It's crazy that another year is gone. A year that had a lot of uncertainty in it (moves! stuff at work that I don't really talk about here!). And of course more of the little monster who is his own pile of uncertainty. I'll have another post with my year end wrap up but for now let's focus on the reading I did in December.
Number of books read
6
The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in the Jazz Age by Deborah Blum
The Dragon Behind the Glass: A True Story About Power, Obsession and the World's Most Coveted Fish by Emily Voigt
Bullet Train by Kotaro Isaka
Curious Toys by Elizabeth Hand
The Art of the English Murder: From Jack the Ripper and Sherlock Holmes to Agatha Christie and Alfred Hitchcock by Lucy Worsley
Minecraft: The Island by Max Brooks
The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in the Jazz Age by Deborah Blum
A recommendation from the wonderful bookish podcast For Real (its run has ended but you can still check out past episodes) looking into a point in history not often covered in text books. Blum covers the early NYC medical examiners Charles Norris and Alexander Gettler as they investigate a series of medical mysteries from poisonings (accidental and otherwise) to "hey, why is that guy blue?", leading to modern forensic science methods. Interesting history and a wonder that anyone made it out of 1920s NYC alive.
Rating: 3.5 stars
The Dragon Behind the Glass: A True Story About Power, Obsession and the World's Most Coveted Fish by Emily Voigt
Another For Real recommendation. This time following reporter Voigt's journey to find a wild Asian Arawana (or dragon fish), the world's most expensive aquarium fish that sell for upwards of $100K. Admittedly, I thought more of the book would be about the fish, the history of it, the science, what people have done over the years to acquire these fish (murder included) and how it came to have such a high status. And that is in there but the real focus is Emily's many excursions to try to find this fish in the wild with the help of some thoroughly frustrating scientists. These trials and travails took up the majority of the book and I would have preferred a better balance of fish to her travels in Borneo.
Rating: 3 stars
(The title is centered and honestly, it doesn't seem to want to uncenter and it's driving me out of my mind but not enough to figure out WHY it won't just left align, nor to rewrite this section/post/whatever it takes to get it to format right. Just know that I hate it.)
Bullet Train by Kotaro Isaka
This was so much fun. SO MUCH FUN. A bullet train, the Shinkansen Hayate, seems to be just packed with assassins. There's former hitman Kimura who is looking to get revenge on a passenger riding the train for hurting his son. There's the Prince, who looks like an innocent schoolboy but is anything but. There are the "twins" Tangerine and Lemon, who were tasked with returning the son of a crime boss and a suitcase full of who-knows-what. And then there's Nanao, nicknamed Ladybug and self-proclaimed world's unluckiest hitman. All he has to do is get on the train, grab a suitcase and get off at the first stop. But oh ho, will it be so easy? It will not. The narrative switches between these characters, as we meet other colorful characters who are slowly coming to the realization that maybe it's not just coincidence they're all on the train. Isaka does a masterful job at keeping up the suspense and a number of times I was very torn between looking up what was going to happen because I couldn't take it anymore and wanting to let it unfold for me. (I held out and went with the latter; I'm happy I did). Looooved this book.
Rating: 5 stars
I also watched the movie and it's fine. The movie was entertaining in its own way and has the tone of the Deadpool movies (directed by the guy that did D2), with lots of violence and comedy. The book and the movie are different enough (in key characters, motivations, tone, level of violence) that no direct comparison is necessary.
Curious Toys by Elizabeth Hand
I had been making my way through this book since about September. I took it with me on a work trip thinking I would get lots of reading done and I don't know why I thought that, because I did not. And since this was an actual, physical paperback book and not an audiobook I could put on while driving or cooking or cleaning, it meant I had to find more time to sit down and focus on it and it turns out that is harder than I anticipated. But I did finish it. The story takes place in Chicago in the 1910s focusing on a child named Pin. A child of a fortune teller at the local amusement park, she dresses like a boy for protection (and also because she feels more herself when dressed as a boy). However, there's something going on at the park with young girls showing up murdered and no idea who could have done it. The story is told through multiple narrators, including a former police office, various people who work the amusement park and the local film studio, and even the killer. Ultimately the story worked better for me when it focused on the different characters and what day-to-day life was like for them. As the story focused in more and more on the crime, I found myself less and less interested. It felt a bit like Hand was more interested in the setting as well, since the mystery wrapped up relatively suddenly for all of the time spent on set up. Part of my feeling could have been because there were large stretches between when I would pick up the book again so perhaps a more consistent reading schedule would have made me like it more.
Rating: 3.75 stars
The Art of the English Murder: From Jack the Ripper and Sherlock Holmes to Agatha Christie and Alfred Hitchcock by Lucy Worsley
In the past few years I have learned that I am a fan of the English murder mystery. Mystery in general, sure, but I do find myself drawn to many of the English mysteries. And I also like some off-beat history (see Poisoner's Handbook above) so this seemed like a fun story. Worsley looks at the way true crime in the 1700s and 1800s inspired a culture of crime and murder stories to flourish in England. There was more on actual crimes than I was expecting but they work in bringing together the different trends seen in English murder mysteries and highlight that these fads were not created in a vacuum. It was interesting to see the way murder stories and especially the detective story evolved to the point we know today. Or I suppose, more to the Golden Age of Detective stories (which ends in the late 1930s) with a little bit of Hitchcock thrown in at the end.
Rating: 3.5 stars
Minecraft: The Island by Max Brooks
OK, this is a strange one. It's a fiction book about Minecraft, a game that I have never played and am only vaguely aware of. HOWEVER, it is written by Max Brooks who also wrote World War Z, a book I read almost every year. And the audiobook is narrated by Jack Black. And it is only like 6 hours long. And it was immediately available from the library. In this case the unnamed narrator finds themself in a strange world where everything seems to be made of blocks, his arms are squared off and nothing quite seems to work the way he remembers the real world working. He can't remember how he got here or how he can get home. The book is entertaining and well-written as the narrator tries to figure out what this world is and how he can survive, but ultimately the book feels like you're watching someone play the game. And I know there are many people who are into that and you do you but it wasn't really for me. The book is a series of adventures and perilous situations the narrator finds themself in but without much of a larger story of what's going on. And while I appreciated the explanation of how things work (because again, only vaguely aware of Minecraft), it never really added up to a larger narrative. But the book does what it sets out to do, and Jack Black was a good choice of narrator.
Rating: 3 stars
Total pages read
2,045
Fiction
50%
Female authors
67%
BIPOC authors
17%
US authors
67%
Book format
audiobook: 83%
paperback: 17%
Where'd I get the book
library: 83%
gift: 17%
Blogger reco
50%
Translation
17%
Decade published
2010s: 83%
2020s: 17%
Resolution books
33%
Bullet Train is written by Japanese author Kotaro Isaka and is a translation
The Art of English Murder is by UK author Lucy Worsley
