Reading through despair

I woke up the morning after the US election to disbelief and despair. I think I went through all the classic stages of grief - definitely anger and denial - in the first hour. I remember the morning after in 2016, but this was and is so much worse.

I talk a lot about "comfort reading," both in real life discussions and on-line. At this particular time in my life, I am reading science fiction and fantasy pretty much exclusively. I know this is a coping mechanism, and as I've said elsewhere, it is working for me right now. It's a mix of re-reading favorite authors and trying new ones. I want compelling worlds, with competent and above all morally good (or at least grey) characters, who recognize their shared responsibility to people and their worlds, and act on that. I am collecting all the recommendations I can find, and I also wander through the sci-fi/fantasy section of the library each week. It's probably just as well that my local Barnes & Noble is still closed for renovations, so I'm not out buying on impulse. I have been re-reading a lot, which is not cutting down the TBR stacks, but at least I'm not adding to them (much).

Here is a short account of what I read in November:

The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi, Shannon Chakraborty (2023 TBR)  In this alt-medieval fantasy set in the Indian Ocean, retired pirate captain Amina Al-Sirafi is blackmailed into retrieving the kidnapped daughter of one of her old crew. For that, she needs to track down her remaining crew and claim her ship again. This was an amazing adventure set in a magical Muslim world. It's the first in a trilogy, and I am looking forward to Amina's next adventures.

Catalyst, Audrey Faye (2024 purchase)  This is the eleventh book in the Ghost Mountain series about a shifter pack in British Columbia. Audrey Faye self-publishes through Amazon, so her books are unfortunately only available there. The series begins with Alpha, where three wolves stumble on a pack that has been severely traumatized by evil leaders. One of the three, Hayden Scott, kills the alpha in a fight and assumes leadership, to find a small group of terrorized women and children. Over the books, the pack begins to come together, to heal, and then to thrive. The stories don't wallow in the trauma, this isn't torture porn. The reader learns only enough of what has happened to understand what a character is feeling or needs. These stories are an epitome of care and comfort and healing, and I re-read them regularly. In fact, I read seven of the previous books around this new one - in part because there are a lot of characters to keep track of (I made a chart).

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, Becky Chambers (re-read)  I turned to Becky Chambers earlier this year, when I was having foundation work done on my house. Her worlds and characters are compelling, and they also wrestle with ethical and personal questions, but most of all they take care, of themselves and others. I went on to re-read Record of a Spaceborn Few (for the second time this year).

Strange Practice, Dreadful Company, and Bitter Waters, Vivian Shaw (library books/ebook purchase)  I have seen these books recommended many times, and I finally went looking in the library. I found the third in the series (Grave Importance) on the shelves, but after reading about half, I felt like I was missing too much of the backstory, particularly the connections between the characters. I went back and started with the first instead, Strange Practice. In this series, Greta Helsing is a physician to supernatural creatures, with a Harley Street practice inherited from her father. Descended from Abraham van Helsing, the family turned from hunting "monsters" to protecting them. The books pull in (and slyly reference) characters and events from classic horror stories, which in this world actually chronicle true events but have been written over into fiction. The main characters includes vampires and vampyres, werewolves and mummies. I need to get back to the third, before the fourth and final comes out next year.

The Redoubtable Pali Avrampul, Victoria Goddard (re-read)  I picked up my first Victoria Goddard book, The Hands of the Emperor, in 2021. 738 pages later, I emerged with a new obsession, and eventually a shelf full of books. There are various connected series in Goddard's fantasy Nine Worlds. Pali Avrampul belongs to the second I read, the stories of the infamous Red Company, as her site says, "Friends by chance. Revolutionaries by accident. Folk heroes very much on purpose." After the Red Company disbanded, Pali went on to become a professor of history. This story begins with "Professor Black" preparing to take a sabbatical, which will involve meeting the Emperor. That leads to her to return to being Pali Avrampul and meeting up again with old friends. Goddard has just published the third book in a triology about Pali and her sisters, background stories to the Red Company. I have them in ebook, but since they are now available in print, I am adding them to this year's TBR. Victoria Goddard is also self-published, though not through Amazon, but I'm not sure her books are widely available in libraries.

I don't know what December will bring, reading-wise. I'm just grateful to have the comfort and distraction of good books, and fellow readers with whom to share books and recommendations.

An entertaining mix of cases

Mr Fortune's Trials, H.C Bailey  (TBR shelves, 2024)

After reading Mr Fortune, Please in September, I went looking for more reprints of H.C. Bailey's books. I struck it lucky with Mr Fortune's Trials, originally published in 1925. The six "Trials," as Bailey labels the cases that Reggie Fortune takes on, were the most entertaining I have read yet. Only two of them, the first and last, involve murder - or at least successful murder.

It makes sense that a book published in 1925 would include stories that are connected to events or the aftermath of the Great War. In "The Only Son," Wilfrid Hartford survived the war but lost his father and elder brother. He came home with "lung trouble" and (the reader understands) psychological trauma. His mother, desperate to help him heal, has found a doctor to care for him in England. But Reggie, who knows this doctor is a scientist, not a physician, is compelled to investigate that treatment. In the much less serious "The Hermit Crab," Miss Platt-Robinson, a tireless worker during the War, has been rewarded for her service with the position of superintendent of the Record Department of the Ministry of Social Welfare. There are rumors of conflict among the staff, and Miss Platt-Robinson has started to get threatening letters. Then she disappears. Reggie actually enjoys tracking her down.

My favorite "Trial" was the third, "The Furnished Cottage." The cover of the edition I read refers to this story, where Reggie is for once the victim. It's apparently taken from the cover of the original U.S. edition in 1926.

Reggie is set up for an accusation of theft, at an over-the-top reception to view bridal presents, where he is meant to be found with stolen emeralds. Even more astonishingly, he is kidnapped and left in the cellar of a vacant house, with a pitcher of poisoned water to tempt him to a quick death. I was quite impressed with his ingenuity in solving this case.

I have another book of H.C. Bailey stories on the TBR stacks, and I'll be keeping an eye out for more.

Cosy fantasy with jam and books

The Spellshop, Sarah Beth Durst  (TBR shelves, 2024)

I've been hearing a lot lately about romantic fantasy (especially under the new term "romantasy"), and cosy fantasy has also been getting some attention, particularly with Travis Baldree's Legends & Lattes and Bookshops & Bonedust (both of which I enjoyed). I saw this recommended as both, and I put it on my library list. The other night, I stopped at a newer Barnes & Noble and decided that I didn't want to wait out the long library queue for this. (The B&N near me has been closed most of the year for renovations, which has cut down considerably on my impulse book-buying.)

The Spellshop opens with a library burning. Revolution has broken out in the capital city of Alyssium, and the emperor has been defenestrated "in a rather dramatic display." The staff has fled the Great Library, except for one librarian: Kiela is sure it will be safe, that the revolutionaries will respect the

hallowed stacks [that] were filled centuries-old treatises, histories, studies, and (most importantly in Kiela's opinion) spellbooks. Only the elite, the crème de la crème of the scholars, were allowed to even view the spellbooks, as only the rarefied few were permitted, by imperial law, to use magic.

She has worked and also lived in the library for eleven years, tucked away in a wing with only a sentient spider plant named Caz and the occasional researcher for company. She and Caz have packed some books away, just in case. But the flames have nearly reached her section before Caz can convince her that they have to flee. They move the books down to docks in the lower level of the library, where there is a boat they can use to flee with city with the books. Kiela is intent only on escape, but she realizes they need a plan. She decides to sail back to the island of Caltrey. Her parents (who have since died) moved to Alyssium when she was a child, in search of opportunities and a life beyond their small community. If their old house is still standing, she can hide herself, Caz, and the books there.

What she and Caz find is an island that is slowly dying, because the Empire has abandoned the magics that keep the world safe. With the spellbooks that she has rescued, she and Caz decide to try casting some spells, to try and help. But since magic is still illegal - as far as they know - they will call them "remedies." And they open a shop selling jam, as a cover, because raspberries are growing everywhere, and there is a lack of jam on the island (the fishing on which the economy depends is dying, because necessary spells are wearing out and not renewed). Their research process of trying out spells is delightful, as is the community that Kiela and Caz slowly discover. This is a book that celebrates community, and the power of books and knowledge shared. It celebrates food as well - not just jam, but food shared too. I also enjoyed the magical creatures, particularly "cloud bears" that act as forest guardians. This was a joy to read, and I hope that Sarah Beth Durst has more stories to tell set in this world.

An unusual female detective, from 1915

The Golden Slipper, and Other Problems for Violet Strange, Anna Katharine Green  (TBR shelves, 2020)

I had seen Anna Katharine Green described as the first women to write detective stories in the U.S. before I found a pristine Penguin edition of her first book, The Leavenworth Case from 1878, on the library sale shelves. I thought it was interesting for its setting in Gilded Age New York as much for the locked-room mystery. After finishing it, I found a couple of her later books in print and added them to the TBR stacks. I was in a strange mood this week when I couldn't settle on a book to read, and I picked this one up almost at random.

The Golden Slipper consists of nine "Problems" that Violet Strange helps to resolve, most set in New York City. She is a woman of fashion, a popular figure, welcome everywhere and showered with invitations. She is described as a debutante in the first chapter, but like some of Georgette Heyer's characters, she has poise and confidence, she is not an ingenue. Though she is the daughter of a wealthy man, she works for the head of detective agency as a confidential agent. We never learn his name. The daughter of a wealthy man, with a limousine at her disposal and outfits for every social occasion, Violet nevertheless needs money, and she must keep her work (and her funds) secret from her father. This need for money forces Violent to accept cases she would rather not be involved in, and it's a thread running through the stories. Eventually we find out why she needs the money, as the final "problem" is sorted out.

The cases that she takes are an interesting mix. Some involve theft, others murder. They become increasingly complex and melodramatic, particularly the last one, which has a secret passageway with corpses whose cause of death I had a hard time taking seriously. Violet falls in love with one of central characters in a "Problem," another thread that runs through the stories. Since he is described as 

"a degenerate in some respects, lacking the domineering presence, the strong mental qualities, and inflexible character of his progenitors, the wealthy Massachusetts [family] whose great place on the coast had a history as old as the State itself, he yet had gifts and attractions of his own which would have made him a worthy representative of his race, if only he had not fixed his affections on a woman so cold and heedless..."

Struck by the word "degenerate," I couldn't believe he turned out to be the love interest (but not the reason she needed the money).

I enjoyed the stories, the earlier ones more than the later. This was apparently Anna Katharine Green's only book to feature Violet Strange. I do have another of her books on my shelves, Lost Man's Lane, whose main character is Amelia Butterworth, an older woman who inserts herself into the mystery and like Miss Silver and Miss Marple, sees more than the police officers do.

Anne Frank Remembered

Anne Frank Remembered, Miep Gies with Alison Leslie Gold  (TBR shelves, 2019)

Anne Frank was recently featured as a "Person of the Week" on the BBC History Extra podcast, which reminded me that I have had this book on the TBR shelves for a good while. I was also reminded by finding on the library sale shelves Etty Hillesum's An Interrupted Life and Letters from Westerbork, described as "the adult counterpart to Anne Frank."

As far as I can remember, reading Anne Frank's diary was my introduction to the Holocaust, as I think it must have been for others in my generation in the US. I owned a copy of the original edition, and when I visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam after college, I bought the expanded version published later. I wish I could remember more about that visit now.

Though I haven't read the Diary in a few years, the story that Miep Gies told in her memoir was very familiar, but it was so interesting to see that familiar story from the other side of the door into the Secret Annex. This is also the first memoir I have read about life in occupied Holland during World War II. Both Miep and her husband Jan (Henk in Anne's diary) were active in the Resistance, beyond helping those in the Annex. I did not know that Miep was born in Vienna (in 1909) and sent to Holland after the Great War as part of a program to help feed children amidst post-war shortages. She never returned to live in Austria, but when the Nazis invaded Holland, she was classified as a citizen of the Reich, which distressed her and complicated her life and resistance work.

Miep Gies's narrative about the struggles of life in wartime, with the constant shortages, and also the constant small acts of resistance, is compelling. I also appreciated that her memoir covered the years after the war, and the changes in her life and in her country. I have Dutch ancestry through my father's side of the family, which I have only just begun to learn more about. I would like to visit again some day. In the meantime, I am very glad to have this on the shelves next to Anne Frank's famous diary.

Editing this to add: after hitting "publish" I realized I have read another memoir of life in the Netherlands during the war, Corrie ten Boom's The Hiding Place. I might need to read that one again.

Returning to Singapore, after the war

 The Angsana Tree Mystery, Ovidia Yu  (TBR shelves, 2024)

This is the eighth book in Ovidia Yu's Crown Colony series of mysteries, this one set in 1946. As soon I saw it was coming out this year, I knew it would be one of my 52 books for 2024. And I see that she has already announced a new one for next year, The Rose Apple Tree Mystery, so there's the first book for my 2025 list.

The first book in this series, The Frangipani Tree Mystery, is set in 1936, with Singapore a British Crown Colony but with Japanese power gathering in the east. The last four books were set during World War II and the Japanese occupation of Malaysia, and they were dark and sometimes difficult to read - not because of the mysterious deaths, though I am sometimes surprised by violent turns in the stories, but because of the brutal treatment of Singapore's residents and the struggles they go through just to survive. Ovidia Yu noted that she drew on her mother's experiences in the war in writing these books.

The Angsana Tree Mystery is the first set after the end of the war. Singapore is again a Crown Colony under British administration, but political change, and upheaval, is in the air with the push for independence from colonial rule in India, Malaya, Burma, spreading across the east. In Singapore, there are tensions as the residents are trying to rebuild from the devastation of the war and occupation, while British administrators reassert their authority. Su Lin has been working with her former boss in the police force, Thomas Le Froy, managing a public health service project. He has been accused of embezzling the funds, so their work is on hold, as is their tentative romance (which honestly, I have a little trouble believing in). Su Lin is bringing some holiday treats for the upcoming Dragon Boat Festival to another family when she finds one of the daughters standing over a dead body. She knows that Mei Mei Pang couldn't have killed the man, and she immediately starts trying both to help her through the shock and to find out who did. Spoiler alert: there are more dead bodies to come.

This is a complicated story, one I sometimes had a little trouble following, but I enjoyed meeting Su Lin and her redoubtable grandmother Chen Tai again. As always I found the Singapore setting fascinating. It is a place I hope to visit some day. This year I also enjoyed Oanh Ngo Usadi's memoir of her U.S family's relocation to Singapore, Hawker Dreams. I look forward to my next fictional visit.

"True Stories of Regency Romance"

The Game of Hearts, Felicity Day  (TBR shelves, 2024)

My first draft started with a rant about the Bridgerton series, because my North American edition of this has a big button that read "For Fans of Bridgerton." I've deleted it as off-topic, but I will say that if I had seen the UK cover first, I'd have clicked with no hesitation to buy my copy.

Even the subtitle is better: "The lives and loves of Regency women."

In this history, Felicity Day looks at the women in the highest circles of society, the "Ton" and those who aspired to join them. She uses letters, diaries, memoirs, and newspaper articles to explore courtship and marriage, continuing beyond wedding ceremonies (to my surprise, often at home with only a few guests, and by special license) into married life. She also looks at how marriages ended, whether by death or divorce. The sources partly explain her focus on the upper levels of society, because these were the people with leisure and the means to write, whose records have been best preserved over the years. Day follows six women in detail, with a host of supporting characters - sisters and other family members, friends, rivals, in-laws. I recognized some of the names from other reading, particularly Georgette Heyer.

With chapters covering topics like "The Price of Love" (settlements and financial matters) and "The Power of Refusal" (what options women had), Day moves beyond the tropes of romantic fiction and also looks at several commonly-held assumptions about women in the Regency period. Companionate marriages were becoming the norm in this period, so parents were less likely to pressure their daughters for dynastic or financial connections. There was also no pressure for a woman to marry in her first season, lest she be considered "on the shelf" or in Georgette Heyer's phrase, an "ape-leader" in a cap at age 20 or 21. Day reports women marrying into their 30s and 40s.

I very much enjoyed meeting the Regency women featured and learning about their lives. The illustrations are both beautiful and informative. I particularly appreciated the pictures of some of the women and men featured, which helped make their stories feel more real. There are even two photographs, as Felicity Day carries some of their stories in her last chapter down into the later Victorian era. This book was more serious than I expected from the North American cover, and I'm very glad to have read it.

More Mr. Fortune, please

Mr Fortune, Please, H.C. Bailey  (TBR shelves, 2024)

I was introduced to H.C. Bailey and his sleuth Reggie Fortune through the British Library collections of Golden Age crime stories edited by Martin Edwards. I took an immediate liking to both author and character and started looking for more of Bailey's work. I didn't have much luck, with most of his books being out of print, since as Martin Edwards and others have said, Bailey fell out of favor after the Second World War. I resigned myself to scouring each new Crimes Classics collection as it came out, hoping for a Reggie Fortune story (and was usually disappointed).

One of my favorite podcasts, "Shedunnit," recently featured Mr Fortune, Please, as part of the host Caroline Crampton's read through the Green Penguins. Caroline mentioned that due to the differences in British and US copyright laws, this book is available in the US. After a few more minutes listening, I had to put the podcast on hold until I could get the book for myself (and not just to avoid spoilers). It was wonderful to be back with Reggie and the Scotland Yard officers he assists as a forensics expert, with cases new to me. I did note that these stories, originally published in 1927, date before he meets and marries his wife Joan, and I missed her.

There are six stories in this collection, slightly longer than a usual "short story" but not novella length. I had read only one, "The Little House," in the Capital Crimes collection. They are a mix of cases, some of theft rather than murder. One turns on a rumor of buried treasure, another on a missing kitten. I was surprised that one of the stories begins with a theft of jewelry, and while Reggie works out who the thief is, he takes no action toward that person. In several of the cases, Reggie is at odds with the local police force when they are too quick to find a solution, especially when they stubbornly hold on to their solution, and when it threatens a person whom Reggie's investigation has proven to be innocent. As he says at one point, "Mercy - that's not my department. I work for justice." He is always concerned for those accused unjustly, for the vulnerable who may be denied justice, and he will not be silent in those situations. I find that aspect of the stories moving and powerful.

After finishing these stories, I wanted more of Mr. Fortune. I found two modern reprints of story collections available, so that's two more slots filled on my "52 books" list for this year.

An angel and a demon decide to immigrate

When the Angels Left the Old Country, Sacha Lamb  (library book)

I don't remember where I saw this book recommended, but I was intrigued enough to put it on my library list.

"Uriel the angel and Little Ash (short for Ashmedai) are the only two supernatural creatures in their shtetl (which is so tiny, it doesn't have a name other than Shtetl). The angel and the demon have been studying together for centuries, but pogroms and the search for a new life have drawn all the young people from their village to America. When one of those young emigrants goes missing, Uriel and Little Ash set off to find her. Along the way the angel and demon encounter humans in need of their help, including Rose Cohen, whose best friend (and the love of her life) has abandoned her to marry a man, and Malke Shulman, whose father died mysteriously on his way to America. But there are obstacles ahead of them as difficult as what they’ve left behind. Medical exams (and demons) at Ellis Island. Corrupt officials, cruel mob bosses, murderers, poverty. The streets are far from paved with gold."  (publisher's blurb)

At the start of the story, the angel doesn't have a name, or rather its name changes constantly with its purpose - which is often counteracting the mischief that Little Ash gets up to. Ash is called "Little" because he is one of many sons of the Demon King Ashmedai, but he himself has almost no magic, "belonging to that class of creatures another people might call fairies, and we Jews know as sheydim: mischievous spirits of the earth who enjoy leading people astray." The angel receives the name "Uriel" when Ash forges papers to allow them to immigrate outside of Russian Poland. Accepting that name changes it in ways that I still don't fully understand, and also changes its relationship with Ash. But then so do all their adventures.

The first part of the story, where demon and angel set out on their travels, and Rose on hers, was enlightening. Much of what I read about immigration to North America focuses on the voyage and arrival. I hadn't thought about how much work it could take just to get to a major immigration port. This is fiction, of course, but it made me want to know more. Ash and the angel go first to Warsaw, where they discover the dangers of trusting the wrong immigrant agents. Sacha Lamb included a very helpful glossary of Yiddish and Hebrew phrases, but I could also wish for a bibliography.

I pulled this almost at random from my stack of library books one day last week when I wasn't sure what I wanted to read. I fell into the story from the first page and read it with great delight. I was probably primed for it, having just read a non-fiction work about Jewish migration and immigration in the same period, Rachel Cockerell's Melting Point. With so many of the people Rose, Ash, and Uriel meet in New York working in the garment district, it also links to another book on my TBR stacks, Triangle by David Von Drehle, Here the sweatshop workers are organizing and striking for better working conditions.

A wicked mother and a terrifying horse

A Sorceress Comes to Call, T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon)  (TBR shelves, 2024) 

T. Kingfisher would be an "auto-buy" author for me, except that I find her horror stories too disturbing to read (I have a very low tolerance for horror). When she announces a new book, I have to wait to see what type of story she is telling this time. A Sorceress Comes to Call is usually described as a retelling of "The Goose Girl." That is not a story I know, but I figured this book was one of Kingfisher's reshaping of fairy tales. Her Thornhedge, which has recently won several awards, is a take on "Sleeping Beauty" that I very much enjoyed. I wasn't prepared for just how dark this story became, particularly in the deaths of several innocent bystanders (most thankfully off-page), and the monstrosity of the title character. I skipped to the end more than once, just to verify that my favorite characters were still safe.

The book opens with Cordelia, sitting stiff in a pew listening to a long boring sermon, while a fly torments her. She cannot move to brush the fly away, because her sorceress mother Evangeline can take complete control of her body whenever she wants. Fourteen-year-old Cordelia calls this "obedience," something her mother inflicts on her for misbehaving or for her own convenience. Mother and daughter live in a small ramshackle house in the village of Little Haw, where Cordelia is never allowed to close doors, and where she does much of the housework. Her only relief is in rides on her mother's horse, Falada, whom she considers her only friend and confidant (spoiler alert: he is neither). Every so often, Evangeline rides Falada off to visit her "benefactor," who supports the two of them with money and jewelry. Except one day Evangeline returns home in a rage, saying she has to find a new benefactor, and muttering that she should have made him cut off his own legs with an axe (a grim bit of foreshadowing).

The story then switches to Hester Chatham, who awakens in the middle of the night with a shuddering presentiment of Doom. She lives with her bachelor brother Samuel, the Squire of their neighborhood. And then "Three days after her first panic-filled awakening, Doom appeared on Hester's doorstep, in the shape of a woman." Evangeline (who has given herself a title and a deceased husband) has met the Squire in the neighboring city, claiming to be lost in the bustle and in need of his aid. He chivalrously brings her home to his sister, and Evangeline wrangles an invitation for herself and her daughter to stay. Hester sees exactly what is happening but isn't sure how best to protect her brother. It isn't until Cordelia arrives with her mother that Hester begins to realize Evangeline is even worse than she thought. Cordelia on the other hand finds an ally in Hester and in the maid assigned to her, Alice, and she even gets to shut her door against her mother. Even as Hester gathers allies, though, Evangeline draws Samuel into her coils and doesn't hesitate to use her sorcery on anyone she perceives as getting in her way.

By the end of the story, I was quite attached to Hester and Cordelia, and I would happily read more about them. I was delighted to find at least one Easter egg in the story. When Cordelia is helping to search a library for books about sorcery, the stories she reads blur into "a morass of lost princesses, feckless soldiers, evil wizards, and dogs made of bones" - a clear reference to Kingfisher's Nettle & Bone, a wonderful story.

I was entertained by KJ Charles's review of this on Goodreads, where she wrote, "I will add that I read the author's note, and if T Kingfisher could get therapy for her horse issues, the rest of us might not need to get therapy for the horse issues she's giving us, because WOW the horse in this book." I have to agree, and I don't believe Kingfisher's promise in the same author's note "to write a book in the near future where the horse is pleasant and not attempting to murder anyone," since she adds "Probably."

Diversity and inclusion win

The Takedown, Lily Chu  (library book)

This was first released as an Audible Original. Since I find it hard to follow audiobooks, I have been waiting a good while for the print edition, and it was worth the wait. I enjoyed Lily Chu's first two books, both set in Toronto, as this one is. The Stand-In is a celebrity romance, with Gracie Reed hired as a stand-in for Chinese superstar Wei Fangli while she is appearing in a play. I found the reason for her striking resemblance to Fangli (revealed late in the story) too big a coincidence. The Comeback is more of an anti-celebrity romance, where Ariadne Hui is surprised to find a beautiful man staying in her apartment, who turns out to be the cousin of her roommate. Ariadne knows as little about K-Pop as I do, so she doesn't recognize Choi Jihoon. When she does, romantic and professional complications ensue. There is some crossover between all three stories, since they are all set in the Canadian Asian community, but each story stands on its own.

The Takedown begins with Dee Kwan enjoying her perfectly organized life in the family home she recently received from her parents when they moved north. She has just spent her savings renovating and decorating to make the perfect sanctuary. She has finally achieved her dream job as a diversity consultant, one she worked hard to earn. She relaxes by playing Questie, an on-line puzzle-solving game that involves finding clues scattered around the city.

This perfect life goes off the rails very quickly (and in only the second chapter). The owner of the company where she works announces that he is retiring and closing the business. Her mother calls to tell her that her grandmother has broken her hip, so her parents want to move back in to their house with her, to care for her. Dee ends up sleeping on a camp bed in her former home office, while trying to find a new job in a tough market. There is tension at home, because her grandmother disagreed with her daughter's decision to marry a Chinese man, and she has been hostile to both him and his two daughters over the years.

This story deals with some difficult topics. Dee (who uses her given name Daiyu at work) finds a new job as a diversity consultant, where she is assigned to a fashion company that has image problems (and more) due to its homogeneous staff, particularly the upper management. There are rumors that the creative director is stealing ideas from younger designers. Meanwhile, the handsome young man she has met playing Questie turns out to work for the company she is consulting for, which creates a conflict of interest. And her family crowding her out of her home is driving her to distraction, especially her grandmother's pet chinchilla and his squeaky exercise wheel, but worse is the tension over her grandmother's racism toward the Chinese members of the family. Dee's mother, a relentlessly positive person, refuses to even discuss the situation, or to acknowledge Dee's complicated feelings.

I enjoyed the story of Dee's work more than the family situation. It was a refreshing change to see diversity and inclusion celebrated and valued, even if there is constant pushback to Dee/Daiyu's work. It's not described in detail, nor is the work of the company (other than a disastrous runway show). The ending of the story felt cathartic in that bad people get their comeuppance, and the good people find their way to happiness and new beginnings - and Grandma repents and apologizes.

Lily Chu's next book is also an Audible Original (sigh). Drop Dead sounds like a bit of change for her: "One mysterious mansion. Two rival journalists. Three weeks to uncover the story—and love—of a lifetime." I'm looking forward to reading it when I can.

A family history in Zionism

Melting Point, by Rachel Cockerell  (TBR shelves, 2024)

I heard Rachel Cockerell interviewed on the BBC "History Extra" podcast, and I immediately put her book on my reading list. I ended up ordering it from Blackwell's in the UK, which has become my "I don't want to wait for the North American edition" option after the Book Depository closed. Which has been dangerous for both my book budget and my 52 new books project.

What drew me to the book was learning that Galveston, Texas, was chosen as a center of Jewish immigration in the years just before World War I. I live 50 miles from Galveston Island, I love visiting there, and I work in an archives that has rich documentation on the city of Galveston from the 1840s. I know about the city's history as an immigration hub, and that there was a strong Jewish presence on the Island from the mid-19th century, but I had never heard of the "Galveston Movement," which brought more than 10,000 European Jews primarily from Russia through Texas. Rachel Cockerell's great-grandfather David Jochelman was one of the most active agents in Russia, recruiting and persuading potential emigrants that the US offered other options than New York City. Cockerell knew nothing of this family history and had never heard of Galveston. Her research into the story connected her with branches of the family now settled in Canada and Israel, as well as cousins in the UK, where she lives.

Cockerell begins with a history of the modern Zionist movement, founded by Theodore Herzl, who called the first Zionist Conference in 1897 to meet in Basel, Switzerland. She has compiled a history without an overarching narrative, of a type I have never read before. There is a very brief prologue, outlining how researching her family history drew her into the larger story of Zionism. She notes there that she decided to take herself out of the narrative. The rest of the book consists of quotations from letters, memoirs, newspaper articles, and other primary sources. Some are only a line or two, others several paragraphs. The author of each is listed beside the quotation, but only by name. Most of the names were unfamiliar to me, yet the way the author wove them together created a narrative that was generally easy to follow. I was surprised to find the book has no index (but does have notes and a bibliography). I think an index would have helped in cases where I forgot who someone was, but I couldn't immediately find a previous reference to them.

Herzl's movement eventually divided over whether to consider other options than Palestine for a Jewish homeland, while waiting for Palestine to be restored. Those who believed they should, to help Jews faciing persecution particularly in Russia, founded a separate group, the Jewish Territorial Organization. For many years the leader of the ITO was the British dramatist Israel Zangwill (a name I did recognize), and David Jochelman became a colleague of his. I was honestly surprised to learn that the government of Great Britain offered Zangwill part of Kenya as a potential Jewish homeland, and that the group considered other options in Mesopotamia, Australia, and northern Africa. The "Galveston Movement" was another attempt to find a temporary refuge (and another that involved land taken from native residents).

After covering the establishment of the Zionist movement, the ITO, and the Galveston Movement, Cockerell then turns her story to her family's history. David Jochelman had children from a first marriage, one of whom came to America as a teenager - to New York City, not Galveston. There he established himself as an avant-garde playwright under the name "Em Jo Basshe." The story takes a detour into the attempts to establish a theater group for new and modern plays, funded by a prominent Jewish financier, Otto Kahn, who also helped fund the Galveston Movement. The plays proved too modern for audiences and Kahn eventually withdrew his funding. I lost interest in this section and nearly gave up on the book at this point.

The story then shifts to Britain, and a history of David Jochelman's second family, whom he brought to England just before the Great War. Em Jo Basshe's daughter Jo came to London in 1950, to meet the other side of the family. One of Jochelman's daughters, Sonia, moved with her husband and three children to Israel soon after the establishment of the State of Israel, which brings Cockerell's story to a close. It was interesting to read accounts of life for new arrivals in Israel, and Cockerell does acknowledge the complications and contradictions in the displacement of Palestinians in the creation of the state. It felt like a bit of a rush to the ending, particularly after the detours in the family history. Despite the helpful family tree in the prologue, I had a hard time keeping everyone straight, when they are identified only by first name next to their quoted material.

I thought this book was going to be primarily an account of the Galveston Movement, but it turns out that is actually only one part of the story (and a short chapter of it). Rachel Cockerell cites a book about the movement in the text and in the notes, if I want to read more later. Though this wasn't the book I was expecting, I found it interesting and I learned a lot from it, though I found it a bit uneven in the end.

A late P.G. Wodehouse novel

The Girl in Blue, P.G. Wodehouse  (TBR shelves, 2011)

This book sat unread for many years, in at least three different homes. I think it was moving a shelf of Wodehouse books for the construction project that nudged me to finally pick this one up. It also made me realize how long it's been since I've read anything by PGW.

This novel was originally published in 1970, when Wodehouse was 89 years old. Even without the somewhat jarring references to Dear Abby and Dr. Joyce Brothers, I would have known this was a later work. It doesn't have the energy and fast pacing of my favorites from the 1930s and 1940s. The characters spend a lot of time sitting around, or walking around, and the the story meanders with them.

The "girl in the title" refers to a miniature painted by Thomas Gainsborough, which Willoughby Scrope has just acquired. It is a portrait of his great-great-grandmother and he is delighted to have it. He is in such a good mood that he happily writes a check for more than two hundred pounds, to help his older brother Crispin with repairs to the family seat, Mellingham Hall. Crispin reminded me of my beloved Lord Emsworth, except that he doesn't even have a pig to cherish. He does however have a debt collector in the house, posing as a butler. He also has paying guests, whom he loathes, because he needs their money.

In return for the cash, Willoughby tells Crispin that he will be hosting Bernadette "Barney" Clayborne. Barney's brother Homer Pyle, a wealthy attorney, has brought her over to Britain after she was caught shoplifting in a New York City department store. Pyle was advised to place Barney at some country estate far from temptation and stores, and his good friend Willoughby has suggested Crispin's private hotel. While the siblings are staying with Willoughby, Pyle starts to worry that Barney will steal the miniature, so he takes it himself and hides it away. When Willoughby finds it gone, he assumes Barney stole it, and he tries to get Crispin to search her rooms for it. After that fails, he enlists his nephew Jerry West to go down to Mellingham.

Jerry brings romantic complications to the story. He is engaged to the beautiful but unpleasant Vera Upshaw, but he has just finished serving on a jury with a young woman with whom he has instantly fallen in love. Jane is an air hostess, another modern note in the story, as is their jury service. Of course she ends up at Mellingham, and so does Vera eventually. I felt that the love story was not handled with Wodehouse's usual deft touch, and I think there might be a breach of promise suit in the end, which rather undercuts the happy ending in my mind.

This was a perfectly pleasant story with some comic moments, and I spent most of Sunday reading it. I'm glad to have crossed it off the TBR list, but I don't think this is one I'll read again.

"Scenes from the Life of a Spinster"

Hopes and Fears, Charlotte M. Yonge  (TBR shelves, 2017)

It has been a while since I've read one of Charlotte Yonge's Victorian morality doorstoppers. The last I read, Nuttie's Father, ended with the death of a child who had been lured from home and so badly treated that he did not survive long after his rescue. As I have noted before, death is ever present in Yonge's books, and it is often treated as a happy end to a character's life. On the other hand, it can be a punishment for a character's misdeeds, which is particularly jarring when it is not the doer of the deeds who dies, but someone in his or her orbit, who then becomes a lesson to the misbehaving one. I found it hard to accept the child's death in Nuttie's Father as a happy ending for anyone, and it put me off her books for a time.

I don't know why I thought it was good idea to pick another of her books in the middle of my construction project, but my exasperation with her characters did offset my frustration with the project delays. (It is finally completed, and I am replacing books on shelves and enjoying the downstairs again.) The project was finished before the book, actually, which I attribute to its 569 pages of very small print in my 1899 reprint. Hopes and Fears was originally published in 1864, nine years after Yonge's bestseller The Heir of Redclyffe. She published so many books that I find the lists of her titles a bit overwhelming. I picked this one back in 2017, after finishing The Three Brides, for the subtitle: "Scenes from the Life of a Spinster." As a spinster myself, I am predisposed to read stories that feature single women - and Charlotte Yonge herself remained unmarried all her life.

The spinster in question is Honora Charlecote, who to my surprise was not the heroine of the book. The daughter of a clergyman with an old historic house in a commercial district of London, she often visits her cousin Humfrey Charlecote. He lives at his beautiful estate, Hiltonbury, where he conscientiously carries out the duties of a country squire, doing much good in the neighborhood. A decade or more older than Honora, he proposes to her one summer day when they meet in his woods. She tells him she has an understanding with Owen Sandbrook, one of her father's curates who is going out as a missionary to Canada. Waiting patiently for him at home, she later learns that he has married the daughter of an army officer. He returns with her to England, becomes a popular city preacher, and then loses his wife and infant daughter, leaving him with a daughter and son. And he himself has developed one of those ominous coughs that means he must leave England for the warmth of Italy. Honora eagerly volunteers to take charge of his children, Lucilla and Owen. His daughter is devastated when he dies abroad, and she resents and blames Honora, who has fallen under the spell of the younger Owen. We are told more than once that she made a idol of him, and moreover, her faith is not true trust and reliance on God. All of this happens in the first three chapters.

Over the following 32 chapters, we follow Honora and the two young people as they grow older and make a lot of mistakes, and several more people are written into their story. After the death of Humfrey, Honora inherits his estate and responsibilities, but in trust for his heir (when located). There are rumors of a Canadian branch of the family, but no one actually goes looking for them. The younger Owen grows up with expectations, despite being told pretty clearly that he is not a Charlecote and cannot inherit. Lucilla prefers her mother's family, the worldly Charterises. They also becomes friends with the neighboring Fulmort family, whose wealth comes from their distillery business in London, where their "gin palaces" in Honora's neighborhood are turning it into a slum. One of the Fulmort children, Robert, gives up his inheritance to become a priest (High Anglican of course), building a mission church and school in the area, to offset the evils his family is perpetrating there.

Robert is in love with Lucilla, and she inclines to him. But when she decides to go on a fishing holiday in Ireland with only her cousin Horatia Charteris, he decides that he cannot marry a woman who would act so inappropriately. She assumes her influence over him is strong enough to draw him back to her, but she learns her mistake and has many, many pages to regret it, not to mention the miserable trip among the uncouth Irish. Owen meanwhile makes a secret and imprudent marriage that leaves him with a child and a very unsuitable mother-in-law. Yonge takes several swipes at her evangelical faith along the way. Their father left very little money. Owen squanders his, so Lucilla uses hers to pay his debts and then becomes a governess. Eventually she develops that significant little cough. Owen meanwhile goes off to Canada to become a surveyor. From the first hint of that, I was waiting for him to meet the North American Charlecotes.

In every one of Charlotte Yonge's books that I have read, there has been at least one character with a physical disability, who lives a full and complete life, with their physical conditions handled very matter-of-factly. I was still surprised to find a character here, Maria Fulmort, who is mentally challenged. Her older sister Phoebe is devoted to her, and Maria has made great progress under the latest governess, Miss Fennimore, who accommodates her limitations. Unfortunately, the governess has infected the middle of these three sisters, Bertha, with her science-based agnosticism. Maria is presented quite sympathetically, with interests and abilities that her sisters and Miss Fennimore encourage. Besides Lucilla's unhappy years as a governess, and Miss Fennimore's career, there is a third governess, Miss Wells, who becomes Honora's companion and chaperone, living out a comfortable retirement with a beloved former pupil.

In the end, I enjoyed this long, drawn-out story for the characters, which I think is one of Charlotte Yonge's strengths. The number of deaths in this book was surprisingly low in the end. Most of those with the consumption coughs were still alive when the story finally ended with a wedding, and several pages of moralizing about the proper way to raise a child in godliness, wherein Honora admits her errors. I was a little startled that the drawing of blood through cupping occurs more than once. I didn't realize doctors were still prescribing that in the 1860s. There is also a reference to a cholera outbreak, which the breezes will cure by dispelling the miasmas. I had to check the date of John Snow's discovery of the infected pump in London (via The Ghost Map), which was in 1854. Maybe Charlotte Yonge hadn't yet accepted the new science.

Unlike my experience with Nuttie's Father, this book of Charlotte Yonge's has left me more inclined to read the four others I still have stockpiled on the TBR shelves.

Reading in a construction zone

I am in the middle of having foundation work done on my house. I live in the middle of three townhouses, and my neighbor to the right has had issues with his foundation that are dragging my house down on his side (literally by about three inches). We have finally been able to coordinate the work. The delays have been beyond frustrating, with big cracks in my walls and a leak in the garage/downstairs every time it rains (this is Houston, it rains a lot even when we aren't hit by hurricanes).

Most of the first floor is in the construction zone, though the kitchen has been spared.

Getting ready for this work meant packing up five bookcases of books (there are four bookcases in that pile of furniture). Much like moving houses has in the past, taking the books off the shelves has made me realize that I don't need all of these books. I was much more of a "completist" in the past, I collected the complete works of my favorite authors. I've come to realize that other than Jane Austen, there are no authors whose entire body of work I like or will want to re-read in the future. (And even with Austen, I rarely re-read Northanger Abbey). I've been culling my bookshelves over the past year or so, and this will give me another push. When it's time to put the books back on the shelves, I'm guessing a few more will go to the library sales.

In the past I also collected more than one edition of some authors' books, Dorothy Dunnett in particular. I had already decided to let some of those go. And speaking of Jane Austen, I might not need all the books about Jane Austen that I have. The same might be true for the many, many books about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. This will be an ongoing project.

The cats and I are living upstairs while this is going on, with forays down to the kitchen. I know people who've lived out of their second floor after hurricanes, while waiting for repairs downstairs. It's an odd, unsettled feeling. Despite the days of free time (NOT how I wanted to blow through my accumulated vacation days), I have had trouble focusing on reading, between the noise of the drilling and the other work. As usual in times of stress, I have turned to re-reading favorite authors: Georgette Heyer (The Talisman Ring), Becky Chambers (Record of a Spaceborn Few), Lois McMaster Bujold (Cryoburn), Helen Dore Boylston (Sue Barton, Rural Nurse). I did give up on one new book, Sarina Bowen's Golden Touch. It is a suspenseful romance, with a woman on the run from a violent drug-dealing ex, who runs a motorcycle gang. I wasn't in the place for violence or the level of suspense in this book, or for a MMC who keeps making decisions for the FMC. I may come back to it later. It's a sequel to her Good as Gold, which I did enjoy.

Hopefully, the project will be completed early this week.

Exploring religious faith in 19th century America

Lincoln's God, by Joshua Zeitz  (from my TBR stacks)

I am always looking for book discussions and book recommendations. For the past several years, I have found podcasts to be a rich source of both, particularly the history-related ones like the "BBC History Extra Podcast" (I also subscribe to their print magazine, which is a delight), the "Historic Royal Palaces Podcast," and lately "The Rest is History Podcast." All three are British, though the BBC and "The Rest is History" regularly cover world history topics. (I am currently listening to "The Rest is History" series on the outbreak of the Great War.) If I am listening while walking, I frequently hit pause so that I can check the library catalogue for a book that is mentioned. Sometimes I just can't wait for a library copy.

Lincoln's God came via the only U.S. history podcast I follow. "With the Bark Off," produced by the Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation. I was familiar with Joshua Zeitz from his book Lincoln's Boys, about the presidential secretaries who became his biographers and the guardians of his legacy. In reading many books about Lincoln, I have learned something about his personal religious beliefs (or lack of them). I have also studied the role of religion in US history, especially in the 19th century. So I had some background in reading this book, which as the subtitle says explores "How faith transformed a President and a nation."

The author says in his Preface,

"What follows is the story of Abraham Lincoln's religious transformation, set against the backdrop of a nation's spiritual awakening and transformation. . .This is not a comprehensive biography of Lincoln or a broad account of the Civil War. Instead, it is a story of how religion and, more specifically, the rise of evangelical Protestantism, influenced the familiar political, economic, and military narrative. . . Abraham Lincoln's own spiritual journey was distinct from that of most Americans, but he understood better than most the organizing and galvanizing power of evangelical Christianity. His faith, and his appeal to the faith of others, in no small way determined the outcome of the war."

That lays out three main themes woven through his book. First, he charts Lincoln's religious beliefs through his lifetime, arguing that Lincoln was never a conventional Christian. By the end of his life, he might have identified as a Unitarian. Second, he tracks the rise of evangelical Protestantism and the growth of new churches and religious movements, particularly the revivals that swept through America. Church members became involved in campaigns such as temperance and most crucially, abolition of slavery (while holding racist attitudes toward Black Americans). This would split some of the mainline churches into northern and southern branches, as with the Southern and American Baptists. Zeitz also explores the role that Black churches played, particularly in the North, where they argued against slavery and for emancipation long before many white Christians. (Zeitz also acknowledges the presence of Roman Catholics and Jews in America in these years, but his focus is on Protestant Christians.)

The third theme details how northern Evangelical Christians came to ally themselves with Lincoln and with the Republican party in ways that broke down the familiar separation of church and state. Most northern Protestant churches came to embrace abolition of slavery as a war aim but also as a moral good. Like Lincoln himself, many came to view the war as a divine punishment on the United State for the sins of slavery - in which the North had been complicit. Recognizing the power of the churches, Lincoln courted their support, both financial and political. He also began to see himself as an instrument in a divine plan to eliminate slavery. I had not understood just how deeply the Protestant churches cooperated with and identified with Lincoln's administration and with the Republican party. It is easy to see parallels in our political situation today.

I have a lot of books about Lincoln and about the Civil War on the TBR stacks. I am determined not to buy more until I read some of those already on my shelves. We'll see how that book resolution goes.

Moon of the Turning Leaves

 Moon of the Turning Leaves, Waubgeshig Rice

I don't read many apocalyptic stories, I find them too bleak and too stressful (and sometimes too prescient). I read Waubgeshig Rice's first "Moon" novel, Moon of the Crusted Snow, about a Native American community in Ontario, where the phones and power going out is first seen as a nuisance. Gradually it becomes clear that something very serious has happened, and the community leadership tries to organize resources and ensure everyone gets what they need to survive until the power is restored. But that never happens, and as stores dwindle, outsiders arrive, asking for sanctuary and help, and the community begins to fracture. A group led by a young man, Evan Whitesky, returns to their Anishinaabe traditions and older ways of life to try to hold the community together. He is also trying to protect his family, including his two young children.

Soon after I read that book, I learned there would be a sequel, and I immediately put it on my reading list. The second "Moon" book takes place twelve years later. The survivors have left their small town and built another community on the shores of a lake. The story opens with the birth of a child, Evan and his wife Nicole's first grandchild. But the small settlement is under strain. There are fewer of the animals and fish that they depend on, and the plants they harvest for food and medicine are failing. One member points out that their people were not meant to settle permanently, that to do so wears out the land and its resources. He challenges the community to seek out a new home, perhaps to the south, near the Great Lakes, from where their ancestors were removed.

Evan volunteers to make the journey, as does his daughter Nanghons. Four others join them on the trek, on foot, for which they have only outdated maps and people's memories. From their travels, they learn more about what happened twelve years ago, and how it is affecting the land and the people left behind. It is a difficult and dangerous trip, and I did have to set the book down at one point, when the two women in the party are threatened with sexual assault (which does not happen). This book has a high body count, including one suicide, both on-page and off.

The book ends with another jump forward in time, eleven years this time. It does give a sense of closure to the story, but I would have liked to read more about how the characters got to and through that time. It felts like I had walked with them on their long journey, which ended abruptly. I wanted to know more about them. I did see this labeled as "Moon Book 2," which made me wonder if the author has stories to tell of those eleven years. If so, I'll be reading them.

"A Memoir of Surviving India's Caste System"

Coming Out as Dalit, Yashica Dutt (library book)

"Born into a 'formerly untouchable manual-scavenging family in small-town India,' Yashica Dutt was taught from a young age to not appear 'Dalit looking.' Although prejudice against Dalits, who compose 25% of the population, has been illegal since 1950, caste-ism in India is alive and well. Blending her personal history with extensive research and reporting, Dutt provides an incriminating analysis of caste's influence in India over everything from entertainment to judicial systems and how this discrimination has carried over to US institutions. 

"Dutt traces how colonial British forces exploited and perpetuated a centuries-old caste system, how Gandhi could have been more forceful in combatting prejudice, and the role played by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, whom Isabel Wilkerson called 'the MLK of India’s caste issues' in her book Caste. Alongside her analysis, Dutt interweaves personal stories of learning to speak without a regional accent growing up and desperately using medicinal packs to try to lighten her skin." (Overview from my library's catalogue.)

I was really struggling to sum up this searing memoir, because it covers so much, about India's history and its current social systems, interspersed with the author's experiences growing up - and most of what I read was completely new information to me. I don't remember when or how I learned about the country's caste system. I knew about the class of people considered "untouchable" (a term now considered offensive). I had the vague idea that particular status was part of the country's history and had no place in modern India. This book taught me just how wrong I was.

In January 2016, a Dalit university student named Rohith Vemula committed suicide, leaving behind a letter about the discrimination and difficulties that he faced, experiences many of his fellow Dalits have shared. After reading about his death, Yashica Dutt "started a Tumblr page where Dalits who, like [her], were passing as upper caste could anonymously or openly talk about their experiences. It would be a safe space, without judgement from upper-caste commentators, where our voices would be free to shape our stories the way we wanted." She goes on to say, "But I couldn't in good conscience be the provider of that space before I dealt with my own identity." Her page is called "Documents of Dalit Discrimination."

This is the epitome of an "own-voices" story, which is crucial because Dalits have been denied access to education, to basic literacy, and their stories have not been told. Or they have been told by outsiders, in ways that reinforce the stereotypes that are used to justify the persecutions. The technological revolution has changed that, especially the internet, giving the communities ways to connect, to share information and resources, and to make their voices heard. They are also able to focus on the challenges that Dalits face in their daily lives. In the past, Dalits were denied access to water resources like reservoirs if they were used by upper caste people, which remains a problem in rural areas. Sexual assault against Dalit women is common, because of stereotypes that the women are sexually available, and the justice system is prejudiced against the victims. Suicide is sadly common, particularly among university students facing situations like Rohith Vemula's. "Manual scavenging," one of the few jobs open to Dalit women, involves cleaning outhouses by hand and carrying the human waste to dump sites (often in baskets that leak, exposing the women to diseases and a corresponding high morality rate).

I am still processing everything I learned from this book. I want to read more about Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, himself a Dalit, who returned to India after earning degrees in Britain and the US. He was the first Indian student to earn a Ph.D. from Columbia University, which Yashica Dutt learned only after she enrolled there herself as a graduate student. "In March 1927 he organized the first conference for the Depressed Classes in Mahad to alert Dalits to their civil rights," and his book Annihilation of Caste is a foundational text of Dalit identity and resistance. Unfortunately for me, the only works our library has on him are not in English, but I will see what interlibrary loan can do for me.

Romance and alt-history

The House of the Red Balconies, A.J. Demas (2024 TBR)

I very much enjoy A.J. Demas's romances set in an AU ancient world with echoes of Greece and Sparta, rather like the world in Megan Whalen Turner's Thief series. (The gods do not intervene in Demas's world as they do with the Thief and his compatriots.) Her stories usually revolve around a romance between two men, often from different countries who have to negotiate their differences, and sometimes solve a mystery, on their way to a happy ending. My favorite are the Sword Dance trilogy, with retired soldier Damiskos and dancer/intelligence agent Varazda; and One Night in Boukos, set in the city of that name, where an ambassador goes missing during a riotous festival, and two couples set out separately to find him.

It has been a while since A.J. Demas published a new story, because she also writes urban fiction as Alice Degan. I was very happy when her newsletter arrived with an announcement of this new book. It is a different, quieter story than some of her others, and I loved it. Hylas has come to the island of Tykanos to build an aqueduct. But once he gets there, he finds Governor Loukianos rather vague about the details of the project, and about his salary. The Governor is much more interested in the tea houses, which draw tourists to the island and provide important income. The houses are places of entertainment, with geisha-like staff who offer conversation, poetry and music. The houses are not brothels, though the entertainers hope to attract patrons who may become their lovers.

Hylas is from a country that doesn't have tea houses, and he has rented a room in The House of the Red Balconies without knowing what it is. His room shares a garden with a beautiful young man named Zo, one of the entertainers, who suffers from a chronic illness that often leaves him unable to walk. Zo is at first suspicious of Hylas, who is shy and uncomfortable around strangers, particularly one as beautiful as Zo. But they begin to bond over breakfasts in their garden. Meanwhile, since Hylas can't build his aqueduct, he keeps busy with other small projects like fixing the town's plumbing issues, working in what has become their garden, and figuring out ways to help Zo navigate his illness. He quickly endears himself to the house's residents, and to the town at large.

It was fun to explore Tykanos, and to watch Hylas find his way to friendship and love. He takes good care of Zo, and people take care of him in return, and (spoiler alert) he finally gets to build the aqueduct! It was a lovely story, one I know I'll come back to.

Two very different train trips

First, Diary of a Pilgrimage by Jerome K. Jerome (TBR stacks, 2016)

I have no idea what finally inspired me to pick this up, after so many years on the TBR stacks. Orginally published in 1891, it is an account of a trip Jerome K. Jerome took with his friend "B" to see the Oberammergau Passion Play. I first learned about this play, presented every ten years since the 17th century, from Maude Hart Lovelace. In Betsy and the Great World, the title character visits the small town in an off-year, when the play is not being presented, meeting the villagers who play the different characters and enjoying the town's hospitality. Jerome's story begins in England with B's invitation. It reads like a travel journal, detailing their mishaps and adventures. The tone is familiar from To Say Nothing of the Dog, but I found it funnier and more engaging than his later account of a bicycle tour through Germany, Three Men on the Bummel. I was surprised by a sincere meditation on churches and religious faith, and a serious discussion of the Passion Play. Unlike the fictional Betsey, he was there in a presentation year (1890). He also had the chance to meet the villagers/actors, and some of the names were familiar from the fictional visit.

After I finished the book, I checked for biographical information on Jerome. I learned that he published an autobiography called My Life and Times in 1926, the year before his death. I also learned that on an American tour, he was horrified by the lynching of African Americans and protested during his talks, even in the South; and that he drove an ambulance in France during the Great War, after being declared unfit for service. I promptly located a copy of the book, and I am determined not to let it languish unread.

 

Second, The Wheel Spins, by Ethel Lina White (2024 purchase)

One of my favorite podcasts is Shedunnit, hosted by Caroline Crampton, which covers Golden Age detective fiction. I think I have said before that I don't read much modern crime fiction lately. The cosies often seem too twee, and the police procedurals have too many serial killers. Martin Edwards through his collections of Golden Age stories, and the British Library reprints, have introduced me to new authors, as has the podcast. One I have been anxious to read is The Wheel Spins, which inspired Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes. I saw the film years ago and remembered the basic plot, but not well enough to see where book and film diverge.

In the novel, Iris Carr has been on holiday in the Balkans with a groups of Bright Young Things. The rest of the groups leaves for England two days before she does (to the relief of the other British visitors, tired of their shenanigans). While Iris is waiting for her train on her own day of departure, she has an episode of sunstroke in the station. She is helped on to the overcrowded train, and in her compartment is a "tweedy spinster" named Miss Froy, who takes her to the dining car for tea, chattering about her work as a governess and the home she is returning to for a holiday. Afterwards, Iris falls asleep in her seat. When she wakens, Miss Froy is not in the compartment, and everyone else asserts she was never there and doesn't exist. Iris searches for her frantically, while being dismissed as ill and hysterical.

It is a very tense story, with Iris feeling very alone and vulnerable, particularly since she doesn't speak the language. She has one ally, who isn't actually that much support, since he doesn't completely believe her. I found his transition to her love interest the weakest part of the story. Despite having a general idea of how the story ended. I did read the ending early on to make sure it was a happy one. I don't know that I'll look for more of Ethel Lina White's books, especially since one of them features a serial killer, but I'll keep my eyes open for copies turning up.

A mystery on Mars

 The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles, Malka Older

This is the second book in a series set on Mars. The "Giant" has been settled by refugees fleeing an Earth that became uninhabitable. They live on platforms girded together by rings, railways that connect settlements and even towns. There are agricultural platforms, both on Mars and on its moons. Scholars are studying not just how to sustain life on Mars, but also how to re-establish life on Earth.

The first book, The Mimicking of Known Successes, introduced Mossa, an Investigator looking into the disappearance of a man on a remote platform. The story is narrated by Pleiti, a Classical scholar at Valdegeld University, whom Mossa turns for help in her investigation. Pleiti plays Watson to Mossa's Sherlock, complicated by their past history when they were students and lovers at the university.

That story was action-packed, leading to an explosive ending. This story is quieter but just as enjoyable. It did take a couple of tries for me to settle into it. The language is formal and feels a bit opaque, which seems a marker of the differences. These aren't 21st century people plopped down in Mars. Malka Older makes you feel the distance and the difference, and also the precariousness of life on Mars.

Here Mossa returns to ask Pleiti's help, as she is again investigating a disappearance, this time a student from Valdegeld. Pleiti is shocked when she learns that the student is one of 17 missing from the university - students, faculty, support staff. Their investigation will take them into university politics, as well as a trip to Io, Mossa's home planet, and a trip around the rings to the dark side of the Giant. There was a fascinating bit of backstory in that Io was settled first, by rich people with the means to escape Earth in comfort. But Io has active volcanoes, and it has become difficult to sustain life there. Those who settled Mars had a much harder time, but now the mother planet is thriving, and residents tend to side-eye the Ionians.

I enjoyed the mystery, but even more learning about Mars and Io, and particularly life on the Giant. It was also lovely to see Pleiti and Mossa settle more deeply into their relationship. There is a lot of care in this book, with tea and scones available via demand in Pleiti's rooms, as well as hot baths (one of the benefits of living on a gas planet). There are also delightful insights into the culture: this planet has a Murderbot opera, and I would pay good money just to read the libretto.

I hope that we will have more mysteries for Mossa and Pleiti to solve, maybe even on the other moons. I read a library copy of this, but I will be adding a copy to my shelves.

The Five Year Lie

The Five Year Lie, Sarina Bowen (library book)

I have enjoyed Sarina Bowen's romance novels, those set around family orchards and breweries in Vermont (I haven't read her hockey stories). When I learned from her newsletter that she had written her first suspense novel, I wanted to read it. The cover labels it "A Domestic Thriller," but I haven't parsed the nuances between suspense and thriller - and this one could have been labeled a mystery as well.

The book opens with a nervous mother helping her young son in a bus station restroom. By the end of the short prologue, her face has been captured on the station's surveillance cameras, and while the security guard watching passes right over her, AI software is analyzing and then identifying her. The first chapter then jumps to Ariel, a single mother taking her young son to pre-school. She goes on to her job at her family's tech company, Chime Co., a major distributor of doorbell cameras. In a meeting that morning, she gets a text. It is from her son's father, Drew, who disappeared out of her life five years ago (before she knew she was pregnant). It's a shock to get the text, because she knows that he died shortly afterwards, she has his obituary - pretty much all she does have from him, aside from her son.

The chapters that follow alternate between Ariel's narration (first person present), and an account of Ariel and Drew's relationship five years ago (third person present). It turns out that the text was actually sent five years ago, part of a cache of texts that was held up and then suddenly released, creating havoc in different people's lives. For Ariel, it spurs her to begin looking for Drew, trying to figure out what happened. The reader knows much more than she does, from the chapters that include Drew's perspective. 

I found the story interesting, though I don't like jumping between dual time lines, especially when there is a gap of time. It's a complicated story, with characters helping Ariel and hindering her. Technology plays a major role in it, particularly the family's cameras and how they can be used. The author brings it to a neat conclusion, though I had a couple of questions about the solution and the ending for the characters. I'll continue to read Sarina Bowen's romances, but I hope she writes more suspense stories as well.

Two novellas, continuing favorite series

I had the great pleasure of reading two novellas this week, both fantasy stories, and both continuations of series I really enjoy. 

The first is The Brides of High Hill, by Nghi Vo, from my 2024 TBR stack. This is the fifth book in the "Singing Hills Cycle," about clerics who travel around telling and collecting stories. The new stories they hear are brought back to archive at the Singing Hills abbey. Clerics are aided in their work by neixin, spirits that take the form of a hoopoe and help the clerics remember. The main character in these stories, which can be read in any order, is Cleric Chih, who travels with their companion Almost Brilliant.

In The Brides of High Hill, Chih is traveling with the Pham family but without Almost Brilliant, to bring their daughter Nhung to her wedding. Her future husband, Lord Guo, is the master of a fortress-like estate, Doi Cao. When they arrive, Chih finds that Lord Guo is at least thirty years older than his bride, and his estate is crumbling around him. The servants are nervous, his son is unstable, and no one wants to talk about any previous wives. Nhung asks Chih to help her explore the many buildings scattered around the grounds, to try to figure out what's going on. I honestly thought I knew what was going on, but then there was a major twist to the story that came as a complete surprise. It is really cleverly done, with both the set-up and the denouement. This is a great addition to the series.

The second book is Penric and the Bandit, by Lois McMaster Bujold. This is part of her "Five Gods Universe," which started with three novels set in a medieval-Renaissance world with echoes of our own, and a remarkable theology. The first of these, The Curse of Chalion, is one of my desert-island books. I had hoped for more books in that series, but instead Lois Bujold began writing novellas about a young man named Penric, who inherits a demon from a dying sorcerer. In this world, there is a Holy Family of five gods. The Bastard, my favorite, is a god of chaos and untimely events, and of demons. Demons can only exist in the world of matter if they attach themselves to a person or animal. If the demon has control, then it can do a lot of damage in its physical form. But it can be mastered, and then its powers can be used for good. One who possesses and controls a demon is a sorcerer, and usually a divine of the Bastard. Penric's demon, Desdemona, has had twelve previous "riders," all women, and so she is a demon of great age and power. The story of her partnership begins with Penric's Demon, and the books should be read in order. They are a delight.

Lois Bujold describes herself as retired from traditional publishing. The Penric books are self-published, and she writes when she has a story to tell, never on a schedule. So it was a lovely surprise to find her posting on Goodreads last month about a new Penric & Desdemona story. Penric and the Bandit opens with Penric sitting in a roadside inn, with a map. Roz, who needs money and to get far away, picks him out as a likely mark and starts chatting him up. He thinks Pen is a treasure-hunter who might be relieved of his treasure, but he has a lot to learn about the man he labels "Goldie." This was another great adventure, with a surprising treasure to be found (Roz is certainly surprised). I admit to a slight disappointment that the Bastard didn't make an appearance this time. As I said before though, he does tend to take over the story a bit when he appears, much like DEATH in Terry Pratchett's Discworld.

The Fixed Period - the last Anthony Trollope novel

This novel, the last Anthony Trollope wrote, was published first serially and then in novel form in 1882 - ironically, given its subject matter, the year that he died. I don't think I will be a Trollope completist, because I don't plan to read his historical fiction set in France, or all of his travel writing. But as weird as this last novel was, I'm glad to have read it.

The Fixed Period is set in the late 20th century. Narrated by John Neverbend, it is the story of Britannulia, whose citizens seceded from New Zealand to settle an island in the Pacific, as an independent republic. Neverbend, the founding president, has a dream the implementation of which he believes will make him a great benefactor of humanity: state-run euthanasia. On their 67th birthday, a citizen of Britannulia reaches their Fixed Period. He or she is then to be escorted to the government-run College - named to Mr. Neverbend's dismay the Necropolis. The newly-deposited resident spends the next year preparing herself or himself for their 68th birthday, at which point they are given laudanum, put into a warm bath, and killed, after which the remains are cremated.

This is the law of Britannulia. However, in this June of 1980, the first resident about to celebrate the milestone birthday does not want to be deposited. Neither do the four people in line behind him. The population is divided over the question, while the President keeps insisting that the law must be upheld, and that Gabriel Crasweller's example will bring glory to the country and their plan. As the reader learns in the first chapter, Great Britain has sent out a steam launch stuffed with troops to prevent this from taking place, and an ambassador to turn the republic into a Crown Colony - and to take John Neverbend back to England.

This story was first serialized in Blackwood's Magazine, with no author listed. I wonder if I would have known it was Anthony Trollope if I'd read an uncredited version rather than the Penguin edition I found years ago. There is a weird parallel between this and his first novel, The Warden, with its ancient residents of Hiram's Hospital, who are at least allowed to live out their unfixed period of years in peace. There is also a chilling parallel that Trollope could not have seen. The grounds of the college include a crematorium, where the bodies of those killed will be cremated. One of the objections to living at the Necropolis is the ash and smell from the bodies (though the only test was done with pig carcasses). Even Neverbend realizes this was a mistake. It was hard not to think of Nazi death camps reading that.

There are typical Trollope tropes, such as a beautiful young woman who must choose among suitors. The fact that she is Crasweller's daughter, and her husband will inherit her father's property after the older man is disposed of, adds more than one complication to the story. There is conflict between father and son, husband and wife, as Neverbend's family oppose the Fixed Period (Mrs. Neverbend does not even accompany her husband in exile, though she does send him off with flannel drawers). There is an extended sports scene - cricket rather than fox-hunting, and with steam-powered bats. That's another weird thing about this book, Trollope doesn't seem to have spent much time on developing his future world. It's pretty much 19th century Britain. Women of course don't vote in Britannulia, even in 1980.

I did learn from the brief introduction that Trollope was a strong supporter of cremation, and there is a conversation cited where he supposedly spoke in favor of euthansia. It is ironic then that he died, at age 67, having reached the Fixed Period of the story.

The Marquis Who Mustn't

The Marquis Who Mustn't, Courtney Milan (2024 TBR stack)

This is the second book in Courtney Milan's Wedgeford Series - with a third book coming in July. The setting is a small town in Kent in the 1890s, where a community of Asians (some recent immigrants, some natives of England) have settled. The town is best known for an annual competition called The Trials, which draws people from all over the kingdom to play. According to the author's note in the first of the series, The Duke Who Didn't, it is based on "The Royal Shrovetide Football Match" held in Ashbourne in Derbyshire since the Middle Ages. The first book is centered around The Trials, with the titular Duke returning to take part.

In this second book, another former resident returns home. Liu Ji Kai lived in Wedgeford as a child, while his father systematically conned the residents out of their savings. He claimed an ancient Chinese title, and he told the town that he had the secret to creating priceless works of ceramic pottery. One night he abandoned the six-year-old Kai in the village, returning later to drag him off to learn his part in the family's real inheritance: fraud. Twenty years later, Kai is coming back to restore what his father stole.

On his way to Wedgeford, he meets Naomi Kwan, who works her family's inn (Naomi played a key part in the first book). She desperately wants to take ambulance classes, since the town has no doctor. Her parents have talked her out of it year after year, but when she finally makes her way to register, she is told that she must have permission from her father or husband. Naomi quickly presents Kai as her fiancé, and he plays along, though he doesn't tell her that they were betrothed as children. Since this is a romance, it shouldn't be a spoiler to say that their fake (second) engagement starts to become more real. But Kai still needs to face his past and his father's actions, and Naomi has her own family complications to deal with. It's lovely to see them stand up for each other as they are learning more about themselves and each other.

I really enjoy Courtney Milan's historical romances. My only quibble is that they can be a bit repetitive, with people asking the same questions or having the same mental conversation more than once. Her books are self-published, and someone recently asked on Goodreads if she has an editor, who might catch some of this. I also saw some typos in this book. But these are quibbles, and I am looking forward to the third book next month, The Earl Who Isn't.

The Inheritance Trilogy, N.K. Jemisin

 The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (re-read)

The Broken Kingdoms (re-read)

The Kingdom of Gods (finally reading)

Nine years ago I read the first book in this trilogy, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, about a young woman summoned to her mother's homeland, to learn she is now one of the candidates to succeed her grandfather as the head of the titular kingdoms. But she also learns that she is intended to be the sacrifice that brings one of her cousins to the real power. Things don't quite work out as her grandfather intended, and in the process, some powerful and vengeful gods are freed from enslavement to her family.

This was the first book I read by N.K. Jemisin, and I've just learned it was her first book published. I was so blown away by the book, the world she created, and her characters. I immediately inhaled the second book, The Broken Kingdoms, where a woman living in the capital city of the capital kingdom takes in a fallen god. An artist, she is blind, but she can see his power. With him she is drawn into a mystery about who is murdering godlings, and what role the magic in her art might play, amid the rise of a new religious group. I loved this story even more, because of the main character Oree. I never wrote about it though, perhaps because I immediately started the third book, The Kingdom of Gods.

I don't remember exactly why after all these years, but I gave up on the third book very quickly. I not only gave up reading it, I gave it away to the library sales. It's honestly a bit frustrating not to remember why I took such exception to it. The other day I got a sudden urge to revisit these stories, and a determination to try the final book again. The first two were as good as I remembered, and the last book? I'm also frustrated with myself for missing such a great story. 

The Kingdom of Gods has as its main character Sieh the Trickster, a godling who plays a major part in the first story. He is a god of childhood, usually appearing as a child. In this story he meets a mortal girl and boy, later heirs to the kingdoms. He swears an oath of friendship with them, which has the appalling consequence of making him mortal, and aging at an accelerated rate. At the same time a dangerous new godling has appeared, who wants to overthrow the existing hierarchy of gods and rule alone - but that will destroy the mortal world.

These stories are definitely not cozy fantasy. There is on-page violence, people and groups seen as lesser are abused and sacrificed, the enslaved gods suffer physical and sexual abuse, and the gods mate among themselves in ways that qualify as incest in the human world (gender is fluid for many of them). I sometimes find N.K. Jemisin's stories too bleak, but the Inheritance Trilogy has a permanent place on my shelves - all three books, now.

Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey

Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey, Lillian Schlissel (from the TBR stacks)

Last year I read Covered Wagon Women, Diaries & Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1849, edited by Kenneth L. Holmes. It is the first in a series of eleven compilations, covering different decades of emigrant women's diaries. I did check to see if my library had the later books (they don't), and I resisted immediately looking for copies on-line. When I came across Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey on the library sale shelves, I immediately picked it up.

After a brief introduction by the editor, Covered Wagon Women comprises twelve sets of letters and diaries, including several from the Donner party. I had not fully understood the horror of that tragedy before reading these. Women's Diaries on the other hand has only five accounts (diaries and reminiscences). The bulk of the book is a discussion of women's experiences on the trails. I found that part very interesting and informative. The diaries are included at the end, and they are much less interesting and comprehensive than the ones in the first book.

This book was originally published in 1982 and revised in 1992. The author's main argument seems to be that there were fundamental differences in how women and men experienced their travels, and it is crucial to understand those differences. I think this may have been one of the first books to center women's experiences, and to try to expand the history of the western pioneers to include their perspectives. From her author's notes, it seems that at the time she was writing the book, women's diaries were scattered in archives and private collections, and not well known. Covered Wagon Women (the first volume) was published a year later, which fits that timeline.

Prof. Schlissel organizes her overview by decade. I had not realized how profoundly the journey changed, from the first emigrants who pretty much just loaded their wagons and headed west, with no real understanding of exactly where they were going or what they would face along the way. By the end, people were traveling in relative comfort, even by railway rather than wagons. Among the many things I learned: most women did not want to go west, particularly when it meant leaving family behind. I was stunned at the number of women who set off on their travels while pregnant. Prof. Schlissel argues that their condition was not considered a reason for delay, nor did it excuse them from the work of the journey - work that she explains was exhausting and difficult. As dangerous as childbirth was in the 19th century in general, these women also faced delivering a child on the road, likely with no doctor or midwife if something went wrong. And then they had to get back on the trail within a day or so. The diaries of these Victorian women do not discuss any details of pregnancy or childbirth, but they do record the deaths of mothers and children. That is apparently another difference with the diaries kept by men: the women noted the deaths and the (many) graves they passed every day in great detail, while the men tended to gloss over or ignore them.

One aspect of these journeys that I had never considered is that on the flat open prairies, which went on for hundreds of miles, there were no convenient bushes or trees for bathroom breaks. This was a constant concern for the women, particularly those traveling alone in groups of men. Prof. Schlissel argues that traveling with other women could be a comfort on many levels, most basically because women in long skirts could provide privacy screens for each other. In a fascinating bit of historical theory, she thinks that is why bloomers never really caught on with the emigrant women. They wanted the skirts as shields.

I enjoyed this book very much, while realizing that I am very grateful for modern travel conveniences. Next time I am in Oregon, I want to visit the End of the Oregon Trail Museum near Portland. And I may look for one of those remaining ten volumes of diaries - or wait to see if they show up on a sale shelf.

Christopher and Columbus (re-read)

One bookish goal of mine is to have all my books on shelves. Currently I have the 2024 TBR stacked right next to the computer, as a reminder. I also have a matching stack of books on the other side that I'd like to read this year. I have some gifted books stacked beside a bookcase as well. I do feel at least that these are manageable stacks.

I even have a little bit of space on the shelves. That's partly because I don't buy as many books these days. I'm on my second year of "52 new books for the year" and it's working pretty well. It also helps that my neighborhood Barnes & Noble has closed for renovations, which has really cut down my impulse purchases. I am also culling my shelves, in a version of Marie Kondo's famous method. I don't ask if a particular book sparks joy, but I do ask if I think I will re-read it. That is my main criterion for keeping a book, that I want to have it on hand for re-reading. I've taken a good number of books that I decide I won't re-read to donate to the library (I always wonder what they make of the very mixed bags of books I drop off).

One of the authors whose books I was looking at is Elizabeth von Arnim, once I realized that I have never yet picked up one of her books to read again. It was easy to let The Pastor's Wife go, it's such a bleak story, and Fräulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther also went on the donation stack. But when it came to Christopher and Columbus, I hesitated. I remembered something of the story, and that I thought it wasn't one of her stronger books. I was curious enough to read it again, and I have to say I enjoyed it much more this time than when I first read it in 2011. I found it a lot funnier than I remembered. My original post covered the plot. What I particularly enjoyed this time was the setting during the Great War, the travel by liner (across the Atlantic) and by train (across the US), and the whirlwind setting up of a tea shop (one of my favorite tropes - though sadly this one closed soon after opening). My main quibble is that the ending felt very rushed, and I am uncomfortable with the "happy" ending where the 17-year-old twins marry in haste (one to a man twice her age). 

So this one will stay on the shelves for now. But there's space for it, with fewer books double-stacked. It feels good to let books go.

The Penguin Book of Dragons

 From the TBR stacks: The Penguin Book of Dragons, edited by Scott G. Bruce

I don't remember the first stories I heard or read about dragons, but they have always been my favorite mythical creatures. Maybe because I associate them with cats? My ideas of dragons were shaped first by Ursula Le Guin, in her Earthsea books. Then I fell deeply in love with Anne McCaffrey's Pern novels, with their dragons and fire lizards. I wrote what was technically fan-fiction when I wrote myself into the books - of course I Impressed a queen dragon. It was magical meeting someone at college who shared my love of those books. Just a couple of weeks ago, I discovered that my sister-in-law, whom I've known for almost 40 years, also read and loved the Pern books. And then there is J.R.R. Tolkien's Smaug.

I still read stories of dragons with delight, particularly when the dragons are complicated characters. Among my recent favorites:

• The Termeraire series by Naomi Novik - the Napoleonic Wars with dragons (at least the early books, I gave up on the series when the war moved to Russia)
• Tooth and Claw, by Jo Walton - Anthony Trollope's Framley Parsonage, with dragons
• When Women Were Dragons, by Kelly Barnhill - women become dragons to escape, to revenge themselves, to be free
• And one of the best books I read last year, To Shape a Dragon's Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose, which just won a Nebula award - Anequs, a Native American girl in an America colonized from Scandinavia, becomes bonded to a dragon hatchling - and is immediately forced to attend a colonizers' dragon academy.

I bought a copy of The Penguin Book of Dragons as soon as I saw it advertised, back in 2021. I finally picked it up a couple of days ago, thinking it would be a book to dip in and out of. To my surprise, I couldn't put it down. It covers so many aspects of how dragons have been written about and reported on, going back to ancient China, India, Greece, and Rome. It ends with stories by Kenneth Grahame and E. Nesbit, who were part of a trend of domesticating dragons, especially for children's stories. The editor, Scott Bruce, connects this to the current popularity of dragons in books and TV/film, down to Game of Thrones (which I couldn't read and didn't want to watch). 

I was familiar with the Christian connections of dragons to Satan and the fallen angels, from the Book of Revelation. I didn't realize though how seriously people took dragons. There are lengthy extracts from two 18th century naturalists whose books combined historical overviews of dragon lore down to current events involving dragons, which they firmly believed were authentic. I also enjoyed the stories from Asia, including one from the Rig Veda (1500-1200 BCE) of the storm deity Indra battling a dragon who is holding the world's water hostage - the earliest dragon story the editor has found.

One thing I didn't know: Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene is a political and religious allegory, where dragons represent the sins and evils of the Roman Catholic Church. The excerpts included from that were rather gruesome.