This is an overview of the books I have finished in a month (not necessarily started
in the same month) and those I have read to Gundel (marked with 😸).
I
will be adding a short explanation why I chose a book or how I found it
and possibly if it's a re-read candidate, but I'm usually not
going to add real reviews or ratings (Gundel also refuses to give
ratings). Should you want a little more information on a book you're interested in, though, just let me know.
A very weird reading month with several DNF. What was interesting to me was that for a moment I even hesitated to add the third one to the list, almost if I was trying to hide my "failure". Then I noticed myself how ridiculous that was. Reading shouldn't feel guilty, no matter if you liked something or not. So I had the bad luck to pick books that I didn't want to finish. Now what? Will my library throw me out in shame? Well, they didn't, all that happened was that I wish I had used the time for other books instead.
When I had to add a fourth one toward the end of the month, I blamed that on the heat at first, but if it was the heat, why was I happy enough with the two other books I read at the time (albeit slowly)?
"Peter Ustinov: The Gift of Laughter" by John Miller, first published in 2002
Peter Ustinov - theater and film actor, playwright and novelist, director, producer, humanitarian, university chancellor, interviewer, entertainer - was an amazing man.
This is his biography.
When I mentioned Ustinov the other day, I noticed that I had never read his full biography (I read his mother's book ages ago). He had always been wildly popular in Germany, so it was really time I did, and I enjoyed reading it.
"Das Dorf in den roten Wäldern" = "Still Life" by Louise Penny, first published in 2005
(Chief Inspector Armand Gamache 1)
When one of the residents of the small village Three Pines is found dead, Armand Gamache and his team are called in. Has it been a hunting accident or something more sinister?
I had only known the second adaptation of "Three Pines" with Alfred Molina - which didn't include this book - and thought I'd give the books a try. I think I enjoyed the idea of Three Pines and Gamache more than the actual mystery and the end was a bit weak and obvious, but it was a quick read and the series will stay on my list for now.
"The
Three Investigators in The Mystery of the Coughing Dragon" by Nick West (the books were published attributed to Alfred Hitchcock),
first published in 1970 😸
(The Three Investigators 14)
When the Three Investigators are asked to find the missing dog of Alfred Hitchcock's friend Mr. Allen, they don't expect being confronted with a dragon in a cave!
I read this series a long time ago and am going through it again bit by bit after writing a blog post about it. This book is the thirteenth in the series.
"The Correspondent" by Virginia Evans, first published in 2025
Sybil is 73 and an avid letter writer.
She writes to family, friends, authors, neighbors - and in these letters she's telling us about her life now and then and about her greatest regret.
I had seen the book mentioned on blogs, but didn't read any reviews. When it popped up in the new entries on OverDrive, I placed a hold, and it was worth waiting all those months.
I've noticed before that the letter form appeals to me (that started with "Daddy Long Legs"). This is actually a book I'm going to buy to keep.
"High Wages" by Dorothy Whipple, first published in 1930
Set in the 1910s, this is the story of Jane who starts as a salesgirl at a draper's shop and eventually goes on to open her own shop after World War I.
I happened to catch the title on a blog I don't usually follow and got intrigued by the salesgirl to business owner story.
After reading the non-fiction book "The Bookshop, The Draper, The Candlestick Maker" by Annie Gray, I really enjoyed this book not just for the story itself, though, but also for the descriptions of the shops.
"Peter Pan: The Story of Peter and Wendy" by J. M. Barrie, first published as a novel in 1911 under the title "Peter and Wendy"
Peter Pan, the captain of the Lost Boys, is a mischievous boy living on the island of Neverland. He wants to stay a little boy and have adventures forever.
One night, he's taking the children Wendy, John, and Michael Darling to the island, so Wendy, the eldest and only girl, can become their mother.
 |
| From the digitized book I read |
I had seen Peter Pan as a play and wanted to read the book as well before watching the first movie adaptation.
"Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens" by J. M. Barrie, first published in 1906 (most of it had already been part of the 1902 novel "The Little White Bird")
You might call this Peter Pan's origin story - how he flew out of the nursery window as he heard plans about his adult life being made and went to live in Kensington Gardens with the birds.
I hadn't heard about this at all before I started reading up on Peter Pan for a silent movie review.
The illustrations by Arthur Rackham are beautiful.
"Agnes Aubert's Mystical Cat Shelter" by Heather Fawcett, first published in 2026
Agnes's cat shelter needs a new home after a duel between magicians destroyed several buildings. Is it coincidence that she ends up in a building where one of those magician's runs his illegal shop from the basement?
Cats! That looked like enough for me to read this book.
I think after this one I'll be giving up on Fawcett's books, though. It reminded me way too much of a movie I have seen (I don't know the book it's based on yet) and love, but I didn't feel the same enthusiasm about this book.
"Miss Buncle's Book" by D. E. Stevenson, first published in 1934
Miss Buncle needs money, so she writes a book, and as she has no imagination, she writes about her own village.
The book becomes a best seller and Miss Buncle's neighbors are not amused to learn about themselves being seen through someone else's eyes.
After reading "Celia's House" last month and liking it a lot, I continued with this book and had a lot of fun with it.
"Hildur - Die Spur im Fjord" = "The Clues in the Fjord" by Satu Rämö, first published in 2022
(Hildur 1)
Hildur Rúnarsdóttir is a police officer on the west coast of Iceland. Still haunted by her two sisters disappearing 25 years before, she specializes in missed children cases.
This time, however, a pedophile is found with his throat cut, and he isn't the last body. Together with her Finnish colleague Jakob, she's trying to connect the dots.
Gail from Is This Mutton recommended the fourth book in the series, so I gave this a try.
I could have done with less repetitions and detailed descriptions of workouts, but the next book is on my list, anyway.
"Cinder House" by Freya Marske, first published in 2025
This is a retelling of Cinderella, but with a interesting twist.
The book was a random OverDrive find.
"Return to Foreverware" by Mike Ford, first published in 1997
(Eerie, Indiana 1)
The friends Marshall and Simon take a weekend job with the Stewarts (James and Martha who used to have a son called Rod(ney)) decluttering their attic. Something is weird about the couple, though, who seems to be stuck in the 70s.
The book is first one of the series based on the TV kids' show "Eerie, Indiana".
I re-read it for a blog post.
"Der Steppenwolf" = "Steppenwolf" by Hermann Hesse, first published in 1927 😸
Harry Haller sees himself as two souls, the human and the steppe wolf. Torn between both, he tries to make sense of the world and his life.
Since school I hadn't read any German "classics" and decided to try and read one a month now. No idea how this project is going to go.
This probably wasn't the best book to start with.
If I hadn't read it loud, I'm quite sure it would have become a DNF, it's definitely not going to go on the re-read list.
"Classic Movie Comedians" by Neil Sinyard, first published in 1992
This volume introduces us to some of the big comedians of the screen. There's a chapter on Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Harry Langdon, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, W. C. Fields, and the Marx Brothers.
Sinyard is a British film critic and obviously a big fan of Chaplin as he didn't just get a chapter more than ten pages longer than all the others (Lloyd and Langdon even had to share one), but is also constantly mentioned in the other chapters. As a short introduction it was okay and a quick read with a lot of pictures.
"Coming Up for Air" by George Orwell, first published in 1939
George Bowling is sure there will be war again soon. He begins to remember his life as a child and young man in Lower Binfield before World War I, and having won some money at a race, he decides to go back there for a few days trying to find the idyll of those times. He quickly finds out, however, that you can't go back.
This was one of my ex's favorite books. I stumbled upon it by accident the other day and thought I'd finally give it a go.
DNF:
"Theo of Golden" by Allen Levi, first published in 2025
An old man turns up in the town of Golden and makes friends with the residents there by buying the pencil portraits hanging on the walls of the coffee shop, giving them to the people in the portraits, and listening to their stories.
I kept seeing the book on blogs and thought the idea with the portraits was quite interesting. Then I kept struggling through half the book merely because I thought I must have been missing something. I wish I had listened to my gut earlier. Definitely not for me.
"Something Wicked This Way Comes" by Ray Bradbury, first published in 1962
Two
13 year old friends, Jim and William, have to deal with the nightmares
of a traveling carnival and its leader Mr. Dark who holds strange
powers.
I managed a little more than a third of the book, but
while the idea was interesting, I didn't like the style at all. It felt as if the author enjoyed more playing with language than telling
the story and in this case that just didn't work for me.
"The Female Detective" by Andrew Forrester, first published in 1864
The book tells us about several cases of Mrs Gladden, the first professional female detective in British fiction.
That was right up my alley, I thought, but after a third I gave up because I found the writing terribly dry and boring. I couldn't help thinking that a woman would have written this differently (and made it more interesting).
"The Librarianist" by Patrick deWitt, first published in 2023
This is "the story of Bob Comet, a man who has lived his life through and for
literature, unaware that his own experience is a poignant and affecting
narrative in itself."
I admit that the title and cover drew me in, but there wasn't enough book talk and too much dull flashback. I had really enjoyed the first part when Bob spontaneously volunteers at a senior center, but the longer the flashback, the more the narrative affected me in the wrong way. I made it through half the book and wasn't even interested in the ending.
By
the way, if you write book reviews or blog posts about other
book-related matters - even movies based on books - please check out "A
Good Book and a Cup of Tea", a monthly bookish blog link party that I host
together with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and Lisa from
Boondock Ramblings. You can find out more about it here.
