book ends

short reviews of books from December

December reading is an entire mood. Because of the unavoidable hubbub of everything happening in December, the reading life feels like the one place where you can choose peace and enjoyment and actually rely upon it happening! I always feel quite incapable of cracking open a huge tome or beginning some piece of important literary fiction in December. My racing brain filled with everything left to do, gifts to buy, shopping lists for dinners, etc etc etc, only allow the most comforting of books and authors to be read. This December I was again reaching for my favourite authors whose books I have on my shelves and I’m actually quite pleased with how many I read and enjoyed over the Advent and Christmas season, a couple eked into January.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

I must read at least one Agatha Christie a year, and this was my second just because there is nothing more comforting than a cozy mystery. I think it has been at least 20 years since I read this title, Christie’s first mystery and very first Poirot! Taking place during The Great War, and written just after her experience working at a war hospital pharmacy, I found it so nice to see Christie’s real life knowledge of poison put to work as the murder weapon in Styles. This is almost a perfect mystery structurally, I found it so interesting how little Poirot actually had in way of dialogue, but any reader can see his character leap off the page as something wholly original. I also appreciated seeing Christie’s early writing now with a bit more knowledge of her life and different writing styles, and to compare it to her development as she wrote for four more decades. Some aspects of her writing never changed, but I do think she gained in nuance and subtlety over the course of her writing especially when it came to crafting characters and their moral voices.

Symposium by Muriel Spark

I feel like the biggest Muriel Spark apologist out there, but her writing style is just so unique and good that it’s hard to stop me from going on and on about it! She’s terrifically funny, but also dark and morbid, never shying away from gruesome deaths or crime. Her characters are precise and realistic, but endlessly quirky. She always writes about human nature and its propensity towards sin, but usually in completely bizarre ways. Normal life becomes dramatic and important under her pen, and what appears to be a boring, fastidious character can turn out to be a wickedly twisted character and vice versa. Again. I could go on. Symposium is Spark’s expert look at marriage and the myriad of ways our own selfishness creeps in and the extensive ripple effects this causes. The story begins and ends with a dinner party and the lives of the guests are told through flashbacks that connect the guests but also expose their inner weaknesses. There is a sensational scene where Spark describes a progressive order of nuns that can’t be missed, and of course, a completely fabulous ending. This was the first time I read this novel, but as soon as I finished I wanted to begin again to try to see how she did it. I could go on…

Strong Poison by Dorothy Sayers

Once I was on my favourite author streak I just decided to lean in and read a Sayers too! This is the sixth in the Lord Peter Wimsey series and the first book where Harriet Vane is introduced as she is being tried for the murder of her ex-boyfriend. The premise of this novel is one of the best and I always remember the fantastic scenes of Lord Peter visiting Harriet in jail and declaring his love for her! I always forget just how many gosh darn pages Sayers gives to secretaries actually doing the detecting work. I know this shouldn’t bother me, but it does. I just don’t understand why she would give almost half of a Lord Peter novel, and the bulk of the actual clue finding, to secretaries who we never see again. I forget about them every single time, but as a reading experience itself I find it infuriating and I really want to ask Dorothy what the heck she was doing. Other than the secretaries, the mystery itself is a good one and I like the different avenues it takes to trying to find evidence for Lord Peter’s theory, but the most memorable part of this book will always be the beginning of Lord Peter and Harriet’s love story.

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

This was my most serious read of the month, Chinua Achebe’s tale of a Nigerian man, Okonkwo, at the precipice of colonialism in Africa. Although a difficult read to get into, this book really blew me away with how powerfully Achebe brings together the death of a culture and the life of one man. The writing is so well done that the reader is confronted with not an idealized, otherworldly encounter with African culture, but a realistic one with good and bad. A culture that has things worth fighting for, but also one with deep flaws that impact individuals. Then the cataclysm of colonialism as a climax to Okonkwo’s life is told painfully but meticulously. I’m glad I read this along with the

Close Reads HQ

podcast because it really helped me not feel overwhelmed by the difficulty, and to appreciate the subtle but important ways Achebe brings this story to life.

And that’s it. I really need to get back on the audiobook train, I don’t know how I’ve fallen off of it so badly but it does really help me to read more and to use my listening to more wisely. Hopefully in January I’ll succeed!

Let me know if you’ve read any of these titles and any other good books you’ve read lately!