November AlphaKIT: G and U

Welcome to the 2022 AlphaKIT. This is an unofficial challenge for the 2022 Category Challenge Group. Each month has two letters selected for you to use however you choose.

There are no rules. Just have fun and enjoy reading. November letters are G and U.

and

Please remember to update the wiki with your reading:
https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/2022_AlphaKIT#November:_-_Letters:_G_and...

I am planning on reading The Good Journey by Micaela Gilchrist and The Sands of Windee by Arthur William Upfield.

I'm stacking The Guns of August (by Barbara W. Tuchman) and Mademoiselle Chanel (by C. W. Gortner for "G";
But I don't know what I'm going to do about "U" yet.

I'm planning on reading Exodus by Leon Uris as my 'U' book and Going Dark by James W. Hall as my 'G' book.

As ever my plans for this are very changeable, but at the moment, I'm looking at re-reading "The Great Passage" by Shion Miura and then reading "An Unsafe Pair of Hands" by Chris Dolley

Lots to read!

Bride's Guide to Marriage and Murder
✔Guide to First Wives and Murder
✔Fixer Upper
✔Flicker of a Doubt by Daryl Wood Gerber
✔Gentlewoman’s Guide to Murder
Give Unto Others
✔Midnight House by Amanda Geard
✔Murder for Good Measure
✔Still Life and Death by Tracy Gardner
✔Through the Liquor Glass
✔Unlikely Heroes: Franklin Roosevelt, His Four Lieutenants, and the World They Made

>6 cyderry: I hope one of Roosevelt's "Unlikely Heroes" is Frances Perkins, who was, for all intents and purposes, the Mother of Social Security. One day I need to read her biography.

I am reading Gone for Gouda which is a Cheese Shop mystery.

>7 kac522: the Four Lieutenants were Harry Hopkins, Harold Ickes, Frances Perkins, and Henry Wallace.

A Good Girl's Guide To Murder for G, not sure on U yet.

Last year I used series as a sub-theme for me and I like to use author's last name for the letter. This year there are some letters that just haven't been working for me and this month there are two of them. I've decided to start two new series based on BBs I've gotten. So, I'll be reading Less by Andrew Sean Greer and Montmorency by Eleanor Updale.

For U, I'm most likely to read:
The Secrets Between Us / Thrity Umrigar

For G, I have a few possibilities:
Going Clear / Lawrence Wright
Garbage Man / Joseph D'Lacey
The Girl in the Leaves / Robert Scott

I read The Green Ripper by John D. MacDonald for G.

For U, I had a five star read, Tiny Uncertain Miracles.

I finished Missing Under the Mistletoe which is a Christmas mystery novella.

Currently reading The Jeeves Omnibus Vol. 3 by P. G. Wodehouse. Starting the third book in the omnibus "Very Good, Jeeves"

I finished this month early!
I listened to The Guns of August (The Coming of the Great War #2; by Barbara W. Tuchman; narrated by Wanda McCaddon) and;
North to Paradise (by Ousman Umar; narrated by Kwesi Busia).

Since I have all of November ahead and two holiday weekends, I’ll see if I can fit in my “X” book! 🙂

For G, I read The Great Fire of London, a Penguin Little Black Classic which contains extracts from the diaries of Samuel Pepys.

COMPLETED Very Good, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse and The Great Passage by Shion Miura

I completed Shadowlands: A Journey Through Lost Britain by Matthew Green.

I read Sooley by John Grisham
Basketball doesn't interest me but the story attracted me and although different from Grisham's other books, it succeeded. A heartbreaking story of a talented player brought from South Sudan to play in the US.

I read Under Orders by Dick Francis

December thread is up:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/345839

The Secrets Between Us / Thrity Umrigar
3.5 stars

Bhima is no longer working for the family she had been, and is now living in the slum with her granddaughter, Maya. However, with some help, she has managed to send Maya to university, while Bhima herself is now working two jobs (cleaning and cooking) for two other people. She really dislikes the woman at her morning job, but at her afternoon job, when her employer has a friend move in – a friend who has moved back to India from Australia and seems to have forgotten the customs – Bhima is not only treated very well, she is treated more like a friend.

The often disagreeable Parvati has an argument with her nephew and he kicks her out of where she has been living. She finds a room to rent at a brothel, and sells vegetables at a stand during the day to make her daily rent. Circumstances bring the two older ladies, Bhima and Parvati, together and they form a business partnership.

This is a continuation of “The Space Between Us” by the same author. Despite this being a sequel (and although I have), I don’t think you need to have read the first book to read this one. The bits you need to know are told to you in this story (good thing, because I wouldn’t have remembered any of it!). I liked this. I considered upping my rating to 4 but decided to keep it at a “good” rating for me. It’s not fast paced, but it’s a nice story of friendship. With the way it ended, I feel like there is a possibility for another continuation (with a different focus). If another book came out with these characters, I would read it.

I read Quite Ugly One Morning by Christopher Brookmyre.

I hope the rest of the series is as good as this one, which was fantastic! I relished the black humour, the characters, the Edinburgh setting, even the opening scene that was gross in its array of bodily fluids and yet had me laughing out loud. I loved the idiomatic words and phrases too. Thankfully, Brookmyre doesn't shy away from using them. Journalist Jack Parlabane is investigating why he was threatened at his last job in L.A. and had to leave the country, which led him to another story in Scotland. Are they connected? The newly formed National Health Service Trust is diverting money to the executive offices instead of hospitals. And diverting bodies too...

>25 VivienneR: That opening scene still lives in my mind today many years after having read it! You remind me of yet another series that I was really enjoying but I have let slip.

I have completed both of my reads for this month's AlphaKit.

G - The Good Journey by Micaela Gilchrist
U - The Sands of Windee by Arthur William Upfield

COMPLETED Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries Volume One and Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries Volume Two, both by Ashley Gardner.

Starting Timescape by Gregory Benford.

>28 Robertgreaves: Yay for Captain Lacey! Check out Murder in the Eternal City which features Captain Lacey and an investigation involving acquisition of antiquities (legally or otherwise). I bet you would enjoy it.

>29 LadyoftheLodge: I think I want to read them in chronological order so there is quite a way to go yet :-)

>26 DeltaQueen50: Next year's SeriesCAT will help with those forgotten series. That's what I'm hoping for anyway.

>31 VivienneR: I have similar plans but I have so many series that I know some will continue to slip by me.

>32 DeltaQueen50: Ditto. But tackling a few at a time is better than nothing...

COMPLETED Timescape by Gregory Benford

Starting "Murder Most Unladylike" by Robin Stevens

I read More Work for the Undertaker by Margery Allingham for the U.

COMPLETED Murder Most Unladylike by Robin Stevens

Starting "Utopia" by Sir Thomas More

I finished Small Game by Blair Braverman for another G.

I just read an excellent historical novel, Golden Hill by Francis Spufford, for G.

COMPLETED Utopia by Sir Thomas More

The Doctor from Hell / Genoviva Ortiz
3.5 stars

Harold Shipman was a doctor in the U.K. from the late 1960s to the late 1990s. In that time, he murdered over 200 people (likely the number is much higher). He is the serial killer who has killed the most people ever. This is a short biography of him and his deeds. He was actually very well-liked, but things came tumbling down with the death of another well-liked and influential woman in her community.

This is meant to be for any level reader, so it is kept short and simple. I still thought the story was good, but because it was kept short, there were plenty of details and victims that could have been expanded on. It’s not tale of blood and guts murder, but a doctor who (for reasons unknown) killed many of his own patients.

Starting "The Glass Room" by Ann Cleeves

I just finished The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen for U, which is a strange mashup of romance, fantasy, and Western that totally works!

COMPLETED The Glass Room by Ann Cleeves

This month I only completed 1 book:

The Devil's Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea

However, I'm currently reading 3 G&U books that won't be finished until next month:

Middlemarch by George Eliot (audiobook)
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (translated by Lydia Davis)
Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (nonfiction/women's history)

The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant
Addie Baum, born in 1900, is telling the story of her life to her granddaughter in response to her question "How did you get to be the woman you are today?". It was easy to get drawn into her story, especially in the early days when Addie is becoming a career woman. I enjoyed this quiet novel.

This month for AlphaKIT I read Spear, by Nicola Griffith.

I finished Unterm Birnbaum by Theodor Fontane, which was worth the read although it was a bit laborious.

Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief / Lawrence Wright
3.5 stars

This is a detailed look at the history of Scientology, including a biography of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard.

The author talked to many people who have left Scientology, as well as a few still involved, but many who are still involved wouldn’t be interviewed. Given its close ties to various celebrities, there is much discussion of some of the celebrities who are involved. The book was published in 2013, so that’s that same time and before a couple of the other books I’ve read on Scientology (one written by Jenna Miscavige-Hill, the niece of the current leader of the religion/cult, and another written by actress Leah Remini). Miscavige-Hill was already running a website that is mentioned a few times in this book, though. The “church” (cult?) is plagued with accusations of human rights abuses, assaults, etc.

This was mostly interesting, but there were times (mostly within Hubbard’s biography section of the book) where I just couldn’t focus. I think I find the personal stories the most interesting (including the other books I’ve read), though this is a very well-researched detailed account. It’s pretty scary, though, that journalists, people who have left, etc, anyone who says anything against Scientology appear to be harassed, and in some cases, even framed for crimes they didn’t commit!