Book Log 2021 #14: Normal People by Sally Rooney

Connell and Marianne are from the same town, go to the same school, but travel in different circles. Connell is popular, outgoing, and middle class, while Marianne is a loner, kind of abrasive, and from a more affluent family (Connell's mom cleans her family's house). The pair strike up a relationship (one initially kept secret by Connell), and they drift in and out of each other's lives during the rest of their time at school. 

They both wind up at Trinity College in Dublin, and the change of venue leads to unexpected changes in personal status. Their relationship continues in its elliptical fashion, as both try to come to terms with who they are becoming, and if these new people can finally be together.

This was the It Book of 2018, and maybe I was jaded by all the accolades, but I didn't like it as much as I thought I would. I did like it, but found it hard at times to understand the motivation behind how the characters acted (which I'm chalking up in part to being a Gen X reader of a book by and about millenials).  I'd be interested to see where these characters are today. 

 Lentorama 2021: Take Your Holiday To Go

Day 17: Chalica

Christians have the Advent wreath, Judaism the menorah, and African-Americans have the kinara. If you're Unitarian Universalist, then you also have your very own object to light on fire in the winter thanks to the relatively new holiday of Chalica.

Created in 2005, the purpose of Chalica is to celebrate the seven principles of the UU faith. Each day, a chalice is lit (the chalice being one of the major symbols of the church), and you then spend the day reflecting on one of the seven principles and then acting upon it.

While the holiday typically starts on the first Monday in December and runs through the following Sunday, there are some people who observe it over seven weeks to make it easier to find the time to act on each principle, rather than have to fit all seven acts into one week.

This page has a brief description of Chalica, with links to the seven principles and an article on the founding and growth of the holiday.

 Lentorama 2021: Take Your Holiday To Go

Day 16: Jeûne genevois

This day, celebrated on the Thursday after the first Sunday in September, is a civic holiday in Geneva, Switzerland, but has religious roots.

While some Swiss Protestants, most notably Huldrych Zwingli, spoke out against fasting laws as being man-made and not supported by the Bible, it was not uncommon for cantons or cities to have laws that required fasting for thanksgiving. There were also fasts during times of trouble, be they plagues, persecutions, or massacres. The people of Geneva notably fasted in response to the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572. This fasting became an annual tradition, and in the 19th century became a federally-endorsed holiday.

This didn't last too long, as by the end of the 1800s the celebration of the fast was once again largely practiced only by Genevans. The religious aspects of the fast also fell away, and today it's really a civic holiday. The one tradition that seems to have persisted (perhaps ironically for a fast) was the eating of plum tarts, which became the main food source of the fast as it could be prepared the day before and used a fruit that was in season.

 Lentorama 2021: Take Your Holiday To Go

Day 15: Festum Ovorum

Also known as Egg Saturday, this "holiday" occurs on the Saturday before Ash Wednesday at the University of Oxford. I use the quotes around holiday as what little information is out there about the day suggest that it's not a holiday in the same sense of the other days we've looked at so far.

Based on passing mentions of the day in Oxford histories, this was the last day for students to complete their bachelor's degree requirements for the year. There was also apparently a tradition for the degree seekers to provide a meal for the senior bachelor students, which included eggs.

While there's an obvious connection between Easter and the symbolism of eggs. it doesn't appear that the day had any overt religious meaning. Why the editors at Wikipedia decided to include it with their list of moveable feasts of Western Christianity I don't know, but I thank them for giving me a really odd day to talk about.

 Book Log 2021 #13: My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

It can be hard to be the older sister when your younger sister is known as the pretty one, and gets all of the attention. It's that much harder when she also has a tendency to kill her boyfriends.

This is the dilemma that Korede, a nurse in Lagos, finds herself in. Once again she has to help her sister, Ayoola, clean up and dispose of the body of her latest victim. And while Korede feels underappreciated for helping her sister, she's accepted that she'll have to keep doing so to protect Ayoola.

But this changes when Tade, a doctor that Korede has unrequited feelings for, meets Ayoola and falls for her. Will Korede stand and allow Tade to be the next person to feel Ayoola's knife, or will she try to break the chain of violence and cover-ups?

The story is told as a dark comedy rather than straightforward crime/horror, which adds an unusual dimension to both the love triangle and the familial relationships. The book also gives plenty of detail about contemporary Lagos, which helps those of us who do not have a firm grasp on what life is like in modern Nigeria. The strength of the book lies in the sisters, who are fully drawn and complex (which I guess they'd have to be given the circumstances). Recommended.

 Lentorama 2021: Take Your Holiday To Go

Day 14: Stir-up Sunday

This is an informal name in the Anglican church for the last Sunday before Advent. It takes its name from a prayer for the day in the Book of Common Prayer that starts, "Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord." This would then remind churchgoers that it was time to "stir up" the ingredients to make the Christmas pudding. 

That you would start making your Christmas pudding nearly a month before Christmas should tell you something about Christmas pudding. A dense cake made with dried fruit, spices, dark sugar/treacle, and usually some sort of alcohol, the pudding would be boiled or steamed for several hours, after which it would be left somewhere to mature until Christmas. At which point it could be reheated or doused with brandy and set aflame before serving. Which probably helped kill whatever would be growing on it after several weeks of sitting around.

The association between this particular day and Christmas pudding has waned a bit, between the growing popularity of store bought puddings and the adoption of the Feast of Christ the King on the same day. 

In the US, Episcopalians hear this prayer on the third Sunday of Advent, which I assume reminds them to stir up a Jello mold or something.

 Book Log 2021 #12: Kirby: King of Comics by Mark Evanier

I am not much of a comic book person, and wouldn't have picked this up except it fit a reading challenge I was doing. I had heard of Jack Kirby, didn't know much about him, and am now glad I had a chance to read about his extraordinary life and career. Suffice it to say if you've ever watched a movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you've seen the fruits of Kirby's labor (though he also worked for DC and other publishers, so you've probably seen his work outside of the MCU, too).

There's a fair amount of struggle in this story - from getting into comics to his eventual break from Marvel and Stan Lee - but there's a lot of success, and it's all captured in engaging prose written by someone who is an obvious comics fan. It was very accessible to someone like me, who has rudimentary knowledge of the comics industry, and is well worth reading if you want to kmow a little more.

 Lentorama 2021: Take Your Holiday to Go

Day 13: Feast of Our Lady of the Audience

Early in the 16th century, a wealthy family brought a statue of the Madonna and Child created by Antonello Gagini to the town of Sambuca di Sicilia, where for many years it was hidden near the town ovens. In 1575 it was rediscovered, and locals decided to parade it through the city streets to an infirmary that was dealing with an outbreak of leprosy. The people prayed for the outbreak to end, which it did, and the statue was given the name Our Lady of the Audience as it helped the prayers of the sick to be heard.

Installed in the local church, locals recreate the statue's original journey on the third Sunday in May, with celebrations lasting to Monday morning. Other churches on Sicily - and the Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Kansas City - also observe the feast, with a replica statue or other depiction of the miracle standing in for the original.

Sambuca di Sicilia also grabbed 15 minutes of secular fame when it became one of the Italian towns that offered derelict homes for one Euro, in the hopes of bringing in new residents. This prompted the American actress Lorraine Bracco to buy a house and attempt to renovate it, as seen on the HGTV show My Big Italian Adventure.

Lentorama 2021: Take Your Holiday to Go

Day 12: Store Bededag

This Danish holiday takes place on the fourth Friday after Easter. King Christian V, as the head of the Church of Denmark, introduced it to the church in 1686 as a way to consolidate a number of minor holidays that originated in the Catholic church and survived the reformation in Denmark. In English, the name translates to "Great Prayer Day."

There aren't many specific traditions related to the holiday. Early on it was common for people in Copenhagen to walk along the city's ramparts, but now that the ramparts are gone people walk on specific streets or along historic fortifications (assuming the weather is good, which is always a dicey proposition at this point in the year).

There is also a tradition of eating varme hveder, a type of bread, with people stocking up the day before as bakeries would be closed during the holiday. This is also one of two days in the Church of Denmark where people are confirmed into the church.

 Book Log 2021 #11: Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

Confession time: prior to reading this, I had never read a Kurt Vonnegut novel. We were never assigned one in high school, and I missed that Vonnegut phase that it seems like so many people go through in their teens and early adulthood. My only experience with Vonnegut was his story "2 B R 0 2 B," which was in a non-Vonnegut anthology of sci-fi stories. It was fine.

And honestly, I had pretty much the same reaction to reading this. It was fine. It was actually a pretty similar response that I had to reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, it was fine but didn't quite measure up to what I'd heard about Vonnegut over the years. 

Maybe I just don't jibe with Vonnegut. At some point I'll read another of his books and we'll see.

Lentorama 2021: Take Your Holiday to Go

Day 11: Feast of the Crown of Thorns

In 1239, French king Louis IX brought what he believed to the Crown of Thorns, worn by Jesus during his crucifixion, to Paris. A royal chapel was constructed to house it and other relics, and feast day was instituted in August. Originally specific to the chapel, the feast would later be celebrated across northern France.

Additional feast days for the crown were adopted over time, specific to other locations, with Rome settling on the Friday after Ash Wednesday as the feast day. But it's not a universal feast, so it does still crop up at other times in other places, such as Heiligenkreuz in Austria, which celebrates the feast in August. There are a couple of crown relics in town, between one granted in the 12th century by Leopold V (given to him by Baldwin IV, king of Jerusalem), and a thorn that Louis IX took from his crown and gave to the Austrian duke Frederick II (also known as Frederick the Quarrelsome). Not sure why they chose August - as far as I can tell neither gift was made in that month - but August it is.

 Lentorama 2021: Take Your Holiday to Go

Day 10: Trinity Sunday

Occurring on the first Sunday after Pentecost (for Western Christians; it's on the Sunday of Pentecost for Eastern Christians), Trinity Sunday celebrates the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. While it got its feast day in the 14th century, it was celebrated well before then. Pope Alexander II refused to create a specific feast in the 11th century, but allowed local feast to continue, so it was likely being celebrated for some time before then.

The basis for the feast comes from an office that was created in response to the Arian heresy, which cropped hundreds of years before Alexander II. How it went from something observed every Sunday to an annual feast day isn't clear, but one theory is that Thomas Beckett, after being made Archbishop of Canterbury, decreed that the date of his ordination should be a feast day in honor of the Holy Trinity.

Johann Sebastian Bach composed a number of cantatas for the holiday, three of which are still known  (BWV 129, 165 and 176). A fourth (BWV 194) wasn't created for the day but was later played on it.

 Lentorama 2021: Take Your Holiday To Go

Day 9: White Sunday

Held on the second Sunday in October, this holiday is celebrated mostly in the Pacific. There is some debate as to its origins, as some tie it to a Christian adaptation of native harvest festivals, while other say it's a version of a family-based celebration that became widely significant after the influenza epidemic of 1918-19.

Or both could be wrong, as the first White Sunday celebrated by the The Congregational Christian Church in Samoa (former the London Missionary Society) happened in 1898 (albeit in June). Then as now it was a holiday honoring children, with church services focused on children and childhood. Kids also got presents and in a sort of Boxing Day twist, were granted special privileges usually held by adults only. There is also now a public holiday on the following Monday. In American Samoa, the holiday also causes traffic headaches and a shortage of cash at ATMs.

The name comes from the tradition of wearing white on the holiday, though some include red and blue elements to reflect the colors of the Samoan flag 

 Book Log 2021 #10: Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker

By all appearnaces, Don and Mimi Galvin were the ideal family of the Baby Boomer era, raising their 12 kids in a large house in Colorado. But as the kids grew into adulthood, it was clear that some of them were progressing differently from their siblings. In the end, six of the kids - all boys - developed schizophrenia. This book tells the story of how the family coped with this run of mental illness, and how the family played an important role in our current understanding of mental illness (and schizophrenia in particular).

Both the personal and clinical stories here are fascinating, and the author does an excellent job of telling both in a clear, straightforward manner. There are plenty of places where he could have played up the more lurid parts of the personal story, or focus on the researchers to the point of dehumanizing the family, but that never happens.

This is likely the best book I will read all year. You should read it too.

 Lentorama 2021: Take Your Holiday to Go

Day 7: Reek Sunday

This Irish holiday sees pilgrims climb the highest mountain in the country, Croagh Patrick (which is nicknamed The Reek, hence the name of the day), in honor of St. Patrick, who is said to have spent forty days on its summit fasting and praying. Some pilgrims climb barefoot as an additional act of penance, while others practice a "rounding ritual" where they circle various features a number of times. 

It's estimated that the climb has been held annually for at least 1500 years, though there's evidence that the climb has much earlier, pagan origins (like almost every other Christian holiday or festival) connected to Lughnasa, the start of the harvest season.

The climb up takes a couple of hours, probably due more to the number of climbers (which can be up to 30,000) than the mountain's height (764 meters, which is just over 2500 feet). Considering the mountain has about 100,000 climbers annually, you can imagine how busy things get on this one day. So if you're ever in County Mayo on the last Sunday of July, you've either got a lot of climbing buddies or a reason to do something else, if you're not into crowds.

 Lentorama 2021: Take Your Holiday to Go

Day 6: Store Bededag

Apparently, Switzerland isn't the only country into organizing religious observances into one day. Denmark created Store Bededag, or Great Prayer Day, in the late 17th century to consolidate a number of minor Catholic holidays that held on in that country after the Reformation. It then survived a revision of the national calendar of holidays and continues to this day (held on the fourth Friday after Easter).

On the day before the holiday, residents of Copenhagen would walk the city ramparts and eat a traditional bread called varme hveder, which are apparently some sort of wheat roll. According to this page the bread was made the day before the holiday so people could eat them when the bakeries were closed, but the people couldn't wait and ate them on the day they bought them (which based on my experiences with fresh baked bread seems about right). Nowadays people in Copenhagen walk elsewhere (the ramparts being long gone) but apparently still eat the bread.

This page gives a little more about the holiday, not that much really, but it's from the Lutheran church in Denmark, so if nothing else it's about as close to the source of the holiday as you can get.

 Lentorama 2021: Take Your Holiday to Go

Day 5: Federal Day of Thanksgiving, Repentance and Prayer

So this is a weird one. It's a Swiss public holiday, but is an interfaith feast day celebrated by a number of religious denominations, Christian and otherwise. Only the Swiss.

It's held on the third Sunday in September, and this page gives a pretty good explanation of how the holiday came about (short version: it was created in the Middle Ages so everyone could do their fasting, penance, etc. at the same time, which seems even more Swiss). This page also talks about the holiday a bit, and has links for other Swiss holidays in case you're interested. Both pages note that the holiday is pretty much secular at this point, so if you're in Switzerland for this feel free to tuck into that raclette.

 Lentorama 2021: Take Your Holiday to Go

Day 4: Feast of Our Lady of the Audience

In the early 15th century, a wealthy family brought a statue of the Virgin Mary and Jesus to the town of Sambuca di Sicilia, and hid it in the fortifications there. In 1575, the statue was rediscovered by a farmer, and he and his colleagues decided to parade it around town. There was an outbreak of leprosy going on, and they hoped that the procession would miraculously stop it. Which apparently is just what happened, giving the statue the name of Our Lady of the Audience (referring to her hearing the prayers of the sick).

This led to an annual procession, held on the third Sunday in May, where the statue is again paraded around town (though no further miracles, as far as I can tell). Other cities and town in Sicily also celebrate the feast, using either a replica statue or a painting of the miracle. In the US, some churches that were founded by Sicilians also observe the feast, perhaps most notably Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Kansas City (which has a page dedicated to the feast and their replica statue).

 Lentorama 2021: Take Your Holiday to Go

Day 3: Plough Sunday

On this day, celebrated primarily in England, a plowshare is brought into church, and blessings are given to farmers and farm workers prior to the start of the new growing season. Typically, no work was done in the field until the day after, known as Plough Monday (which doesn't appear to have any religious connections other than coming the day after Plough Sunday). 

Plough Sunday occurs on the Sunday after Epiphany, so in early to mid-January, which seems really early to go back into the fields, though I suppose English winters aren't quite so cold or snowy as New England winters. I did read one article that linked the day to the end of the Christmas season and getting back to work generally, so maybe more work in the barn than the actual fields.

Modern celebrations often include farmers driving their tractors to the church for a blessing. There are also special prayers for soil and seed (or both together, as seen in this service bulletin). 

I'd never heard of this day, but I suppose that's not surprising as I'm not English, a farmer, or Protestant.

 Book Log 2021 #9: The Summons by John Grisham

Ray Atlee is a law professor at the University of Virginia, and while he's recently divorced he has a pretty good life. But then he gets the titular summons - his father, a judge in Mississippi, requests that Ray and his brother Forrest return home to discuss the disposition of the judge's estate. Ray reluctantly returns, only to find his father dead in his study. Problematic as this may be, there are two further complications: Ray discovers something unexpected - and potentially illegal - in the house, and there is apparently someone else who knows about this.

I haven't read anything by Grisham in some time - I've moved away from legal thrillers in general outside of Scott Turow - but tucking into this book reminded me of why I read them in the first place. The lively pace and well-crafted twists keeps you engaged in the book, papering over the places where plot and/or character may be a little thin. I didn't necessarily like the book, but wanted to keep going to see how things turned out. 

I don't know that I'll go back to reading Grisham regularly, but an occasional visit might work.

 Lentorama 2021: Take Your Holiday to Go

Day 2: Feast of the Holy Winding Sheet of Christ

Over time there have been several feasts created by local churches in honor of a relic which purportedly was the sheet in which Christ was entombed. That there were more than one of these feasts - thanks to their being more than one sheet - should tell you something about the church and relics. 

In any case, this particular feast started around 1495, celebrating the sheet that has come to be popularly known as the Shroud of Turin. Pope Julius II approved the celebration of the feast in 1506, and it got its current date (Shrove Tuesday) from Pope Pius XII in 1958.

Why Pius decided to move the date nearly 500 years after the feast was approved isn't clear. Pius did undertake a number of reforms during his papacy, and this may have been a casualty of making other changes to the liturgical calendar. In some places it looks like the change didn't stick, as there are contemporary references to the feast taking place on May 4.

Anyway, as the linked article mentions, this is not a particularly notable feast in the US. I can honestly say I'd never heard of it prior to yesterday, and it's likely I won't hear about it again after today.

Considering I'm only about a third of the way through the entries for 2020, it seems a little presumptuous to announce this, but as today is Ash Wednesday it's time again for my annual "40 day" trip through a subject related to the season. And so we have:

Lentorama 2021: Take Your Holiday To Go

The theme this year is moveable holidays and observances, focusing on Western Christianity but certainly taking from other faiths as needed. And to start, might as well go with the obvious.

Day 1: Ash Wednesday

Easter is probably the best known moveable holiday on the Western Christian calendar, and by being moveable it makes all of the other holidays associated with it moveable too. Which is really pretty helpful if you're trying to write about 40 moveable holidays and observances.

Anyway, Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, the 40 day period where people prepare themselves to celebrate Easter. The day itself is said to be a day of prayer, fasting, and repentance. Fasting can take a few forms, from fasting during the day and having a light evening meal to having one full meal and two smaller meals which together don't add up to a second full meal. 

Repentance is signified by the ashes; there are several examples in the Old Testament of the use of ashes to signify a person's repentance for their sins (there's also the donning of sackcloth rather than regular clothes, giving us "sackcloth and ashes").  Covering oneself in ashes as a public penance started to fall out of favor in the first millennium AD, with the practice of taking ashes on Ash Wednesday starting as early as the 8th century (though as the strewing of ashes on the head rather than the cross we get today).

Ash Wednesday is 46 days before Easter, and can occur between February 4 and March 10. The year 2096 will be the first time that Ash Wednesday will occur on February 29, so mark your calendars accordingly.

Apart from the religious significance, Ash Wednesday is also National No Smoking Day in Ireland, due to the connection of smoking and ashes, and as a way to get people to think of giving up smoking for Lent.

 Book Log 2021 #8: The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

And here we have what might be the exact opposite of Charles Lenox: Precious Ramotswe, a woman in present-day Botswana who leaves school at 16 and comes into detective work after discovering that a fellow employee is stealing from the bus company they both work for. Her agency mostly handles domestic issues - missing husbands and children, settling disputes between family members, and the like.

This first installment in the series tells the full story of how Precious became a detective and the difficulties in her personal life that helped shape that decision. We also see her work through her first three cases, using her common sense and innate intelligence to solve the cases - though perhaps not alway in the way her client might expect.

I did like this book and the way it combined its unique setting with a plot that managed to stay positive even though there's a lot of heartache in it. It's the start of a long series, which I expect I'll continue reading.

 Book Log 2021 #8: A Beautiful Blue Death by Charles Finch

Charles Lenox is a Victorian gentleman of leisure, who spends his time at his club, studying the ancients, planning trips he will never take, and solving the occasional crime. In this case, his neighbor (and secret love interest) Lady Jane Grey, asks him to look into the apparent suicide of one of her former maids, who has gone on to work in the house of a much wealthier and powerful personage.

Despite the initial assumption of suicide, Lenox suspects murder. With the help of his butler and a a doctor friend, he takes on the case to see who, out of the numerous suspects in the great house, is the killer.

I did like this book, enjoying the depiction of Victorian-era London and the life of someone who takes on criminal investigation as a hobby. I do feel like it may have been a little light, but it may be that I've just gotten used to series (like Alex Grecian's Scotland Yard Murder Squad) that are pretty dark.

 Book Log 2021 #6: A Separation by Katie Kitamura

A woman goes to Greece to find her ex, whose gone missing six months after they agree to split up (a parting that they've not yet made public).  He was staying at a luxury hotel in a remote part of the country, and the juxtaposition of that arrangement only heightens the narrator's emotional state. She goes from high-end meals and clean modernity to a countryside full of burned woods, packs of dogs, and other omens that suggest her search will be in vain. She also quickly determines that she knew even less about her husband than she thought, that his serial infidelity was just the baseline of where his reality diverged from what she thought she knew of him.

Writing this, and reading some of the online reviews of the book, I think this novel reads a lot better in synopsis than in full. The book is much more of a psychological examination of marriage, relationships, and alienation, than it is a convential mystery. I think I wanted the latter, but the reviewers who were more positive about the book praised it for the former. Keep that in mind if you're interested in picking this up.

 Book Log 2021 #5: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

What is it that makes the most successful people successful? Is it all hard work, determination, and grit, or are there other factors that allow some to rise while others fall? Gladwell looks to asnwer these questions in this book, which I read to fulfill a self-help book requirement for a reading challenge. Which is kind of funny, as I don't think whoever classified this as "self-help" actually read the book.

The reason I say that is because many of the factors that Gladwell identifies as promoting success are beyond an individual's control. Things like birth date, family socioeconomic status, and where one grows up all can play an outsized role in whether or not you become an outlier. No one factor is determinative, but it can give a person a leg up that others with similar intelligence may not get.

This is also the book where Gladwell talks a lot about the "10,000 hour rule," where putting in that much practice at a particular endeavour allows you to develop the talent needed to succeed. He cites the Beatles (and all of their club gigs in Hamburg) and Bill Gates (and his access to a computer as a youth) as examples. I tend to not buy into this idea so much, as I think you need at least some innate ability to make use of this much practice. It's also worth noting that the researcher who is credited with the rule, Anders Ericsson, later clarified that the "rule" isn't really a rule.

The book was fine for what I needed to read it for. It's certainly better than most self-help books, for what that's worth.

 Book Log 2021 #4: Bruno and the Carol Singers by Martin Walker

It's the Christmas season in St. Denis, and local police chief Bruno is in the thick of the village's celebrations. But crime doesn't take a holiday, leaving Bruno to also figure out what happened to the money collected by the town for charity.

This is kind of a holiday special for the series, more like a novella in length and without the usual body count. It's a pleasant addition to the series, and just the right length and tone if you want a mystery for the holidays but not something too serious.

 Book Log 2021 #3: A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

The goon squad in this book (which is either a novel or a series of linked short stories, though I tended to think of it as a novel) is a metaphorical reference to time, and how its relentless march spares no one. Each of the chapters shows how this assault plays on each of its characters (and the main linking character, a record producer). 

The book was highly praised, won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and made several lists of the top books of the decade.

And I didn't care for it at all.

I think I never really bought into the goon squad metaphor. To me, a goon squad comes in and causes immediate harm.  Time doesn't do that. Time is like a steady drip that slowly erodes. You don't notice changes day to day, but after a couple of decades pass you can really see what time's done to you.

I don't think that's the only reason I didn't like the book - I'm sure some of the characters rubbed me the wrong way - but it's likely the main one. 

 Book Log 2021 #2: Lost and Gone Forever by Alex Grecian

Change has come to the Scotland Yard Murder Squad in the wake of Walter Day's kidnapping, most notably the sacking of Segreant Neville Hammersmith, who has started a private detective agency whose primary case is finding Day and catching Jack the Ripper. 

This book appears to wrap up the series, which is unfortunate as I liked the characters quite a bit and enjoyed seeing how the different factions in the Murder Squad interacted.  But I guess there's not a lot of places you can go after you bring in Jack the Ripper as your villain.

It's a good end to the series, at least, wrapping things up without doing so too neatly.

 Book Log 2021 #1: On the Plain of Snakes by Paul Theroux

Spurred to investigate the truth behind the rhetoric and stereotypes that dominate the discussion of the US-Mexico border, Theroux bought a used car and set out to drive the border, and then deep into Mexico itself, to get a sense of what current day Mexico is like and what motivates its people to either stay or go to the US.

The result is, not surprisingly, far more complex and nuanced than what we get from the evening news or blustering politicians. And while Theroux occasionally falls into stereotypes himself, he is a seasoned enough traveler to know how to connect with locals and draw conclusions from their stories. And while I miss the stories of his train travels, using a car gives him more time and flexibility to follow stories as they develop.

 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.