Reading is my oldest and favorite hobby. I can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t love to curl up with a good book. Here are my reads for February, 2020…

Life Among the Savages, by Shirley Jackson – I’ve never read anything by Shirley Jackson before, because I am not really into psychological suspense or horror, so The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle and Jackson’s other work struck me as probably too scary.  But Jackson is a major American literary figure and I did want to give her a try – and her lightly fictionalized memoir of living in a rambling Vermont farmhouse with her bumbling husband and hilariously mischievous children was much more my speed.  I laughed until I cried, especially at the antics of Jackson’s two elder children, Laurie and Jannie, although I was disappointed to discover that Jackson’s husband was actually a controlling, cheating jerk, who was considerably sanitized in her memoir.  All things told, though, LOVED.  Fully reviewed here.

A Passage to India, by E. M. Forster – I am gradually working my way through Forster’s bibliography and enjoying each book more than the last.  I liked A Room with a View, loved Howard’s End, and was enthralled by A Passage to India.  Forster’s last novel – and masterpiece, in my opinion, although I know Howard’s End has its champions – he explores the race relations of an outpost in the India of the British Raj.  Adela Quested, a young woman contemplating marriage to a colonial government official, arrives with her prospective mother-in-law – both keen to see the “real India.”  They soon encounter a number of local characters, including Aziz, a Muslim doctor, who invites them to picnic at an area landmark.  The day goes wrong, and in a very confusing way, and leads to a momentous accusation that upends the city and throws its tenuous balance completely off-kilter.  It’s a beautifully written book, I think quite ahead of its time, and I thought it was wonderful.  Full review to come on Friday.

Wish You Were Eyre (Mother-Daughter Book Club #6), by Heather Vogel Frederick – Frederick intended this volume to conclude the Mother-Daughter Book Club series, and she wraps up each of the characters’ stories neatly at the end.  (Of course, she ended up writing a seventh book – I think people were too curious about where the girls ended up going to college.)  Wish You Were Eyre picks up pretty much where Home for the Holidays left off – it’s now January, and Concord has put away its Christmas finery and settled in for a loooooong winter.  Several of the book clubbers are looking forward to spring vacation travel – Megan to Paris with her grandmother, and Becca to Mankato, Minnesota, with hers – and all are facing change and upheaval.  Megan’s family is growing in unexpected, and not entirely welcome, ways.  Cassidy is experiencing boy trouble for the first time ever, Jess is unfathomably accused of cheating on a test, and Emma is struggling with jealousy.  Also, Mrs. Wong is running for mayor!  I’d vote for her.

A Man Lay Dead (Roderick Alleyn #1), by Ngaio Marsh – Marsh is a New Zealand writer, a contemporary of Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, and one of the only “Queens of Crime” I’d not yet read.  A Man Lay Dead is the first in a series featuring Marsh’s most famous sleuth, Scotland Yard detective Roderick Alleyn.  It’s a classic country house mystery – there are parlor games turned deadly and witty repartee.  Alleyn is called to investigate a murder that took place during a game of “Murder” (because of course) and arrives on the scene to find that all of the possible suspects have alibis.  Now, how can that be?  There was an exciting subplot involving a Russian secret society and a reveal with a flourish (once again I guessed the who but not the how).  I can see how Marsh can be a bit more difficult going than the other Queens of Crime – some of her tropes have not aged well.  But I’ll definitely continue with the Roderick Alleyn mysteries.

The Princess of Cleves, by Madame de Lafayette (translated by Nancy Mitford) – I was attracted to this obscure classic because of the title, so let’s get this out of the way first: this is not about Anne of Cleves.  It does take place during the Tudor period – Mary I is on the throne – but the titular princess is a French noblewoman and the action takes place in and around Paris.  So if you’re thinking, “Excellent!  Something else to add to my Henry VIII reading list!” (just me?) stop thinking that.  Okay, that out of the way: the best part of the book was the hilarious and witty introduction by Nancy Mitford.  The rest of it… I just felt sort of blah about it.  The Princess of Cleves is a little too beautiful and too well-behaved, and I found myself unable to care about her marriage or about the unfulfilled love affair with her husband’s friend, which is the subject of the book.  None of the characters resonated with me, and while I liked the little gems of wit in Mitford’s translation, I just found it hard going and impossible to invest.

American Royals (American Royals #1), by Katharine McGee – I’ll be honest, I probably wouldn’t have thought to pick this up had I not seen it all over social media, so: congratulations, marketing team, you have succeeded with me.  American Royals was fun.  The premise is great: at the end of the American Revolution, when soldiers and politicians begged George Washington to become king, he said – yes.  And the Washington family has occupied the throne of America ever since.  American Royals tells the story of the present-day royals – Princess Beatrice, eldest daughter and in line to be the first ever Queen Regnant of America, and her younger siblings, twins Jefferson and Samantha.  The story was engaging enough and I found the pages flying pleasantly by, but I think the most fun part was McGee’s imagination of what an America governed by a royal family and an aristocracy would look like – there were Dukes of Boston, Tidewater, etc., Telluride was an American version of Klosters, and so forth.  It was a total hoot and I will definitely read on in the series.

The Poisoned Chocolates Case, by Anthony Berkeley – While Berkeley is one of the most renowned golden age detective fiction writers – and the founder and leader of the Detection Club that also included Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and others among its members – I haven’t really seen much of his writing in libraries and bookstores.  The Poisoned Chocolates Case, recently republished in the British Library Crime Classics series, was a delightful introduction to Berkeley’s writing.  The premise is great fun – an informal group of writers and practitioners interested in sleuthing (a nod to Berkeley’s Detection Club) take on the task of solving a mystery that has baffled police.  Starting from the limited set of facts available to Scotland Yard, they take it in turns to present their solutions to the crime on successive nights, and each one comes up with a different answer to the puzzle.  The BL Crime Classics paperback includes two new theories at the end of Berkeley’s original text.  It was a unique and different approach to detective fiction.

Well-Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves, ed. Glory Edim – Well-Read Black Girl began as a t-shirt that Glory Edim’s supportive partner had made for her, turned into a thriving book club and literary discussion circle in New York City, and is now a wonderful book.  Edim gathers together some of the most vivid and brilliant voices in literature, drama, poetry, activism, and more, and challenges each to answer the question: when did you first see yourself in literature?  The essays and oral responses she received, from lights such as Jacqueline Woodson, Jesmyn Ward, Rebecca Walker, N.K. Jemisin, Tayari Jones and others, are beautiful and moving to read.  I’ve read some of the words these well-read black women have put out in the world, but not enough, and Edim’s thoughtfully curated reading lists, sprinkled throughout the book, and the lovely essays collected herein, exploded my TBR.

Bit of a light month of reading – not much light reading, but light on the reading time, if that makes sense.  February often is a lower-volume month for me, because it’s a short month.  This month was also especially hectic at work, with quite a few late nights and weekend workdays cutting into my reading time.  It happens.  The reading, when I could get it, was good at least.  I’m hard-pressed to pick highlights, because everything I read was at least good, even if not every book (I’m looking at you, Princess of Cleves) is destined to make it onto my top-ten list for 2020.  But there were a few contenders there: both Life Among the Savages and A Passage to India were excellent, engaging reads, and Well-Read Black Girl was moving and important.  Sprinkled in as they were with some fun detective fiction and a couple of lighter reads, I’d say this was a good reading month indeed.

How was your February in books?