My August books

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.

"Hildur - Die Toten am Meer" = "The Secrets from the Deep" by Satu Rämö, first published in 2024
(Hildur 4)

Hildur Rúnarsdóttir is a police officer on the west coast of Iceland.
Four skeletons are found on the farm of Hildur's late parents. A badly hurt kitchen worker escapes off a cruise ship. And a close friend of Hildur's mother dies unexpectedly in her nursing home.
Are these cases connected?

I skipped the third book in the series because it was about animal abuse, but wasn't too enthusiastic about this one, either.

"Zwei Sommer mit Christiane" (contains the books "Recht nette Mädchen" and "100 Tage mit Christiane") by Barbara Hug, first published in 1954 and 1957

The first book tells the story of the four Andresen daughters Andrea, Martina, Petra, and Christiane who live in a small town in Southwest Germany with their mother.
The second book, set a few years later, tells the story of Christiane taking care of Martina's son while she and her husband are in Italy for work.

In this heat, I needed a nice and quick read (one of many re-reads over the years in this case) and I have loved these two books since childhood. They are not as fluffy as they may sound as they also touch on the topics of displaced persons after the war, poverty, community, and thinking about the future.

"The Third Man" by Graham Greene, first published in 1950

Rollo Martins is invited to post-war Vienna - still divided among the Allied powers - by his old friend Harry Lime. When he arrives, however, he learns that Harry has died in a traffic accident. Rollo meets Major Calloway who tells him that Harry was involved in a racket with diluted penicillin, but Rollo doesn't believe him and starts investigating on his own.

I re-watched the movie for a random Saturday blog post and then read the novella which was just a treatment for the movie originally and differs a little from it in some details.

"Miss Buncle Married" by D. E. Stevenson, first published in 1936

Miss Buncle, now married to her publisher Mr Abbott, has found a new house at Wandlebury and has just as much interest in her new neighbors as she had in those in Silverstream, but will she write a book about them?

I really enjoyed the first "Miss Buncle" book, but think I liked this one even better because it's calmer. I didn't laugh as much, but I grew fonder of the people, especially Barbara and Arthur as a couple.
"The garden — as a garden — did not interest Arthur very much, but the garden and Barbara combined interested him enormously. Barbara was enchanting in the garden, so eager and pleased and happy, so surprised to find the things that she had planted — or caused to be planted — in the Autumn were really coming up. Barbara was more Barbara-ish than ever when she was in her garden, and Arthur could never have enough of the blend."

"Lulu in Hollywood" by Louise Brooks, first published in 1982

The book contains seven autobiographical essays by dancer and silent movie star Louise Brooks, for example her view on Bogart, on Gish and Garbo or on her experience on filming in Berlin. There's also a later edition with an eighth essay.

I had heard about Louise Brooks before, but haven't seen a movie with her yet. The most interesting essay for me was the last one on her filming "Pandora's Box" in Berlin (pet peeve alert - in the filmography it says "Die Buchse der Pandora" which gave me another eye roll because it's "Büchse", a "Buchse" is a socket!).

"The Three Investigators in The Mystery of the Flaming Footprints" by M. V. Carey (the books were published attributed to Alfred Hitchcock), first published in 1971 😸
(The Three Investigators 15)

Why has the eccentric man called The Potter disappeared just when he's expecting his daughter and grandson? Who are the men watching Mrs. Dobson and Tom and why do they do it?
Once again, the Three Investigators get confronted with the secrets of a small European country.

I read this series a long time ago and am going through it again bit by bit after writing a blog post about it.

"The Red House Mystery" by Alan Alexander Milne, first published in 1922

Antony Gillingham just wanted to visit his friend Bill Beverley who's staying at the Red House, but instead he and Matthew Cayley - the cousin of the house owner Mark Ablett - find a body in the office!
Gillingham becomes a veritable "Holmes" and makes Bill his "Watson".

I hadn't known that Milne wrote a mystery - just this one - before seeing it in a book post by Jeanie from "The Marmelade Gypsy". Thank you, Jeanie, I enjoyed this one a lot! What a pity that Gillingham stayed a one hit wonder.

"Take Six Girls: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters" by Laura Thompson, first published in 2015 (also as "The Six")

You would think this is just a biography of the six Mitford sisters Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica, and Deborah (there was also a brother Tom) who are known for their very different positions on life and politics in their time (communism, anti-semitism, fascism to name just a few keywords).

It's not that easy, though.
It was interesting if you already know something about the family - I had seen documentaries - but you are better prepared for a lot of names (and nicknames!) and time jumps, and you really should have read Nancy's novels first because they get referenced a lot as well as names that were never explained.
In short, this is not really what I expect from a biography.
I was never in danger of DNFing, but I felt there was some fangirling/whitewashing - I can't excuse fascism even for a bit just because someone has a strong personality, intelligence, a gorgeous face and elegance, and that's just one example.
Maybe it's too difficult to explain the Mitford "phenomenon" in just one single book.

"Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull" = "Confessions of Felix Krull" by Thomas Mann, first published in 1922 (the first fragment)

The unfinished novel (written from 1910 to 1913 and late 1950 to 1954) tells the story of Felix Krull who, after the suicide of his father, a bankrupt maker of sparkling wine, goes to Paris to work in a hotel and then substitutes for the Marquis de Venosta on a trip around the world paid for by the Marquis's parents who try to tear their son away from a French singer (and if you think that was a long sentence, you should see the book).
The narrative ends with Krull being in Lisbon, the first destination of the trip.

According to Wikipedia, - I honestly didn't feel like checking more sources - the novel is supposed to be a parody on Goethe's autobiography "Aus meinem Leben. Dichtung und Wahrheit" (Poetry and Truth). Remind me not to read that one because I seriously struggled through this one (and I don't care how autographical parts of it are).
It's practically a miracle and a sign of my dedication to this project (reading at least one German classic a month) that I didn't DNF it. There were big parts which bored me almost to tears.
I say narrative, but nothing really happens in hundreds of pages! The protagonist is a smug little punk, and the pompous rambling - which I guess is the parody part - made me happy for not having to put up with this kind of speech in daily life.

"Tennis Shoes" by Noel Streatfeild, first published in 1937
(Shoes 2)

Dr. Heath and his father had been good tennis players, but the father is too old now and Dr. Heath suffered a leg injury in World War I.
What about the children, though - the twins Jim and Susan, the younger Nicky, and David? Have they got what they need to become successful tennis players?

This is the second book in the "shoe series" although the only connection are the shoes in the title.
I never played tennis, I don't watch tennis, but I needed some light after Felix Krull and the book worked perfectly - although I have to admit that I wasn't a fan of Dr. Heath's methods of motivating and educating his children.

"Go Gentle" by Maria Semple, first published in 2026

Adora Hazzard, former comedy writer turned philosopher who tutors the twins of a rich couple, lives in New York and has started a "coven" in her building of single women who have each others' back - then she happens to meet a man and her life is not what it was before.

I'm not sure what this book wants to be. I liked the idea of the coven, I enjoyed the philosophical quotes, but then we get flashbacks (trigger warning sexual assault), art crimes, and a romance all of which seemed very muddled to me. Spoiler:

Spoiler: Adora is the heroine of the day in the end. With huge happy ending and a super rich man.

At about 60 % I was very close to DNFing. Maybe I should have.

"Death on the Cherwell" by Mavis Doriel Hay, first published in 1935

Four undergraduates of the Persephone College in Oxford meet on the roof of the boathouse to form a secret society when a canoe comes floating in which they find the body of their bursar Myra Denning.
The young ladies wonder how a drowned woman can get back into her canoe ...

I have a soft spot for vintage crimes at Cambridge and Oxford (time to read "Gaudy Night" for the umpteenth time, I think), probably because I work at a university made up of a lot of concrete.
I really liked this one.

"Goodbye, Mr. Chips" by James Hilton, first published in 1933 (in the Christmas edition of "British Weekly") and in 1934 (as a book)

Mr. Chipping was the Latin master of Brookfield School - a public boarding school - for decades and has helped out even after his retirement.
Now he remembers his life in and for the school.

A re-read (in English this time, I own the German translation) for a future blog post about the novella and adaptations.

A fun little P.S. This is listed as a translation of the book into Urdu. Obviously I can't read Urdu and can't tell you if that's true ... and I have absolutely no idea how that cover is supposed to make any sense if it is!

"To You Mr. Chips!" by James Hilton, first published in 1938

In this book, Hilton talks a little about his own school experiences and tells some more Mr. Chips stories.

When I re-read "Goodbye, Mr. Chips", I happened to find out about this book which I didn't know before.

"Bright Young Things: Lives in the Roaring 20s" by Alison Maloney, first published in 2012

The book gives you short glimpses into the life of the "smart set" mostly in the London of the 1920s.
It includes chapters about jazz, cocktails, scandals, debutantes, and more.
A quick read with quotes and short biographies, a nice appetizer to start you off if you are interested in that time.

"Victorian Fairy Painting" by Jeremy Maas et al., first published in 1997

The book was published on the occasion of the exhibition "Victorian Fairy Painting" which travelled from London to Iowa City, Toronto, and New York.
It includes a catalog with short biographies and comments and essays on fairy painting, writing, music, and illustration, but also the connection to the stage, especially Shakespeare.

I stumbled upon this one after finding the sketchbook by Charles Altamont Doyle which I listed in my July roundup.

"Japanese Gothic" by Kylie Lee Baker, first published in 2026

After murdering his roommate in college, Lee flees to the house in Japan that his father has moved to. However, something is strange about this house that used to belong to samurais. Who is the girl looking in from another world and time?

Every, now and then I think I should read a book outside my comfort zone. This shouldn't have been one of them.


DNF

"The Suspicions of Mr Whicher or The Murder at Road Hill House" by Kate Summerscale, first published in 2008

The non-fiction book tells the story of a child murdered in Victorian England and of Jack Whicher who was one of the original eight members of London's new "Detective Branch" at Scotland Yard.

I watched the TV show whose first episode is about this case and wanted to read the book more because of Whicher than the case, but I gave up quite early as it was so boring to read. 



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 co-host with  Lisa from Boondock Ramblings and Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs. You can find out more about it here or directly click through to the current party via the image in the right hand column.

My July books

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.

As you can tell, this was a much better reading month for me than the last one. There was such a variety that I even got to the limit of my tags, I hadn't even known there was one!

"Silent Murders" by Mary Miley, first published in 2014
(Roaring Twenties Mystery 2)

Leah, the young vaudeville actress, has become Jessie Beckett and is starting a new life in Hollywood's silent film industry as a script girl for the Pickford-Fairbanks Studios.
When a famous director is shot, Jessie starts investigating.

I read about one of Miley's books on Fritzi Kramer's silent movie blog and started with the first one in the series in February.
I tend to struggle with amateur detectives who are smarter than the police and everyone else, but I enjoyed this book more than the first one thanks to the setting, familiar names, and recognizing which parts were based on historical facts without reading the "historical note" at the end. The first murder, for example, was based on the murder of William Desmond Taylor about which I also read before.

"Carl Sandburg at the Movies: A Poet in the Silent Era 1920 - 1927" by Carl Sandburg, first published in 1985

Carl Sandburg was a poet, biographer, journalist, and editor. He was also the cinema expert for the "Daily News". For this book, Dale and Doug Featherling selected some of Sandburg's best movie columns and added a short introduction for each year and footnotes on people mentioned.

You will undoubtedly encounter a quote from this here every, now and then. What I didn't like about the book was that it whetted my appetite for one or the other film which I then sadly found to be a lost one.

"Schloss Gripsholm : eine Sommergeschichte" = "Gripsholm Palace: a summer story" by Kurt Tucholsky, first published in 1931

This is the story of two lovers spending a summer vacation in Sweden, at Gripsholms slott. Not everything is fun and love, though, when they encounter a little girl from the nearby children's home run by a sadistic German matron.

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.
I love the cover with an illustration by George Barbier from 1925. It reminds me of the wall paintings by Oskar Schlemmer in the "bath house" of the Märklin villa in our town.

"Ballet Shoes" by Noel Streatfeild, first published in 1936 😸
(Shoes 1)

The book tells the story of three girls adopted by paleontologist Grand-Uncle-Matthew, called Gum, on his travels. When Gum goes traveling again, Pauline, Petrova, and Posy stay with his niece Sylvia and her childhood nanny, called Nana.
When they run out of money and Gum isn't home yet after years, they have to take in boarders and the girls join the Children's Academy of Dancing and Stage Training which eventually allows them to work on stage and thus support the household.

I hadn't known about Noel Streatfeild - some of her books have been translated into German only rather recently - before Erin from "Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs" mentioned reading one of her books.
Her "Shoes" series for children is popular and I already got the next one on my list.

"J. M. Barrie & the Lost Boys: The Love Story that Gave Birth to Peter Pan" by Andrew Birkin, first published in 1931

While starting with his childhood, the book really concentrates on the relationship of Barrie with the five Llewelyn Davies sons George, John, Peter, Michael, and Nicholas.

I have seen "Finding Neverland" which was inspired by this book (but is very "Hollywood"), but I actually got more interested in Barrie after watching and reading "Peter Pan".
The book is not a biography you can just breeze through.  There are a lot of names, a lot of photos, a lot of quotes from plays, novels, and letters, and a lot of (sometimes confusing) excerpts from Barrie's notebooks. I still found it very interesting and enjoyed reading it although I - like others - am not sure what it says about Barrie and the boys in the end (there are two camps of "pedophile/asexual"), but will we ever even know for sure?

"Das gelbe Haus" = "Sisters in Yellow" by Mieko Kawakami, first published in 2023

Three young women try to survive in 90s Japan.
The story is told from the point of view of Hana who has left her mother and moves in with a new mother figure, Kimiko, later Ran and Momoko join them. In order to make a living, they feel forced to join criminal circles.
When Hana learns during Covid that Kimiko has been arrested, she remembers the time living with her.

The book was a duplicate gift to a family member who asked me if I wanted a copy (which I'm not going to keep as I doubt I will want to read it again simply because of the genre).

"The Lady Vanishes" by Ethel Lina White, first published as "The Wheel Spins" in 1936

Two Englishwomen meet on a continental train, Iris and Miss Froy. Then Miss Froy suddenly disappears and no one wants to believe Iris she even exists. Was it just a dream or is Miss Froy in danger?

I recently watched Hitchcock's movie for the first time (don't ask why it took me so long), and after a friend mentioned that it was based on a book I had to read it of course.
I actually prefer the movie this time, though.

"Dracula" by Bram Stoker, first published in 1897

I doubt I have to tell anyone what the book is about - the vampire Dracula traveling from his home in Transylvania to London to spread the evil of the undead.

The book had been on my list forever. The narrative is mostly conveyed through letters and diary entries (from several of the protagonists) some of which are quite long-winded and probably not everyone's cup of tea (even I struggled a bit every, now and then). I'm not surprised, however, that the novel sparked people's imagination.

"Dunkles Glas und Fisch in der Lampe" by Ingeborg Engelhardt, first published in 1963

A young glassmaker has to flee from the Greek Aquileia to the Roman colony of Germania inferior.

A re-read for a blog post.

"Death - das Kabinett des Dr. Leng" = "The Cabinet of Dr. Leng" by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, first published in 2023
(Pendergast 21)

Agent Pendergast's protegee Constance Greene goes back to 1880 to save her sister from being killed by the serial killer Dr. Enoch Leng.

If you didn't think the Pendergast books could get any crazier - they can.

"Billard um halb zehn" = "Billiards at Half-Past Nine" by Heinrich Böll, first published in 1959

The book takes place on September 6, 1958 and tells the history of the architect family Fähmel between 1907 and that day - in stories, flashbacks, memories.

Since school I hadn't read any German classics and decided to try and read one a month now (maybe even more like this month, but without pressure). No idea how this project is going to go.
I wasn't a fan of the style. Whole pages of dumped thoughts or images in half sentences separated by semicolons were quite exhausting to read.

"Death of a Busybody" by George Bellairs, first published in 1942
(Inspector Littlejohn 3)

After an older lady who's a little too keen on making the sinners of her village repent is found dead in the vicarage's cesspool, Inspector Littlejohn of Scotland Yard is called in to investigate.

I had never heard of George Bellairs before, but saw him mentioned as an underrated writer.
The book was a nice little palate cleanser and a quick read. I'll keep the name in mind.

"Stone Blind" by Natalie Haynes, first published in 2023

This is a retelling of the Greek Medusa myth aspiring to give Medusa her voice back.

If you don't mind a lot of different point of views and enjoy ancient myths, this might be a book for you. I did expect more Medusa and less of all the other gods/goddesses (half or full) and mortals who crossed their path and I didn't like it as much as "Pandora's Jar", but enjoyed it nonetheless.

"The Doyle Diary : the last great Conan Doyle mystery; with a Holmesian investigation into the strange and curious case of Charles Altamont Doyle by Michael Baker" by Charles Altamont Doyle, first published in 1978

Charles Altamont Doyle, the father of Arthur Conan Doyle, was an artist - like three of his older brothers, but not as successful - and civil servant.
Doyle suffered from depression and alcoholism. This sketchbook was created between March and July 1889 during his stay at Sunnyside, Montrose Royal Lunatic Asylum.

I happened to catch the short-lived show "Houdini and Doyle" on TV and learned about Doyle's father which made me curious.
The book has an introduction to Doyle's life and a transcription of the texts and notes, luckily because I wasn't able to read all of them easily. I really like the illustrations and can only recommend having a look yourself.

"Kitten Caboodle : a collection of feline fiction" edited by Barbara Silverberg, first published in 1969 😸

Silverberg has collected cat stories and poems from all kinds of genres here - humor, ghost stories, legends and fairy tales, even science fiction.

I stumbled upon the book because it is illustrated with cat drawings by Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen whose "Le Chat Noir" poster I included among my favorite cats a few weeks ago.

"The Cornish Coast Murder" by John Bude, first published in 1935

If a man gets killed who isn't liked by anyone, you have a lot of suspects. In connection with having only confusing clues this makes for a difficult investigation. How lucky that the local reverend loves mystery books.

I always like discovering a vintage crime author who's new to me. This whodunit was off to a good start, but then it sloooowed down before an ending that didn't so much surprise as annoy me.
This was the author's first book, though, so I think I'm going to give him another chance eventually.

"The Inimitable Jeeves" by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, first published in 1923
(Wooster and Jeeves 1)

Bertie Wooster is an English gentleman, one of the idle rich, and Jeeves is his valet whose intelligence saves Bertie and his friends from one or the other pickle, in this case mostly Bertie's friend Bingo Little who keeps falling in love.

I read some Wodehouse books ages ago, but don't remember if this one was among them.

"Hildur - Das Grab im Eis" = "The Grave in the Ice" by Satu Rämö, first published in 2023
(Hildur 2)

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 a local politician is shot during skiing. Hildur finds out that the murder is connected with the crash of a private plane some time ago.

I read the first book in the series last month and liked this one better.

"Love Insurance" by Earl Derr Biggers, first published in 1914

Lord Harrowby turns to Lloyd's of London with a request. He will get married to an American heiress, Cynthia Meyrick, soon and wants to take out insurance against her changing her mind.
Lloyd's sends assistant Dick Minot to Florida with him to make sure the wedding goes through. On the train ride there, however, Dick happens to meet Cynthia and falls in love with her. Now he's torn between his employers' trust and his love to her ... and that's not the only twist.

I wanted to watch another silent movie with Reginald Denny and when I saw that the book it was based on was written by Earl Derr Biggers of Charlie Chan fame, I was curious.

"Mephisto" by Klaus Mann, first published in 1936

The novel tells the rise of Hendrik Höfgen from a provincial stage actor to the manager of the State Theater in Berlin as he opportunistically arranges himself with the new Nazi regime.
Höfgen is based on Gustaf Gründgens, former friend and brother-in-law of Mann.

Since school I hadn't read any German classics and decided to try and read one a month now (maybe even more like this month, but without pressure). No idea how this project is going to go.
The book started slow, but once the Nazis come into power, it got quite powerful. Needless to say that they are not many likeable or admirable characters in the book. It's amazing that this was written even before the war.

"The Case of the Jumbo Sandwich" by Christopher Bush, first published in 1965
(Ludovic Travers 60)

A friend asks private detective Ludovic Travers for advice after getting swindled out of a substantial sum.
At that point Travers has no idea yet how complicated this fraud case is going to become ...

I started reading Bush after Liz from Adventures in Reading, Running, and Working from Home had reviewed one of his books for a 1952 challenge.



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 co-host with  Lisa from Boondock Ramblings and Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs. You can find out more about it here or directly click through to the current party via the image in the right hand column.

Silent movies - The Charlatan

While checking the channels on my new TV stick, I came upon one that, much to my surprise, offered me several silent movies. I randomly picked one of them, so let's talk about The Charlatan from 1929 today.

Here's the plot (with spoilers).
A woman goes to sideshow fortune teller Count Merlin. She's shocked when he calls her by a current name, but then the name she had before ... and he's looking into her past in his crystal ball.

Before marrying a rich man, Florence Talbot had been a trapeze artist and the wife of clown Peter Dwight. One evening she took off with Richard Talbot. Peter never got over her also taking their daughter Ann.
What Florence doesn't know is that Count Merlin is actually Peter Dwight and he still wants his daughter back after all these years.

Florence has her eyes on another man by now, her doctor Walter Paynter, and she'd elope with him rather sooner than later.
At a dinner party, Mrs. Deering who took her to Count Merlin and is the District Attorney's wife, suggests to invite the fortune teller to the Talbots' house.
Merlin and his helpers accept and he reads palms and shows off his "disappearing lady" act. His audience draws cards to determine who will be disappearing in the afternoon. It's Florence.

Someone has different plans, though, and places a sharp pin in the back of the box (of course we all know there's a hidden compartment) on which they put some kind of liquid.
Indeed the trick fails this time and they find the dead Florence in the back of the cabinet. Dr. Paynter immediately determines poison as the cause of death and of course Count Merlin is the main suspect.

District Attorney Deering questions him, but Merlin and his helpers abduct him and Merlin disguises as Deering and goes back to the house to question all the suspects - the cuckolded Richard Talbot, the lover Dr. Paynter, the cheated Mrs. Paynter, but also Ann's boyfriend who has tried to leave the building.

Then he reveals that he's Peter Dwight, Florence's ex-husband and Ann's father.
And the murderer is ....

Richard Talbot

 !

The movie is another one based on a play.
You know "The Jazz Singer" with Al Jolson started the big talkie wave in 1927, and indeed "The Charlatan" had talking sequences which are lost, however.

As I said, this was a random choice and I didn't expect much from the movie. Actually, I don't know what I expected at all, but not a murder from the title.
I was really pleasantly surprised about this old whodunit. You may remember "The Bat" which was more or less people running from one room to the next. This movie wasn't at all like that. We had a nice introduction to the backstory, a solid build-up of motives for our suspects, we had a neat little murder (and no bodies got left on a staircase), and there was the clever idea how to enable our main character to investigate in a very good disguise.

There were a few small things that made me giggle a bit, for example Dr. Paynter calling the poison something similar to Curare, the South American virus, or the way Merlin accused one suspect after the other (which I have seen in more modern mysteries as well), but that really didn't take away from me enjoying this film very much.
It was a little like watching an episode of a TV crime show today (at a runtime of an hour), a Poirot (with all the suspects in one room at the end) for instance, just in worse film quality and with less elaborate sets.


I didn't really need a source for this post except the info about the movie being based on a play, but here's another review, anyway.
Fritzi Kramer: The Charlatan (1929) - A Silent Film Review. On: Movies Silently, February 3, 2013

My June books

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.