Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2017 Wrap-Up

I signed up for this challenge at the Renaissance Reader level wherein I agreed to read 10 books.  However, I actually read 19 books for the challenge!  Links to the reviews are as follows:

The Deadliest Sin
The Shogun's Daughter
Jade Dragon Mountain
The Tapestry
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane
Midnight in St. Petersburg
The Scribe of Siena
The Tea Planter's Wife
The River of Kings
Valley of the Kings
The Butcher Bird
Plague Land
Pachinko
The Last Jew
The Vatican Princess
Dragon Springs Road
The Confessions of a Young Nero
The Empress of Bright Moon
The Moon in the Palace

My favorite book:  The Scribe of Siena.  This was a hard choice because I loved many of the books in this challenge.  However, this book was not only my favorite book of the challenge but my favorite book of the year.

My least favorite book:  The Valley of Kings.

2017 Reading Statistics

For most of my life I was an avid reader and for 8 years I wrote a blog called The Mystery Bookshelf on Blogger.  I know that during my blogging years I was reading between 120-130 books per year. For some reason, I just stopped reading for 4 years.  I do not know why.  I just got started reading again in 2017 and have read 81 books this year.  I am surprised that I read this many books.  In the beginning of the year I expected that I might be able to read 30-40 books if I tried hard.  I really did not know what to expect because I cannot figure out why I stopped reading.

However, I am still going to sign up for a few reading challenges next year.  I am going to skip the Craving the Cozies Reading Challenge as well as the What's in a Name Reading Challenge.  The Creativity Reading Challenge was cancelled soon after I joined earlier this year so that challenge is off also.  I am not sure about rejoining the New Author Reading Challenge.  I have found that as I search for books for other challenges I am finding new authors so there is no point in making a special effort for that challenge.  

On to 2018!

Craving the Cozies 2017 Reading Challenge Wrap Up

I signed up for this challenge at the Peckish level which required me to read 10 books.  Sadly, I only read 5 cozies.  I think that while I used to love this mystery sub-genre, it is not as interesting to me as it once was.  I still have favorite authors that I will always read such as Cleo Coyle, Laura Childs, Julie Hyzy, and Susan Wittig Albert.  However, I think that I will include these books in a mystery book reading challenge in the future since a cozy is technically a mystery.  Below are the links to the books that I read for this challenge:

The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown
The Last Chance Olive Ranch
Pekoe Most Poison
The Champagne Conspiracy
Dead Cold Brew

My Favorite Book: Dead Cold Brew!  Cleo Coyle just knows how to write a great mystery.

My Least Favorite Book:  The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown.  I just could not follow the plot and was bored to tears.

New Author Reading Challenge 2017 Wrap Up

I read 31 books from 28 new authors in 2017!  This is a great record.  The challenge did not have any required number of books to read which probably made me pull more books from my library shelf than if I was actively searching for new authors.  A subliminal message here!  Note that I did not include authors who wrote graphic novels in this category but if I had then I would have read 53 new authors this year.

The new authors that I read this year include  the following:

Suzanne Johnson:  The Photographer's Wife
Alex Berenson:  The Prisoner
Vaseem Kham:  The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown
Vanora Bennett:  Midnight in St. Petersburg
Melodie Winawer:  The Scribe of Sienna
Dinah Jeffries:  The Tea Planter's Wife
Taylor Brown:  The River of Kings
Terence Coffey:  Valley of the Kings
Tahmima Anam:  The Bones of Grace
Yoojin Grace Wuerta:  Everything Belongs to Us
S. D. Sykes:  Plague Land; The Butcher Bird
Min Jin Lee:  Pachinko; Free Food For Millionaires
Dominic Smith:  The Last Painting of Sara de Los
Shilpi Somaya Gowda:  The Golden Son
Alex Dolan:  The Empress of Tempera
Jung Yun:  Shelter
Jess Lourey:  Salem's Cipher
Sonali Dev:  A Change of Heart
Simon Beaufort:  The Killing Ship
Janie Chang:  Dragon Springs Road
Margaret George:  The Confessions of a Young Nero
Donna Bijan:  The Last Days of Cafe Leila
Weina Dai Randel:  The Empress of Bright Moon; The Moon in the Palace
Nancy Bilyeau:  The Tapestry
Elsa Hart:  Jade Dragon Mountain
Wanda Brunstetter:  The Hawaiian Quilt
Laura Joh Rowland:  The Shogun's Daughter
Minal Khan:  Silk Tether
Karen Bartlett:  The Health of Nations
Shobhan Bantwel:  The Forbidden Daughter

My Favorite New Author:  Melodie Winawer.  I have to pick her because of all of the books that I read in 2017 The Scribe of Sienna is the one book that sticks out in my head as the best book that I read.  I read this book in July and with my middle age memory being what it is, The Scribe of Sienna has to be one fantastic book for me to remember it as I do.  There were 2 other authors whose books stood out in my mind also.  Min Jin Lee who wrote Pachinko and Free Food for Millionaires and Jung Yun who wrote Shelter.  Each of these 4 books I remember the most from 2017.

My Least Favorite New Author:  Taylor Brown.  He wrote The River of Kings which I just could not get into.

Girl in Dior

Girl in Dior is the story of the rise of the fashion label Christian Dior. Intermingled into the story is that of a fictional budding journalist Clara Nohant who becomes one of Dior's models and after marrying into British royalty, a customer.

The book is supposed to be a biography of Christian Dior.  While his life is covered, the addition of a fictional character, Clara, mars the story and I do not know why the author chose to add her to the story. Clara was not necessary to write a great graphic biography.

The illustrations are exquisite.  I would love to see some of them framed on my walls. The question for many will be whether the price of the book is worth the illustrations given a botched storyline.  For me, the answer is yes.  It was the beauty of the dresses illustrated that made me buy this book.

It's hard to figure out how to rate this book.  I think anyone interested in fashion will like it because of the illustrations as well as the history of the House of Dior.  I just wish fiction wasn't added to this biography.

By Any Means

I have read all of the books in this Ash Rashid detective series and loved them all.  By Any Means was published in 2014 so I am a little behind in my reading.

In this installment of the series Ash is no longer working as a detective for the Indianapolis Police Department but has been reassigned to the community relations department. He primarily gives speeches to schools. However, on his way home from work one day he finds a car accident.  Since no other officers are available, Ash is told to stay at the scene until an officer can arrive. Ash is unable to not investigate so he begins asking questions to those who were in the area when the accident happened. He determined that these responses do not add up and begins to investigate what he feels is a homicide.

As usual, author Chris Culver outdoes himself with his writing.  It is fast paced with plenty of twists and turns and there is a cliffhanger ending. I also love that his protagonist is an American Muslim, albeit not much of a practitioner of his faith.  Ash is an alcoholic. This is a welcome addition to American fiction and normalizes the viewpoint of Muslims in our society.

A great read!

The Attack

When I bought this graphic novel I presumed it was about a terrorist attack in the Middle East, which it is.  However, the plot was much different than I expected.

Amin Jaafari is an Arab and a naturalized Israeli citizen living in Tel Aviv.  He is also a surgeon and lives a life of luxury compared to that of his fellow Arabs. When his wife Sihem is identified as a suicide bomber who killed 19 people in a restaurant, Amin has to comes to grips with how she decieved him. He had no idea that she had terrorist leanings. Amin then travels to Palestinian areas in order to discover how his secular wife became radicalized.

I loved this book. The author does not take a side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, unusual in a book taking place in the Middle East. He shows both sides along with the stress and grief that they both share in this conflict. 

Red Rosa

Kate Evans' Red Rosa is a graphic biography of Rosa Luxemburg.  I was not familiar with Luxemburg before reading this biography but I found that she was a woman ahead of her time.  Rosa was a passionate socialist who did alot of writing and speaking to educate and inspire many people to her cause. She was the only woman of her era, the early 1900s, to have this power.

She was born and raised in Poland but also lived in Germany promoting her beliefs. She was tough enough to question the beliefs and actions of both Marx and Lenin. She also did not care for society's role for women and chose not to marry, prefer to have lovers instead. She was truly a woman in control of her life and I admire that.

As a feminist myself, I was surprised that I had not heard of Rosa Luxemburg before seeing this book.  She was certainly a female powerhouse of the twentieth century and belongs in studies on women's history.  Unfortunately, none of the courses I took in college mentioned her.

Ladies, this is a must read!

Nanjing: The Burning City

I was disappointed in Ethan Young's Nanjing. It is a wartime narrative of the fall of China's former capital city Nanjing to the Japanese in 1937. The book showcases 2 Chinese soldiers who were caught in the city after it was captured by the Japanese.

I did not learn much about the WWII fight commonly known as the Rape of Nanjing. Perhaps I am used to this type of story being told as a reportage comic which has tons of detail via the dialogue.  There is little dialogue in Nanjing and the artwork consists of black and white drawings in comic strips.

Unfortunately, I can only give this graphic novel 1 out of 5 stars. It just didn't teach me anything about this episode in history.

Safe Area Gorazde

Safe Area Gorazde is the story of the town of Gorazde in eastern Bosnia during the Bosnian War in the early 1990s.  It is told from the point of view of the reportage cartoonist Joe Sacco who was a U.N. journalist who traveled there 4 times during the war.  The U. N. had designated Gorazde as a safe area during the war but it was anything but safe. The community had been majority Muslim before the war began but most of them were slaughtered by the Serbs throughout the war.

The story is heavy on the fighting with interludes on silly teenage girls and parties with local residents. Much of the information on Gorazde comes from the author's guide Edin, a grad student.  Also, refugees arriving in Gorazde tell about the atrocities they saw in their hometowns, including mass executions, that they were forced to flee from. There is also information on Yugoslavia from the end of WWII to the beginning of the Bosnian War. After WWII the different ethnicities lived together peacefully under the authoritarian leadership of Tito. After Tito's death, Slobodan Milosevic took power and began inciting ethnic hatred.

While I had read much about this war while it was ongoing, I learned alot about it from the first person accounts that the author provided in the book.

The book offers a good history of this war. History lovers will want to check this one out.

Killing and Dying

This was not my favorite graphic novel. It is a compilation of 6 separate comics.  While they were amusing, I prefer to have one story told in a "novel."

The comics included "Hortisculpture," "Amber Sweet," "Go Owls," "Translated From the Japanese," "Killing and Dying," and "Intruders."  My favorites were "Hortisculpture" which is about a new art form that combines sculpture and gardening, "Amber Sweet" which is about mistaken identity and "Killing and Dying" which is about parenthood.

The style of the artwork is minimalist drawings done in comic panels. Most are black and white but every few pages there is color.

I hate to give an author a poor rating on a book when I am predisposed to not liking it in the first place.  I won't do that.  If you are the type of graphic novel reader who likes seeing a series of different comics in one book, you will enjoy this one. 

Threads From the Refugee Crisis

OMG!  I learned so much from this graphic novel on life in a refugee camp in Calais.  The book is about the author's volunteer work at the "Calais Jungle" refugee camp in Calais, France which was dismantled last year. She uses full color graphics and changing font styles to tell her story.

 

In Threads you will meet some refugees, see their living conditions, and hear their stories. 

This is a heavyweight book and it took me some time to get through it. I was shocked at how the camp looked and was run.  I was also shocked by how much the involvement of the local police had a negative effect on the refugees. It seems that while some of the refugees had established a sense of humanity in their living conditions, the police destroyed homes and disrupted that sense of normalcy. The author told a story about a pregnant refugee with 5 year old twins who was beat up by the police for no reason and lost her kids. Having the graphics drawn showed me much more than I have ever learned from a traditional news report. As the inside cover blurb states it is filled with "poignant images-by turns shocking, infuriating, wry and heartbreaking." This is an accurate decription. The images are drawn in a childish style that contrasts with the seriousness of the subject matter.

When I finished reading Threads I felt emotionally upset. The author did a great job at showing the horrors of being a refugee. However, her approach to the political issue of immigration, at the conclusion of the book, will probably only appeal to those who already agree with her viewpoints. I think she could have changed some people's minds about immigration if she had used a different type of appeal. 

Threads is one if the best graphic novels that I have ever read and everyone should read it.

Soviet Daughter

Soviet Daughter is a family saga about the Ignatovka family from Kiev. The graphic novel covers the family during the 20th century and into the 21st century from the author's great-great-great-grandmother to the author herself in the present time in America.

Julia Alekseyeva's great-grandmother Lola was born in 1910 to an impoverished Jewish family. Lola only attended school through the 4th grade due to her responsibilities to her family. She connected with only one person in the family, her own grandmother. However, she always had good jobs with the Bolsheviks, Stalinists, Red Army and the KGB. Her family was able to escape the pogroms and while they had little to eat they were better off than others. After the Chernobyl accident most of the family emigrated to the U. S., including the author who was 4 years old at the time.

This book gives a fascinating insight into life in Russia and the Ukraine during the 20th century. As such, it is an important history book for the younger generation to learn about the travails of this era.