Tanya's 2013 Book List - Part 2
For overview and part 1
35. The Secret Adversary -- Agatha Christie
36. By the Pricking of My Thumbs (Tommy and Tuppence, #4) -- Agatha Christie (audiobooks)
Christie is so good! She captures the quaint English countryside and weaves a darn good mystery, where all the clues actually lead to the solution of the caper.
37. Little Bee -- Chris Cleave (audiobooks)
It started out at a slow narrative pace but the last third I couldn't stop listening to see how it all turned out! The story, at its core, is about two women and their struggle to make sense of their lives. They had a chance meeting on a beach in Nigeria where one was a tourist and the other running from danger and the story moves between Nigeria and London and between their two points of view.
38. *Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us -- Michael Moss (non-fiction)
Fascinating read! The title of the book should include something about the food industry and the ways that the mega corporations of the food industry engineer food to get us hooked on it. They use our brain chemistry to pump the foods full of the sugar, salt and fat that they know will keep us craving and eating more than our bodies can handle. It's written by a journalist, so it's a really compelling read, filled with lots of great stories and details about reports on food science.
39. The Interestings -- Meg Wolitzer
I was absolutely drawn in by these characters' lives, which the story follows from the moment of angst and possibility as teenagers, to moments of self-reflection, midlife crisis, and resignation of their 40s and 50s. I was never quite sure who to like, who to root for, and who to mock because each was so complex, as it usually is in real life. Having grown up going to summer camp, I could relate to the description of how camp can create special, lasting bonds that are outside your everyday life.
40. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia, #2) -- C.S. Lewis
This is my first time reading the Narnia books. I probably understand the allegory in the story a lot more now than I would have before, but the language is also so easy that I'm tempted to skim through it rather than savor each word. That said, I do LOVE the bits of cozy fantasy: the quaint talking animals, the magical charm of Aslan, and the cozy cottages of the Beavers and Faun. A perfect book to read before going to bed.
41. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood (Persepolis, #1-2) -- Marjane Satrapi
A graphic novel about a girl growing up in the midst of the Iranian Revolution. I’d heard so much about it but in the end I was underwhelmed by the narrative and felt the pictures didn’t add much to the text.
42. N or M? (Tommy and Tuppence, #3) -- Agatha Christie
A particularly good story. Tommy and Tuppence are another of Christie’s detective duos and this one is set right in the middle of WWI.
43. In The Spirit of Happiness: A Book of Spiritual Wisdom -- Monks of New Skete (non-fiction)
A fascinating, inspiring read written by the monks of New Skete, a Eastern Orthodox monastery in the US Northeast. There is a lot about history (including the desert hermits) and also a lot about their current practice of prayer and community. I learned a lot about the challenges and joys of living in community.
44. Half Blood Blues -- Esi Edugyan (Canadian)
Half is set in France at the beginning of WWII and half is somewhere close to the present day in the US and France. The descriptions about blues music and the unbelievable measures that musicians went through to keep up their practice in the midst of coming war was inspiring.
45. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Harry Potter, #1) – J.K. Rowling (audiobooks)
It was fun to dip back into the Harry Potter world after so many years! If you haven't read this first book in a while, listen to the first 2 hours (all about the Dursley family) and then listen to Rowling's "Casual Vacancy" and you'll see how similar her style is in both books, even if there isn't magic in both.
46. *Life After Life -- Kate Atkinson
This was my favorite book in 2013! Kate does an amazing job of weaving together story lines as our main character, Ursula, lives, dies, and is reborn anew to relive her life with slight changes each time. One life's death is another life's near-miss. And she keeps us interested in each iteration because of the random details that carry through - details we get to turn around and look at from a different position. Also, the setting (London, English countryside, and Berlin through both WWs) is vivid, tragic, dreamlike, and complex. All around an amazing book.
47. New Seeds of Contemplation -- Thomas Merton (non-fiction)
This book has some wonderful gems for meditation ("Be careful of every vain hope: it is in reality a temptation to despair.") and then some things that totally didn't work for me (times when the tone was really condescending and aloof). So I still recommend reading it if you are looking for a fuller discussion of meditation and contemplative prayer; just feel free to ignore the parts that don't work for you.
48. The Cuckoo's Calling -- Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling)
LOVED this book! Rowling sure does weave a good, old fashioned noir thriller. The mystery held up to the very end and then actually made sense when the detective laid it all out. I can see the Rowling themes of concern for teen drug use, foster care and adoption, and the corrosiveness of fame.
49. The Constant Gardener -- John le Carre (audiobooks)
I loved this movie and I like the themes of nefarious international drug trials and ex-pats in Africa. However, this time reading it felt like a bit of a slog and I couldn’t really connect with any of the characters or feel any true concern about the ending.
50. Cat's Eye -- Margaret Atwood (Canadian)
This is the first Atwood book that I've read and really liked. Somehow I just wanted to keep reading to see how the 9-year girl (in the 1940s) grows into the older woman today (the 1980s). It’s set in Toronto and tackles the topic of girls bullying other girls, which is hard to read but also really relevant to discussions of bullying today.
51. Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience -- Sharon Salzberg (non-fiction)
The meaning of the word faith seems to have become "belief" where you have to believe certain things to have faith and being told to "have faith" means to "just believe." This book, however, talks about the understanding of faith from the Buddhist tradition, where faith is a verb and it literally translates to me "place the heart upon." I love having my understanding of faith and the world broadened and challenged and this was a great way to encounter Buddhist thought.
52. *The Art of Fielding -- Chad Harbach (audiobooks)
This story is set in a small Midwestern town at a liberal arts college. Even though I'm not a baseball junkie, I appreciated how the Harbach wrote about the game. And there was great feeling behind each of the characters’ connections to each other and to the college.
53. Murder on the Orient Express -- Agatha Christie
Loved the clue that the murder couldn’t possibly have been done by the Englishman because it was a crime of passion and the English are too measured…
54. Bury Your Dead (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #6) -- Louise Penny (Canadian)
You probably want to read the book #5 in the series before picking up this one (#6). Penny writes an engaging mystery and details of life in cozy Canada. Her descriptions of baguettes, scones, and hot coco in front of the fire always make my mouth water. This one is set in Quebec City and addresses the tensions between the English and French populations there.
55. Abina and the Important Men: A Graphic History -- Trevor R. Getz (non-fiction)
Part graphic novel, part court transcript, and part history of Ghana this book covers the story of a girl who runs away from her master on the Gold Coast and then goes to court to get her freedom. It's pretty cool to get to read the actual court transcript from the 1876 and the graphic novel is a easy-to-read version of the actual events.
56. March -- Geraldine Brooks (audiobooks)
I didn't like this book as much as Brooks' other books but maybe that's in part because I never was a "Little Women" fan. The book loosely dovetails Little Women, giving the story of the father who goes away to serve as a chaplain in the Civil War. It was an interesting character study though, especially around the character who always has to help, be appreciated, and "make a difference" - sort of a 19th century aid worker.
57. Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived -- Rob Bell (non-fiction)
I always am interested to read about what liberal Christians are saying about faith and this was no exception. I appreciated his conversational tone and his formatting of the words on the page. I think the middle section gets bogged down a bit trying to counter-argue something that is never explicitly argued and so it doesn't have the punch of the first and last 2 chapters.
58. Fishers of Men -- Glenn Clark (non-fiction)
Glenn Clark has an earnest way of writing so that I can really feel his passion for the subject. It's fun to read these old books (this was first published in 1928) because they have great old metaphors like how we must see people as victrolas and not as records. There’s lots of still-relevant information about relating to others in a meaningful and loving way.
59. The Sisters Brothers -- Patrick deWitt (audiobooks, read-in-2013, Canadian)
My Canadian author book club read this book and I was surprised to find that it is set in 1850s Oregon and California! It's a great tale of hit men in the old West with their hijinks and shootouts. The descriptions of Gold Rush California are fun to read and the brother who narrates has an "average guy" way of talking that is endearing, in spite of the violence. A good read if you like stories of old California.
60. *Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore -- Robin Sloan (audiobooks)
A truly delightful book! Old bookstores, secret societies, nerdy techies, and a mysterious code. It perhaps wraps up a bit too nicely in the end but the characters are fun and (since they are about my age and it's set in the biblio world of SF) I really related to them.
61. Whose Body? (Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries, #1) -- Dorothy L. Sayers (audiobooks)
Recommended to me based on my love of Agatha Christie. It does have a similar/familiar "unsuspecting upper class amateur detective" vibe but its main character is definitely missing the pizzazz of Miss Marple or Poiroit. I'll probably read more by her though.
62. In the Skin of a Lion -- Michael Ondaatje (Canadian)
This book is exactly the same style as the English Patient, also by Ondaatje. Similarly, it's a bit hard to get into the story. I found that I was really able to lose myself in the soft flow of the narrative when I could dedicate a few hours to just reading. The story is set in Toronto in the 1940s and dives into the lives of men working on civil works projects of the era.
63. The Historical Figure of Jesus -- E.P. Sanders (non-fiction)
I'm auditing a class on the History of Christianity and this is the first book we read. I am fascinated by the quest/research/discovery that goes into the discussions of Jesus as a purely historical figure and this is a great contribution to the discussion. It was also interesting to read because he comes to the conclusion that Jesus was not really a "zealot" or social justice advocate, as suggested by Aslan and Borg, but rather someone who was seen as a potential mob leader, killed for the crowd rather than the ideas. Sanders' section about miracles and how Jesus's contemporaries probably viewed them was new to me and interesting.
64. Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show: A Novel of Ireland -- Frank Delaney (audiobooks)
A story, set in Ireland, about a son, a father, and a traveling show with an attractive woman and political themes. There are glimpses of the magic of storytelling that Delaney wrote about in his book "Ireland." Only glimpses, though. And filling up the rest of the story were meandering digressions and uninteresting anecdotes.
65. Our Kind of Traitor -- John le Carre (audiobooks)
I think this is coming out as a movie soon, which is why I read it. Two unsuspecting Brits are roped into a spy plot with some Russians. I really wanted to get deeper into the characters than leCarre ever let us get.
66. You Are One of Them -- Elliott Holt (audiobooks)
After the first hour I got totally drawn into the story of childhood friendships, growing up, and expats in Russia. I’m still thinking about the ending, which means that Holt was able to create a very real-feeling world both in DC suburbs and Russia.
67. Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew -- Bart D. Ehrman (non-fiction)
I never knew there were so many stories written around the time of the Gospels that never made it into the cannon. I learned so much about what we know, what scholars have found, and how they try to determine the context and meaning of each of the texts.
68. Sleeping Murder (Miss Marple, #13) -- Agatha Christie (audiobooks)
69. Well Met: Renaissance Faires and the American Counterculture -- Rachel Lee Rubin (non-fiction)
I was eager to read this book because of my family's many years at the Renaissance and Dickens Fairs and so I liked getting to dabble back in that world. The chapter about the history of the faire was pretty disappointing because it felt like the author was taking everything people were saying at face value, rather than digging into the motivations behind the remembered history. The last chapter, about the Faire in literature and popular culture was by far my favorite. On a side note, why are SO many people afraid of men in tights?
70. The Last Runaway -- Tracy Chevalier (audiobooks)
I didn't know Tracy Chevalier had a new book until I saw this at the public library! She's one of my favorite authors and so I was excited to read (listen to) it. She still manages to create some lovable characters but I didn't care about them nearly as much as the women in "Remarkable Creatures." I did like the musings on the nature of feeling settled, floating, and being an immigrant. It's also about the Civil War and Quakers, which makes this so unbelievably the same as "March" even though they are so different.
71. Spider Woman's Daughter -- Anne Hillerman (audiobooks)
More mysteries with Jim Chee, a Navaho detective living in the southwest, written by the daughter of the original author. It is a nice "cozy mystery" with not a lot of violence and I could follow the clues to get the solution WAY before our detectives figured it out.
72. Medieval Monasticism: Forms of Religious Life in Western Europe in the Middle Ages -- C.H. Lawrence (non-fiction)
Another fascinating book (if a little difficult to read) for my History of Christianity class. I don't think I've learned anything about the medieval period since world civ class in high school. One cool fact, monks were all supposed to be vegetarian (unless they were sick)!
73. The Harlequin Tea Set: A Harley Quin Short Story -- Agatha Christie (audiobooks)
This is an interesting collections of Agatha Christie stories. I didn't realize that she'd written so many non-mystery short stories. Turns out she really found her niche with the mysteries and the short fiction is a bit too cryptic and bland at the same time. There was a great Poiroit story in the middle though.
That's all for 2013! Already starting on books for 2014...
35. The Secret Adversary -- Agatha Christie
36. By the Pricking of My Thumbs (Tommy and Tuppence, #4) -- Agatha Christie (audiobooks)
Christie is so good! She captures the quaint English countryside and weaves a darn good mystery, where all the clues actually lead to the solution of the caper.
37. Little Bee -- Chris Cleave (audiobooks)
It started out at a slow narrative pace but the last third I couldn't stop listening to see how it all turned out! The story, at its core, is about two women and their struggle to make sense of their lives. They had a chance meeting on a beach in Nigeria where one was a tourist and the other running from danger and the story moves between Nigeria and London and between their two points of view.
38. *Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us -- Michael Moss (non-fiction)
Fascinating read! The title of the book should include something about the food industry and the ways that the mega corporations of the food industry engineer food to get us hooked on it. They use our brain chemistry to pump the foods full of the sugar, salt and fat that they know will keep us craving and eating more than our bodies can handle. It's written by a journalist, so it's a really compelling read, filled with lots of great stories and details about reports on food science.
39. The Interestings -- Meg Wolitzer
I was absolutely drawn in by these characters' lives, which the story follows from the moment of angst and possibility as teenagers, to moments of self-reflection, midlife crisis, and resignation of their 40s and 50s. I was never quite sure who to like, who to root for, and who to mock because each was so complex, as it usually is in real life. Having grown up going to summer camp, I could relate to the description of how camp can create special, lasting bonds that are outside your everyday life.
40. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia, #2) -- C.S. Lewis
This is my first time reading the Narnia books. I probably understand the allegory in the story a lot more now than I would have before, but the language is also so easy that I'm tempted to skim through it rather than savor each word. That said, I do LOVE the bits of cozy fantasy: the quaint talking animals, the magical charm of Aslan, and the cozy cottages of the Beavers and Faun. A perfect book to read before going to bed.
41. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood (Persepolis, #1-2) -- Marjane Satrapi
A graphic novel about a girl growing up in the midst of the Iranian Revolution. I’d heard so much about it but in the end I was underwhelmed by the narrative and felt the pictures didn’t add much to the text.
42. N or M? (Tommy and Tuppence, #3) -- Agatha Christie
A particularly good story. Tommy and Tuppence are another of Christie’s detective duos and this one is set right in the middle of WWI.
43. In The Spirit of Happiness: A Book of Spiritual Wisdom -- Monks of New Skete (non-fiction)
A fascinating, inspiring read written by the monks of New Skete, a Eastern Orthodox monastery in the US Northeast. There is a lot about history (including the desert hermits) and also a lot about their current practice of prayer and community. I learned a lot about the challenges and joys of living in community.
44. Half Blood Blues -- Esi Edugyan (Canadian)
Half is set in France at the beginning of WWII and half is somewhere close to the present day in the US and France. The descriptions about blues music and the unbelievable measures that musicians went through to keep up their practice in the midst of coming war was inspiring.
45. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Harry Potter, #1) – J.K. Rowling (audiobooks)
It was fun to dip back into the Harry Potter world after so many years! If you haven't read this first book in a while, listen to the first 2 hours (all about the Dursley family) and then listen to Rowling's "Casual Vacancy" and you'll see how similar her style is in both books, even if there isn't magic in both.
46. *Life After Life -- Kate Atkinson
This was my favorite book in 2013! Kate does an amazing job of weaving together story lines as our main character, Ursula, lives, dies, and is reborn anew to relive her life with slight changes each time. One life's death is another life's near-miss. And she keeps us interested in each iteration because of the random details that carry through - details we get to turn around and look at from a different position. Also, the setting (London, English countryside, and Berlin through both WWs) is vivid, tragic, dreamlike, and complex. All around an amazing book.
47. New Seeds of Contemplation -- Thomas Merton (non-fiction)
This book has some wonderful gems for meditation ("Be careful of every vain hope: it is in reality a temptation to despair.") and then some things that totally didn't work for me (times when the tone was really condescending and aloof). So I still recommend reading it if you are looking for a fuller discussion of meditation and contemplative prayer; just feel free to ignore the parts that don't work for you.
48. The Cuckoo's Calling -- Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling)
LOVED this book! Rowling sure does weave a good, old fashioned noir thriller. The mystery held up to the very end and then actually made sense when the detective laid it all out. I can see the Rowling themes of concern for teen drug use, foster care and adoption, and the corrosiveness of fame.
49. The Constant Gardener -- John le Carre (audiobooks)
I loved this movie and I like the themes of nefarious international drug trials and ex-pats in Africa. However, this time reading it felt like a bit of a slog and I couldn’t really connect with any of the characters or feel any true concern about the ending.
50. Cat's Eye -- Margaret Atwood (Canadian)
This is the first Atwood book that I've read and really liked. Somehow I just wanted to keep reading to see how the 9-year girl (in the 1940s) grows into the older woman today (the 1980s). It’s set in Toronto and tackles the topic of girls bullying other girls, which is hard to read but also really relevant to discussions of bullying today.
51. Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience -- Sharon Salzberg (non-fiction)
The meaning of the word faith seems to have become "belief" where you have to believe certain things to have faith and being told to "have faith" means to "just believe." This book, however, talks about the understanding of faith from the Buddhist tradition, where faith is a verb and it literally translates to me "place the heart upon." I love having my understanding of faith and the world broadened and challenged and this was a great way to encounter Buddhist thought.
52. *The Art of Fielding -- Chad Harbach (audiobooks)
This story is set in a small Midwestern town at a liberal arts college. Even though I'm not a baseball junkie, I appreciated how the Harbach wrote about the game. And there was great feeling behind each of the characters’ connections to each other and to the college.
53. Murder on the Orient Express -- Agatha Christie
Loved the clue that the murder couldn’t possibly have been done by the Englishman because it was a crime of passion and the English are too measured…
54. Bury Your Dead (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #6) -- Louise Penny (Canadian)
You probably want to read the book #5 in the series before picking up this one (#6). Penny writes an engaging mystery and details of life in cozy Canada. Her descriptions of baguettes, scones, and hot coco in front of the fire always make my mouth water. This one is set in Quebec City and addresses the tensions between the English and French populations there.
55. Abina and the Important Men: A Graphic History -- Trevor R. Getz (non-fiction)
Part graphic novel, part court transcript, and part history of Ghana this book covers the story of a girl who runs away from her master on the Gold Coast and then goes to court to get her freedom. It's pretty cool to get to read the actual court transcript from the 1876 and the graphic novel is a easy-to-read version of the actual events.
56. March -- Geraldine Brooks (audiobooks)
I didn't like this book as much as Brooks' other books but maybe that's in part because I never was a "Little Women" fan. The book loosely dovetails Little Women, giving the story of the father who goes away to serve as a chaplain in the Civil War. It was an interesting character study though, especially around the character who always has to help, be appreciated, and "make a difference" - sort of a 19th century aid worker.
57. Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived -- Rob Bell (non-fiction)
I always am interested to read about what liberal Christians are saying about faith and this was no exception. I appreciated his conversational tone and his formatting of the words on the page. I think the middle section gets bogged down a bit trying to counter-argue something that is never explicitly argued and so it doesn't have the punch of the first and last 2 chapters.
58. Fishers of Men -- Glenn Clark (non-fiction)
Glenn Clark has an earnest way of writing so that I can really feel his passion for the subject. It's fun to read these old books (this was first published in 1928) because they have great old metaphors like how we must see people as victrolas and not as records. There’s lots of still-relevant information about relating to others in a meaningful and loving way.
59. The Sisters Brothers -- Patrick deWitt (audiobooks, read-in-2013, Canadian)
My Canadian author book club read this book and I was surprised to find that it is set in 1850s Oregon and California! It's a great tale of hit men in the old West with their hijinks and shootouts. The descriptions of Gold Rush California are fun to read and the brother who narrates has an "average guy" way of talking that is endearing, in spite of the violence. A good read if you like stories of old California.
60. *Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore -- Robin Sloan (audiobooks)
A truly delightful book! Old bookstores, secret societies, nerdy techies, and a mysterious code. It perhaps wraps up a bit too nicely in the end but the characters are fun and (since they are about my age and it's set in the biblio world of SF) I really related to them.
61. Whose Body? (Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries, #1) -- Dorothy L. Sayers (audiobooks)
Recommended to me based on my love of Agatha Christie. It does have a similar/familiar "unsuspecting upper class amateur detective" vibe but its main character is definitely missing the pizzazz of Miss Marple or Poiroit. I'll probably read more by her though.
62. In the Skin of a Lion -- Michael Ondaatje (Canadian)
This book is exactly the same style as the English Patient, also by Ondaatje. Similarly, it's a bit hard to get into the story. I found that I was really able to lose myself in the soft flow of the narrative when I could dedicate a few hours to just reading. The story is set in Toronto in the 1940s and dives into the lives of men working on civil works projects of the era.
63. The Historical Figure of Jesus -- E.P. Sanders (non-fiction)
I'm auditing a class on the History of Christianity and this is the first book we read. I am fascinated by the quest/research/discovery that goes into the discussions of Jesus as a purely historical figure and this is a great contribution to the discussion. It was also interesting to read because he comes to the conclusion that Jesus was not really a "zealot" or social justice advocate, as suggested by Aslan and Borg, but rather someone who was seen as a potential mob leader, killed for the crowd rather than the ideas. Sanders' section about miracles and how Jesus's contemporaries probably viewed them was new to me and interesting.
64. Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show: A Novel of Ireland -- Frank Delaney (audiobooks)
A story, set in Ireland, about a son, a father, and a traveling show with an attractive woman and political themes. There are glimpses of the magic of storytelling that Delaney wrote about in his book "Ireland." Only glimpses, though. And filling up the rest of the story were meandering digressions and uninteresting anecdotes.
65. Our Kind of Traitor -- John le Carre (audiobooks)
I think this is coming out as a movie soon, which is why I read it. Two unsuspecting Brits are roped into a spy plot with some Russians. I really wanted to get deeper into the characters than leCarre ever let us get.
66. You Are One of Them -- Elliott Holt (audiobooks)
After the first hour I got totally drawn into the story of childhood friendships, growing up, and expats in Russia. I’m still thinking about the ending, which means that Holt was able to create a very real-feeling world both in DC suburbs and Russia.
67. Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew -- Bart D. Ehrman (non-fiction)
I never knew there were so many stories written around the time of the Gospels that never made it into the cannon. I learned so much about what we know, what scholars have found, and how they try to determine the context and meaning of each of the texts.
68. Sleeping Murder (Miss Marple, #13) -- Agatha Christie (audiobooks)
69. Well Met: Renaissance Faires and the American Counterculture -- Rachel Lee Rubin (non-fiction)
I was eager to read this book because of my family's many years at the Renaissance and Dickens Fairs and so I liked getting to dabble back in that world. The chapter about the history of the faire was pretty disappointing because it felt like the author was taking everything people were saying at face value, rather than digging into the motivations behind the remembered history. The last chapter, about the Faire in literature and popular culture was by far my favorite. On a side note, why are SO many people afraid of men in tights?
70. The Last Runaway -- Tracy Chevalier (audiobooks)
I didn't know Tracy Chevalier had a new book until I saw this at the public library! She's one of my favorite authors and so I was excited to read (listen to) it. She still manages to create some lovable characters but I didn't care about them nearly as much as the women in "Remarkable Creatures." I did like the musings on the nature of feeling settled, floating, and being an immigrant. It's also about the Civil War and Quakers, which makes this so unbelievably the same as "March" even though they are so different.
71. Spider Woman's Daughter -- Anne Hillerman (audiobooks)
More mysteries with Jim Chee, a Navaho detective living in the southwest, written by the daughter of the original author. It is a nice "cozy mystery" with not a lot of violence and I could follow the clues to get the solution WAY before our detectives figured it out.
72. Medieval Monasticism: Forms of Religious Life in Western Europe in the Middle Ages -- C.H. Lawrence (non-fiction)
Another fascinating book (if a little difficult to read) for my History of Christianity class. I don't think I've learned anything about the medieval period since world civ class in high school. One cool fact, monks were all supposed to be vegetarian (unless they were sick)!
73. The Harlequin Tea Set: A Harley Quin Short Story -- Agatha Christie (audiobooks)
This is an interesting collections of Agatha Christie stories. I didn't realize that she'd written so many non-mystery short stories. Turns out she really found her niche with the mysteries and the short fiction is a bit too cryptic and bland at the same time. There was a great Poiroit story in the middle though.
That's all for 2013! Already starting on books for 2014...
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