To save myself doing so much work at the end of December, I am really going to try and do the stats each month.
Read 9 books
children's books - 5
mysteries - 4
Kindle - 6
print - 3
by men - 3
by women - 6
By the years:
1900-1909 - 1
1940s - 2
1950s - 1
1960s - 1
2010-2019 - 1
2020 - 3
January - 9
1. The Purple Onion Mystery (aka Murder on Friday) - book 7, and last, in the Spike Tracy series
by Harriette Ashbrook
mystery 1941
Kindle
finished 1/2/21
Sorry to say farewell to Mr. Tracy. I've so enjoyed these books.
2. The Theft of the Iron Dogs aka Murderer's Mistake - book 28 in the Robert Macdonald series
by E.C.R Lorac
mystery 1946
Kindle
finished 1/10/21
One of my favorite books in the Macdonald series. He goes back to an area, and sees some of the people he met in a previous book, Fell Murder. Such good characters, and she was a really good writer. I've read she's getting a lot of acclaim since being re-introduced through the British Library Crime Classics series. She deserves every bit of the praise.
3. The Railway Children
by Edith Nesbitt
children's fiction serialized in The London Magazine 1905, published as a book in 1906
Kindle
finished 1/14/21
Best book of the month! I loved it so much. She is a great writer, and I plan to read more of her this year. Wonderful family relationships. Realistic children. Life in the "olden days" when kids could pretty much live their own lives during the long days.
4. The Owl Service
by Alan Garner
children's fiction 1967
Kindle
finished 1/16/21
I really wanted to like this, but I mostly felt it was odd. I don't want to say too much because it is a good story to come to fresh. I am interested in the mythical stories about old England and Wales, but this one just didn't strike my fancy.
5. Murder in Vienna - book 42 in the Robert Macdonald series
by E.C.R. Lorac
mystery 1956
Kindle
finished 1/21/20
Still loving Lorac so much. What a terrific character Macdonald is. It is one of those series where you don't see him at home, or with relatives. It is just him on the case, yet readers get to know him as a person.
6. Kamala and Maya's Big Idea
by Meena Harris; illus. by Ana Ramirez Gonzalez
Children's book 2020
finished 1/24/21
7. Joey The Story of Joe Biden
by Jill Biden; illus. by Amy June Bates
Children's book 2020
finished 1/24/21
8. The Fatal Flying Affair - book 7 in the Lady Hardcastle mysteries
by T. E. Kinsey
mystery 2020
Kindle
finished 1/27/21
I love this series! It is historical fiction set in the pre-WWI years. Awfully good relationship between two women, both of them strong and interesting.
9. The Boy, the mole, the fox and the Horse
by Charlie Mackesy
illustrated fiction for adults and children 2019
finished 1/27/21
My main print reading is a very big (and wonderful book) about Churchill and the Second World War but I did read a few children's print books this month.
I heard about The Boy... from The Duchess of Cornwall. And then I saw it everywhere, so I bought it. I must be missing something. I think it is a perfectly fine children's book, but I am not one of the many adults who've written about how wonderful it is. I thought it rather simple and bland and not surprising or interesting. Probably I'm the only reader in the world who thinks this, but there you go.
The book about President Biden was really quite wonderful. We got it for all the grandchildren for Christmas. It is quite detailed about things in his life. I think it will show children that ordinary people can do great things as children and may even be President someday.
This book about Kamala Harris and her sister, Maya written by Maya's daughter was based on a story the writer had always heard. It isn't necessary factual but is a good story. I didn't care for the illustrations.
I've been all over trying to find a video to show you here, but this is the best I can do. I so hope it will work. It is also on Facebook if you are there.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CKeso1nAvIN/
The Duchess of Cornwall reads Robert Burns' "My Heart's in the Highlands". He was born 262 years ago today.
There's a nice piece about him here.
Tom and I drove to Cambridge, Massachusetts many years ago in a snowstorm driving a red Dodge truck to go to a "Burns' Night". It was great fun. In those days, we were big fans of Jean Redpath. She was there, as was Norman Kennedy. The host was Robert J. Lurtsema, who I wrote about on the blog here. In fact, someone commented on that post just last month!! It warmed my heart. I just reread it and saw that I had mentioned the Burns' Night, and the red truck!
This is quite mind-blowing. Because I copied and pasted right from the site, you have to scroll over a bit to read it all but it is worth the trouble. Wow!
I've just started watching my DVDs of Goodnight Sweetheart - third time I will have seen it, I think.
A woman in 1940 lights up a cigarette. A man who has time-traveled from the 1990s says it is "very bad for your health."
She says, "Everyone knows they're good for your nerves. And there is no point worrying about a cough carrying you off when a bomb could land on you any second."
...that we picked up the kittens.
And you can see them now in the blog header! We are so thankful for Gemma and Maisy!
If you are on instagram, you might be interested in this reading group! To find her, just type into the search
duchessofcornwallsreadingroom
I've read that one of the books is The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse by Charles Mackesy.
2020 was my year of discovery! I discovered several new writers, and raced through their work.
Harriette Ashbrook. Who has heard of her? Yeah, I thought not. Well, she writes a terrific series starring the younger brother of the Manhattan District Attorney. As is the case with so many fictional second sons, this man lives a very different life from his successful sibling. Spike Tracy is a bon vivant, a boulevardier as Bertie Wooster is. He is also a brilliant detective, who sometimes sits unnoticed while noticing everything and everyone. I really like him. She wrote seven books starring Spike and I loved each one. She has another series as Susannah Shane with Christopher Saxe as the detective, but just one of the books is available. She lived to be only 47, and it is very hard to find much information about her. I did find a blog piece here.
E.C.R Lorac, whose real name was Edith Caroline Rivett, is much more famous, yet was unknown to me. I began reading her work last year, and am still going strong. Not all is available, but I read what I can. You may read more about her here.
A more modern writer I discovered only to find out she had died in April 2020 is Sheila Connolly. It made me so sad for her, and for her myriad readers. There is a very nice tribute here, in which the series I read, one right after the other, is featured.
I only have two posts about the 1920s here and here, but I've had quite a great year reading. I read seven books published then, and one about Hadley Richardson. You will read in the first link that we had planned to visit her grave in Tamworth, New Hampshire but that went the way of so many things in the year of the virus. It will be one of the first outings when this thing finally ends! I've also kept on a special shelf all the books I have that were published in or are about the decade and hope to continue each year reading more.
I hardly ever write about one book that was my favorite or the best, but for 2020 it is easy. Electric Eden by Rob Young. I have owned this book for a very long time, and decided I would read it with my breakfast every day instead of a magazine, and then I began reading it other times of the day as well, and then there were times I couldn't put it down, though it took me two months and twelve days to read! And I bought four books that were referenced: News From Nowhere by William Morris, A Shropshire Lad by A.E. Houseman, The Celtic Twilight by W.B. Yeats, and The Owl Service by Alan Garner. I also bought a vinyl version of an album I had bought on iTunes years ago, Vashti Bunyan's Diamond Day. There was much stopping and looking up all kinds of music and musicians. You Tube was a tremendous place to find most everything. I felt like I was in college again, really studying and really learning.
I loved reading some James Herriot books, some of which I had read a long time ago. And Galsworthy's Forsyte Saga was so excellent. I can't praise those books enough.
And I am delighted that I read 17 print books this year.
I read a few books published in 2020. The 2020s have begun!
Without further ado, as they say, here are my stats for the past year. And, note to self - this year do these stats each month instead of tallying at the end of a year.
In 2020, I read 70 books.
3 Children's fiction
11 Fiction
2 Graphic nonfiction
41 Mystery
13 Nonfiction
53 Kindle
17 Print
22 by men
48 by women
By the years:
1 - 1900-1909
7 - 1920s
6 - 1930s
5 - 1940s
4 - 1950s
3 - 1970s
4 - 1980s
4 - 1990s
3 - 2000-2009
26 - 2010-2019
7 - 2020s
I'm not bothering to count rereads or library books anymore. I hardly read any of the latter, and the rereads are so few that it doesn't matter to me how many there are.
February - 5
"... happy new year. Let's hope it's a good one, without any fear."
