November Reading List

 The count creeps up - nine books read this month.

The Lightkeeper by Susan Wiggs is one of her earlier books and does not compare to the books she writes now.

All The Devils Are Here by Louise Penny is her 16th novel in the Chief Inspector Gamache series. The setting for this book is Paris, a departure from familiar Three Pines and Canada. The Gamaches are visiting their children and grandchildren as well as Gamache's godfather. When the godfather is killed in a hit and run accident, Gamache knows it was deliberate and sets out to prove the man was murdered.

Soon the whole family is involved in intrigue. Penny is a master mystery writer and this is one of her best books yet. Of course I say that about all her books. 

a family of strangers by Emilie Richards begins with one sister asking another for help when she becomes a suspect in a murder and ends with the unravelling of a family because of the secrets it kept. 

The Searcher is Tana French's latest novel and my favorite of her's so far, also my #1 read this month. I love books set in Ireland and this one really, really makes me wish I could go back there again. French is my new 'Adopted Author' at the local library, so I won't miss any of her books from now on.

The Book Of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate - I hadn't read Wingate for several years, but could not resist the cover of her latest offering. This is an interesting, well-written novel told in alternating time periods of post-Civil War South and present time in the same small town. 

Dead Ringer is #8 in Lisa Scottoline's 'Rosato & Associates' series and the first of her's I've read since July. I've been reading my way through all these. I really like all the smart, funny, fallible women of this law firm.

Divine Right's Trip by Gurney Norman is sub-titled 'ANovel of the Counterculture' and was sent to me by my son Douglas. The story of Divine Right, who goes by D.R., and his hippy-painted, 1963 VW microbus named Urge, first appeared in somewhat different form in the 1971 The Last Whole Earth Catalog, which is where Doug and I first read it. We were both big fans of the catalog and huge fans of Divine Right and Urge. I was not even aware there was a more complete book until Doug sent it to me for my birthday. Reading it brought back memories of a time in our lives when we were very close.

The Silent Wife is the latest (#10) in Karin Slaughter's 'Will Trent' series. I used to think Kathy Reichs' books were so good because of the forensics investigation, but Slaughter's is so much better and she is a better writer, in my opinion. Book #10 takes us back eight years to some of Jeffrey Tolliver's cases and a, possibly, wrong conviction. It appears a serial killer is still out there and forensics proves it. 

Killer Smile is Lisa Scottoline's next 'Rosato & Associates' book (#9) and features my favorite associate of the all female firm, Mary DiNunzio. For the first time ever, this South Philly Italian-American, goes way out of her comfort zone, all the way to Montana, to research the 1942 death of an Italian immigrant interned there during WWII, even though his American-born son was serving in the Army. While there, Mary learned "If you can't be brave, be determined. And you'll end up in the same place." Good advice. 

I found this copy of The Last Whole Earth Catalog listed on eBay for $49.99. I remember our's being in a much more used shape.

I think it went with Doug when he moved to his own place. Later I found another copy at a garage sale for two or three dollars. I don't know what eventually happened to that copy.

It would be interesting to read one of these again. 

A paragraph from An Afterward at the end of Norman's book gives you an idea of what The Last Whole Earth Catalog was and how Divine Right's Trip was a part of it.

"Divine Right's Trip originally appeared in tiny segments threaded through Stewart Brand's The Last Whole Earth Catalog, that hugely successful (National Book Award, sales of almost two million, etc.) California-based mail-order supermarket of the counterculture, one segment of DRT in the lower right-hand corner of every right-hand page, amidst a cornucopia of survivalist gear, handtools, Moog synthesizers, environmentalist hectoring, geodisic dome blueprints, psychedelic desiderata, tie-dye cook books, VW repair manuals, anarchistic social manifestoes ... all the myriad toys, trappings, and indispensables of what was called, in the hippest argot of the day, the Alternative Lifestyle."