The reading list for November is, in many ways, similar to the reading list for this past October.- books by Donna Leon and Elizabeth George, with a different writer thrown in for a change of pace.
Comparing the two I'd have to say that I prefer Donna Leon's novels. My only complaint about George is her veering off the detective/mystery story to give us way too many details on the personal lives of the characters. I'm sure she does this to flesh out the characters, but details on the love affair between DI Thomas Lynley and Lady Helen Clyde can get a bit tedious. In For the Sake of Elena, George brings in Helen's sister into the story - her character does help move the story along, but the discussion on the lawsuit involving the artist James Whistler and art critic John Ruskin put on the brakes, as it were.
My original plan was to read through the works of Leon and George every month. I'll continue getting into Leon's novels but will read no more than one of George's works per month.
As I mentioned in earlier posts, a few of the books making my reading lists have been recommended by someone on the Commentary Magazine podcast. One of the books on this list was recommended by that podcast - Scattered All Over The Earth by Yoko Tawada. Tawada had been recommended to me earlier and I had downloaded everything I could find of her work. The first book to make it to next month's list will be Tawada's The Emissary (AKA The Last Children of Tokyo). Before reading Scattered All Over the Earth I hadn't realized that it was the first in Tawada's Border Crossing Trilogy. The 2nd and 3rd books have been written but have not, as yet, been translated into English. Had I known that, I would have put off reading this book until I could download the complete trilogy.
Now, for the list:
Willful Behaviour by Donna Leon
Uniform Justice by Donna Leon
Doctored Evidence by Donna Leon
For the Sake of Elena by Elizabeth George
Scattered All Over the Earth by Yoko Tawada
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