Book Blog: January and February 2024
Welcome to 2024 — and my first (highly delayed) book blog! It’s been a tough few months over here — including a second round of COVID, thankfully milder than the first — but I am finally back with my favorite books from the 21 that I read in January and February. It’s been a great start to the year where reading is concerned, so with no further ado, my favorite books thus far…
Fiction
The Diamond Eye (Kate Quinn): This was a really interesting book — especially since Quinn based it on the story of a real Soviet sniper in WWII but made it come alive through her artistic liberties. Mila isn’t interested in war — in fact, she’s writing a dissertation on an obscure Ukrainian leader, whose name I still can’t remember — and navigating her relationship with her nightmare (hopefully-will-soon-be-an-ex) husband and raising her son when the USSR and Germany are formally at war. Even though she is an excellent markswoman, it takes a bit of time before she’s taken seriously as a soldier. But, before long, she is not only an excellent soldier but commands others. I liked how Quinn interweaved her time in America with her time at the front. This is my first Quinn book, but hopefully not my last.
Marple: Twelve New Mysteries (various authors): I tend to worry about any books written in the style of the original author by other authors, so even though I knew this book at come out it took a little time and courage for me to buy it. Actually I loved it, and while some of the authors wrote in a style that felt more compatible with the original Christie texts, I loved the creative ways that they interpreted the character of Miss Marple, especially sending her abroad to different places beyond her normal haunt of St. Mary Mead. If you are craving more Christie and have read the canon, I found this to be a quite enjoyable book in the universe, as it were.
The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (John Le Carre): Sometimes you put off a book for a very long time and later realize that the wait wasn’t worth it. Well, in the case of The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, it was very worth that wait. I can see now why le Carre is the father of the genre and how a spy novel be both clever and deceptively simple. I look forward to more tales of Cold War espionage from this author.
The Stationary Shop (Marjan Kamali): This book was concentric circles of love — love of parents, love of siblings, romantic love, and love of country — and how they sometimes work in mysterious ways. Much of the book is set in 1950s Tehran where teens Roya and Bahman fall in love during the revolution, but they miss meeting up with each other during a protest and fall into different lives. This was such a heartbreaking story of missed chances but also of making it work and being grateful for what we do have.
The Room on Rue Amelie (Kristin Harmel): This book broke my heart. It follows an American woman living with her new French husband in Paris, and Ruby feels very alone. Next door, her Jewish neighbors are living in increasing tensions as the Nazis take over Paris. And then, separately, an English pilot who has lost everything is willing to sacrifice his life as he flies missions over France. This was a deeply personal story about individual efforts, however big or small, to help everyone survive the war. Kristin Harmel strikes the perfect balance between history and story, and I loved this book.
Other Birds (Sarah Addison Allen): This was a sweet book that slowly builds over time and helps you invest in the lives of the characters (in fact, it’d be sad not to stick with an lovely ensemble like this, but it doesn’t sound as if there is another book planned). A small five-unit apartment building has collected a strange group of residents — a chef hiding a cat, a woman hiding a secret, two sisters who aren’t speaking to each other, a high school graduate inheriting her mom’s condo, and a kind but slightly gruff manager. But there are the non-human members too — ghosts, a flock of birds, and the set and setting of the (imagined) Mallow Island. Allen has a very warm writing style and injects enough interesting details that you imagination can fill any gaps. This is the first book I’ve read by this author and I’m curious to discover more of her works.
Non-Fiction
Sovietistan (Erika Fatland): This is probably the best non-fiction book I have read in some time, and it’s baffling how little one can know about a massive region. I have learned a little bit about “The Stans,” but Fatland travels around Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan and experiences these isolated societies for herself and tells us all about them. Whether it’s bride-stealing, isolated ethnic communities, horse racing or monuments made out of marble, these countries seem to defy many expectations. It is in the individual encounters — with families who offer the little food they have to guests or drivers who express their hopes for a better life — that balanced the insanity of some of these regimes. I can’t remember the last time I was so fascinated to learn about a set of countries I knew so little about. This was a fantastic book.
Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet (Lyndal Roeper): A complex book for a complex man. Surely one doesn’t start this book with recognizing that it’s going to be a deep dive and get into minor points about theology and debates between minor points of 16th century former priests and monks. As a Lutheran it was helpful to dig into Luther the man, and not just the mythological one. He was *absolutely* a man of his time and it can be painful to understand more about parts of his beliefs, especially his anti-Semitism, which is/was/always is completely unacceptable. The biggest myth that this book busted was that there was “a Lutheran church” formed before his death when really it was a movement of people with loosely similar beliefs that didn’t fit within the Catholic Church and it was alongside other new Christian proto-denominations that also took time to form. As some reviewers have pointed out, the first 150 pages or so really go out of the gate strongly, but the middle and the end have to get much deeper into the theological disputes. Still I appreciated that this was such a deeply researched and cited book, relying primarily on Luther’s own writings instead of more modern interpretations of what he thought and believed.
Keep reading friends! I’ll be back at the end of April with more of my favorite books!
Cheers, Sarah
P.S. Next up will be the (quite lengthy) Prague, Dresden, and Berlin trip blog with more tips about multi-generational travel.
