Books I Read in July and August 2024

Only one book a month as the reading slump continued. This is the least I’ve read in a long time. I think I finally broke through as I started reading some Sherlock Holmes stories. On to the two books.

Psycho by Robert Bloch (The Overlook Press, 2010. First published in 1959)

I watched Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and a few of his other films years and years ago. A few months ago I started watching his films from the beginning. I’m taking a break from them now but wanted to read Bloch’s original book before re-watching Psycho. The book really gets into the head of Norman Bates. Parts of it are a little dated but it was a suspenseful read, even with knowing the major plot points from watching Hitchcock’s film adaptation.

The Carter of La Providence by Georges Simenon (Penguin Classics, 2014. First published in 1931)

This is the second book in the long running Inspector Maigret series. In this one Maigret investigates after a body is found by a canal in the French countryside. The story is okay but where it really shines is with the atmosphere as Maigret traipses through the gloomy countryside in the pouring rain. As it’s an early book in the series, Simenon is still getting a handle on the character. Will be reading more. 

September Reading Plans 

Besides continuing with The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, I’m planning on reading some Conan pastiche for a reading event called Cimmerian September. I have plenty of books on the shelf to choose from and I’ll post some pics. We’ll see what happens though as I never do well with reading events. 

Books I Read in May 2022

 “What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee?”

— Anthony Trollope from The Warden

Seven books this month. 

Lucky Breaks (2022) by Yevgenia Belorusets 

This is a collection of short stories originally published in 2018 about women affected by war in East Ukraine. The stories are very short, from one to four pages. 

The stories are also quite surreal and fragmented, more sketches than actual stories. After reading a few I read the afterword by the translator. It helped me gain a better understanding of Ukraine’s history and of the author’s intentions and storytelling style. 

In the end though, the stories just blended together into a haze of random surrealness. I gather that was the author’s intention, but I enjoyed and got more out of the translator’s afterword than the actual stories.

The Year of Reading Dangerously (2014) by Andy Miller 

This book is the author’s account of spending a year reading books that he had always wanted to read but just never got around to. In between the discussion of the books, he mixes in various anecdotes. I enjoyed the stories about his time working in a bookstore and the stories about the books he read as a child.

Throughout the book he talks about the joy and the frustrations of reading with wit and humor in an uplifting way. While I found some parts of his journey more interesting than others, every chapter is filled with the love of reading. 

Pietr the Latvian (1930) by Georges Simenon 

This is the first book in the long running Inspector Maigret series by Belgian author Georges Simenon.

At only 162 pages it was a quick and enjoyable read, especially after things really picked up at the halfway point. I believe the other books are all around the same length. Apparently Mr. Simenon wrote them so each one could be read in a single sitting. I’ll be reading more. 

Full review here:

We Learn by Writing: Pietr the Latvian (Inspector Maigret #1) by Georges Simenon

Blood’s a Rover (2018) by Harlan Ellison 

This is a collection centered around Ellison’s story “A Boy and his Dog.” It won the Nebula Award for best novella in 1969.

The stories are about Vic, an amoral boy and his telepathic dog Blood, trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world after nuclear war. 

Besides the title story this collection includes the prequel “Eggsucker,” the sequel “Run, Spot, Run,” and the screenplay for the aborted television series “Blood’s a Rover.” The other stories are interesting but they don’t have the same impact as the original novella.

“A Boy and His Dog” is the strongest story in the collection. It’s dark, disturbing, satirical, and controversial. In other words, peak Harlan Ellison. 

The Complete Poems (1994) by Edgar Allan Poe 

This is a collection published by Barnes & Noble. I was familiar with “The Raven” and the titles of a few of the others but most were new to me. Many of the poems are about love, death, and despair. I had to look up a few of the poems to understand what Poe was referencing but they were all beautifully written. 

The Golden Apples of the Sun (1953) by Ray Bradbury 

This is a mix of science fiction, fantasy, and non-genre stories. While I liked some stories more than others, I liked Bradbury’s prose in all of them. Bradbury was a master of metaphor. The paperback edition I read includes twenty-two stories. Later editions include ten more.

Favorite stories: 

"The Fog Horn"

"The Pedestrian" 

"Invisible Boy"

"The Flying Machine" 

"A Sound of Thunder"

"The Great Wide World Over There"

The Warden (1955) by Anthony Trollope

This is the first novel in the Chronicles of Barsetshire series, set in the fictional county of Barsetshire and its cathedral town of Barchester, England.

The protagonist is Reverend Septimus Harding, a conscientious clergyman who is also a warden of a hospital.  He finds himself enveloped in scandal when a lawyer investigates the hospital’s charity and the amount of money it brings in.

The writing style, the humor, and the characters hooked me so I’ll be reading more. 

Full review here:

We Learn by Writing: The Warden by Anthony Trollope

Pietr the Latvian (Inspector Maigret #1) by Georges Simenon

 “Inside every wrong-doer and crook there lives a human being. What he waited and watched out for was the crack in the wall, the instant when the human being comes out from behind the opponent.” — Georges Simenon describing Inspector Maigret from Pietr the Latvian 

This is the first book in the long running Inspector Maigret series by Belgian author Georges Simenon. After being notified that international criminal Pietr the Latvian is traveling to Paris, Inspector Maigret attempts to apprehend him. Things go wrong right away Maigret and begins searching through Paris for the criminal. 

Around the halfway point I put the book down and started wondering if anything other than following suspects around Paris was going to happen. I immediately picked the book back up, read a few more paragraphs and got my answer. Well played Mr. Simenon, well played. I was hooked. The rest of the book was a real page turner. 

All the questions that were brought up in the first half get answered throughout the second half. While the first half felt like a standard mystery or police procedural, the second half felt more like crime noir. One scene I particularly liked had Maigret interact with a suspect in a bar with no dialogue. While no words were spoken the encounter was still very intense. 

It’s a minor point but one thing I found distracting was the use of exclamation points. They’re used quite a lot. I was curious as to why there were so many but then I read the following from an article in The Guardian by Rupert Davies:

“The character of Maigret is introduced in Pietr the Latvian (1930). It’s a novel that bears some of the hallmarks of the hundreds of pulp novels Simenon had written in the previous years (a surfeit of action and exclamation marks), and this embryonic manifestation of Maigret is more of the alpha-male action hero than in the later novels…”

Aha!

At only 162 pages it was a quick read. I believe the other books are all around the same length. Apparently Mr. Simenon wrote them so each one could be read in a single sitting. 

There are 75 books in the series and 28 short stories. I’m looking forward to reading more.