book is set in the early days of the Vietnam War, in that time where the French were beginning to fade out but before the US started sending troops. A British journalist makes the acquaintance of a CIA agent, whose goal is to get Vietnam to fall under a "third force" that is neither capitalism nor communism, but a form a rule that combines local custom and tradition with a Western style government. The tension between the jaded journalist and true believer spy plays out both in how they experience and influence the war and in their common love for a local woman.

The book was inspired by Greene's time in Vietnam, and displays a good understanding of the country and its people, as well as an uncanny sense of how the war would wind up going. Reading it now, so many years after the war's end, makes it an even stronger indictment of the idea of American exceptionalism. It also makes me wish that more of the people who've been in charge of US wars over the last 30 years had read this. 

 Book Log 2019 #47: Fall or, Dodge in Hell by Neal Stephenson

I was not a huge fan of REAMDE, so I wasn't too thrilled that this novel brought back Richard "Dodge" Forthrast, the gaming company billionaire. But it turns out his presence in the novel is relatively short - sort of.

(Spoiler alert, inasmuch as you can have spoilers on a book three-plus years after it came out.)

Dodge winds up brain dead after a routine medical procedure goes sideways (when doctors tell you not to eat before going under, you should listen to them), and before taking him off life support his brain is scanned to create a connectome, a full structural mapping. Years later, a grandniece loads this connectome into a server and is able to reboot Dodge.

And it is a reboot. Rather than picking up where he left off, this new Dodge starts more or less from scratch, though over time it's clear that there are some memories (or something akin to memories) that help the cloud-based Dodge (now going by Edgod) develop a sense of self and a new world based on meatspace.

From there the book follows both the development of this new online world (and the introduction of new connectomes to it) and the struggle for control of the new world (which takes place both online and in physical space).

The novel ties together both the REAMDE and Cryptonomicon timelines, with characters from both making appearances (several of whom wind up in the cloud). I'm assuming this puts an end to this universe, which is a little disappointing if true (I would rather have had two more novels with the Waterhouse/Shaftoe family than the two Forthrast books).

I also wish this book was at least 200 pages shorter. At some point lush detail becomes overkill, and this book reaches that point several times. On the other hand, there was a decent ending to the book, which isn't always a guarantee for Stephenson. 

 Book Log 2019 #46: A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury

I picked this up so I'd have something to read while on jury duty (while waiting to get called, not during actual jury duty), and it was a good choice inasmuch as a short story collection is easier to get in and out of when you might have to stop reading on short notice. 

As for the stories themselves, it's a mixed bag. There are 32 stories, so it's not shocking that some of them aren't great. But with that many stories, you can easily pass on one of it's not working for you and move on to the next. All of the stories are typical of Bradbury's writing, so if you're a fan you may find the overall collection more to your liking.

This collection was originally published as The Golden Apples of the Sun.

 Book Log 2019 #45: The Dark Vineyard by Martin Walker

An agricultural research station just outside of Saint-Denis burns, with suspicion turning to local environmentalists who oppose its work on GMO crops. While local police chief Bruno investigates that, he also has to deal with the public outcry over a California winery's plans to buy up as many local vineyards as they can to create a larger, more industrial vineyard.  While Bruno tries to handle both events with his trademark informal investigating, a couple of bodies turn up, increasing the pressure on him to get everything back to normal.

I really do enjoy this series. Bruno is an excellent character, and the descriptions of the Dordogne region will make you want to visit. Or move there for good.

 Book Log 2019 #44: The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi

The sequel to Old Man's War, it introduces us to the Ghost Brigades, the special forces units of the Colonial Defense Forces. Where their regular troops are elderly, living people who get their mind transplanted into young, new, enhanced bodies, the Ghost Brigades are created from the DNA of dead people, and optimized for combat. 

I won't go into too many plot details to avoid spoilers, but suffice it to say that creating new beings out of DNA doesn't always go as planned. 

Kind of funny that I read this after The Obelisk Gate, as they're complete opposites in many ways, but they both excel at the sort of reading experience they're aimed at giving, so maybe it's not that odd?  

 Book Log 2019 #43: The Obelisk Gate by N. K. Jemisin

I read this book two and a half years ago (I'm backfilling the Book Log, the publish dates are the finish dates I have on Goodreads), and I don't remember much about it, other than I really liked it. I'm also wondering if there was a lot of time between reading this and the first book in the trilogy, The Fifth Season (which I've not logged here as it looks like I didn't add start or end dates in Goodreads, so it's not showing up in the chronology of my read books), as I recall having to refresh myself a bit on characters and events. Anyway, you should read the trilogy if you haven't yet.

 Book Log 2019 #42: The Likeness by Tana French

Cassie Maddox - who we met in the first Dublin Murder Squad novel - has left the squad, but gets pulled back in due to a very unusual circumstance. Turns out that a body turned up that not only looks strikingly like Cassie, but has an ID with the same name the Cassie used in an undercover case. In order to find the killer - and figure out just exactly who the victim actually is - Cassie agrees to go undercover as the victim, an especially challenging role given that she shares a house with several other people. One of whom is most likely the killer.

I really enjoyed this, and if you've not read anything in this series (and are interested in contemporary murder mysteries) I'd highly suggest you start reading these.

 Book Log 2019 #41: The Fallen Architect by Charles Belfoure

At what should have been a highlight of his career, the theater designed by London architect Douglas Layton suffers a collapse. After serving a prison sentence for the deadly results of the collapse, Layton finds a new job in the theater - scene painter - but soon becomes involved in a series of murders which seem to be connected to the theater collapse. Layton thus begins to look for the killer, thinking that if he catches that person he'll also catch the person responsible for the theater disaster.

I thought Belfoure's first book, The Paris Architect, was good for a first novel, and was glad to see that this book didn't repeat some of the things that I thought detracted from the first one. I'm also still taken with the use of architecture in the mystery/thriller genre, and hope that future works will blend the two as well as this book (and the first one) did.

 Book Log 2019 #40: The Girl Who Takes and Eye for an Eye by David Langercrantz

The fifth book in the Millenium series, and second penned by Langercrantz, sees Lisbeth Salander in prison, where she protects a Bangladeshi prisoner from other inmates who want to do her harm. She also has a visit from her former guardian, who gives her information on her past. Salander was part of an experiment that took exceptional children and put them in different circumstances to see what effect it had on their growth. Salander asks journalist Mikael Blomkvist to investigate this, and if you've ready any of the previous books in this series you have an idea of what sort of hell this winds up unleashing.

I did like this book better than Langercrantz's first entry in the series, but I do agree with some of the criticism that the book focused too much on new characters and had a marked absence of Salander. Hopefully Langercrantz will return to the more established characters for the next book, which he's announced is his last in the series.

 Book Log 2019 #39: The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal

A meteor hits the US right by Washington DC, demolishing the capital and leaving the country more or less without a government. This would be bad enough, but it's not long after the strike that scientists realize that the planet will eventually become uninhabitable. This leads to a worldwide effort to colonize space in an effort to save humanity, an effort that requires all hands. Including those of Elma York, a former WASP pilot and mathematician who just may become the first American woman astronaut.

There's a lot here that reminded me of Neal Stephenson's Seveneves, from the climate implications of an astronomical event to the role that women could play in saving humanity. In that book, though, the current day setting allowed for a much for technology-focused story than this one, which focuses much more on the people involved and on issues such as gender, race, mental health, and family. I'm assuming there's an impulse to attribute this difference to the genders of the writers, but I tend to think it's at least as much due to the timing and the nature of the emergency in this book. 

Anyway, I did enjoy this book and definitely recommend it, if only for the chapter about using a toilet in space (the research for which turned into a memorable Twitter thread).

 Book Log 2019 #38: A Spy Among Friends by Ben Macintyre

This is a very engaging retelling of the Kim Philby spy case, enhanced by the personal storyline of how Philby's friends - most notably fellow spy Nicholas Elliott - kept supporting Philby, even while the web of lies he created to hide his double cross became increasingly tenuous.

There's also an interesting class angle here, as there was an assumption that Philby, who went to the right schools, knew the right people, and had the right background, couldn't be working for the Soviets. This assumption allowed Philby to operate for nearly 20 years, and underscores why the old boy network isn't a great operating principle.

Very much worth reading if you're into this sort of thing. You may want to squeeze this in before the TV version hits screens, with Damian Lewis and Guy Pearce in the starring roles.

 Book Log 2019 #37: Holy Orders by Benjamin Black

Dublin pathologist Quirke is back to investigate another murder, and this one is semi-personal as the victim was a friend of Quirke's daughter Phoebe. The victim was also a journalist, and apparently working on a story that put him against the Catholic church, whose sway in 1950s Ireland was substantial.

Between the personal connection and the chance to take the church down a peg, it's not surprising that Quirke would take this case on, even though his last case involving the church left him much the worse for wear. As the case progresses, we get as much (if not more) background on Quirke and his youth spent in a Catholic home for orphans, which was about as dour as you might think. In many ways this case is less about the actual whodunit as it is about getting Quirke to revisit his formative years and examine what sort of lasting effects that time had on him.

I like this book a little more than some of the earlier ones, as it did help to fill in some gaps about Quirke and why he is the way he is. It still doesn't explain his appeal to women, but that's a mystery that may never get solved. Maybe the next book will give us that answer.

 Book Log 2019 #36: Claws of the Cat by Susan Spann

When a samurai is killed in 16th century Kyoto, ninja Hiro Hattori is given three days to solve the crime, otherwise the geisha accused of the killing and Father Mateo, the Jesuit priest Hattori is sworn to protect, will be put to death. Hattori and Mateo delve into the samurai's life and find no shortage of suspects, though there seem to be even more people who want to thwart their investigation.

I liked this book quite a bit, both for the unusual setting for a murder mystery and the relationship between the ninja and the priest.  It reminds me vaguely of Brother Cadfael, though that may just be the religious aspects of the two series making a connection in my brain.