Reading Challenge: Merely Mystery

I love mysteries. They're my fun and comfort reading. I consider them to be a bit like junk food, or at least like comfort food. They always make me happy, though I couldn't survive on them. I'm signing up this year for the Merely Mystery Challenge. I have to read at least two mysteries, which I can say with confidence will not be a problem, not at all.

Interested in signing up? Click on the image!

Reading Challenge: What's in a Name 5

I've done the What's in a Name Challenge for the past several years, and I've always have fun with it. It's a no-brainer for me to sign up for What's in a Name 5. Instructions are as follows:

Between January 1 and December 31, 2012, read one book in each of the following categories:

A book with a topographical feature (land formation) in the title: Black Hills, Purgatory Ridge, Emily of Deep Valley
A book with something you'd see in the sky in the title: Moon Called, Seeing Stars, Cloud Atlas
A book with a creepy crawly in the title: Little Bee, Spider Bones, The Witches of Worm
A book with a type of house in the title: The Glass Castle, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, Ape House
A book with something you'd carry in your pocket, purse, or backpack in the title: Sarah's Key, The Scarlet Letter, Devlin Diary
A book with a something you'd find on a calendar in the title: Day of the Jackal, Elegy for April, Freaky Friday, Year of Magical Thinking

Interested in signing up? Click on the image!

Reading Challenge: Southern Literature

I love Southern Literature. I used to live in the south, Virginia to be exact, and while I was born and bred a Yankee, there's something very compelling about the south. I'll be celebrating my love of Southern literature by participating in the Southern Literature Reading Challenge in 2012. The challenge involves reading anywhere from 1-4 books. I'm going to go for the four books- might as well aim high.

Interested in signing up? Click on the image!

Reading Challenge: Mystery and Suspense 2012

I've done the Mystery and Suspense Challenge before, and I'm planning on joining in again for 2012. It was fun in 2010, so I think it's time to give it another go. I can choose to read either 12 or 24 mystery and suspense books. I'm going for the 24!

Interested in signing up? Click on the image!

Review: Irma Voth

I always want to like Toews's books more than I do. The plots always sound so interesting, but then I try and read them and am completely disinterested. That was the case again for Irma Voth. The plot sounds imaginative and compelling. Nineteen-year-old Irma lives in Mexico with her Canadian Mennonite family. She has been shunned by her father for marrying a Mexican man, who has since fled the scene. When a documentary filmmaker arrives in the community Irma gets a job as a translator, and her work allows her to make plans to break free from her highly restrictive family.

Undeniably the best part of the book is Irma's flight to freedom. Her exodus with her sisters reveals some deeply held and damning family secrets. The early part of the book, when Irma is working on the movie, is comparatively dull. One would think that conflict between some angry sectarians and famous filmmakers would be interesting, but somehow it manages to be extraordinarily dull. Toews describes every little quotidian event in Irma's world in minute detail. There's description of dialogue that simply couldn't keep my attention. The payoff is in the second half of the book, so if the reader can last through the first part they'll probably find the second easier going. That said, I keep having this experience with Towes's books. We'll see if I've learned my lesson.

Miriam Toews, Irma Voth (Harper, 2011) ISBN: 0062070185

Review: The Gardner Heist

The largest unsolved art heist in history happened at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990. Two men stole twelve works of art including a Vermeer and several Rembrandts. The ripped and cut paintings out of frames, and the lot has never been found. Boser's book sets out to try and find out what happened to the missing art. The result is an intriguing look at art detection and the Boston criminal underworld. The methods art detectives use to recover works are often unorthodox. Detectives have to maintain a network of surly underworld contacts.

This book was tremendously interesting. It is also somewhat depressing. It's frightening just how many works of art are stolen, and how poorly protected most museums are. Boser points out that many of us would like to believe that when artworks are stolen they are secreted away to private collections. In fact, that is almost never the case. Stolen art most frequently becomes currency in the criminal world, providing collateral for all sorts of unsavory underworld activities. Drugs, weapons, the mafia: stolen art funds all of them. Thieves are rarely punished because the most important objective for the art detective is to get priceless works back into museums.

Boser does not ever recover any of the stolen works, but his journey is fascinating. I learned a great deal about art theft and recovery, and how the criminal world uses priceless works of art. Anyone with an interest in art or crime would enjoy this book.

Ulrich Boser, The Gardner Heist: The True Story of the World's Largest Unsolved Art Theft (Smithsonian, 2009) ISBN: 0061451835

Review: Miss Zukas and the Island Murders

Straight-laced librarian Helma Zukas finds herself in charge of planning her high school reunion. Miss Zukas decides to fly all of her classmates out to the Washington coast for a resort reunion. This will give Helma the chance to investigate the mysterious death of one of her classmates during their senior year. Those accustomed to Helma's exploits will not be surprised to discover that danger follows the reunion, and Helma and company find themselves in grave danger.

This book provides the usual entertaining fare one gets in the Miss Zukas series. There are elements of the story that belie conceivability, which is also typical of this series. The reunion takes place in Washington, though the class graduated in Michigan. Helma funds the trip for the entire class, as she was supposedly able to invest left over money from class fundraising in high school. Getting around these issues this volume provides Dereske's usual standard of entertainment. This volume was more removed from the library and its environs than some of the other books. I thought that was a shame, as the library is a huge part of this series's draw.

Jo Dereske, Miss Zukas and the Island Murders (Avon, 2006) ISBN: 0380770318