Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Venetia by Georgette Heyer
Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art by Laney Salisbury & Aly Sujo
The Man on the Mountaintop by Susan Trott & Libby Spurrier
From Scotland with Love by Kelli Ireland
The Art of the Con: The Most Notorious Fakes, Frauds, and Forgeries in the Art World by Anthony M. Amore
Power Moves: Lessons from Davos by Adam Grant
A Mind of Her Own by Paula McLean
The Billionaire’s Vinegar: The Mystery of the World’s Most Expensive Bottle of Wine by Benjamin Wallace
Cotillion by Georgette Heyer
In Vino Duplicitas: The Rise and Fall of a Wine Forger Extraordinaire by Peter Hellman, Charles Constant
Cousin Kate by Georgette Heyer
The Rescue Artist by Edward Dolnick
Master Thieves: The Boston Gangsters Who Pulled Off the World’s Greatest Art Heist by Stephen Kurkjian
Elizabeth II: Life of a Monarch by Ruth Cowen
International Player by Louise Bay
Sotheby's: Bidding for Class by Robert Lacey
The Auctioneer: Adventures in the Art Trade by Simon de Pury
Persuasion by Jane Austen
Babylon’s Ashes by James S. A. Corey
The Huntress by Kate Quinn
The Alice Network by Kate Quinn
The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro
The Girl in the Gatehouse by Julie Klassen
The Secret of Pembrooke Park by Julie Klassen
How to Dance with a Duke (Ugly Ducklings, #1) by Manda Collins
Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures by Robert K. Wittman and John Shiffman
The Heir (Windham, #1) by Grace Burrowes
The Soldier (Windham, # 2) by Grace Burrowes
The Virtuoso (Windham, #3) by Grace Burrowes
Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish (Windham, #4) by Grace Burrowes
Lady Maggie's Secret Scandal (Windham, #5) by Grace Burrowes
Lady Louisa's Christmas Knight (Windham, #6) by Grace Burrowes
Lady Eve's Indiscretion (Windham, #7) by Grace Burrowes
The Man Who Knew The Way to the Moon by Todd Zwillich
A Grown-Up Guide to Dinosaurs by Ben Garrod
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
It Burns: The Scandal-Plagued Race to Breed the World’s Hottest Chili by Marc Fennell
To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han
P. S. I still Love You by Jenny Han
Always and Forever, Lara Jean by Jenny Han
After You by JoJo Moyes
The Sisters by Dervla McTiernan
One Night with Her Bodyguard by Noelle Adams
Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History by Lynn Vincent and Sara Vladic
Wanderlust by Lauren Blakely
No Stone Unturned: The True Story of the World's Premier Forensic Investigators by Steve Jackson
The Art of Looking Up by Catherine McCormack
Carnival Row: Tangle in the Dark by Stephanie K. Smith
Remedial Rocket Science (Chemistry Lessons #1) by Susannah Nix
His Wicked Reputation (The Wicked Trilogy #1) by Madeline Hunter
Tall, Dark, and Wicked (The Wicked Trilogy #2) by Madeline Hunter
The Wicked Duke (The Wicked Trilogy #3) by Madeline Hunter
The Next Pandemic: On the Front Lines Against Humankind's Gravest Dangers by Ali Khan, William Patrick
The Quantum Spy by David Ignatius
Minerva (The Six Sisters #1) by M.C. Beaton
The Taming of Anabelle (The Six Sisters #2) by M.C. Beaton
Deirdre and Desire (The Six Sisters #3) by M.C. Beaton
Daphne (The Six Sisters #4) by M.C. Beaton
Diana the Huntress (The Six Sisters #5) by M.C. Beaton
Frederica in Fashion (The Six Sisters #3) by M.C. Beaton
Climbing with Mollie by William Finnegan
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
Medieval Bodies by Jack Hartnell
The Monuments Men by Robert Edsel
The Half-Life of Marie Currie by Lauren Gunderson
Virgin River by Robyn Carr
A Record Year
2019 was a banner year! 67 titles is a record for one year! I started keeping a book log in 2002 and my previous best was 43 titles in 2003. Considering that just a few years ago, I read only two books in total, I’d say I’m doing quite well with my goal to do more reading.
The Year of Audiobooks
There are a few reasons why I’ve been gravitating to audiobooks over reading a paper book or downloading something on my e-paper reader. One is that I have severe tinnitus and my world is never truly silent anymore. This affects my ability to focus on reading, an issue that was compounded by hypothyroidism which has negative impacts on cognition. Having audio on in the background helps me ignore the constant screech of the tinnitus. And I find that I can extend the length of time I can focus on a story by doing simple mechanical tasks while listening, so I can put my headphones in and crochet or cook or do some other hobby while enjoying fiction.
More Romance in 2019
There’s a lot more romance in the mix than in years past. I recognized that I was being quite snobby about romance books, but I’ve made so many friends in the Twitter Writing Community who are romance authors that I wanted to re-evaluate my perspective on the genre. I hadn’t read any romance books in 15 plus years since I picked up some cheap paperbacks to fill the time when I only had over-the-air TV and streaming wasn’t really a thing yet. And, again as in the past, I find that what drew me most to the category was the sheer availability of titles. They’re easy reads that fill time, and I find the predictability to be comforting when there is so much uncertainty in real life. I signed up for the Audible Escapes Package which gives access to unlimited downloads of select titles in the romance genres and I discovered some quite good writing through this pipeline. There are some stellar recordings of Jane Austen’s works that I really enjoyed, and just about any narrator with an English accent appeals to me. I also tried out some contemporary romance stories with American narrators, but I found I enjoyed the historicals more and enjoyed a couple of multi-book series including the Windham series by Grace Burrowes, the Wicked trilogy by Madeline Hunter, and the Six Sisters series by M.C. Beaton. Of these, Grace Burrowes was superior. She is a gifted writer.
If I had to pick a top romance title of the year, it would have to be Wanderlust by Lauren Blakely. The alternating perspectives were well done, and I really loved the descriptions of Paris and the challenge the main female character was having learning a new language. Also, Richard Armitage does the male narration and…it’s very good. I recommend giving it a listen. I gave it four stars and called it the best contemporary romance I’d ever read on GoodReads. I stand by that assessment.
Read More Fantasy in 2020
Next on my “read more in this genre” hit list is fantasy. I’ve never enjoyed fantasy in literature. I liked reading Tolkien, but I didn’t become a huge fan of Lord of the Rings until the movies came out. I tend to only enjoy high fantasy as movies or television. I find them tedious to read. But this is probably me being a bit snobbish, so I’m going to load my TBR pile with fantasy titles to get a taste of what the trends in the genre are.
I like to set reading goals for the year, which is usually 12 books per year, but since I fly through audio so fast, I figured I could up the count to 20 this year. But I do intend to read some more text-based works this year. There are a few books written by Twitter friends I want to take a peak into and they’re not available as audio, so I need to make sure I follow through on this goal and not slack off and only read 3 text books in 12 months like 2019!
Revisiting Old Favorites
Of course I revisited a few old favorites this year. I’m always up for a re-read of Jane Eyre and the works of Austen, but I went deeper into Victorian writer Elizabeth Gaskell’s catalog than I ever had before. I discovered Georgette Heyer last year and revisited some of my favorites this year. She wrote in the 40s through 70s, pretty much pioneering the historical romance genre. I find her works to be quite Austen-esque in that they are largely set in the Regency period (or thereabouts) and feature slow burn romances or marriage farce plot lines. She did a ton of research into Regency England and I enjoyed learning all of the little things about that time that Austen may have assumed her contemporary audience already knew or that lay outside of her limited experience. Venetia is my favorites, and there is an abridged audio recording read by Richard Armitage that is a quick listen and so much fun. Someone needs to adapt it into a movie and cast him as Lord Damarel, like, yesterday.
Multi-Media Overlap
I very often read a book after I’ve watched a movie or series adaptation, which is why you’ll see To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han on this years’ list. I found the movie adaptation on Netflix to be charming. It overcame a huge hurdle in the form of me being pretty over the teen YA rom-com genre in all forms to the extend that Jane Austen has been wearing a bit thin for me. As an old married lady, I am having a harder time connecting with virginal husband hunters and first loves that feature in a lot of books written for younger audiences. But the series’ main protagonist Lara Jean was endlessly endearing and I saw a lot of myself in her.
Always and Forever, Lara Jean by Jenny Han
I haven't read YA in awhile, so I decided to read the "To All the Boys I've Loved Before" trilogy after seeing the first movie and in anticipation of the sequel’s release on Netflix. They were charming, but made me remember why I don't usually read YA” ⭐️⭐️⭐️
I can’t wait for the sequel movie adaptation to come out on Netflix in a few weeks!
In non-fiction reads that I was inspired to pick up because of a movie, I had been meaning to read The Monuments Men by Robert Edsel for ages and finally got around to it this year. It did such a good job of creating a coherent narrative out of a period in WWII that was so confusing to those who lived through it. Hearing about the heroism that saved so many of the world’s priceless masterpieces is inspiring, but my heart breaks for the works that were never recovered and the millions of lives lost during the conflict.
I’ve just started in on the Virgin River series by Robyn Carr because it was adapted by Netflix into a series with superb casting. I really connected with the main character and enjoyed the descriptions of her career in nursing and midwifery.
Virgin River by Robyn Carr
Head and shoulders above some works that it shares a category with, especially in terms of character development and providing motivation that drives behavior, but this book still suffers some of the same drawbacks as many romances. Mainly, everyone stands around and talks about their feelings for the last three chapters and much of the same territory is covered twice or more, which gets exhausting to read. The recent Netflix adaptation gives its audience like two lines of dialog expertly delivered by a fine actor and it makes the declaration of feelings so much more impactful for its brevity.
I wish the author would have had the capacity to expand on how "beautiful" the setting is. There are so many mentions of how "beautiful" the rivers and pines and mountains are without much more description than that. I'd have liked it if the author could have explained WHY things were so beautiful or what was so beautiful about them.
Much of the tension is built around wondering when the shoe will drop that reveals the characters' secret trauma, which sometimes feels a bit cheap, but it is refreshing to see older protagonists who have lived complicated lives get the spotlight here ⭐️⭐️⭐️
I also gave a listen to a Carnival Row novelization based on the Amazon Prime television series. It’s a gritty faerie fantasy that explores class differences and racism. The show is gorgeous and the world-building is interesting, but the story-telling is a bit eyeroll worthy at times. The book was true to form. It gave some useful backstory, but was ultimately unsubstantial. I felt like it wasn’t quite enough to make a meal out of, if that makes sense.
The Half-Life of Marie Currie by Lauren Gunderson was a theater crossover. Audible made a recording adapted from the Broadway play starring Kate Mulgrew and Hertha Ayrton. It was a heart-rending audio drama, expertly performed. I highly recommend it. I bet it was even more spectacular as a play.
Thank you, Lacy!
— Kate Mulgrew (@TheKateMulgrew) December 13, 2019
My Heart Belongs to Non-Fiction
I read more non-fiction than ever before in 2019. Some of this stems from being a habitual listener of NPR news radio, but not being able to stomach listening to current political discussions without becoming too anxious. But some of my non-fiction intake this year was research for my current fiction projects.
Sotheby's: Bidding for Class by Robert Lacey
The Auctioneer: Adventures in the Art Trade by Simon de Pury
Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art by Laney Salisbury & Aly Sujo
The Art of the Con: The Most Notorious Fakes, Frauds, and Forgeries in the Art World by Anthony M. Amore
The Bilionaire’s Vinegar: The Mystery of the World’s Most Expensive Bottle of Wine by Benjamin Wallace
In Vino Duplicitas: The Rise and Fall of a Wine Forger Extraordinaire by Peter Hellman and Charles Constant
The Rescue Artist by Edward Dolnick
Master Thieves: The Boston Gangsters Who Pulled Off the World’s Greatest Art Heist by Stephen Kurkjian
I found Provenance and The Billionaire’s Vinegar to be particularly eye-opening as they gave me a window into worlds I hadn’t previously known existed. The heist books weren’t strictly research, more like falling down an artworld non-fic rabbit hole. And the two books I read about the rival auction houses were strikingly opposite in terms of quality. The Robert Lacey book on Sotheby’s is fantastic and I really need to buy a hard copy so I can reference it quickly. But the Simon de Pury? Well…
The Auctioneer: Adventures in the Art Trade by Simon de Pury
Some fascinating details of the auction houses at work, but mostly just self-indulgent (and self-important) tosh and tattle. ⭐️⭐️
A good portion of the non-fiction I read this year was born out of my insatiable curiosity about the world. I particularly enjoy history and science non-fiction, so you’ll see a lot of science titles in the mix, but pretty much anything that I saw come across the Audible picks of the month that featured a subject I found fascination was worth a listen. There’s a broad spectrum of reads here:
No Stone Unturned: The True Story of the World's Premier Forensic Investigators by Steve Jackson
It Burns: The Scandal-Plagued Race to Breed the World’s Hottest Chili by Marc Fennell
The Man Who Knew The Way to the Moon by Todd Zwillich
A Grown-Up Guide to Dinosaurs by Ben Garrod
Elizabeth II: Life of a Monarch by Ruth Cowen
Medieval Bodies: Life and Death in the Middle Ages by Jack Hartnell
Climbing with Mollie by William Finnegan
The Next Pandemic: On the Front Lines Against Humankind's Gravest Dangers by Ali Khan, William Patrick
The Art of Looking Up by Catherine McCormack
The book Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man by Lynn Vincent & Sara Vladic holds a special place in my heart. My pepaw, Bill Fouts, served aboard the USS Ringness in WWII, one of the ships who recovered sailors during the rescue operations after the USS Indianapolis disaster. 321 men survived of the 880 who were aboard when the ship went down. My Pepaw’s ship saved 39 of the 321 survivors, including the ship’s captain. He was a gunner’s mate and was on deck during the rescue operation. I took him to the 70th reunion of Indianapolis survivors in 2014 where we met up with decedents of those who were rescued by the Ringness, men and women who wouldn’t be alive if not for the efforts of the rescuers. While we were at the reunion, we were introduced to the author Sara Vladic who was working on a documentary film collecting first-hand accounts from the veterans on hand. Because of this, he was featured briefly in the film and is also in this book, sharing his account of watching the Indy captain come aboard the rescue vessel.
A very well-researched and readable account of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis with coverage of the aftermath and trial of its captain. Also, my pepaw is in it.⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
No Stone Unturned should be required reading for every author who is trying to make sure their bodies stay buried or who likes to write about cold cases. I also found The Next Pandemic to be really useful in terms of giving a much better view of the actual science of epidemiology and not the bastardized and sensationalized version that is seen in movies, television, and novels.
Medieval Bodies was brilliant. It actually made me laugh out loud in a couple of places. And since one of my best friends is a medievalist, I had a great time chatting with him about it. The different sections were a bit uneven, as in the writing/research was superior in some chapters and others felt a little more flat, but this may have been a byproduct of my wandering attention or just not being as interested in some topics over others. The book covers a breadth of different aspects of medieval life.
Medieval Bodies: Life and Death in the Middle Ages by Jack Hartnell
This is excellently researched and well written. No qualms in recommending it. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Historical Fiction
I used to read a lot in the HistFic genre, but I find I don’t read as much of it anymore. I think, mostly, I got tired of reading the actual history and finding the holes in the HistFic research, or the license taken with the fictionalization and getting kind of steamed about that, so I just switched to reading non-fiction history books. I did read two of Kate Quinn’s recent novels and enjoyed them quite a bit.
The Huntress by Kate Quinn
Read on recommendation of the A Mighty Girl social media presence. Based on the subject matter, I thought I was in for a more serious story, but it was quite a bit lighter than I thought it would be. The woven narratives are deftly handled, even if there is enough of a clear trajectory to the story to prevent there being any true mystery about how things will end up. The romance subplot is a bit frothy, but not unpleasantly so. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I liked The Huntress enough to pick up Quinn's other novel set in the same time period, The Alice Network, which I thought was superior in terms of how lyrical and beautiful the writing is, which is odd since The Alice Network was a debut. I would have thought that the writing would have become better over time.
To marry Histfic with my research in the art world, I read The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro. it was good, but not terribly memorable. I enjoyed the process descriptions of the main character painting, but the subplot tying in with a shady gallery owner and the Gardner Museum heist of the 90s was a bit overcooked for my taste.
Surprises
David Ignatius is a familiar name to me as he often appears on NPR discussions of current events in his capacity as a Washington Post reporter. I was so surprised by the quality of what I thought was going to be a forgettable spy thriller. I thoroughly enjoyed the portrayal of CIA agents who weren’t constantly shooting and blowing things up, who were just making deals and filing the paperwork and looking after their departmental budgets. I’m a sucker for realism these days, and this book had it. And I think Ignatius might have pulled off the best female characters I’ve yet seen a man write…aside from perhaps James S.A. Corey.
The Quantum Spy by David Ignatius
Hats off to David Ignatius for The Quantum Spy. It neatly sidesteps all the idiotic Hollywood tropes that make spy thrillers obnoxious. The science is right. The portrayal of actual intelligence work is (as far as I know) right, and his portrayal of female characters is spot on. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I am a huge fan of James S.A. Corey (actually a team of writers named Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham) and The Expanse books are some of the best hard sci fi around these days. The show based on the books is the best sci fi show, hands down, and I could go on for a long time about what I love about the series in both forms, but I only read one of them this year and I had a very hard time getting into it. For one thing, the previous book in the series Nemesis Games blew my socks off with how good it was, but where the plot picks up in Babylon’s Ashes is a really dark place, and I just wasn’t up for inhabiting that headspace this year. Also, one thing that James S.A. Corey does particularly well is alternating point of views. There are frequently four POV characters in each of the Expanse novels. But one of the POV characters in Babylon’s Ashes has been newly introduced and I had a hard time connecting with her for some reason. I’ll have to give it a second read to see if I was just in a period of burnout when I tried to pick it up, because I fully expected to be in love with it and I just wasn’t. My husband is peeved at me for not being caught up with the latest book, so I should really move this to the top of my TBR list.
I’d say the most memorable author I “discovered” recently was JoJo Moyes. Yes, I know, she’s BEEN hot for years, but I hadn’t ever read anything by her until last year and she wrecked me in the best possible way. I had seen the Me Before You movie, of course. I watched it a few times because it was good for a nice cry, but the as much as the movie is a tear-jerker, the book ripped my heart out of my chest and pureed it. When I found out there were sequels I couldn’t believe they would be half as good as the original. So when After You wrecked me just as thoroughly as the first book in the series, I knew I’d be reading a lot more JoJo Moyes in the future. She’s the perfect example of an author whose voice I adore but cannot in a million years imitate in my own writing. She makes writing about grief seem effortless and balances on the comedy-tragedy knife edge. I’ll definitely be finishing the series sometime soon, but it’s the type of thing that I have to be in the mood for and a few days in my calendar that I can just clear completely.
17 years of Book Log
Soon, I’ll have kept a book log for 20 years. I have had such fun looking back into the past and sharing my reading life through this Reading Log series of posts. I’ve exercised my memory and relived some times I don’t often think back on. 2019 certainly has been one of the best reading years of my life, though.