Just the core group this time around. We did miss Beth, however, as she was out with her extended family tracking and hunting down an unsuspecting Christmas tree. She did provide her list of reading though, so that’s a good thing. I just hope the tree didn’t suffer too much.
We also missed Cynthia, who has been having some health issues. We sure miss you!
Jim was back with us, having just returned from a cruise with his wife, where the focus was on beach time, and a tourist submarine thrown in as a bonus. Michael was up to his neck grading papers at the end of the semester, and is waiting to hear whether enough people sign up to be able to offer his class next year.
Linda, Michael, Christina and Peggy rounded out the group.
Post-books we talked about Christmas plans. As we reported last month, Peggy will be heading off to Maryland with a museum on her schedule, but is also going to make a side trip to visit Barbara, who used to join us in person at Darryl’s house many years ago. Christina is going with her husband to visit family in Wyoming. And if I remember right, Michael plans on sleeping. Sounds like a plan to me.
26+ books read/discussed/reviewed. I don’t have a report on what Jim or Christina read. Maybe that’ll get included next month.  The full list can be found here:
https://mamensa.org/category/book-lovers-sig-book-talks/
Book Lovers SIG always meets the second Sunday of each month; in this case January 11. We meet online using Zoom, so it is easy to join in.  Folks generally start checking in around 2 p.m. for a bit of socialization.  Book discussions begin around 2:30 p.m., more or less, or when Peggy says, “OK, Let’s talk about books!â€.
To join us on Zoom, simply click on the link shown below:
https://tinyurl.com/BookLoversSIG
You can also open your Zoom app and use these parameters:
Meeting ID: 946 0436 4344
Passcode: 844358
*****
Peggy
Slowly Dying Cause by Elizabeth George. Â As Linda said last month, it was too long and not focused on the detectives. Â A hundred pages of narration from the murder victim slows down the detection, which should always be the important part. Â At least the Lyndley and Havers connection remains.
The Rose Field (The Book of Dust #3) by Philip Pullman.  If you don’t want to read the Dark Materials series which preceded the Dust books, at least read The Secret Commonwealth first.  Lyra has been kicked out of her room at Oxford, separated from her daemon Pan, and is under threat from an authoritarian government.  But witches and gryphons, not to mention her friend Malcolm and his daemon are there to help.  Some wonderful characters move the story along, and there are enough unresolved plot points that another book may be in the works.
The Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benedict.  The author writes books about interesting women, but she’s not a good writer so it’s hard to recommend this.  The actress Hedy Lamarr grew up in Austria, married a munitions profiteer in the 30s, escaped to WWII Los Angeles after ditching the husband and became a movie star.  Despite a lack of scientific education, she helped develop a torpedo signaling system that the Navy rejected but which later evolved into aspects of today’s wireless devices.
The Hollow Crown: Shakespeare on How Leaders Rise, Rule, and Fall by Eliot A. Cohen. Â The author is a military historian, ex-diplomat, and teacher. Â Working from the history plays, as well as Macbeth and King Lear, he examines how power is acquired, exercised and lost.
Circle of Days by Ken Follett.  This novel on the raising of Stonehenge predates Follett’s Kingsbridge series, including 1989’s The Pillars of the Earth about the building of a medieval cathedral.  The herder’s community includes not only the animal tenders but also the priestesses, who can count higher than 20 and track the seasons, and the clever hands (engineers and builders). They fight with the farmers and the woodlanders.
Linda
Bettyville, a Memoir by George Hodgman. ***
A middle-aged gay man returns from New York to his childhood home in Missouri to care for his aging, increasingly disabled mother in her final years. She’s pretty eccentric and fairly annoying. Interspersed with this narrative are memories of his youth and early relationships. In googling the author, I discovered that he committed suicide a few years after this book was published.
The Long Haul by Finn Murphy. ****
Memoirs of a man who drops out of college to drive a long-haul moving van. Folks who do this are essentially gypsies. Some very entertaining war stories and a lot of info about how the moving business works.
Eastbound by Maylis de Kerangal. ****
Basically, a novella, I read it in about an hour. About a young man who is conscripted into the Russian military, riding the Siberian Express to his assigned duty station. He really wants to escape, and he meets a foreign woman who wants to help him.
Gateway to the Moon by Mary Morris. ****
Several families of conversos (Jews forced to convert to Christianity) apparently escaped from Spain, Portugal, and Mexico and settled in rural New Mexico. This much is true though controversial. The book is a fictional account, covering their escape centuries ago, as well as contemporary events of the families. Interesting characters. Some events are quite dark and violent.
The Impossible Us by Sarah Lotz. ****
A misdirected email manages to cross between parallel universes. The man and woman communicating this way develop a romance. How do you connect physically? Many interesting characters.
The Impossible Fortune by Richard Osman. ***
Number 5 in the Thursday Murder Club series. Revolving around 3 billion dollars in Bitcoin. I found it a little confusing and maybe not as good as the earlier books.
The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon. ****
Set in the 18th century in small-town Maine (when it was part of Massachusetts), the main character is a midwife. She becomes involved in investigating a rape and a murder, as well as a plot to steal her family’s property. I liked this character a lot and enjoyed the insights into the culture of the time.
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra. ***
Multiple characters and families and their experiences in the two wars between Russia and Chechnya. I almost quit a few times because of the jumping back and forth in time and confusing characters. The writing style, however, was excellent, especially imagery.
Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto. ***
An elderly tea-shop owner in San Francisco investigates the possible murder of a man who ends up dead in her shop. Along the way she creates a new family.
Beth
Sooley by John Grisham. This is a novel set against a backdrop of basketball and civil war. John Grisham spins his usual interlinked story to highlight the gross inequality of greed and the power of family. A basketball recruiter from Sudan, now living in America, brings a questionable recruit from the bush to the high-powered world of collegiate and professional basketball in America. Meanwhile, the civil war in Sudan grinds on.
The Alpha Enigma and Implacable Alpha by Michael Gear. Archaeology, Psychology, and Science Fiction wrapped up in a 2-book thriller. The science is good, the archaeology is good, and the story holds together, given the premise.  The characters are interesting and diverse, and they make use of their flaws to solve problems. An American archaeologist is picked for a top-secret project, NDAs and all, with lots of money (archaeology is not a field that produces millionaires), so the archaeologist, based on a real person who I actually know, is all in, if skeptical. Then they discover a tomb, complete with Indiana Jones booby traps that shouldn’t be where it is. Then things go very sideways. Addendum: I was able to attend a book signing with the author and his wife, Kathy; with whom Michael writes many novels (88 at last count), and I was impressed with their storytelling in person. They write from experiences they have had and lots of research. They have a collection of 32,000 books — I am green with envy. They have lots of titles to chose from, and I am looking forward to reading their stories based on Native American characters and culture.
The Hallmarked Man by Robert Galbraith. Strike and Robin are back at it trying to solve the mystery of a body that has been badly mutilated. The client wants them to prove it is the body of her missing lover, but the police have already identified it as someone else. There is lots of tension: Strike and Robin, PIs and the police, recent and not-so-recent lovers, family drama — it’s all in there. Nine hundred pages and everyone did something they shouldn’t have done, and everyone is lying. Great story.
Michael
Replaceable You by Mary Roach, about replaceable parts for the human body.
Started reading The Rose Field by Philip Pullman (600+ pages), which is part 3 of The Book of Dust series, which is actually part 6 of the His Dark Materials series.
Brad (74/28,078)
Updates
Clown Town (Slough House #9) by Mick Herron. I reported on this book last month. Thought it was fiction. Turns out, not so much. I encourage you to read this news article, which describes the agent who worked for MI-5 during the Troubles while simultaneously committing multiple murders. MI-5 helped protect him, and themselves, then slow-walked the investigation. Corruption bounds. All captured in Clown Town. *****
My Friends by Fredrik Backman. Since reporting on this book last month, it has been named Goodreads Choice Award Winner for Readers’ Favorite Fiction (2025). *****
Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Since reporting on this book last month, it has been named Goodreads Choice Award Winner for Readers’ Favorite Historical Fiction (2025). *****
This Month
3 Days, 9 Months, 27 Years by John Scalzi. ***** at p. 38
So, there’s time travel. One can visit ahead 3 days, 9 months or 27 years before you return. This short story, available free through Amazon Prime Reading, is narrated by a man who is the last person you see before you leave, and the first person you see when you return. Basically, a technician that pushes all the buttons and makes sure the settings are correct. This diary tells about the various experiences their customers have, some good, some bad. And of course there is a twist at the end.
Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry.  *** at p. 269
This is a story about a retired policeman, who maybe committed a murder? Or maybe his wife did? You never really know, as the narrative is provided by the policeman, who apparently, maybe, is slipping into dementia. It doesn’t help that the time frame bounces around.
Goodreads tells me Barry is a two-time Booker Prize finalist and is considered one of Ireland’s finest writers. You wouldn’t know it by reading this convoluted mess.
This Land Is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving by David J. Silverman. **** at p. 514
I’ve read a couple of books recently about the Plains Indians; this book focuses very specifically on one band that was native to the area where the Plymouth colonists first landed. The big difference between the two regions is that the Indians in this area relied a great deal on agriculture, whereas the Plains Indians were true nomads.
As far as the Plymouth colony goes, these were bad people. Within days of landing, they were robbing the graves of the Wampanoag and stealing their food stores. But … the Indians in the area were enticed by the trading opportunities offered by the English.
Be careful of what you wish for would be the moral of this story.
The Hallmarked Man by Robert Galbraith. ***** at p. 908
This has got to be the longest detective story I have ever read.
A mutilated body is found in a sealed vault. A distraught woman approaches Cormoran, claiming the person is actually her missing boyfriend, and she wants him to prove it.
As Cormoran and his detective partner Robin start digging into the case, they actually turn up five possibilities as to who the body might be. Which means the story branches off in five different directions.
The murder ending didn’t make much sense to me, but the big ending is that Cormoran, at the very end of the book, finally shares with Robin his feelings for her. And, of course, now we will have to wait until the next book in the series to find out how she deals with his declaration.
The Proving Ground (The Lincoln Lawyer #8) by Michael Connelly.  ***** at p. 387
Ripped from the headlines! The Lincoln Lawyer is no longer a defense attorney, but is instead representing plaintiffs in civil cases. In this specific instance an AI chatbot avatar has convinced a young boy to murder his former girlfriend. A lawsuit has been filed against the AI company, and the Lincoln Lawyer is in the thick of it.
Parts of the story feel a bit lecture-ish on AI, but all in all a good read.
The Recital (Orphan X #8.5) by Gregg Hurwitz. ***** at p. 91
I had no idea Hurwitz was releasing short stories in between novels, so kind of stumbled upon this late in the game.
Joey, an orphan who was washed out of the Orphan program and who has become sort of an adopted niece if you will of Orphan X, is doing her best to explore her human side, something X struggles with. She learns to play the piano and performs at a student recital, to which see has invited several of X’s … associates?
Once again, Hurwitz is exploring the themes of family and being human.
Lose Well by Chris Gethard. **** at p. 241
I have no idea who Gethard is. Apparently, a standup comedian who has a podcast. The whole theme of the book, which I have embraced most of my life, is to strive to fail. Failing means you’re trying, and learning. So that you can fail again. If you try enough, and fail enough, eventually you will succeed.
Lone Wolf (Orphan X #9) by Gregg Hurwitz. **** at p. 389
X has a new mission. Find the missing dog of the daughter of his long-lost half-brother. But somehow along the way he gets tangled up with AI billionaires and a fellow assassin whose skills match his own. Yikes!
Currently Reading
The Making of the Atomic Bomb: 25th Anniversary Edition by Richard Rhodes. 1499 pp. Average read time 24 h, 29 m.
This is taking forever to read.
