read: The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman ★★★★

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
My rating: ★★★★

A delightful cozy mystery. The setting and characters are down-to-earth, and the mysteries build and resolve like a very busy Renoit painting. There's a lot going on and not all of it is relevant to the plot.

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read: Hope: The Autobiography by Pope Francis ★★★★★

Hope: The Autobiography by Pope Francis
My rating: ★★★★★

This is the second book I've read this year that is a memoire or autobiography of a person of faith who grew up over the past century (the other was Wake Up With Purpose!: What I’ve Learned in My First Hundred Years). Pope Francis, like Sister Jean, came from humble beginnings and through work, community and good fortune became educated and devoted to service.
As a Christian, but not a Roman Catholic, what impressed me about his faith was how he felt more led by the heart of God and love for his fellow humans, rather than the dictates of history or religion. As one of those humans, I was also impressed by Francis' own humanity and his frankness about his shortcomings, as well as his love for art and community (and sports).
The book itself is often non-linear and meandering, focusing on a topic, rather than chronology. Yet it is not hard to follow. I found myself skipping over some topics I found too esoteric or political. But I enjoyed the rest and discovered some gems of observation from this man with a wealth of experience and education and faith.

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read: The Wild Robot by Peter Brown ★★★★★

The Wild Robot by Peter Brown
My rating: ★★★★★

Delightfully entertaining story that ignores the scary parts of AI to explore more promising possibilities of machine learning, set against a fanciful natural world where animals can get along with each other. And eventually, with a technological creature. Bonus overtones of found family and environmentalism. But ultimately, a story about a robot and a goose on an island.

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read: Wake Up With Purpose!: What I've Learned in My First Hundred Years by Jean Dolores Schmidt ★★★★★

Wake Up With Purpose!: What I've Learned in My First Hundred Years by Jean Dolores Schmidt
My rating: ★★★★★

This book is a breath of fresh air. You don't have to be Catholic, or even Christian, to enjoy Sister Jean's uplifting view about life and living it.

"If you’re not moving forward, you’re going to get left behind real quick."

“I still go to bed every night with a smile on my face, gratitude in my heart, and love in my soul.”

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read: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire ★★

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
My rating: ★★

I don't like to post negative reviews. But I really feel like I would have liked someone to warn me off this before I struggled with it for a couple of weeks.

Nope. Not for me. I didn’t care for a single character (except, perhaps, for Boq). Without that, there was nothing to carry me through to the end. The narrative was confusing, not compelling.

Such a shame, too. I’ve had this in my queue forever, having seen the play and thinking the book would be right up my alley. Now that the film is streaming, it was time to attend to the novel.

But, no. DNF.

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read: Blood Hollow by William Kent Krueger ★★★★★

Blood Hollow by William Kent Krueger
My rating: ★★★★★

Returned to this series at #4 after a long break reading other stuff and after reading a later volume. Still great storytelling that does not suffer from reading out of order.

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reread: How Much for Just the Planet? by John M. Ford ★★★

How Much for Just the Planet? by John M. Ford
My rating: ★★★

So many feelings after rereading this decades after a first reading upon its initial release. It's still such a silly take on Star Trek, right up there with the Original Series episodes, "A Piece of the Action", "Shore Leave" and "The Trouble With Tribbles". And yet I can't reconcile its innocent charm, skewed characterizations and flawed storytelling with ratings I previously gave the book: 2 stars at one point, long forgotten and undeserved, and then 4 stars, apparently based on my faulty memory of how funny I must have found it.

Three stars seems about right. I shouldn't fault the author for playing around with Star Trek lore at a time when it was far less established. And I won't. Although the Klingons never quite ring 'true' here, weighted down as I am with 40 more years of books, TV and film. They are much too personable. Everyone else seems about right, for the time. What kept distracting me, though, were the casual references to what should have been archaic Earth cultural touchpoints. Even the humans of Kirk's time are usually presented with larger gaps in their knowledge of 19th and 20th century British and American stage and film. How the isolated colonists on Direidi, much less the Klingons, know so much about Gilbert and Sullivan, classic Hollywood films and romantic comedy is a mystery.

Leaving all that as the key suspension of disbelief, the reader is left with a pleasant story of cunning locals pulling the wool over the eyes of supposedly more sophisticated visitors out to exploit them.

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read: When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi ★★★★★

When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi
My rating: ★★★★★

I expected this book to be offbeat and entertaining. But John Scalzi took it in a completely different direction than I expected. The reader knows the premise, based on the title and back cover blurb. "What would happen if the moon suddenly and without explanation turned into cheese." But what the author does with that premise caught me off guard. The moon turning into cheese is the both the inciting incident and the only required suspension of disbelief. Everything else follows logically and as true to the real world as possible.

The mass of the moon stays the same. No orbital mechanics are (supposedly) skewed. Other natural processes must and do proceed apace: it's larger in diameter, it's brighter, the surface is too soft for a landing, etc. The book delves into the effect the change has on the population of Earth. Chapters focus on different sets of characters and their unique situations in a somewhat chronological order. Some incidents are humorous. Others not so much. A few characters pop up more than once so we get a fuller picture how the new moon's ramifications on their life. And then something happens to which my response was "he didn't actually go there, did he?" But he did. And it makes for an even more interesting story.

Disclosure: Thank you to Netgalley and Tor Books for allowing me to preview this book.

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read: The Martian Contingency by Mary Robinette Kowal ★★★★

The Martian Contingency by Mary Robinette Kowal
My rating: ★★★★

I am loving this series from Mary Robinette Kowal. It pushes all of my buttons as a boomer child of the space age, telling stories of an alternate, sped up space race pitted against nature, rather than Russia. Mary Robinette has done her research and it shows, without getting too pedantic. After spending the previous novel looking into developments at Artemis Base on the moon with Nicole Wargin, this book returns to Elma York and her work on Mars getting things settled in at Earth's new habitat (not colony) there.

Of course, things do not go smoothly. Elma senses something is wrong from the minute she lands with the second expedition and finds certain details mysteriously out of place. But the members of the first expedition are united in their silence about what might have happened on their first trip. The mysteries are set aside while more urgent threats to the mission are addressed. Yet even those situations spark more questions about the first expedition.

A couple of things kept this from being a five star experience for me. The biggest was the repetitiveness of Elma's passive ponderings about the first expedition's problems. I kept wanting her to be the badass she was in her first two novels and get to the bottom of things. She did exhibit great agency when it came to piloting tasks. But it seemed to take forever for her to grab hold of the reigns of command and drive the mission. This bogged things down for me.

On the whole, the storytelling is top notch, even with a bunch of technobabble and cultural conflict. The reader is always rooting for everyone to stay safe, stay happy and be successful in mixing and matching cultures and build a new society on a new planet.

Disclosure: Thank you to Netgalley and Tor Books for allowing me to preview this book.

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My 2021 in Books

[I wrote this up on December 28, 2021 and never posted it to this blog. Better late than never? I'm not going to bother fixing up the formatting issues due to pasting from OneNote.]

According to the Goodreads 2021 Reading Challenge, I read 50 books (so far) this year. That's 26 more than my goal of 24 (208%). That sounds like an amazing over-achievement, until I reveal that 1) this year's goal was half of what I set in 2020, with an eye toward reading longer works with about the same amount of reading time, and 2) I retired at the end of April, which allowed me to spend more time reading than before (though not as much as I anticipated). 

Here are some highlights: 

 

1. Non-fiction. 12 titles of the 50 were non-fiction and several of those were focused on writing. A few stand out: 

   1. Supreme Inequality: The Supreme Court's Fifty-Year Battle for a More Unjust America by Adam Cohen - I learned a lot about how the court has impacted policy and politics and vice versa. 

   2. But He Doesn't Know the Territory! by Meredith Wilson - A fun journey with the creator of the Broadway musical The Music Man from concept to opening night. 

   3. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway - A classic. Spend time in Paris and elsewhere during the earlier part of the famous author's career. 

   4. Keep Sharp: Build a Better Brain at Any Age by Gupta, Sanjay - learn about how you learn and how to keep exercising your mental muscle throughout your life.  

 

2. Inspirational. I wanted to expand my reading of Christian literature. But I only managed one (it's pretty dense). 

   1. Knowing God by J.I. Packer - A classic with some deep thoughts about the nature of God and the Bible. 

 

3. Netgalley. My original plan was to limit myself to preview 5 or fewer titles on Netgalley this year and focus on authors I don't usually read. But with retirement, and a bunch of new books from favorite authors coming out, I was happy to post early reviews for about 10. The most notable: 

   1. A Thousand Steps by T. Jefferson Parker ★★★★★ - Having spent my high school years not too far from Laguna Beach and not too many years after the setting of the book, I was transfixed by the 16-year-old protagonist's coming of age amidst more than one family crisis and turbulent times. 

   2. The World Played Chess by Robert Dugoni - This historical look at the Viet Nam war and its impact on various lives hits the sweet spot of character and story and setting Dugoni brings to all his writing. I'm more fond of Dugoni's mystery and spy titles (I also previewed In Her Tracks [Tracy Crosswhite #8] and The Silent Sisters [Charles Jenkins #3] and recommend both). 

   3. Fan Fiction by Brent Spiner - (yes, that Brent Spiner; Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation, if you still don't know). This isn't a memoir, though he includes some personal vignettes. It's also not really noir, though there is some mystery and some dark characters. It's a good, goofy novel for fans of STTNG. 

   4. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir - The first half of this novel felt like too much work for me and I only stuck with it because I made the commitment to review it. But around the halfway point, the story really got rolling and I enjoyed the rest of it quite a bit. 

 

Some other treats this year: 

1. This Tender Land by William Kent Kreuger ★★★★★ - A delightful coming-of-age story mashing up Tom Sawyer and The Great Depression and good Midwestern values. 

2. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles ★★★★★ - A book I didn't want to end. The gentleman in question is a lesser nobleman compelled by the Soviet government to remain in the luxury hotel where he is already somewhat of a fixture. A perpetual house-arrest. We spend many years with him and his friends, adapting to changing bureaucrats and circumstances.  

3. Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson - One of those longer works I wanted to read this year, about 2,000 pages of fantasy. This is not Tolkien. But it is well-written and entertaining with wit and magic and thoughtful characters. 

4. Dune by Frank Herbert - I reread this before the new film premiered - another long work. 

 

That's not 50. You can see more of my reactions (not reviews) to books on my blog at https://perpetualreboot.blogspot.com/ And you can see my Goodreads.com 2021 wrap-up is at https://www.goodreads.com/user_challenges/25255662.  

 

I'm going to aim a little higher in 2022: 50 books again. I still want to reduce my TBR pile and keep up with some current titles, choosing authors I don't usually read. And I'll be sure to read some challenging non-fiction. I'll also continue to tackle those longer works and series that I've been putting off until I had more time. I've got my eye on The Expanse series. I really enjoyed the first book. 

 

Keep reading! And share a book with a friend. 

My 2024 in Books

Glossing over the fact that I'm a bad blogger and haven't done a book-year-in-review since 2021 (and I didn't even post that one), here is my summary of 2024 and a few thoughts about 2025:

According to the Goodreads 2024 Reading Challenge, I read 39 books last year. That's 9 short of my goal of 48 (I thought I was a bit closer, but discovered that Goodreads had somehow double-counted several books). I'm a bit disappointed I didn't finish stronger. But I'm not surprised, given that I read some longer works, did not mix in enough shorter works and got a little too focused on phone scrolling. As a retired person I would think I could consume a book a week without breaking a sweat (which is the other problem, I should have walked and exercised more and knocked off several audio books). 

Here are some highlights:

1. Non-fiction. Only 7 titles of the 39 were non-fiction. A few stand out:
1. The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human by Siddhartha Mukherjee ★★★★★ - One of those longer books I mentioned. But well worth it to learn more about life on our planet and in our bodies.
2. Churchill's Secret Warriors: The Explosive True Story of the Special Forces Desperadoes of WWII by Damien Lewis ★★★★ - Inspiration for the film "The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare" and a well-told-tale of true-life secret heroes of WWII.
3. The Swedish Art of Aging Exuberantly: Life Wisdom from Someone Who Will (Probably) Die Before You by Margareta Magnusson ★★★★ - Essays about living from the author of The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning.
4. The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman ★★★★ - I didn't realize that this was not a recently released title until I was well into it (published in 1962). Even so, I was fascinated by the intricacies of pre-World War politics and early World War I warfare and all the things I (and probably most people) I did not know about it.
   
   
2. Inspirational. I had intended to expand my reading of Christian literature. But I only managed one and it's not worth mentioning. Aging Exuberantly was much more inspiring.
   
   
3. Netgalley. I stuck to my plan to limit myself to preview 5 or fewer titles on Netgalley this year and focus on backlist books and authors I don't usually read. But I was happy to post early reviews for 4 (5 if you count The Women, which I finished last December). The most notable:
1. The Women by Hannah Kristin ★★★★★ - Did I want to relive the years of Viet Nam War? No. But the author paints a vivid portrait of a combat nurse experiencing the horrors of jungle combat and an unwelcome homecoming.
2. A Cold, Cold World by Elena Taylor ★★★★★ - A classic locked-room mystery set in a small snowbound mountain town.
3. The Martian Contingency by Mary-Robinette Kowal - ★★★★ - Twenty-or-so years after a meteor hit Earth and forced mankind to reach for the stars, the first colony, sorry, habitat on Mars is trying to settle in for the long term and discovering how difficult it is to leave the worst parts of humanity behind. Fourth book in Kowal's Lady Astronaut retro space-program series.
   
   
4. Some other treats this year:
1. James by Percival Everett ★★★★★ - An amazing book that was an easy read with difficult content, worthy of your time and the attention and awards it's been receiving. I also read Everett's dramady Erasure ★★★★ and enjoyed it.
2. Matterhorn by Christopher Reich ★★★★★ - A ripping spy story. 
3. Starter Villain by John Scalzi ★★★★★ - A preposterous scifi romp about super villains. 
4. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie ★★★★ - A classic whodunnit. Charming beyond its outdated, clunky language. 
5. Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John ★★★★ - Trippy novel unloosed in time. 
6. The Expanse (series) by James S. A. Corey - I read the last three books of the series this year. It's obvious why they were excluded from the television series: a severe time jump and huge set pieces with the main characters scattered around the galaxy. Still some very good reading.

You can read more about these and other books I read in 2024 elsewhere in Perpetual Reboot. My Goodreads.com 2024 wrap-up is at https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/2024/3195690 or https://www.goodreads.com/readingchallenges/gr/annual/2024. 

I'm going to keep the same goal in 2024: 48 books. Lowering the bar would serve no purpose. I have no hope of actually reducing my TBR pile, since I keep adding titles. But I do hope to balance things out by (re-)visiting some classics, mixing in some current titles, including authors I don't usually read and pushing hard to read some challenging non-fiction. Maybe I'll even write a blog post with a more detailed plan. Don't hold your breath!

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read: James by Percival Everett ★★★★★

James by Percival Everett
My rating: ★★★★★

This book retells the story of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Huck's slave friend Jim. It's an easy read with difficult content, worthy of your time and the attention and awards it's been receiving. It's been quite a while since I read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Now I have to go read it again with Percival Everett's James parked inside my head. I didn't know quite what to expect from this book. But it probably wasn't what it delivered.
It's fast-paced, but unhurried. The author doesn't waste time with extraneous descriptions and narrative. The unimportant stuff is omitted. Words are invested in action, dialog and introspection, instead. Even here, the reader is spared from unnecessary repetition, rehash and brooding. This doesn't mean the narrative is spare. It's just full of the important stuff about relationships and what happens next.
Surprises abound. That's why I need to revisit Mark Twain's original story. I need to see how the puzzle pieces introduced in James and his view of the world fit into the larger picture that includes the pieces from Huckleberry Finn.

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read: Karla's Choice: A John le Carré Novel by Nick Harkaway ★★★★

Karla's Choice: A John le Carré Novel by Nick Harkaway
My rating: ★★★★

This has the familiar look of a cold-war Smiley story by le Carre, yet it feels a bit off, like an overly complicated intelligence operation. You can't quite tell where the frayed edges are. But you know they're there. Smiley is perhaps a bit too involved. Maybe the viewpoints shift around a bit too much with too much analysis. Perhaps the innocent bystander is a bit too willing and adept and lucky. In spite of that, it's a worthy and thoroughly engrossing addition to the Smiley oeuvre.

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read: Cinderwich by Cherie Priest ★★★★

Cinderwich by Cherie Priest
My rating: ★★★★

A moody, creepy, Southern gothic road-trip mystery story. At less than 200 pages, it's right-sized reading for an autumn evening to get into the Halloween spirit.

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read: Beyond Reasonable Doubt by Robert Dugoni ★★★★

Beyond Reasonable Doubt by Robert Dugoni
My rating: ★★★★

Keera Duggan deserves a break after the tough case she just cracked and won (read 'Her Deadly Game'). But her staycation will have to wait because she's called back into the office to hear about a new situation involving long-time clients and family friends and their daughter, Jenna, Keera's childhood nemesis. There's been a murder, the second one involving Jenna's tech company, and what little circumstantial evidence there is points to Jenna as the murder, again. Can Keera cut through Jenna's crap and get to the truth? Is she actually guilty this time? Was she last time? If not, can they uncover the real killer? Or will Keera have to rely on reasonable doubt, again, to keep Jenna out of prison?

When it comes to courtrooms and legal drama, Dugoni knows his stuff. I didn't feel as much tension in this story as I do in most of his other books. But events and discoveries and interpersonal issues keep things moving along to a satisfying conclusion. I look forward to Keera's next case.

Disclosure: Thank you to Netgalley and Thomas & Mercer for allowing me to preview this book.

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read: A Cold, Cold World by Elena Taylor ★★★★★

A Cold, Cold World by Elena Taylor
My rating: ★★★★★

I really liked the first book in this series, from the new sheriff to the setting to twisty plot to the writing itself. This new story is quite different from that one, except in the ways it is the same. There is still the feisty sheriff who's good at her job, but full of self-doubt. Still the small town where everyone knows everyone. Yet another dead body that's discovered in a remote area under mysterious circumstances. And still the relentless police work to get to the truth.

The big change is that this time everything is happening in the middle of winter and in the middle of one of the largest, most dangerous snow storms ever. The small town of Collier hunkers down and pulls together to ride out the storm. But there's a murderer in their midst. Add a missing person or two and another possible murder and the reader feels the walls closing in on a classic locked room mystery. Who can Sheriff Bet Rivers trust? And where are her suspects?

It all builds slowly as the characters all step onto the stage and questions are raised. For every answer there are two or three more mysteries. The reader is kept guessing right until the end.

Disclosure: Thank you to Netgalley and Severn House for providing a free copy of this book in return for my honest review.

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read: Rumor Has It by Cat Rambo ★★★★

Rumor Has It by Cat Rambo
My rating: ★★★★

I thought of the previous story in this series as "The Continuing Adventures of the Crew of 'You Sexy Thing'". That would make this book "The Still Ongoing Adventures of the Crew of 'You Sexy Thing'". It picks up immediately following the 'To Be Continued' ending of the other book with Captain Niko and crew putting in at Coralind station to regroup, recoup, and plan their next move. There is much pairing off for adventures on the station, many opportunities for self-discovery and growth, some tension about how to keep paying for the crew to stay together, and encounters with new and old antagonists that may help or hinder. And then a few subplots are resolved before we again fade to 'To Be Continued."

As usual, the characters and situations are fun and easy to read about. The story continues to play fast and loose with science fiction and fantasy tropes, untroubled by actual physics or comprehendible magic. It's all lighthearted nonsense with likable characters to root for. I liked the first book of the series more. The plot had more drive. But I'm still on board and enjoying the ride on this sentient spaceship and look forward to the next volume.

Disclosure: Thank you to Netgalley and Tor Books for allowing me to preview this book.

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read: And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie ★★★★

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
My rating: ★★★★

A very classic whodunit story almost worthy of 5 stars. But knock off a star for a somewhat convoluted setup and undeniably outdated and clunky style (lots of head-hopping). Knock off another star for the overly long and talky appendices. But add another star because this is a classic story and she kept this reader guessing until the very last page.

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read: Malibu Burning by Lee Goldberg ★★★★

Malibu Burning by Lee Goldberg
My rating: ★★★★

Engaging heist story with a little Backdraft and Fugitive thrown in.

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read: The Women by Kristin Hannah ★★★★★

The Women by Kristin Hannah
My rating: ★★★★★

I am so glad I read this book. The historical subject matter appealed to me and I knew Kristin Hannah could write a good story. But I was a little apprehensive that a story set during the Vietnam War years might be as crushing as I found The Four Winds made the Great Depression. This turns out not to be the case.

Frankie, the protagonist of this book, isn't without her faults and challenges. She goes through some very dark times. But her story contains enough spirit, comradery and joy to help the reader power through the challenging sections. And it contains enough grit and realism to keep everything grounded. This book is a powerful statement about the Viet Nam War, the women and men that served there and the horrible way they were treated when they returned. Recommended.

Disclosure: Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for providing a free copy of this book for review.

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