The Complete Idiot's Guide To The Middle Ages by Timothy C. Hall M.A.

Thank you Marg at the Intrepid Reader and Baker for hosting the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge and allowing nonfiction books to be included.  The Complete's Idiot's Guide To The Middle Ages (2009) by Timothy C. Hall M.A. is the non-fiction book I decided to go with.  

It's a relatively short book packed with information and Timothy Hall divides his book into three sections:  Early Middle Ages (550 to 1000 A.D.),  High Middle Ages (1000 to 1300 A.D.) and Late Middle Ages (1300 to 1500 A.D).  

The Middle Ages begins after the fall of the western Roman Empire in 476 A.D. and ends in 1500 A.D. with the start of the Renaissance Era.  And between 550 to 1500 A.D alot of history happens which the Idiot's Guide goes into detail about. 

I learned about The Viking invasions of the 8th through 10th centuries and the development of the feudal system in Europe as a defense against those invasions. 

I was interested to read about the eleventh century falling out between King Henry II and Thomas Beckett which ended with Beckett's assassination.  Timothy Hall writes about the crusades a dark period in history.  On a more positive note the Middle Ages saw the introduction of new farming techniques, the invention of the spinning wheel which revolutionized clothing production and the compass which made sea travel safer.

One thing is for sure.  If you lived during the Middle Ages you did not want to be living during the 14th century. The Great Famine (1315-1317), the Hundred Year War (1337-1453) and of course the The Black Death (1346-1353) in which some historians estimate that 20 million may have died in Europe alone.  The respect and reverence people had for the Catholic Church and its leaders also began to fracture during the late Middle Ages.  It was partly due to the plague but also the corruption within the clergy.  The book ends with the beginning of the Renaissance and explorers travelling to the New World. 

I have only recorded a fraction of the information contained in The Idiot's Guide To The Middle Ages most of which I am never going to remember.  But I did come away with key events and interesting historical figures that I might want to read more about.  And so if like me you know very little about the Midfle Ages and would like to know more, The Idiot's Guide is not a bad place to begin.

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

"They met by the cotton after the village quieted down. Caesar made a quizzical expression at her bulging sack of yams but didn’t speak. They moved through the tall plants, so knotted up inside that they forgot to run until they were halfway through. Their speed made them giddy. The impossibility of it. Their fear called after them even if no one else did. They had six hours until their disappearance was discovered and another one or two before the posses reached where they were now. But fear was already in pursuit, as it had been every day on the plantation, and it matched their pace"  - Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad

We have contemporary writers who are writing the classics of tomorrow and one such writer is Colson Whitehead. He has won multiple literary awards for many of his books and his historical novel The Underground Railroad was awarded The National Book Award in 2016 and The Pulitzer Prize in 2017.   I can see why.  The Underground Railroad is a wonderfully written novel that tells an important story about a dark period in American history.

The protagonist of The Underground Railroad is Cora, a young slave girl working on the Randall plantation in Georgia.  Cora never knew her father and when Cora was ten she woke up to find her mother Mabel had escaped from the plantation and was never seen again.  The Randall plantation is hell on earth run by two brothers one of whom is a sadist.  

When Cora reaches 17 she decides to escape the Randall plantation with a fellow slave named Caesar.  Escaping is an incredibly dangerous thing to do.  You will be tortured and killed if you are caught so that others on the plantation know the repercussions for trying to escape.  But Cora and Caesar decide to take the risk anyway.  Caesar's story is particularly heartbreaking.  He wasn't born on the Randall plantation.  He and his parents lived in Virgina and the mistress they worked for was an elderly lady who treated them decently and when she died she promised they would be free but she never left a will:  

"Her only relative was a niece in Boston, who arranged for a local lawyer to liquidate Mrs. Garner’s property. It was a terrible day when he arrived with constables and informed Caesar and his parents that they were to be sold.  Worse—sold south, with its fearsome legends of cruelty and abomination. Caesar and his family joined the march of coffles, his father going one way, his mother another, and Caesar to his own destiny".

Caesar and Cora decide to head north via the Underground Railroad and to quote Amazon "the railroad is no mere metaphor: "engineers and conductors operate a secret network of actual tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil."   Prior to reading The Underground Railroad I had my doubts about historical fiction being mixed with magical realism.  But I shouldn't have worried.  This is a very grounded and powerfully written novel about a terrible time in our nation's history the legacy of which we are still grappling with today.  

Killer Triggers by Joe Kenda

"In this exceptional memoir, Kenda chronicles the highlights of his twenty-one years as a Colorado Springs, Colo., homicide detective. Kenda investigated or oversaw 387 cases, and here uses them to offer insights into why killers kill...His Colorado cowboy cop humor and compassionate voice help make the dark stories he tells easier to bear. This is must reading for true crime fans." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

I totally agree with Publisher's Weekly.  If you are a true crime fan, and I am, Killer Triggers (2021) by Joe Kenda is not to be missed.  But you must read the book in audio because Joe Kenda does the narration and as anyone who watched his hit TV crime series Homocide Hunter will tell you Joe Kenda's dry humor and seen it all before voice is a real plus for this book.

As Joe Kenda sees it murders happen due to the the following triggers: fear, rage, revenge, money, lust, greed and in some cases insanity.  And in Killer Triggers each chapter is devoted to a different murder case  that Kenda worked on during his career.  These are the cases that stood out for him.  Kenda tells us about the victim, the crime, how he and his team caught the killer and the trigger that led to the murder. 

The book can at times make for grim reading but it's also fascinating because Joe Kenda has a great deal of insight based on his years of experience as a homicide detective.  Killer Triggers is also funny.  For example a retired K-9 police dog named Henry who escaped from the Kenda home and Kenda's wife Kathy frantically looking for Henry along with a police car that was equally alarmed when they heard the news that a K-9 was loose.  These dogs are trained to attack on command and should never be running around the neighborhood.  But it ended well. They found Henry in a park surrounded by little kids who were throwing him a ball and jumping on Henry and as Joe Kenda tells us "Henry was loving it".  

Homicide Hunter the series ended in 2020.   But for fans of the show and for anyone who is curious I recommend Killer Triggers and be sure and get the audio version!

The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher

Thank you Iris for recommending The Paris Bookseller (2022) by Kerri Maher.  I have finally gotten around to reading this well written and well researched historical novel about the legendary Sylvia Beach and her  bookstore Shakespeare and Company.  And for readers who have an interest in Sylvia Beach, Paris in the 1920's and the ex-pat writers who frequented Shakespeare and Company this is a must read.

Who was Sylvia Beach?  She was born in Baltimore Maryland in 1888.  Her father was a Presbyterian minister and her parents raised their three daughters to be independent and pursue their dreams.  In 1902 Reverend Beach took a job in Paris where the family lived until 1905.  The family moved back to the US but for Sylvia the experience of living in Paris was life changing.  She would return to Paris in the later years of World War I where she met her life partner Adrienne Monnier.   The two women lived together until Adrienne's tragic death in 1955

The Paris bookseller covers Sylvia's life from 1917 to 1936 and in 1919 she opened  Shakespeare and Company.   It was a store that sold books but also served as a lending library for those who could not afford to purchase books.   As Ernest Hemingway would later write about Sylvia:  "She was kind, cheerful and interested, and loved to make jokes and gossip. No one that I ever knew was nicer to me.”  

And that's the impression I got from Kerri Maher's portrait of Sylvia Beach.  A good woman, passionate about literature and also a risk taker.  Sylvia in 1922 was the first to publish James Joyce's Ulysees which was banned in America and Europe on obscenity charges.  James Joyce was forever grateful although he had a tendency to take advantage of his friends, asking for loans etc as the novel makes clear:

For Sylvia and Shakespeare and Company the 1920's were a highpoint, a decade of youth, parties art and adventure.  But things started to darken in the 1930's:

"Americans had been escaping to drink and write and love freely, and they frequently returned to their homeland; in fact, they were going home in droves these days. These German artists were escaping persecution and assumed they would never return to the country of their birth. They despaired of seeing sisters, brothers, cousins, and parents ever again"

The Paris Bookseller ends in 1936 but Kerri Maher provides an afterward regarding Sylvia Beach's life from 1937 until her death in 1962.  The Paris Bookseller is a very nice tribute to Sylvia Beach, a brave and good-hearted woman.

Shotgun Saturday Night by Bill Crider

Shotgun Saturday Night (1983) is the second novel in Bill Crider's Dan Rhodes mystery series.  And thank you to Tracy at Bitter Tea and Mystery (see the link to her website under blogs I follow) for recommending this series.  A good mystery novel rises or falls based on the lead detective and Dan Rhodes is a detective you want to follow.

Dan is the Sheriff of Blacklin County, Texas where major crime is not supposed to happen.  And so when Shotgun Saturday Night begins and Bert Ramsey, the local handyman, walks into Sheriff Dan Rhodes's office carrying a severed arm it is shocking.  Bert found the arm stored in a crate with other severed arms and legs while he was clearing out brush for a neighbor who is away traveling.  

Do they have a serial killer in Blacklin County?  Turns out the explanation is not that serious.  The severed arms and legs are from a hospital in another town which needed to dispose of body parts amputated during legitimate surgeries.  As to why the doctor at the hospital didn't dispose of these body parts using correct procedure that is wrong but it is not murder.

But then just as Sheriff Rhodes is ready to close the case, Bert Ramsey is murdered.  Is his death connected to finding the body parts?  Or could his death have a connection to the Los Muertos tatoo found on Bert's body during his autopsy?  Los Muertes is a motorcycle gang with a violent history and some of their members have been spotted riding their motorcycles around Blacklin County.  Did they kill Bert and if so, why?

So far I have found the crimes tthat Sheriff Dan Rhodes is asked to solve in book one and two mildly interesting but what keeps me coming back to this series is Sheriff Dan Rhodes himself.  He is an easy going man who loves old classic movies and the occasional Dr Pepper and a burger at the local diner.  Sheriff Rhodes has a small staff, Hack Jensen, the dispatcher, Lawton who runs the jail and a new deputy, Ruth Grady.  Since the death of his wife, Sheriff Rhodes has been lonely but in Shotgun Saturday Night his relationship with Ivy Daniels is getting serious and like Dan she is smart, courageous and determined.

The two novels I have read in this series are about 160 pages each and in addition to Dan Rhodes there is the town of Blacklin County, Texas.  Bill Crider has done a very good job in describing the local color of the town and the people who live there.  And if you don't mind the very warm weather, Blacklin County is a nice place to spend your time.

Murder On Gramercy Park by Victoria Thompson

Murder On Gramercy Park (2001) is the third novel in Victoria Thompson's bestselling Gaslight mystery series.  And thank you Lark at Lark Writes...on books and life for  recommending this author.  I am hooked and with 24 more novels to go in the series I have alot of reading pleasure ahead.  

As to what makes this mystery series so good it starts with the fact that Victoria Thompson is a very fine writer.  The setting New York City in the 1890's is fascinating and Thompson does a good job of researching that era.  And at the center of each novel is our detective duo, Frank Malloy and Sarah Brandt.  

As to why Frank, a police detective and Sarah, a nurse midwife would team up together to solve crimes, Frank isn't happy about that either when they first meet.  But Sarah is smart and not to be told no and by the third novel, Murder On Gramercy Park, Frank calls Sarah in to help investigate the death of Dr. Edmund Blackwell. 

Edmund advertises himself as a doctor but he has no medical degree.  His practice involves the laying on of hands to heal his patients. His practice has made him very wealthy and popular particularly with his female patients.  But then Dr. Blackwell is found dead in his study by his horrified wife.  It looks at first to be suicide but Frank soon determines it was murder.  But who killed Dr. Blackwell?  The list is long and Frank and Sarah are on the case.  

I love the chemistry between these two and so in a few months I will be on to book four, Murder On Washington Square.

My Favorite Kind of Books to Read

I have favorite book genres but going deeper there are topics that I love to read about in books. Here is my wish list:

1.  Novels set in the South Bronx during the 1940's and 1950's.  It's where my Mom was born and grew up and Marty is a favorite movie of mine.  But sadly when it comes to NYC there are very few novels set in the Bronx.  Tons of novels about Manhattan and Brooklyn but not so much about the Bronx, Queens and Staten Island

2.   I would love to find a biography of the poet C. P. Cavafy.  

3.   A new collection of essays from Vivian Gornick.

4.   Books about the Great Depression of the 1930's. I know I have romanticized this era as a time of can do spirit where everyone was pulling together and trying to make ends meet.  It's different today where poverty is still out there but it's not a national story the way it should be and everyone is on their own.

5.  Books about Jack Kerouac. What's odd is that I have never been able to get through On The Road but my fascination with Jack Kerouac stems from Ann Charters' wonderful biography Kerouac.  Read it many years ago and her biography has made a lasting impression on me.

6. Amarillo by Morning by George Strait is a favorite song of mine and wouldn't that song make a great novel about the lives of cowboys who ride the rodeo circuit?  A lonely life I would imagine and dangerous and yet they love it.  Reminds me that Larry McMurty's Moving On needs to be on my TBR list!

7.  Christmas Romance Novels.  Around October they certainly put me in the Holiday Spirit.

8.  Van life memoirs.  Have loved this genre since I read William Least Heat-Moon's Blue Highways in my 20's.

9.  19th century homesteading novels set in log cabins.

10.  Books set in remote parts of Alaska or Antartica.  

11.  Haunted House Novels where a young person down on their luck arrives at a lonely isolated mansion hoping for a new start.  And it helps if they bring their cat with them.  

 How about you?  What are your favorite type of books to read?