Books Read While Travelling, October and November 2024

Another tardy bookpost, this one accompanied with photos of bookstores and booksellers I saw in Belgrade. . .

Once again, the different pace of travelling has me squishing two months’ reading into one book post, and my entries for each book are mostly limited to basic bibliographic information. I hope that I’ll get back to my regular practice in the new year, perhaps even finish out these last few weeks of December by writing fuller entries in my paper Reading Journal.

Right now, that seems dubious, but last night I got my second or third night of decent sleep, an indication that “normal life” will resume. Still, my recent reading for December — which I will do my best to tell you more about in the new year — is representative of the juggling and jiggling my neurons have had to do over the last weeks of our trip and my first week home. I’d been reading another of Antonio Manzini’s Rocco Schiavone novels while in Rome, wanting to keep my Italian powered up, but then put it aside, mystery unsolved, about a third of the pages still unread, in favour of a French novel when we headed for French-speaking Marrakech.

I dipped back into the Manzini for a couple of chapters on returning to Rome, but then picked up a big juicy French novel (Valérie Perrin’s Tata) for the train ride to Nice, then on to Paris. I was still reading that on the plane home, and sank gratefully into my comfortable couch here with it — while also continuing to absorb a chapter at a time of Gabor Maté’s important book, The Myth of Normal. Back to Manzini’s Pulvis et Umbra once I finished Tata, wanting to ramp up my Italian again before going back to my Saturday morning classes in the new year (cannot believe that new year is just around the corner! Again!).

I’ve just finished Pulvis et Umbra, and after these months of moving between three languages (often at the expense of comprehension and clear articulation of my thoughts!), I’m ready to dive into a mystery or two, written in English. An armchair palate cleanser to clear out the year . . . A different kind of book than Italo Calvino gave us in If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller — his wonderfully readerly masterpiece of metafiction — but just what this reading traveller wants for the upcoming winter’s nights ahead. (I wrote about Calvino’s book, which I read in the original Italian but is readily available in English translation, in this post. Scroll down for #91, Se una notte d’inverno un viaggatore — my comments on the book are in English, of course!).

Yes, it’s true. After taxing my brain with reading in other languages, I want to relax into lighter — but still satisfyingly engaging — fare in English. So if you too are looking for something to relax with after all the shopping, cleaning, decorating, giftwrapping, baking, party-ing, etc. . . . you’ll find something here as well.

The usual proviso applies:

I say this every book post now, for those who are new here and as a reminder to regular readers: As usual, the numbering comes from my annual handwritten reading journal, and the italicized text below is directly transcribed from that journal’s pages (once upon a time, I simply included photographs of those pages, but too many of you found my handwriting tough to decipher, especially in the photographed format). Notes to myself, that is, so that I can remember a book and remember my response to it, rather than any attempt at a more polished, edited review.

I’ve used regular font for any additions to my journal notes and included references to any posts from my Instagram Reading account.

October Reading

69. The Last Word. Elly Griffiths. Mystery novel; Harbinder Kaur, detective; LGBTQ characters; Senior/elderly detective; set in Sussex, England.

The book I got free in the Buy Two, Get a Third Free at that WH Smith in Paddington Station months and countries ago. A standalone novel, but features characters we’ve met in Harbinder Kaur series, characters who began as amateur detectives investigating the suspicious death of an elderly friend — these characters having now formed a detective agency of their own. As in The Postscript Murders, Edwin and Natalka are once again suspicious of a writer’s death . . . and their suspicions are followed by more deaths and more writerly skullduggery. . .

70. The Paris Novel. Ruth Reichl. Romance; Coming-of-Age; Food; Fashion/Style; Paris; Young Female Protagonist.

Being able to download and read, while faraway, an e-book I’ve had on hold forever, such a magical connection to my home library. I’d been gradually working my way through Antonio Manzini’s Ah l’ amore, l’amore, another Rocco Schiavone book, and much as I was enjoying that, I was charmed to get ready for my end-of-trip days in Paris via food critic Ruth Reichl’s delightful foray into fiction. (I wrote about her memoir Save Me the Plums in this post).

You can listen to NPR’s Scott Simon interview Ruth Reichl about this book (or read the transcript of that interview by clicking on this link

71. Ah, l’amore, l’amore. Antonio Manzini. Mystery/Crime; Giallo; Police procedural; Rocco Schiavone series; set in Valle d’Aosta, Italy.

I continue to make my way through this series, although I have trouble finding a clear indication of the order in which to read them. I suspect I’ve read this out of sequence, but eventually I may piece them all together 😉

In this volume, Rocco is confined to hospital after life-saving surgery, and both gratitude and boredom compel him to investigate the accusation of negligence against his surgeon. Apt, witty, observant descriptions of hospital conditions and ample humour arising from Rocco’s particular combination of impatience and unwillingness to be polite — or to follow rules, for that matter.

Also fun to track the various permutations of l’Amore, l’Amore in the plot. . .

Apparently, this volume is the basis of an episode or two in Season 5 of the Tv series (available with English subtitles, I believe, although I’ve never seen it).

72. Black Butterflies. Priscilla Morris. Historical fiction; Bosnian war; Sarajevo.

Here’s what I wrote about this book on my Instagram reading account:

Let’s see if I can get back on track with posting here. Just finished Priscilla Morris’s Black Butterflies (shortlisted for last year’s Women’s Fiction Prize. My daughter passed this on to me just after I got back from a week in Belgrade: novel about a Serbian woman, a renowned artist and teacher, caught in Sarajevo without her family (her husband and her frail elderly mother have gone to visit her daughter’s family in England for the elderly woman’s health while she has had to remain at home for work) when war broke out there in the early 90s. Especially after we’d just visited Serbia’s capital, this hit hard.

Very moving (and disturbing, alarming) account of how quickly what we take for granted can dissolve — in this case, when nationalism stirs up old enmities. There is beauty, love, and hope in the narrative, and insightful observations about the difficult choices that must be made. Despair, deep sadness, alongside something I don’t quite want to call resilience—for fear that such a noun dismisses, even erases, all that is lost.

And yes, we saw much in Belgrade to suggest that the embers of those old hatreds still flicker….

November

73. La Disparition d’Herve Snout. Olivier Bordaçarre. Mystery; Roman policier; Satire/Social Critique; Domestic Fiction; Vegetarian vs. Meat-Eating.

I wrote this on my Instagram post (in my reading account):

I downloaded this to my Kobo when we were packing for Marrakech. . . I find reading a French novel is a good way to get my brain ready for hearing and speaking the language (especially after being in Italy for three months!).

I chose the book because it was a prize-winning literary roman policier available as an ebook. As much “literary fiction” as mystery, in fact. But under the magnifying glass: bourgeois family life, adolescent alienation, horrors of the modern abattoir and our meat-focussed culture. Graphically gruesome in parts, cynical in others, it is beautifully and cleverly written — and offers some moving images of humanity’s potential, of the small communities that nurture hope.

Recommended with proviso (“graphically gruesome in parts”! Will insist you think!). Watch for this to be translated to English if you don’t read French.

74. The Last Devil to Die. Richard Osman. Mystery novel; Thursday Murder Club series.

Paul picked this one up at Fiumicino airport (we were en route to Marrakech) when he had problems connecting his ereader to his library account. It’s the fourth book in the Thursday Murder Club series, and I would have preferred not to read it until I’d finished the second and third (I wrote a bit about the first in the series in my last book post). But we had some very lazy days to fill in Marrakech, and I knew my suitcase was already full, so I read it instead of packing it, and hope I haven’t spoiled the earlier books for myself.

And it was the right book for the moment, as it turns out. There are some beautiful and insightful passages about bereavement and grief in the novel, passages that I was reading even while corresponding with a close friend about her husband’s recent death. Especially since the series takes place in a retirement home where a small group of the elderly residents have chosen for their “hobby” the solving of mysterious deaths, the books often reflect on aspects of life in our last decade or two, and illness, dementia, and bereavement. I won’t say more for fear of spoiling the plot for those who haven’t read this yet, but I highly recommend it.

And, honestly, I still wish I’d squeezed this into my suitcase — I snapped photos of a few passages I especially appreciated, but this might even be a book I’d reread.

75. The French Ingredient: Making a Life in Paris One Lesson at a Time. Jane Bertch. Memoir; Paris Ex-pat life; Bold career change; Foodie culture.

Another library hold that became available at just the right time, letting me relax into English but also beat the train (virtually, that is!) to Paris 😉 You might want to make the same trip, sitting right in your armchair at home. Well-written, entertaining memoir about the challenges of working and living in Paris without having much French to begin with — and then the newer, bolder challenge of letting go of a secure position to risk all on an audacious business idea.

Okay, that’s it for my October and November reading — and I’ve mostly caught up with the books I read over these last four months of travel. New Year’s resolution ahead: To get back on track with my Reading Journal and my book posts.

But meanwhile, I’m also keen to hear what you’ve been reading — and, if we’ve read any of the same books, feel free to give me your perspective.

Or perhaps just answer a question or two for me, given the time of year:

What is your favourite book to give this holiday season (and feel free to qualify, as to recipient, etc.)?

What book would you love to find wrapped and beribboned underneath the tree?

Or — variation on the above — which hardbound New Release would you gift yourself (indulgently, usually you’d borrow from the library). For example, I borrow most of the mysteries from the library, occasionally buying one that’s out in paperback. But I love to sink into the latest novel by a favourite writer in a hardcover version. I’ll be picking out that book from a favourite bookstore next week in a traditional pre-Christmas outing with my husband. . . .

xo,

f