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A Rising Man by Abir Mukherjee
Captain Sam Wyndham heads off to India in 1919 for a change of pace. He's shell shocked from the war and his wife's death. He is a detective in Calcutta and during the first week he's there he's tasked with finding out who killed the number two man in the government. Wyndham is also dealing with a bit of an opium addiction.
I got the book in order to get a look at what the Raj was like at that time. And this book doesn't disappoint. It shows how the British view the natives. The book shows how the natives of different castes deal with the British. And the story takes place against the simmering tensions in Bengal as a British regiment opens fire on a group of peaceful demonstrators. I found the book interesting but the mystery at the heart was more of side plot than the main aim for the writer.
I will read more.
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Ghost Trail to Yosemite by Georgia Waltz
This was more pamphlet or short story than book. It recounts in a young girl's dream what it would be like to take the stage coach from Raymond through the hills all the way to Yosemite. It details briefly all the major stops the stage coach makes and various features of those stops. While it was a fictitious account, the details were all real. There were also a lot of photos of those stops and some drawings. The book was good research material.
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Winter Tide by Ruthana Emrys
I am glad I am done reading this book. It was a slog to get through. There is a sequel that I will not be reading. For most of the book, I felt like I had missed something. That the characters in the book had earlier adventures. But the information on the book said it was the first of two. Only while reading the afterword did I find out there was a Novella that started with these characters and I probably should have read that first. That novella is called Litany of Earth. And I was reading this book on the recommendation of Seanan MacGuire. She is now 1 for 2 in book recommendations.
It's a tale from the Lovecraft Universe, only told from the point of view of the residents of Innsmouth, one in particular who was rounded up and sent to an internment camp before the Japanese were sent there. Her name is Aphra Marsh. The government wants her help to uncover whether the Russians are using dark magic to switch bodies. Aphra and her friends have to go back to Myskatonic University to look at the books that were stolen from her family and friends to find out if it's possible.
The book was so slow and at such an even tone. No highs or lows in any of the activities. Lots of people sitting around the library talking about what they should or should do. Lots of discussions about ancient rituals and the sigils they need to use. It's like the whole book was written in Sepia Tone. It also had this Faux Victorian style to the writing that also slowed things down.
I should have stopped reading early on but I'm no quitter.
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The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths
Whew. I thought I had lost my skill in reading after Winter Tide. But I tore through The Crossing Places in a day. Because reading is all about how fast you can read, right?
Ruth Galloway is a forensic Archeologist teaching at the university in Norfolk and living all alone at the edge of the Saltmarch. Detective Nelson comes across some bones that he think might be of a missing girl and would like Ruth to help identify. Thus brings Ruth into the world of being a detective. Because soon enough there is a second missing girl. It's not up to Ruth to solve the mystery but she's in the right place at the right time.
It's not an incredibly clever mystery but there is a good cast of interesting characters who all seem a bit shady. But the depiction of the Saltmarsh and it's perils and it's beauty is very evocative.
I'll be tackling the second book in the series today.
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The Janus Stones by Elly Griffiths
Another daylong read. It was 106º out and I was content to sit and read this while watching the Giants baseball game. More archeoligical based mystery. Since the lead character Ruth is an archeologist I guess you need some archeology in order to get her involved. This time there is a roman archeological dig as well as an old manor home that is being turned into apartments. They find a child's skeleton at the manor house renovation. In steps Ruth to determine the culprit. Although it's more than just Ruth solving the mystery. It's DI Nelson, as well. And some more officers are thrown into the mix. The crime solution becomes a group effort. Plus, the catholic church gets involved because the manor house at one time was a children's home as well.
I was entertained. But I sense a lot of Romance Novel themes in there, too. Ruth is still pregnant. The father won't leave his wife nor does Ruth want him, too. Meanwhile, one of Ruth's friends is having an affair with Ruth's boss, also a married man. Plus, there is a new man in Ruth's life who also could be the murderer. So, Romance stuff.
Plenty more books in the series but I have a bunch of other books to read first.
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To Yosemite by Stage by Zelda Garey Dubel
This book is thick. Really thick. Ms. Dubel gives you everything you could want to know about the old Stage Coach route from Raymond to Wawona and then some. At times I wish the information was a little less dense because it was a struggle to get through.
In case you didn't know, in the early days of Yosemite tourism (1890-1910) you used to take the train from San Francisco or Los Angeles to lovely Raymond, CA. (That name seems familiar) From Raymond you would catch a stage coach and travel 12 hours to Wawona. The next day another stage coach would take you into Yosemite Valley. It's how Teddy Roosevelt did it back in the day. There were about 8 stops along the way where the stage coaches would swap out horses. One of those stops was Cedarwood Inn. The Inn was owned by the author and she wanted to talk about the history of her Inn, which she owned from 1958 to 1967. The stagecoaches had long since stopped going by her place and even the main highway didn't go near the Inn.
But Dubel exhaustively researched each and every stop on the route. And I mean exhaustively. If there was a mention of a stop in the newspaper, it was quoted. She does complete family trees for pretty much everyone that had a shop at the stops. It was a maze of names and dates and obscure facts. I had Google Maps open the entire time I read the book so I could check where she was talking about. Most of the place no longer exist or the roads have moved from where they were when the Stage Coach went through. At the end of every chapter, she did a reference list that sited each source she used. The references ran two to three pages at least.
But there were some great facts in amongst the mountain. And a lot of great pictures, too. I now know a lot better what all the names mean in my neighborhood.
Here is one fun fact that I gleaned from the research. Teddy Roosevelt did a tour of the west coast which culminated in his trip to Yosemite. Before that, he was in Santa Cruz and San Jose.There are pictures of him in Big Basin. He even planted a tree in Campbell to commemorate his visit. To my mind, it seems it would be pretty neat to see the tree Roosevelt planted. But no. He planted the tree near corner of Campbell Ave and Winchester. When they widened the road, they chopped the 70' tall tree down. Some enterprising woman rescued the stump from the Story Road dump and replanted it in Vasona. It took root and grows to this day.
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(06-21-2021, 02:09 PM)Greg Wrote: Teddy Roosevelt did a tour of the west coast which culminated in his trip to Yosemite. Before that, he was in Santa Cruz and San Jose.There are pictures of him in Big Basin.
There were photos of that visit in the Big Basin Visitors' Center.
That's all ash now. The entire center complex was claimed by the fire.
Ashes to ashes.
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The Yosemite Grant 1864-1906 by Hank Johnston
The history of Yosemite from when white men first arrived in the park until it became a National Park. The book mostly covers the park when it was under the control of California State government. Lots of great pictures of the early early days of the park.
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I am looking forward to you regaling me with these collected Yose factoids as we run from bears and collapse under the weight of our backpacks.
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I hope there is water.
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To a thirsty bear, we're just big ol' sacks of water...
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As an alien said on STNG "ugly bags of mostly water"
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Ho! For Yo-Semite by Hank Johnston
Cheese and rice did Hank Johnston write a lot of books about Yosemite back in the 1990s. Ho! for Yo-Semite was a typical rallying cry in the late 19thcentury to get people to go to Yosemite. This a collection of 11 contemporaneous articles of how people traveled to Yosemite back in the day. Everything from how the cavalry traveled overland from the San Francisco Presidio to guard the park to three boys who bicycled from Napa to ten miners who were probably the third group of white men to enter the park.
My favorite was a young female newspaper woman who took the Stage Coach route by my house up over the Chowchilla Mountain to Wawona and then into the park. Her descriptions are funny and scathing. My favorite quote was "We shall long remember the descent of Chowchilla as a needless outrage perpetrated on innocent victims"
A really good look at the early days of travel into the Yosemite Grant.
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The Water Room by Christopher Fowler
Once again, I felt like I had read this book before except for the barest outlines. It was better than the first book in the series, but not a significant amount. Bryant and May are called upon to solve the mysterious death of an Pakistani women in a forgotten corner of Camden. She lived in one of eight distinct houses but the deaths continue to pile up. There is also the matter of one of May's friends who is looking into the lost Rivers of London. There was a lot of talk about the Fleet River. I get a lot of this from Ben Aaronovich's series about the Rivers of London so the discourse on all the rivers flowing underneath London was not a big revelation.
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The book London Under is entertaining on the lost rivers, ghost Tube stations etc. underneath London, with a bibliography for more info.
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