Lethal White by Robert Galbraith

March 27, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – Kindle edition. Mulholland Books, 2018. 656 pgs. Purchased. The fourth installment of Galbraith’s Cormoran Strike series opens with the wedding of Strike’s assistant turned junior private investigator, Robin Ellacott, and the fallout of Strike firing Robin at the end of Career of Evil over concerns for her safety.  Robin wants to go back to working for Strike as a private investigator, but Strike still hasn’t contacted her and her family, especially her fiancée Matthew, aren’t keen on the idea […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Chunkster, Crime, Europe, Fiction, United Kingdom • Tags: J.K. Rowling, Robert Galbraith

Minnie’s Room by Mollie Panter-Downes

March 22, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – print. Persephone Books, 2002. 125 pgs. Purchased. Subtitled “The Peacetime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes”, this collection of ten short stories presents the realities and dreams of the British people following the end of the World War II. Each story was originally published for the American publication The New Yorker between the years 1947 and 1965, a follow-up of sorts to her short stories from 1938 to 1944. Those wartime stories were published by Persephone Books in 1999 as Good Evening, […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Europe, Fiction, Persephone Books, Short Stories, United Kingdom • Tags: Mollie Panter-Downes

Children of The Cave by Virve Sammalkorpi

March 20, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – print. Translated from the Finnish by Emily Jeremiah and Fleur Jeremiah. Peirene Press, 2019. Originally published 2016. 176 pgs. Purchased. In 1819, Iax Agolasky travels to northwest Russia as the research assistant to a well-known French anthropologist and explorer named Jean Moltique. The goal of Moltique’s exhibition is to locate lost or ancient tribes in the region, and their search leads them to a cave in the Russian wilderness where a small group of children live. Moltique believes […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Europe, Fantasy, Fiction, Finnish, Peirene Press, Russia, Translated • Tags: Virve Sammalkorpi

Fascism by Madeleine K. Albright

March 15, 2019 by Christina

Nonfiction – Kindle edition. Harper Perennial, 2019. Originally published 2018. 320 pgs. Library copy. In the conclusion of her book, Albright says that some may find the title of her book to be alarmist, but it is her belief that we are living in an alarming time. Her assertion holds gravitas because of her credentials – she served as the United States Secretary of State and the Ambassador to the United Nations from 1993 to 2001 – and her personal […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Asia, Balkans, Europe, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Nonfiction, North America, Poland, Russia, South America, United States • Tags: Madeleine K. Albright

Last Train to Istanbul by Ayşe Kulin

March 13, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – Kindle edition. Translated from the Turkish by John W. Baker. AmazonCrossing, 2013. Originally published 2002. 395 pgs. Free download. Prior to the outbreak of World War II, Selva married Rafael Alfandari, a Jewish man whose family settled in Turkey after being expelled from Spain in 1492. Neither the Alfandari family nor Selva’s parents, Fazil Resat Paşa and Leman Hanim, support the marriage and, after being cutoff, Selva and Rafael flee to Paris in the hopes of finding a […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Europe, Fiction, France, Genocide, Holocaust, Middle East, ReadDiverse, Translated, Turkish • Tags: Ayşe Kulin

Lord John and the Hand of Devils by Diana Gabaldon

March 8, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – audiobook. Read by Jeff Woodman. Recorded Books, 2007. 9 hours, 41 minutes. Library copy. Lord John Grey was first introduced in Dragonfly in Amber, the second book in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series, as a young English soldier who attempts to save Claire from the wanted rebel Jamie Fraser. Jamie spares Grey’s life after he tricks the young boy into sharing information about the location of the English forces in the area. Grey and Jamie would cross paths again […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Audiobook, Crime, Europe, Fiction, United Kingdom • Tags: Diana Gabaldon, Jeff Woodman

The Shadow Killer by Arnaldur Indriðason

March 6, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – Kindle edition. Translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb. Minotaur Books, 2018. Originally published 2016. 304 pgs. Library copy.  Amid the American and British occupation of Iceland in 1941, a man is founded murdered in a small apartment in Reykjavík – a swastika drawn across the victim’s forehead with his own blood. When the murder weapon is determined to an American-issued service pistol, a Canadian-Icelandic military officer by the name of Thorson is loaned out to the Icelandic […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Iceland, Icelandic, Translated • Tags: Arnaldur Indriðason

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Part Two)

March 4, 2019 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by George Guidall. Translated from the Russian by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. Recorded Books, 2000. Originally published 1866. 25 hours, 1 minute. Library copy. This post includes my thoughts on Part Four through the Epilogue of Dostoyevsky’s most famous work. For my thoughts on Parts One through Three, please see this post. As the end of Part Three, the main character, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov had awoken to find an unknown yet aristocratically dressed man standing over […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Audiobook, Classics, Classics Club, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Russia, Russian, Translated • Tags: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, George Guidall

Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari

February 22, 2019 by Christina

Nonfiction – Kindle edition. Translated from the Hebrew. Harper, 2015. Originally published 2011. 541 pgs. Library copy. Subtitled “A Brief History of Humankind”, Harari’s book covers three “revolutions” that shaped the course of history – the Cognitive Revolution, the Agricultural Revolution, and the Scientific Revolution – before delving into a lesson in how culture binds the world together and a short speculation about the future. Beginning about 70,0000 years, the Cognitive Revolution led to the evolution of Neanderthals and other […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Africa, Chunkster, Economics, Europe, Hebrew, Indigenious Peoples, Middle East, Nonfiction, North America, Religion, South America, Translated, United States • Tags: Yuval Noah Harari

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Part One)

February 20, 2019 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by George Guidall. Translated from the Russian by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. Recorded Books, 2000. Originally published 1866. 25 hours, 1 minute. Library copy. Arguably Dostoyevsky’s most famous work, Crime and Punishment is divided into six parts plus epilogue. Given the novel’s length and (assumed) difficulty in reading, my book club decided to split the book at the halfway mark and discuss it at two meetings. Our February meetup covered Part One to Three, which […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Audiobook, Classics, Classics Club, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Russia, Russian, Translated • Tags: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, George Guidall

Hitler’s American Model by James Q. Whitman

February 6, 2019 by Christina

Nonfiction – print. Princeton University Press, 2017. 224 pgs. Library.  The title of Whitman’s book is bold, and it immediately caught my attention while browsing the shelves at a local bookstore. It was hard to pass over a book with the subtitle “The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law”, and I only managed to put it back on the shelf after assuring myself that the local public library had a copy available. The Holocaust professors I had […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Europe, Genocide, Germany, Holocaust, Nonfiction, North America, United States • Tags: James Q. Whitman

The Warden by Anthony Trollope

February 1, 2019 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Simon Vance. Blackstone Audio, 2005. Originally published 1855. 7 hours, 12 minutes. Library copy. In the fictional English county of Barsetshire, Septimus Harding serves as the warden of Hiram’s Hospital and Precentor of Barchester Cathedral. The hospital is supported by a charitable bequest from the Diocese of Barchester, and Harding draws a hefty salary for performing his duties as the warden. This hefty salary, though, attracts the attention of John Bold, a man who is […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, AP Literature, Audiobook, Classics, Classics Club, Europe, Fiction, United Kingdom • Tags: Anthony Trollope, Simon Vance