The Reading List for June 2024

 

June has come to an end and the time has arrived for another monthly reading list. The list for June will be relatively short - only four books.

I've already written blog posts for two of the books - The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope and High Rising by Angela Thirkell.

Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True is interesting, but anyone who watches science programs and reads the occasional science article is familiar with most of what he has to offer.

Book four is #18 in Donna Leon's Commissario Guido Brunetti series - About Face. A favorite theme for Leon is the illegal transport of toxic waste thru Italy. Of course, there's always a murder or two involved.

I won't finish the book I'm currently reading in time to make this list. It will be the first on July's list. The Case for God  by Karen Armstrong.

So, here's this month's list:

The Last Chronicle of Barset      by Anthony Trollope
Why Evolution is True                 by Jerry A Coyne
High Rising                                   by Angela Thirkell
About Face                                    by Donna Leon

High Rising by Angela Thirkell

 

I was recently browsing a Canadian website which offers ebooks that are in the Canadian public domain, fadedpage.com and came across an author of whom I was unfamiliar - Angela Thirkell. I discovered that Thirkell had written 27 novels based on the fictional county of Barsetshire created by Anthony Trollope (although 4 of the 27 are unavailable for download). I've recently finished reading Trollope's Barsetshire Chronicles and was curious to see what Thirkell had added.

High Rising (1933) is listed as book one in Thirkell's Barsetshire series, although, frankly I don't understand why. I read in a Goodreads review that the two villages in the novel (High Rising and Low Rising) are located in Barsetshire but I found no mention of Barsetshire in the book. I certainly don't recall either High Rising or Low Rising being mentioned in any of Trollope's books and no descendants of the families from Trollope's work are in High Rising.

Never the less, I did enjoy the novel. Thirkell was a good writer and the book is mildly amusing and I'm looking forward to reading more from Thirkell's series in the months to come.