My Reading List for 2019

Click here to see the 204 books I read in 2019. Every year I list my challenge goal on Goodreads.com as 111 books because I’m too lazy to determine a more meaningful goal. I usually make it. In 2019 I almost doubled it.

Not all were books. Some short stories (as short as a single page) which I read in order to vote intelligently for the 2019 Hugo Awards. Well, I read what I voted on. I also read at least two works not listed, one of them over 300 pages long. The shorter was “‘No Pagan ever loved his god’: Tolkien, Thompson, and the beautification of the Gods,” by Megan Fontenot, available here. The longer was the unpublisher (yet) The Girl in the Wall by Dr. Helen Foster, which she honored me by requesting to beta read. A great, based-on-real-events story about World War Two spies and … if I tell you more I’ll spoil it. Hopefully, you’ll have the opportunity to read it someday.

This year’s list was swelled by my straight-through reading of Ellis Peter‘s twenty Chronicles of Brother Cadfael. I read history, biography, science fiction and fantasy. I found several good works analyzing the work of J.R.R. Tolkien, each reviewed separately.

I am grateful to live at a time and place where I can read pretty much whatever I want. It wasn’t always so; it may not always be so.

Book Review: And Then the Town Took Off by Richard Wilson (Three Stars)

Book Review: And Then the Town Took Off by Richard Wilson

(Three Stars)

“Behold,” he said. “Something Columbus couldn’t find. The edge of the world.”

For its time, published in 1960, innovative science fiction. Characters and plot are mediocre. Pop corn for the mind then and now. Not politically correct by current standards.

“The old town’s really come up in the world, hasn’t it?” “Overnight.”

Pattern for many subsequent science fiction tales, though in most the patch of earth is displaced temporally, not spatially.

“That sums up why you’ve never been a howling success in politics. You don’t give a damn for the people. All you care about is yourself.” Refreshing; today it’s a given that

Book Review: Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor (Three Stars)

Book Review: Just One Damned Thing After Another (The Chronicles of St. Mary’s #1) by Jodi Taylor

(Three Stars)

“Gripping the edge of the console, I shouted, ‘No, no, no, no!’ and began to thump the panel. Strangely, this failed to work at all.

A fun time travel fantasy told from the point of view of a “disaster magnet” protagonist, who is too stupid to live. Unfortunately, it’s those around her who die. Fascinating to see what new ways she invents to endanger herself and everyone around her.

“Always nice to see someone who’s even more of a disaster magnet than I am. ‘Maybe we’ll cancel each other out,’ he whispered. ‘Like white noise.’ Fat chance!”

Perky, snide inner voice which adds perspective as well as humor. Clear, conversational prose propels the reader forward; that and curiosity of

Boxing Day in Virginia 2019

With the mercury hoovering just below freezing, we were treated to a soft, glowing dawn in central Virginia.

For the first time in quite a while, my “to read” pile is a physical pile. Usually I read e-books on my cell phone and tablet; with a different book open on each. Generally, I read on the tablet at home and on the cell phone when I’m out.

First, I must make pancakes for the visiting grandchildren.

Book Review: Squanto, Friend of the Pilgrims by Clyde Robert Bulla (Three Stars)

Book Review: Squanto, Friend of the Pilgrims by Clyde Robert Bulla

(Three Stars)

“The Indian boy lay hidden in the tall grass.”

Sugar-coated version of contact between native Americans and English explorers and settlers. A young reader’s book published in 1954. Disregarding all the historical inaccuracies—not to mention politically incorrect vocabulary—it still serves its function to entertain as well as, perhaps, encourage further reading.

Little is actually known about the native American who, speaking English, welcomed the Pilgrims at what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts. Intense journalists that the Pilgrims were, his role with them is well documented. Before that, not so much. Bulla’s version is supported

Book Review: “‘No Pagan ever loved his god’: Tolkien, Thompson, and the beautification of the Gods,” by Megan Fontenot (Five Stars)

Review: “‘No Pagan ever loved his god’: Tolkien, Thompson, and the beautification of the Gods,” by Megan Fontenot

(Five Stars)

“We, who love the gods, do not worship them. The ancients, who worshipped the gods, did not love them. Whence is this?” Thompson

An insightful investigation of the influence of Catholic mystic Francis Thompson on the worldview and writings of J. R. R. Tolkien. Because not only the ancient pagans but modern Christians no longer love their god, this investigation reverberates with immediacy. Not that Tolkien agreed with Thompson at every step, but that Thompson may have introduced some themes and conclusions Tolkien spent his life exploring.

“We are grown older and must face the fact. The poetry of these old things remains being immortal, but no longer for us is the intoxication of both poetry and belief.” Tolkien

Fontenot’s award-winning essay is written as if to discourage readers. Eschewing simple, straight-forward wording, she tortures the reader with convoluted sentences common to academia.

“Elves are there (in Tolkien’s tales) to demonstrate the difference” between “the devices and operations of the enemy” (magic), and “those of the Elves,” and that “their ‘magic’ is Art, delivered from many of its human limitations: more effective, more quick, more complete. And its object is Art not Power.”

Read it anyway. It’s worth the effort. Quotes from the essay may give a feel for the scope of the essay, but neither this review nor the excerpts to justice to the richness of the work.

“Absolute Nature not in our life, now yet is lifeless, but lives in the life of God: and in so far, and so far merely, as man himself lives in that life, does he come into sympathy with Nature, and Nature with him.” Thompson

“I think that … he understands his impulse to appropriate pagan stories as the impulse toward redemption. To find the good and true at the heart of paganism, in this framework, is to participate in the work of redemption and evangelium—but throughout time rather than space.” Fontenot

“All tales may come true; and yet, at the last, redeemed, they may be as like and as unlike the forms that we give them as Man, finally redeemed, will be like and unlike the fallen that we know.” Tolkien

Movie Review: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, produced, co-written, and directed by J. J. Abrams (Five Stars)

Movie Review: Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker, produced, co-written, and directed by J. J. Abrams

(Four Stars)

“Some things are stronger than blood.”

Redemption. This story, indeed the entire Star Wars trilogy of trilogies, is about redemption. What you were does not determine who you are. (Your last movie need not condemn your next.) Certain critics may demur with good cause, but for the casual viewer it’s good enough.

“You were a spice runner? “You were a stormtrooper.”

This may not be the movie George Lucas would have made, but he whiffed a few himself. It is an appropriate and satisfying conclusion to the series he started over four decades ago. Is it really five stars? No, but I rounded up. I saw the original Star Wars movie within a week of its initial release. I’m relieved as well as satisfied.

“Who’s ever ready?”

Technically overpowering. Too loud, too many special effects, too fast. Who cares? Cameos? Lots. Some surprises. The nerds will go crazy. Hopefully that’s good.

“They won by making you think you are alone.”

Hard to say too much without spoiling. Even the apparent spoilers of the previews, out of context, don’t necessarily reveal what they seem. One spoiler: long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away, the end is not necessarily the end.

“The Force will be with you.” “Always.”

Book Review: Hazardous Duty by Christy Barritt (Three Stars)

Book Review: Hazardous Duty (Squeaky Clean Mysteries #1) by Christy Barritt

(Three Stars)

“Look, Nancy Drew. This isn’t your case.”

Great concept: agnostic crime scene investigator wantabee who dropped out of school because of family necessity starts crime scene cleanup firm. Unfortunately, both the writing and the plot fail to deliver. Needed another editing, especially of her philosophic musings. Good sense of place and time. Nice, relevant cover art.

“I didn’t want to be a know-it-all. I really didn’t. My best friend in college had been one, which drove me crazy, especially considering I knew more than she did.”

Gabby is an unsympathetic protagonist, perhaps not intentionally. She is stubborn and stupid. By rights she should have been dead several times.

“So far you’re the only sane one I’ve met.” “And I’m covered in ash, smell like smoke, and clean up after murders.” “My standards of sane are really low.”

The supporting cast is good, if they tend toward clichés. The action is questionable. For example, the story opens with Gabby pulling skull fragments from a wall. What CSI team would have left that behind? Not to mention oddly-placed droplets of blood.

“Who needed details when you had an imagination like mine?’

Quibbles: “Bottle-cap glasses”? Her heart throb of the moment flees to his fiancé’s home state? Gabby jumps to so many conclusions she should have been in the Olympics.

“Don’t leave the state or do anything stupid.” “Understood.” “Which part? The leaving or the stupid, because I don’t think you have a lot of control over the latter.”

The inevitable come-to-Jesus climax feels contrived. Whose plea for divine intervention as she’s being murdered meanders into theology and qualification? Not “Please Lord, help me. If you really are up there, like my friends say you are, I want to know you.”

Book Review: Brother Cadfael’s Penance (Chronicles of Brother Cadfael #20) by Ellis Peters (Five Stars)

Book Review: Brother Cadfael’s Penance (Chronicles of Brother Cadfael #20) by Ellis Peters

(Five Stars)

“We are born of the fathers we deserve, and they engender the sons they deserve. We are our own penance and theirs.”

An excellent close to the Chronicles. Pargeter ties off several threads, but leaves enough dangling to tantalize the reader, even as she probably knew she would not write further. She died the year after this volume was published.

“What would be called constant in the father would be more truly stubborn in the son.”

Many of the ensemble characters from the series are allowed their swan song; and Cadfael, sometime crusader, monastic, healer, and lately-learned father, makes one last journey of faith. Along the way, he stumbles onto

Book Review: Ordained Irreverence by McMillian Moody (Three Stars)

Book Review: Ordained Irreverence (Elmo Jenkins #1) by McMillian Moody

(Three Stars)

“I felt like the refuse of the rich and famous. If this is what it was going to be like working full-time in a church, I didn’t want anything to do with it.”

An engaging funny, and at the same time sad opening to a series about a young man becoming a Baptist minister. (The denomination is only mentioned once or twice, but it’s obvious from internal evidence.) Moody captures many internal dynamics which are true of all bureaucratic organizations, especially those with undue power an influence vested in those who have their own