There will be a general life update
Somewhen. But considering the new job starts tomorrow who knows when I'll have time to read and write about what I read again. (OK, the former probably on my commute. The latter...shrug-emoji). So let's get the backlog out of the way.
Agatha Christie's idiot spies aka the Tommy & Tuppence Books
The series is less popular than her others, possibly because it's harder to film a series about a couple that's 20ish in book one and 70ish in the last one than a Miss Marple or a Poirot who are eternally...whatever. Well, and who reads books anymore? (Not me. At least I consumed the entire series in audiobook-format).
I already mentioned the first book, The Secret Adversary (spying during WWI), in my last entry and I admit it was a bit meh. Tommy and Tuppence were charming, but they were also big idiots. In N or M (spying during WWII) they were less idiotic...but actually fooled me (and the bad guys) successfully into thinking they were massive idiots for a moment so that was nice. The next one, By The Pricking of my Thumbs, contains zero spying and is just a nice classic mystery. I'm always there for nice classic mysteries. And the relationship between them is just so nice? Tommy is all: "my lovely wife, you're being weird again but I know you well enough that you're usually on to something when you're being weird so let me help you figuring it out." Then Postern of Fate is set in the 1960s and has them figuring out an old mystery that turns into an old spy-ish story, featuring *ominous drumroll* people who would kill to keep those old secrets buried. For my opinion: see above. Tommy is the "Not all men. You're right Thomas Beresford would never do that" meme.
And then there's Partners in Crime. A short story collection about them, set between WWI and WWII in which they acquire a detective agency because of reasons and solve cases. The quirk about it is, that each story is the parody of a different detective that was popular at the time: there's a Sherlock Holmes one, a Father Brown one, one of Baroness Orczy's Old Man in the corner...now the idea is fun but you might be surprised to learn that I don't know every fictional detective (pause for shocked faces all round) and a parody of something where you don't know the original is only mildly funny. However: when I say parody, I mean they actually namedrop the story they are parodying. Tommy says "I shall be Sherlock Holmes this time" or dresses up as Catholic priest or pretends to be blind. And in the final story of the collection? He's Hercule Poirot. And yes, he does actually say "Today I'll be Poirot". That's an admirable audacity and I love it (and it makes me almost forget the casual period- and genre-typical xenophobia that runs through these stories. Beware of Russians and Germans :O)
More spies and posh murder:
E. Phillips Oppenheim - The Great Impersonation
In the first chapter we witness a meeting between Englishman Everard Dominey and oddly spelled German Baron von Ragastein who went to school together and who look so much alike that they could be twins. Then we learn that Ragastein is a German spy and he plans to kill Dominey, take his place and infiltrate British society. In the next chapter, we're back in Britain and Dominey is welcomed there, though many people remark on how much he has changed. So which of the two has returned? What are the odds that a spy-story by an English author is going to have a German spy, working against the Brits as the main character?
But the book is written in a way as if it is a mystery. We only learn in the last chapter. Before that there are lots of secret spy meetings, people insisting Dominey has changed a lot, people insisting Dominey can't possibly be Dominey, people being sure it's him because he knows things only he could know, Dominey solving a different murder mystery that is at least somewhat less predictable than the spy plot and women who are all either crazy, hot, evil or several/all of the above and all are obsessed with Dominey for one reason or the other.
And the thing is: I think I wouldn't even have minded that too much if it had gone "Yup. Here's Everard Dominey, who's pretending to be Baron von Ragastein who's pretending to be him. Let's watch him trying to do that and possibly show some slight worry if Ragastein's girlfriend turns up and complicates things a lot." But it doesn't. So we get a bunch of characters without any depth, in a very predictable spy-story, solving a not quite as predictable mystery.
The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes: A Collection of Victorian-Era Detective Stories
Not all the stories in this collection are Victorian. I would also argue that not all the characters are Rivals of Sherlock Holmes. One of them is extremely racist even for the time. There is only a short introduction that mainly tells you that Doyle wasn't the only one to write detective stories but no explanation as to why these exact stories were included and why they were put in that order. It promises "stories from all over the world" which means England, the USA and France because those are really the only important places. But it did feature a Baroness Orczy story I didn't hate so there's that.
Maggie Sefton - Who's Sorry Now?
Book two in the charming "Widowed Lady Adelaide has to solve crimes with the ghost of her husband who died when he crashed the car in which he was together with his mistress which is slightly awkward for everyone involved" series. It is as charming as book one, has actual diversity (the LI of Adelaide is Anglo-Indian and there's a gay couple. They're jerks but they're jerks not because they're gay but because they're also rich white guys and they get a happy end).
I'm actually reading German books, you know
Like Bruce Alexander - Der Zorn des Gerechten...which is a translation of Watery Grave a historical mystery. Or perhaps rather a historical novel in which the main character happens to solve a crime. Or not. It's not really complicated but a bit tedious. I didn't hate it, especially considering the narrator is an old man who tells a story about the time he was a teenager which I usually find extremely obnoxious. The idea is nice overall: the narrator is the sort of adopted son of Sir John Fielding, who was an actual historical person. In reality, he was the blind judge who more or less founded the Bow Street Runners, the first police force in London. In the books he and the narrator also solve crime. This is actually right up my alley but I did not enjoy this specific case they were solving for various reasons. I might try one of the other books in the series, but it's not high on my to-do list.
In actual real German books, I read Herkunft (Origin) by Saša Stanišić. The author was born in then-Yugoslavia-now-Bosnia, and his family fled to Germany during the war. Herkunft is...not really an autobiography and perhaps not even really a memoir. It's not chronological, it also features stories about his relatives that happened before Stanišić was born and the epilogue is a choose-your-own-adventure story. It makes sense in context. It's weird. It's about family and home and growing up and friendships and also tries to talk about today's refugee-situation which is all a bit much, perhaps also because - see above - it's not really chronological, only a series of anecdote-ish stories that are sometimes only two pages long and sometimes he jumps from rather sad and depressing observations to more light-hearted ones which makes it hard to...idk feel the whole impact. But that's not always the case and overall I really enjoyed the book and am looking forward to the other Stanišić-book I have on my tbr-pile (How The Soldier Stole the Gramophone which btw has already been translated into English. Herkunft is being translated afaik)
Stories about love and stuff
Georgette Heyer - Masquerades
A brother and a sister are on the run because they and their father were on the wrong side of the Jacobean rising. They have the glorious idea to dress up...as sister and brother. What was planned as a short stint just to get them to France where they would stay until things had calmed down, turns into a longer Masquerade because of plot reasons and then love gets involved and things get really complicated. Now the thing is: of course a romance from that time could only be a very cis and heterosexual one but reading a book about a man and a woman who both have to dress up as the other gender for most of the book so makes me wish that it would have been queer somehow. And of course, it's unfair to judge a book for that but I also can't help it. Perhaps I would have minded less if the romance had been better but while the siblings were lovely, their love interests were a bit meh.
Anne Bronte - The Tennant of Wildfell Hall
More books of deep literary merit I was shamed into reading. Anne is the forgotten Bronte but some people insist she's actually the best and most feminist of them. I sort of understand both of these things. Because the book is raging against the idea that it's a woman's duty to 'fix' her husband. That if she's good enough her husband will only gamble and drink in moderation (because a man has to have some fun) and not cheat on her (or perhaps at least only do it discreetly). So, the books shows us an unfixable husband and a pure wife. But for the moral of all men are trash to work the woman has to be beyond pure. Helen's only reaction to her husband's emotional abuse and philandering is 'Oh how unchristian of you' and she doesn't want to leave him for her own sake but just because she worries about him ruining their son's character as well. She even returns to care for him when he falls ill presumably because just popping in to say "finally you get what you deserve, I hope you rot in hell" would have proven that she wasn't pure and good after all and that she couldn't have saved that poor man who is incapable of telling right from wrong on his own. And that is a slightly frustrating read. Very slightly. And it's not helped by the fact that the next dude Helen falls in love with...is also an asshole who does not understand the concept of boundaries but it's somehow *~*romantic*~*. So...I doubt I'll re-read that book ever. But I am somewhat tempted to check out the movie version for the lolz and Toby Stephens and Rupert Graves trying to out-do each other in their But I'm a nice guy vibes
Casey McQuiston - Red White & Royal Blue
I picked this one up about six months ago, read about half of it, put it aside then took it with me on a longish train journey where I was first forced to read it (more or less...it was that or pick one of the multitude of books on my Kindle which would have required *~*making a decision*~*) and then used every free minute to read the final quarter or so. So I guess you could say the pacing didn't quite work out for me. Kay described it as Vanilla Caramel Latte and I agree with that assessment but would like to add that it's a very Venti Latte and I prefer my sugar shocks to be more...medium-sized. So in an odd turn of events, I think that would have worked better as novella. The first half was mostly teeth-rotting fluff with occasional good things to say about life, the universe and everything and shows a nice image of a less crappy world than our current one but otherwise...with not much substance. The second half still had lots of witty banter for the sake of witty banter but also plot and beautiful Disney-esque Love conquers all scenes that made me all teary-eyed. It's not quite a full-book comfort read but I might re-read a couple of scenes when in the mood for some sweet caramel.
Non-fiction
Bruce Robinson - They All Love Jack
Ahh yes. The actor-turned-director that gave us this masterpiece (seriously I love that movie dearly) wrote a book about Jack The Ripper. I so wanted to love it. Or at least enjoy it but I didn't. I'm also too lazy to copy my whole Goodreads review including all the formatting and links over here so if you are curious about my old favourite pastime that is "yelling at bad books about Jack the Ripper" you have to click here.
Frances Welch - The Russian Court at Sea: The Voyage of HMS Marlborough
A book about the sea-journey into exile of the last remaining Romanovs (including the dowager empress, the Czar's sister and everyone's favourite chaotic bisexual Prince Yusupov). Generally, an interesting topic but a badly executed idea. The book wants to tell of the journey day by day. Which means we get dropped into the middle of the action and then have extensive "but of course to understand what happened here you have to understand the relationship of those two people and for that I have to tell you all these things that happened twenty years before this" so we get. Things happening on the ship - backstory - more backstory - ship - more backstory...etc. and that is a rather confusing approach and despite having some background knowledge on the Romanovs I felt lost most of the time.