Capsule Reactions: March

Well, I got the job I mentioned very passingly in a previous post, so my reading time remains impacted by the horrors of moving. While I’ll get my free time back, I may actually have less time to listen to books at this new position. As I advance in my career, I unsurprisingly have less time to multitask with audio. The job I had during the height of covid was a career dead end, but it also had 12 hour shifts where I could listen to books… those were the glorious days for reading! I read a book almost every day!

Now that my eyes seem to be capable of reading text again, I am thinking of trying to read with my eyes again as well as listen, but I fear I’ve lost the habit and the ability to concentrate on just one thing. You would never believe that I used to read 100+ books a year when I was young at this pathetic rate. Oh well! I am going to try to focus on enjoyment rather than numbers. 

Along with In the Woods by Tana French, I read three audiobooks: 

• The Librarians by Sherry Thomas (2025):  Since I like Thomas’s romance/mystery Lady Sherlock books, I was pretty excited to hear that she was going to try a modern set mystery. I was a little disappointed in this book but I’m not gong to go into it at length. The mystery fell down for me (ultimately more of a thriller??), and the ensemble cast and all their romantic interests made it feel crowded. Still, I will totally read a sequel if it gets one; there’s potential here for it to find a grove. 

• The Examiner by Janice Hallett (2024):  This was a little treat for myself after getting news about the job:  the Hallett book set in academia that I’ve been saving. While I think my first book by Hallett (The Alperton Angels) is still my favorite for its daring blend of many media formats and its most successful mystery, this might be my second! I enjoyed the setting of a master’s program in art a lot; lampooning academia is something I'm very on board for. Of all the books I’ve read by Hallett, this one had some of my favorite characters. Jonathan and Jem are both fantastic!  Like all the audio adaptions of Hallett's epistolary style, this is an absolutely stellar audiobook that is elevated by its excellent readers. Jem is a little in the vein of the striving Izzy from The Appeal, but much less annoying. I really rooted for her in a way I rarely do for Hallett's characters. Jonathan is sad and sweet and interesting. The friendship between the two characters, as the eldest and youngest in a Master’s program, was genuinely well written and probably the most touching and human thing I’ve read from Hallett so far. It deserves a post of its own, but I don’t have the time… maybe when I read the others I’ll do a post on all of them together. 

•  Taken at the Flood by Agatha Christie (1948):  I listened to most of this on a short road trip with my spouse. I thought it a little strange that I’d never really heard anyone talking about it, but after listening to it, I understand why:  it’s a less successful attempt at the novelistic approach that Christie seemed to be exploring in something like The Hollow, where the mystery is oddly balanced with the characters and setting. At first I thought there was a lot to say about why it is less successful, but after a bit of time between finishing it and now, I’m not so sure I have much to say about it except that the pacing is much more of a problem here than in other Christie books that have a loooong setup before the murder. At first I found the characters promising, but they spiraled out of interest very quickly into typical Christie tropes, and I think this book may have one of the worst forced romantic pairings in all of her oeuvre. On the other hand, Hugh Fraser gives a delightful performance and is often very funny; I was so happy that my spouse chuckled along with me at many points. The side characters are great, but the book falls apart dramatically once it stops being a novel about a family's struggles in the immediate postwar and becomes a mystery novel. 

I'm working on finishing Ngaoi Marsh's Colour Scheme, which I started reading in February (!) and set down! I've also recently gotten a Lucy Foley novel from the library after hearing a lot of glowing things about her... we'll see if I agree.