Pick-a-Shelf discussion

April Shelf is historical-fiction

What did you read? Do you think it portrays the age correctly?

I read Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead
5 stars

I'm a sucker for coming of age novels--those books that capture that moment where a teenager starts to feel nostalgia for their younger days, excitement for increasing freedom and admission to maturity, and the recklessness of youth. Let's be clear that this is not really a young adult novel--it's not targeted at actual teenagers, it's targeted at people looking back at being teenagers. This is a hard genre to do well, but this book nails it. I'd put this up there with Black Swan Green and Norwegian Wood as among my favorites of this ilk.

It also makes me feel old to see a book that's basically set during my childhood marked as historical fiction. But I guess the 1980s is 40 years ago at this point, so possibly on the edge of what counts as historical.

The narrator for the audiobook did a good job. This book translates well to audio format because it's a first person account.

I used this for 15/15 and By the Month.
I nominate weird.

I read Time's Echo by Rysa Walker
I gave it four stars

This is a little bit of an oddball for this shelf because it does have some historical fiction aspects, but it also involves time travel...so more fantasy than most historical fiction, I think.

I enjoyed Timebound so much that I immediately bought Time's Vault which includes this novella along with several other short stories and novellas from this universe. I'm a sucker for time travel stories (and even time travel romances like The Time Traveler's Wife), so this is definitely right in my happy zone.

This author is managing a very complicated time travel premise where the past is being mucked about with and alternate timelines are created, but where certain people retain the memories of different timelines. The mechanics of this are too intricate for a review, but the author is handling them consistently so far, which is not always easy.

This novella is clearly an interlude between the main parts of the story, but it's made me want to dive into Time's Mirror right away.

I used this for Seriously Serial, By the Month, and 15/15.
I nominate weird

I read Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
5 stars

This is another one that's not exactly historical fiction. It's a time travel story with intertwined storylines, some in history, some in the future.

I loved this. The intertwined stories, the ending, the quiet prose...a beautiful book. I think it's best not to know too much about this going in and just let it unfold. I haven't read The Glass Hotel, but perhaps I should have read that first. Still, a wonderful read even without that context.

The narrators for the audiobook made for an excellent listening experience and having different narrators helped keep the storylines distinct.

I used this for By the Month and 15/15.
I nominate weird.

I read Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

I'm doing a passport to the world activity at my library, where we read a book from a particular country each month and get our reading passport stamped. The country for April is Africa, and I've been wanting to read this book for a long time, so it seemed like things were just pointing in that direction.

I wish I'd known a little more about it before going in, however, because it's not really a novel, exactly ... more like an anthology of stories, that are linked in some kind of family tree sort of way. If I'd known, I'd have kept some kind of flowchart so I could have seen how the characters from each chapter were related to each other.

The individual stories themselves, once I figured out what was actually going on, were really brutally good, and I can honestly say that I would recommend this book as a decent African literature reading.

But I really don't think I got out of it as much as I could have.

I used this book in my Monthly Challenges for April.
I don't have a nomination to put forward.

Captive Queen: A Novel of Eleanor of Aquitaine by Alison Weir
3 stars

I am intrigued by Eleanor of Aquitaine, mostly because my daughter is called Eleanor. Turns out she had quite an interesting life! She sided with her sons in a war against her husband.
I listened to the audio of this book, which was unfortunately abridged, so I probably only got the highlights. I've read a few of Weir's books and they can be engaging, but are also heavier in historical fact and detail than most historical fiction. It's hard to judge this one because it was so abridged.

I nominate Around-the-world

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, 4 stars.

It looks like retellings of Greek mythology are all the rage here in Italy at the moment. I've been noticing it for a while. I think Madeline Miller is very good at retellings, which is not surprising since she studied Classical Literatures.

This is a very good book, although I liked Circe better. I enjoyed reading how Achilles and Patroclus fall in love. I especially loved the last part, where (view spoiler)[Patroclus gets himself killed to save the Greek army as well as Achilles' honor. I hated Achilles so much in this part. He's blinded by pride and doesn't see he's sending Patroclus to his death. (hide spoiler)]

I used this for Fifteen. I nominate cyberpunk.

Crows & Cards by Joseph Helgerson
3 stars for adults, 4 stars for ages 10-12

This book clearly had a Huck Finn feel to it--a young boy on his way to an apprenticeship falls in with some riverboat gamblers. The characters were entertaining and very well articulated by the narrator. Overall, it's a perfectly enjoyable romp. The narrator for the audiobook was excellent and made this a fun listen. Definitely targeted more to the middle grade set than I was expecting--I'd definitely recommend it to fourth or fifth grade high-level readers. Some of language might feel a little funny to those readers, but they would definitely be able to follow it in audio format.

Most adult readers should skip this one in favor of something with a little more meat to it, unless they have an appropriate age child to read along.

I used this for 15/15 and By the Month. I nominate microhistory.

I read The Storm Sister by Lucinda Riley. ✭✭✭✭

This is the second book in the Seven Sisters series. Each book follows one of seven adopted sisters (each named for one of the seven stars in the Pleiades constellation) in her quest to learn about her birth family. In this book, Ally (short for Alcyone), a competitive sailor, discovers she is related to Norwegian singer, Anna Landvik. While Anna does not appear to be a real person, her story is interwoven with true historical people and events (mainly the premiere of Isben's play Peer Gynt, with music arranged by composer Edvard Grieg, that took place on February 24th, 1876 in the Christiana Theatre in Norway's capital, now called Oslo). Both Ally's present-day adventures and Anna's historical exploits made for a great story.

PAS Challenge(s) used for: Fifteen for Fifteen - prompt 7

I nominate: Family Secrets

I read The Joy Luck Club. I used it for fifteen for fifteen. I nominate humor.

The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins
3.5 stars

Historical fiction, with a bit of a courtroom drama. Set in the early 19th century. In London, former slave Frannie is accused of the brutal murder of her employer and his wife. The narrative takes us back to her childhood in Jamaica, her life in London, and her observations of strange scientific experimentations. I found this quite compelling.

Read for 15/15
I nominate thriller

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka
3.5 stars

Who killed Maali Almeida? No-one on Earth is going to work it out so it's up to Maali from the afterlife. This is a great premise and it is carried out really well. I found the story a bit hard to follow (possibly because I was reading on my phone which is never great). It is fairly dark but still fairly funny. Booker prize winner 2022.

Read for 15/15
I nominate translated

This month I chose Daughter of The Reich. Debut novel and it is full of emotion. it easily transports the reader back to World War 2 and you are engrossed into the story immediately. the author put some personal life connections of her own into her story which makes the story feel even more vivid. one of the best Historical Fiction novels I read thus far, it was hard to believe it was fiction as you get the sense that its a memior of sorts.

I read The Siege Winter by Ariana Franklin. This was the book that Diana Norman (AKA Ariana Franklin) was writing when she died in 2011. Her daughter, Samantha Norman (a writer in her own right), has finished the book. I couldn't tell where one writer ended and the other began. It was seamless.

This is England in 1141. There is a war for the throne going on between King Stephen and his cousin, Empress Matilda. Maud is a young woman, married to a boor of a husband, who must survive, defend her castle and people, and somehow outlive her husband.

I enjoyed this book very much. It had strong characters, who were totally believable and true to their time. The life of that time was hard. Maud was a woman who was determined to make it her own.

I nominate British Literature.

I read A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
5 stars

This book has been sitting on my shelves since before 2007, but it's length and density seemed daunting. Ultimately, I bought the audiobook from audible even though the paperback was on my shelf. John Lee does a fantastic job with this narration and I loved listening to him bring these characters to life.

I should not have waited. This book was absolutely excellent. The characters were well drawn and interesting both as individuals and because of their interactions with one another. The amount of tragedy and hardship in this book is high--no rainbows and unicorns here. This is grit and poverty, but also times of joy and friendship, unexpected growth, and just the progression of day after day for these characters.

Used for 15/15 and Lost.
I nominate microhistory.

I read The Hangman's Daughter.
I was a little disappointed with this book. Very basic murder plot and the language was mediocre. For a boom set in 17th century, the language was extremely contemporary.
This book , however, makes up with a fantastic hero, Jakob Kuisl. What an extremely intelligent, empathetic and brave man. Simon , his pupil stands out too for understanding his inferior knowledge and accepting the Hangman as the superior man. The title.is a misnomer. The daughter had an extremely minimal role.
I used it for Fifteen by Fifteen.

I read Rules of Civility. ✭✭✭✭

The book is told by an older lady telling the story. Katey is a working class girl trying to make in New York City in the 1930's. She is out with a girlfriend on the eve of a new year and meets Tinker Grey. The rest of the story weaves through the lives of Katie, Tinker and Eve. Amor Towles knows how to tell a story!

I enjoyed this book, although I still think A Gentleman in Moscow is one of the best.

I nominate historical-mystery

I read The First Mrs. Rothschild by Sara Aharoni
3 stars

I wanted to like this book much more than I actually liked this book. The period of history is interesting. The story of how the Rothschild family came to be the world's bankers is an interesting one. And telling it from an inside perspective is a good idea.

But parts of this book felt almost like an instruction manual for good housewifery. There was a lot of admonishment about not interfering with her husband's business, how to treat children (understanding the needs of each, etc.). There was a practically worshipful treatment of the husband as the most awesome, smartest, cleverest, most thoughtful, most ethical, most pious human ever. It was so fawning and over the top that I almost kept waiting to find out that these were her public notebooks that she knew her husband was reading and then we'd also get to see the secret notebook that she actually keeps hidden.

And towards the end of the book, I got bored with the recitations of the lives of the grandchildren and random encounters with non-family members, such as the weird conversation with Karl Marx.

The narrator for the audiobook did a fine job. This translates perfectly to audiobook since it's all first person journal entries.

I used this for 15/15 and By the Month.
I nominate microhistory.

I read Paragon Walk (1981) by Anne Perry, about a murder investigation set in Victorian England, where Charlotte Pitt and her husband, Inspector Pitt, try to discover who raped and murdered a girl in a reputable neighbourhood where most of the inhabitants are willing to blame an outsider rather than have their secrets uncovered by a police investigation.

I found it entertaining, mostly because of the characters and the daily life descriptions, as the mystery was a bit disappointing...

Rating: 4 stars


I also read Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1901) by M.R. James, which surprised me in a good way. The writing was much more modern than I expected, really different from the florid 19th century style, and I really enjoyed the old-fashioned ghost stories, many set in previous centuries and discovered through manuscripts.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Shelf nomination: Space

The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists by Gideon Defoe
3 stars

This is a story about an encounter between a group of pirates and Charles Darwin in the Galapagos. Silliness and hijinks ensue. It was a bit funny and a bit clever, but not quite enough of either to make me want to continue the series.

Used for lost, seriously serial, and 15/15
I nominate thriller

I read Daughter of The Reich by Louise Fein and finished it this afternoon.

Wow. Just.....wow. I am at a loss for words for this novel. It is what defines what a masterpiece is. This book is flawless in every way where I dont even see room where it can be improved. It is absolutely perfect in every sense of the word. The historical facts are factually correct and she doesn't sugar coat how it was in Nazi Germany for a young girl and for the Jewish. She doesn't hold back and that is what pulled me into the story even more. It is such an interesting and dark time to read about that is full of deep emotional stories and Louise Fein had hit that on the head perfectly with Henry Heinrich and Walter. A love that was always forbidden and would never be in the end. She writes Daughter of The Reich as if it is Hetty's memior of her life and her family but most importantly of her one and true love.....Walter. It tells their story and she captures the moments and the lives well. Not only does she tell a great forbidden love story, but tells a history as well. She doesn't hold back on how it was in Germany, she captures the propaganda and the manipulation of young minds well and the way of thinking and seeing things changed for many people. She captures the fear very well in the citizens of that time but also of the Jewish people of that time. She acknowledges every little piece of World War 2, the bad and the ugly and captures it with great force and such detail that you are living it. Not that you feel that you lived but that you are there and now in that time, seeing everything unfold around you. The imagery in the detail of this book is beyond amazing. You time travel and cross oceans with this read and I dont want to say to much because I do not want to give it away or spoil it for anyone. I'll just say this. This book is alive. It has a soul, memories, emotion, it has life, it has energy. You'll be put on an emotional Rollercoaster and you won't be able to get off until the end. Truly a remarkable read and I could not put this down. It had me coming back to it constantly more than once. This is why it is 5 stars for me and it is a keeper on my shelf. Which is rare.

Oops. Forgot to post again. I read The Burning Chambers. I enjoyed it, and gave it 3* - I thought it was good, not great.

I read and enjoyed 2 historical fiction books this past month:

Stormy Weather, Paulette Jiles, set in the US, 1930's, Depression years
Constable on the Hill, Nicholas Rhea, set in England in the 1960's

I read A Murder in Time 4 stars
It was a time travel book and it seemed to portray 1815 fairly well.

I used it in By the month and Seriously Serial
I nominate: Favorite Authors