Book a Week 2019 - BW10: Whodunit Bookology - Chief Inspector Armand Gamache

[Maus]

Finished a few more!

10. "Donner Dinner Party" by Nathan Hale.   As with the book below, read this after my DD did so we'd have a common talking point.  We'll look for more of these, too, though they are "younger" than the Manga Classics by quite a bit.

9. "Manga Classics: The Stories of Edgar Allan Poe" adapted by Stacy King.  This falls into the "reading so I know what my kid is reading" category, but I have to say my dyslexic non-reader (DD14) disappeared into her bedroom with this and didn't come out until she'd finished it.  The only other thing she's ever done that with is the Beast Academy Guidebooks.  And then she said that she'd noticed in the end notes that there are other books in the series, like the Count of Monte Cristo, so could we see if the library has that?  I almost cried.  

I haven't read Manga myself before, so I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was delighted that it uses Poe's own words, rather than a simplified version.

8. "Bodies We've Buried" by Jarrett Hallcox and Amy Welch.  Fascinating, but gruesome!  The subtitle is "Inside the National Forensic Academy, the World's top CSI Training School," and that's what it is!  The two authors are the two administrators of the program who are responsible for staging the "crime scenes" for the classes, and they are pretty detailed about flinging real blood around and arranging cadavers at the body farm and stuff like that.  I think it would be too intense for my teens, but I found it hard to put down.

7. "The Forensic Casebook" by N.E. Genge.  I think I'll get my own copy of this one.  I liked the "real case" inserts that illustrated what the book had been teaching.

6. "Shaken Faith Syndrome" by MIchael R. Ash. (LDS)

5. "Fingerprints: Crime-Solving Science Experiments" by Kenneth G. Rainis.

4. "Forensic Investigations" (6) by Leela Burnscott. & ("Bones Speak" by Richard Spilsbury)

3. "A Reason for Faith" edited by Laura Harris Hales.  (LDS)

2. "Left Standing" by Mason Wells, et al. (LDS)

1.  "Camino Easy" by B. G. Preston. 

[Negin]

Kindle book on sale today - historical fiction

 

[aggieamy]

On 3/3/2019 at 1:08 PM, Negin said:

 

The Tsar was such a family man and I simply love that.

“Unlike many a royal couple, Nicholas and Alexandra shared the same bed.”

"In the evening after supper, Nicholas often sat in the family drawing room reading aloud while his wife and daughters sewed or embroidered. His choice, said Anna Vyrubova, who spent many of these cozy evenings with the Imperial family, might be Tolstoy, Turgenev or his own favorite, Gogol. On the other hand, to please the ladies, it might be a fashionable English novel. Nicholas read equally well in Russian, English and French and he could manage in German and Danish.”

“Books were supplied by his private librarian, whose job it was to provide the Tsar each month with twenty of the best books from all countries. This collection was laid out on a table and Nicholas arranged them in order of preference; thereafter the Tsar’s valets saw to it that no one disarranged them until the end of the month. Sometimes, instead of reading, the family spent evenings pasting snapshots taken by the court photographers or by themselves into green leather albums stamped in gold with the Imperial monograph. Nicholas enjoyed supervising the placement and pasting of the photographs and insisted that the work be done with painstaking neatness.”

“The most famous room in the palace—for a time the most famous room in Russia—was the Empress’s mauve boudoir. Everything in it was mauve: curtains, carpet, pillows; even the furniture was mauve-and-white Hepplewhite. Masses of fresh white and purple lilacs, vases of roses and orchids and bowls of violets perfumed the air. Tables and shelves were cluttered with books, papers and porcelain and enamel knicknacks. In this room, Alexandra surrounded herself with mementoes of her family and her religion. The walls were covered with icons. Over her chaise-longue hung a picture of the Virgin Mary. A portrait of her mother, Princess Alice, looked down from another wall. On a table in a place of honor stood a large photograph of Queen Victoria. The only portrait in the room other than religious and family pictures was a portrait of Marie Antoinette.

In this cluttered, cozy room, surrounded by her treasured objects, Alexandra felt secure. Here, in the morning, she talked to her daughters, helping them choose their dresses and plan their schedules. It was to this room that Nicholas hurried to sit with his wife, sip tea, read the papers and discuss their children and their empire. They talked to each other in English, although Nicholas and all the children spoke Russian to each other. To Alexandra, Nicholas was always ‘Nicky.’ To him, she was ‘Alix’ or ‘Sunshine’ or ‘Sunny.’ Sometimes through the rooms of this private wing, a clear, musical whistle like the warbling song of a bird would sound. This was Nicholas’s way of summoning his wife. Early in her marriage, Alexandra, hearing the call, would blush red and drop whatever she was doing to hurry to him. Later, as his children grew up, Nicholas used it to call them, and the birdlike whistle became a familiar and regular sound in the Alexander Palace. Next to the mauve boudoir was the Empress’s dressing room, an array of closets for her gowns, shelves for her hats and trays for her jewels. Alexandra had six wardrobe maids, but her modesty severely limited their duties. No one ever saw the Empress Alexandra undressed or in her bath. She bathed herself, and when she was ready to have her hair arranged, she appeared in a Japanese kimono. Often it was Grand Duchess Tatiana who came to comb her mother’s hair and pile the long red-gold strands on top of her head. After the Empress was almost dressed, her maids were summoned to fasten buttons and clasp on jewelry. ‘Only rubies today,’ the Empress would say, or ‘Pearls and sapphires with this gown.’ She preferred pearls to all other jewels, and several ropes of pearls usually cascaded from her neck to her waist.”

All in all, this was a truly a captivating biography and I would recommend it to anyone who’s interested in Russian history.

Here are some of my favorite quotes. There are more quotes as well as photos, on my Good Reads review.

 

 

You all might remember that my mother is a huge Russian history fan and I'm always looking for book suggestions for her so I really appreciate this review. It's going in my amazon cart now. Because what else do you give people for gifts other than books?!?!

It breaks my heart to hear about how nice they seemed as a family and how brutally it all ended for them. 😞

On 3/3/2019 at 3:51 PM, Mothersweets said:

I've read up to the 9th? book in the Inspector Gamache series. I read about half of How the Light Gets In and just had to set it aside because I was so annoyed with where the author was taking the story. Maybe I'll pick it back up and try to power through. 

I finished The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher and liked it so so much! Any recommendations on which one I should read next?

I finished listening to Magpie Murders but haven't picked a new audiobook. Also started Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell but haven't gotten very far. 

But the ending is so so good. This is really embarrassing but I liked it so much I might have written a short fanfic story about the ending kind of like I used to when I was thirteen and thought that Hermione and Percy should have ended up together. (Not Hermione and Ron who are the. worst. couple. ever.)

I'm prepared to back that statement about Ron and Hermione up with some serious internet fighting if necessary. 

On 3/3/2019 at 4:27 PM, mumto2 said:

I just finished How the Light Gets In last night and found the ending really satisfying.  Not saying you have to finish it but what I suspect was annoying you resolves with that book.  I forgot to say I skipped book 8 The Beautiful Mystery this time through partly because of the annoying issue.  I was going to have a long wait for the audiobook and remember the book well.......set in a monastery so everything was different from the Three Pines setting.

And because the Beautiful Mystery makes me want to cry. I skip it in my rereads also. 

[Kareni]

21 hours ago, Maus said:

. "Manga Classics: The Stories of Edgar Allan Poe" adapted by Stacy King.  This falls into the "reading so I know what my kid is reading" category, but I have to say my dyslexic non-reader (DD14) disappeared into her bedroom with this and didn't come out until she'd finished it.  The only other thing she's ever done that with is the Beast Academy Guidebooks.  And then she said that she'd noticed in the end notes that there are other books in the series, like the Count of Monte Cristo, so could we see if the library has that?  I almost cried.  

How wonderful! I hope she'll find some more books that speak to her.

22 hours ago, mumto2 said:

Just did my library run and came home with the new Anne Bishop!  

I received an email from the library that they have a copy waiting for me. I'll be picking it up tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it.

**

Regarding: RE-READING PATRICK O’BRIAN’S AUBREY-MATURIN SERIES

“Not a moment to be lost”: Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series by Jo Walton

https://www.tor.com/2010/10/04/not-a-moment-to-be-lost-patrick-obrians-aubrey-maturin-series/or

On 3/5/2019 at 4:26 PM, Mothersweets said:

These are wonderful! Thanks Kareni!

You are quite welcome, Mothersweets.

Regards,

Kareni

[aggieamy]

@Violet Crown - Hope you and Wee Girl are feeling better.

@Robin M - How's your dad's eye doing? Eek. That sounds horrific. 

Finished:

A bunch of books on writing but none good enough to recommend.

The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner. - John and I read this together at bedtime and he loved it. I forgot how incredible a book it is. Reading it for the fifth or sixth time as an adult I can how stilted the writing is and the moral lessons we're being hit with but I can also see how much my five year old is loving it and telling his dad the next morning about what Watch and Benny did. And talking to Sophia about it and her remembering how much she loved all the descriptions of the kids cooking and eating. Now that is an incredible book. 

Next up I think we're going to read Farmer Boy or the next Boxcar Children book. 

I found this review for Surprise Island and I think all Boxcar Children fans will really appreciate it. There's some language but mostly okay. 

[Kareni]

Yesterday I read Karen Lord's science fiction  The Best of All Possible Worlds: A Novel  which I enjoyed.

"A proud and reserved alien society finds its homeland destroyed in an unprovoked act of aggression, and the survivors have no choice but to reach out to the indigenous humanoids of their adopted world, to whom they are distantly related. They wish to preserve their cherished way of life but come to discover that in order to preserve their culture, they may have to change it forever.
 
Now a man and a woman from these two clashing societies must work together to save this vanishing race—and end up uncovering ancient mysteries with far-reaching ramifications. As their mission hangs in the balance, this unlikely team—one cool and cerebral, the other fiery and impulsive—just may find in each other their own destinies . . . and a force that transcends all."

 **

I also reread SK Dunstall's Alliance and Confluence yet again.

Regards,

Kareni

[Kareni]

And I just finished the sixth book in Alex Bledsoe's Tufa series. This wasn't my favorite book in the series though all of them were good reads; it did a good job of tying up loose ends.

The Fairies of Sadieville: The Final Tufa Novel   by Alex Bledsoe 

"Charming and lyrical, The Fairies of Sadieville continues Alex Bledsoe's widely-praised contemporary fantasy series, about the song-wielding fairy descendants living in modern-day Appalachia.

“This is real.” Three small words on a film canister found by graduate students Justin and Veronica, who discover a long-lost silent movie from more than a century ago. The startlingly realistic footage shows a young girl transforming into a winged being. Looking for proof behind this claim, they travel to the rural foothills of Tennessee to find Sadieville, where it had been filmed.

Soon, their journey takes them to Needsville, whose residents are hesitant about their investigation, but Justin and Veronica are helped by Tucker Carding, who seems to have his own ulterior motives. When the two students unearth a secret long hidden, everyone in the Tufa community must answer the most important question of their entire lives — what would they be willing to sacrifice in order to return to their fabled homeland of Tír na nÓg? "

Regards,

Kareni

[mumto2]

4 hours ago, aggieamy said:

@Violet Crown - Hope you and Wee Girl are feeling better.

@Robin M - How's your dad's eye doing? Eek. That sounds horrific. 

Finished:

A bunch of books on writing but none good enough to recommend.

The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner. - John and I read this together at bedtime and he loved it. I forgot how incredible a book it is. Reading it for the fifth or sixth time as an adult I can how stilted the writing is and the moral lessons we're being hit with but I can also see how much my five year old is loving it and telling his dad the next morning about what Watch and Benny did. And talking to Sophia about it and her remembering how much she loved all the descriptions of the kids cooking and eating. Now that is an incredible book. 

Next up I think we're going to read Farmer Boy or the next Boxcar Children book. 

I found this review for Surprise Island and I think all Boxcar Children fans will really appreciate it. There's some language but mostly okay. 

The Boxcar Children was my favorite book as a child!  We loved them......oddly, I just found the first four books on a charity table and got them for friends who have a boy who is four to try.

Kareni, I haven’t started Wild Country yet.  I started a rabbit trail early this morning from the cozy I was reading in the dark on my kindle and got hooked.  I now know a whole  lot about Singapore dishes that contain a nut/seed from a special kind of mangrove tree.  They are highly poisonous (cyanide) but there is a procedure people go through to eat them which include burying them for a month to ferment.  Apparently tastes like truffles.....I don’t know what they taste like either.  😳Learned quite a bit!  The book is part of the Auntie Lee’s Deadly Specials.  As soon as I finished on google the book finally explained why the dish was such a big deal,  grrr. Halfway through.

[Kareni]

I read about a third of Karen Rivers'You Are The Everything  before it got a bit odd, and I simply skimmed to the end. This was my second book by a Karen in as many days.

 "Can you want something—or someone—so badly that you change your destiny? Elyse Schmidt never would have believed it, until it happened to her. When Elyse and her not-so-secret crush, Josh Harris, are the sole survivors of a plane crash, tragedy binds them together. It’s as if their love story is meant to be. Everything is perfect, or as perfect as it can be when you’ve literally fallen out of the sky and landed hard on the side of a mountain—until suddenly it isn’t. And when the pieces of Elyse’s life stop fitting together, what is left? "

 Regards,

Kareni

[Robin M]

7 hours ago, aggieamy said:

And because the Beautiful Mystery makes me want to cry. I skip it in my rereads also. 

 

I loved Beautiful Mystery and yes, it runs the gamut of emotions. I read it on Ebook and then purchased the physical book so I could read it again at my leisure without being tied to electronics.

I talked to my dad yesterday and he is doing better.  They got all the shattered pieces of the cataract and lens out. His eye is really swollen and he can't get a permanent lens for another 3 or 4 weeks so they are going to put on a temporary for now.  I just can't fathom how that works.  He was going to cancel his big 88th birthday family bash which is in a couple weeks and the doctor said nope, don't do it, family is important, so we'll put on a temp.  Makes me cringe thinking of him having eye procedures over and over.   Otherwise he's in excellent health, thank goodness.

[Negin]

12 hours ago, aggieamy said:

You all might remember that my mother is a huge Russian history fan and I'm always looking for book suggestions for her so I really appreciate this review. It's going in my amazon cart now. Because what else do you give people for gifts other than books?!?!

What a sweet gift to give to your mom. I hope that she enjoys it. I wasn't too interested about the battle/war/military details, but all the rest of it made up for those parts. 

Yes, their murder in a Siberian cellar was heartbreaking. It happened all those years ago and I'm surprised at how much it upset me. I felt such a connection to this family. 

[Negin]

Kindle book on sale today

[Kidlit]

Morning, all.  I’m coming to you this morning from the beautiful Gulf of Mexico. We’ve been on a little trip with the dh (he works, we play ⛱).  Yesterday I finished The Clockmaker’s Daughter while enjoying the sound of the surf.  I have to say that I haven’t enjoyed a novel this much in a while.  This was my second Kate Morton novel, and I enjoyed this one so much more than the first one I read.  Highly recommended if you like gothic, other-worldly reads.  (Disclaimer: I would’ve never said I liked either of those overmuch, Jane Eyre excluded, but I really loved this one, so I’d say give it a chance, even if you think it’s not your cuppa.)

 

 

[Maus]

DD14 finished another (Jungle Book) and is well into a fourth (Macbeth).  I'm enjoying feeling like I need to try to keep up!  (I'll read Macbeth as soon as she finishes.)

12. "Forensic Science Projects with a Crime Lab" by Robert Gardner.  I liked the layout of this.  I'll have to try out some of his others.

11. "Manga Classics: The Jungle Book" adapted by Crystal S. Chan.  I'm not sure this one is using the original language.  I'll have to get the original and refresh my memory. 

10. "Donner Dinner Party" by Nathan Hale. 

9. "Manga Classics: The Stories of Edgar Allan Poe" adapted by Stacy King. 

8. "Bodies We've Buried" by Jarrett Hallcox and Amy Welch.

7. "The Forensic Casebook" by N.E. Genge.

6. "Shaken Faith Syndrome" by MIchael R. Ash. (LDS)

5. "Fingerprints: Crime-Solving Science Experiments" by Kenneth G. Rainis.

4. "Forensic Investigations" (6) by Leela Burnscott. & ("Bones Speak" by Richard Spilsbury)

3. "A Reason for Faith" edited by Laura Harris Hales.  (LDS)

2. "Left Standing" by Mason Wells, et al. (LDS)

1.  "Camino Easy" by B. G. Preston. 

[Robin M]

Happy International Women's Day!   

In my inbox this morning 

Bookish Movies directed by women.

HERstory: 10 Books About Overlooked Women of History

Inspirational Women: On and off the page

Word Wenches - Transported by Words

[Kareni]

I just finished Clean by Alex Hughes which I enjoyed. I would happily read on in the series.

 "A RUTHLESS KILLER—

OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND

I used to work for the Telepath’s Guild before they kicked me out for a drug habit that wasn’t entirely my fault. Now I work for the cops, helping Homicide Detective Isabella Cherabino put killers behind bars.

My ability to get inside the twisted minds of suspects makes me the best interrogator in the department. But the normals keep me on a short leash. When the Tech Wars ripped the world apart, the Guild stepped up to save it. But they had to get scary to do it—real scary.

Now the cops don’t trust the telepaths, the Guild doesn’t trust me, a serial killer is stalking the city—and I’m aching for a fix. But I need to solve this case. Fast. I’ve just had a vision of the future: I’m the next to die. "

Regards,

Kareni

[tuesdayschild]

On 3/5/2019 at 6:13 PM, Kareni said:

and you-really-don't-want-to-know how many Kindle books)

But i do want to know 😋

The link to/of Fran Wildes journal is amazing!

@Robin M no need to be sorry, truly, i didn't recheck the completed line up before starting;  and .... i just gave SUE a shot of OIL and we've got LOUISE. 

**  

Thanks BaWs, I now have a new, to me, cache of authors and titles to go check out on goodreads.   

Edited March 9, 2019 by tuesdayschild

[KathyBC]

I'm so excited! I got a new-to-me phone and was able to put the Overdrive Libby app on it. This phone is bright enough to read from and fairly easy on the eyes. I was able to give Patricia Wentworth another try, with The Case is Closed. I think I stand by my original verdict, these books are maybe the equivalent of playing too many games on my phone rather than getting work done (fun once in awhile), but anyway happy with how the week went for sure!

[Kareni]

10 hours ago, tuesdayschild said:

But i do want to know 😋

The link to/of Fran Wildes journal is amazing!

I agree about that journal. It's impressive already that's she's a writer, and then we see that she's an artist, too.

After winning a book yesterday, I have 5992 books on my Kindle or in the cloud. The vast majority of those (5000-plus) were free books, others were won or bought on sale or gifts, and about two hundred belong to my sister; only a dozen or two were bought at full price.

Regards,

Kareni

[Junie]

I finished Emma this afternoon!  I really enjoyed it.  I am, however, puzzled at how I finished high school and a bachelor's in English without ever having read Jane Austen.

Edited: Or Dumas.  I had never read anything of his, either.

 

Edited March 9, 2019 by Junie

[Kidlit]

5 hours ago, Junie said:

I finished Emma this afternoon!  I really enjoyed it.  I am, however, puzzled at how I finished high school and a bachelor's in English without ever having read Jane Austen.

Edited: Or Dumas.  I had never read anything of his, either.

 

I read a fair amount of Austen, but only in grad school. I took a class on the English novel.  I never read any Dumas.  (FWIW, my undergrad degree is in secondary education—English and history; master’s is in library science; I also have half of the graduate English hours required for a master’s in English.) 

[Kidlit]

Today I finished The Most They Ever Had by Rick Bragg.  He’s a contemporary Alabama author.  He writes memoir/nonfiction/essays.  He writes so poignantly about the South.  Here’s the summary of the book from Goodreads: 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6502869

Basically, it’s a collection of essays reflecting on the lives of textile mill workers in NE Alabama and the effect that mill work and the loss of that livelihood in the early 2000s had on them.  It’s maybe a niche read, but everybody I know who’s ever read anything by Bragg has loved it. (Disclaimer: they’ve all been from Alabama. 😝)

[tuesdayschild]

12 hours ago, Kareni said:

I agree about that journal. It's impressive already that's she's a writer, and then we see that she's an artist, too.

After winning a book yesterday, I have 5992 books on my Kindle or in the cloud. The vast majority of those (5000-plus) were free books, others were won or bought on sale or gifts, and about two hundred belong to my sister; only a dozen or two were bought at full price.

 

1

And a really talented one too.

Perfect!  So nice to see books become numbers  😍 

 

[Robin M]

Week 11 is live - please continue conversation in new thread