november reads

oh my. this was the month where my (reading) eyes were definitely too big for my (reading) stomach. you all had such great recommendations for me on books to read before our trip to Europe, and i still couldn't manage to finish them all! (p.s. the following links are affiliate - meaning if you click through to purchase on Amazon, i will earn a small commission at no additional cost to you!)

1) Journey to Munich: A Maisie Dobbs Novel, by Jacqueline Winspear. this novel is #12 in a series of books, none of which i'd read before this one, but i still enjoyed it very much. the author did an excellent job of briefly summarizing previous events and character developments in the series so i felt that i understood the context, without appearing redundant to more obedient readers who started with book #1 and proceeded in order. anyway, it's a light, fast-paced read about a woman involved in a British intelligence agency in the years leading up to World War II. 

2) A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888-1889, by Frederic Morton. i loved this book. reading it is like standing in front of a huge painting populated with all of the most famous figures in nineteenth century Viennese society: the royal family, Franz Schubert, Sigmund Freud, Gustav Mahler, and many others. Morton artfully focuses in on one person at a time, then pans back to the whole scene and highlights another. towards the end of the book, he centers his attention on the Crown Prince Rudolf and his affair with the socialite Mary Vetsera. absolutely fascinating! 

3) The Prague Cemetery, by Umberto Eco. i wanted to read this book to learn more about Prague ... and was woefully disappointed. i suppose i should have read the description more thoroughly to understand what i was getting: political intrigue and religious conspiracies, all swirling together in a crazy tale of an even crazier, fake document called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion that really was distributed in the early 1900s to fan the flames of antisemitism. the document was supposed to have been drafted to expose the discussion of Jewish leaders during a secret meeting in the Prague cemetery; none of the plot actually occurred in Prague, so i kept turning the pages in vain waiting for some elaborate description of the city. i didn't realize that there actually had been such a document either, so the impact of the book was somewhat lost on me as i thought it was purely fiction. but i did enjoy reading about the efforts of the Italian unification movement and how it intersected with European politics of the day. the last half of the book was quite dark with some very disturbing images of Satanic rituals, tales of depravity and generally the worst parts of human nature, so consider yourself warned. even though it was not at all what i thought it would be, i still gave it 4 out of 5 stars on Goodreads because it is very well-written ... it's not Umberto Eco's fault that i didn't read the synopsis before plunging in! 

4) Memories Before and After the Sound of Music: An Autobiography, by Agathe von Trapp. after the Eco debacle, i needed something fresh and wholesome, and Agathe von Trapp's autobiography was exactly that. she wrote this at 89 years of age, and it's a fascinating account of the von Trapp family's actual life (which, as you can imagine, was different in many ways from the account portrayed in The Sound of Music). one major difference was that Captain Georg von Trapp was an accomplished musician himself and often sang with the children. she says that his portrayal as stern and regimented was completely false. i enjoyed reading about their upbringing in various towns around Austria, as well as their adventures once they came to America and began their singing careers. highly recommend! 

5) Waiting for Sunrise, by William Boyd. another novel set in Vienna, but quite different from Frederic Morton's panoramic view. this book opens with the main character having traveled to Vienna for psychoanalysis. the people he encounters propel the plot forward in a fast-paced, enjoyable account of the years leading up to World War I. the novel switches from third person to first person quite effectively and there are just enough plot twists and intrigue to keep you guessing. another 5 star winner!

here's what's on December's bookshelf:

-Fatelessness, Imre Kertesz
-The Accidental Empress, Allison Pataki
-Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, Pope Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger
-The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
-I Am Half-Sick of Shadows (Flavia de Luce #4), Alan Bradley
-Little House in the Big Woods, Laura Ingalls Wilder (read-aloud with Greta)

and still on my European reading list:

-The Balkan Trilogy, Olivia Manning
-Where Eagles Dare, Alistair MacLean
-Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Rebecca West
-Between the Woods and the Water, Patrick Leigh Fermor

and still plowing through: 

-Mother Tongue: An American Life in Italy, Wallis Wilde-Menozzi

sooo my eyes are still too big for my stomach. what's a girl to do when there are just so many books in the world?!