THE FURROWED MIDDLEBROW DOZEN 2025

No, I'm not going to attempt justify myself with apologies or excuses. I'm a terrible, awful, abysmal blogger, but nonetheless, here—just a bit earlier than usual due to the presence of one or two Christmassy/wintry titles—is my FM Dozen for 2025, an odd mix but one that includes several titles that might interest you lovely readers.

We are just back from a excellent, spontaneous, and thoroughly exhausting week in London—our first jaunt outside of Portugal after, at long last, receiving our official residency cards and therefore being free to travel. We went to the theatre a couple of times (The Importance of Being Earnest and The Devil Wears Prada, both great fun), did quite a lot of book shopping (it's amazing how there always seemed to be an Oxfam lurking near every place we went), and spent time indulging a newfound passion of mine, which I may not have mentioned here before. I've always taken a casual interest in art and art history, but for the past couple of years it has become a bit more compelling, perhaps inspired by the thought of our relative proximity to many of Europe's great museums. We inaugurated our London stay with a 4-hour marathon at the National Gallery, where I tortured my legs and suffered from Stendhal syndrome. This was supplemented later in the week with (slightly) less overwhelming visits to the Courtauld Gallery, the Wallace Collection, Kenwood House, and the V&A—delightful all.

I really did have an excellent year of reading, even if I was too stodgy and overwhelmed to share most of it with you, so let me make this a good long post and share as much as I can now (feel free to skim/skip as needed). My Dozen itself is a strange array of mysteries (my escape reading of choice this year), art history, European history and literature, and a couple of stray tangents, but first I'll sneak in mentions of some of the books I haven't included in my Dozen.

Somewhat unusually, I indulged in some very satisfying re-reading this year (something I haven't often allowed myself out of some misguided principle or because of the haunting awareness of how many great books are still out there languishing unread). This was partly inspired by the melancholy stripping of my book collection to about two shelves of absolute essentials (not including my set of FM titles, of course) and the subsequent realization that I hadn't read many of those essentials for a couple of decades. RACHEL FERGUSON's The Brontës Went to Woolworths (1931) was just as delightful and innovative and modernist (or postmodernist?) as I remembered, and BARBARA COMYNS' Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead (1954) was still ghoulish and hilarious and yet strangely life-affirming, one of my all-time favorite novels. I re-read several of JOSEPHINE TEY's Alan Grant mysteries, with The Franchise Affair (1948)—perhaps not properly a Grant novel since he only appears briefly—emerging as a frontrunner, though The Daughter of Time remains a favorite as well. With one irresistible exception, I've not included re-reads in my Dozen for the year (not on any particular principle, but simply because they would otherwise shut out several other lovely books I haven't mentioned here before).

As I explored mystery more thoroughly than in recent years, I discovered a new love for CYRIL HARE—I've read three of his lively, expertly-paced novels so far (including An English Murder [1951], which takes place at Christmas and is excellent, though not particularly festive), and will be reading the rest. This isn't a post about books I didn't particularly love, but I'll mention that I was lukewarm on my first readings of NICHOLAS BLAKE and ROBERT BARNARD (Blake is one of those chewy mystery writers, with endless chewing over of facts and clues lulling me to think of my shopping list, and Barnard was perhaps a bit too silly—and probably too recent, truth be told—for my taste). I've also been running hot and cold on the RICHARD COLES mysteries—the first of which, Murder Before Evensong, was just adapted for television, though in this case the word "adapted" might be too mild—perhaps "just eviscerated for television" is more accurate? I loved the first book for its delightful sense of day-to-day village life, then hated the second book and was so-so on the third. However, I've just finished his Christmas novella, Murder Under the Mistletoe, and enjoyed it very much (Coles puts aside the characters' conflicts and angsts and relationship woes, which occupied too much of the second and third novels for my taste—carefully avoiding spoilers here—and focuses simply on their unexpectedly lively holiday feast together, so that not only is it a nice, quick, festive read, but it can be read independently of the rest of the series without undue confusion or spoilers).

In my new realm of art history, I read some excellent books this year, but only included one in my dozen. The Collector of Lives: Giorgio Vasari and the Invention of Art (2017), by NOAH CHARNEY and INGRID ROWLAND, was revelatory about Renaissance artists and Vasari's ongoing role in sculpting (ahem) our views of art and artists. Apparently best known as a poet and journalist, JAMES FENTON kept me engrossed in his book of art essays, Leonardo's Nephew (1998), a random find for me that I'll henceforth treasure. Subjects include Pisanello, Bernini, Degas, Picasso, and, most engrossingly of all, Pierino da Vinci, the titular nephew of Leonardo, who, had he not died young, might have given his venerable uncle a run for his money. I've noted lots of little tidbits to remember for future museum visits. (I've also just noticed that Fenton wrote a history of the Royal Academy of Arts, which would certainly have been on our London to-do list if not for its highly inconvenient temporary closure. I've now added that book to my TBR.) And I recently read ANDREW GRAHAM-DIXON's Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found (2025) hot off the presses. I had eagerly anticipated it, but found it disappointing. His brief summary of the Thirty Years War to provide context for the world Vermeer lived in was absolutely riveting and horrifying—perhaps he should have been an historian rather than an art critic?—but his interpretations of Vermeer's paintings (which he tends to present as THE meanings, as if no one could possibly see anything else in them now that he has solved their puzzles) had the presumably undesired effect of reducing, for me, both the paintings and Vermeer himself. Given that we can never really understand the life or mind of a person from the 1600s, even with far better records than exist for Vermeer, Graham-Dixon's portrait of the painter as obsessively and single-mindedly concerned with his religion, and furiously focused on religious symbolism in his work, is not, even if true, one I particularly care to have in mind when viewing his gorgeous paintings. Fortunately, I can report that, in actually viewing several Vermeers in London last week, I was successful in forgetting all about this book, which is how I intend to keep it. I forget everything anyway…

But that's enough snarkiness for a list of favorites. Now for my dozen faves of the year:

 

12) GRAHAM GREENE, Travels with My Aunt (1969)

I've read a fair amount of Greene in the past, but I had no idea he could be so cheerful and entertaining. I'm sure most of you are familiar with it, but if not, this is a sort of a humorous B-side to his thrillers and more serious novels, about a stodgy middle-aged man, firmly set in his routines, who is turned upside down by meeting a long-lost aunt, with whom he ventures on world travels and gets involved in unexpected intrigue. A high point of my reading year, despite being initially acquired mainly because it was one of the few English-language books I could find for cheap in Lisbon one day when I was desperate to read a physical book. I love my Kindles, but it does get to be a drag reading on them all the time.

 

11) HENRY JAMES, The Spoils of Poynton (1896)

Actually, make that two re-reads that I've allowed into my Dozen. This is possibly my favorite James novel, but my re-read was really triggered by memorable circumstances. Less than a week after our arrival in Lisbon (and I'm assuming as an official "welcome to Europe" just for us), the massive power outage in Portugal and Spain occurred. Without internet access or cell phone signal, we had no information about what was happening. We didn't know anyone in the neighbourhood and didn't speak Portuguese (Andy has come along amazingly since then, while I am progressing slowly). We were in the dark in more ways than one for that entire afternoon and evening. Since we had no way of knowing how long the outage might last, I avoided using up my Kindle or phone batteries, and plucked this book from my shelf—one of the few survivors of my pre-move book cull. We sat on our balcony a lot and observed the natives, who didn't seem overly fretted about the situation, so we decided to take it in stride as well. Not that we weren't quite relieved when the power came back on late that evening, but I'm thankful for the unforgettable inspiration behind a delightful re-read.

 

10) JULIAN BARNES, Keeping an Eye Open: Essays on Art (2015)

I had to leave this art history-related title in my top 12, because I'm still finding myself inspired by it. It was great fun to read, and I made voluminous notes, which I'll refer back to before future museum visits. Barnes seems to know everything, and his essays on Géricault, Delacroix, Van Gogh, Courbet, Bonnard, Vuillard, Manet, and many more taught me as much as an art history degree would have (or so I choose to think). It also inspired me to re-read Flaubert's Parrot (1984) for the first time in 30+ years, which I enjoyed rather more than I did all those years ago (when I surely had little grasp of what the novel was really about). This was followed by an attempt to read his more recent The Sense of an Ending (2011), which didn't work for me. If anyone has suggestions of other, more Parrot-y novels of his, do let me know. In the meantime, I believe my next Barnes will be The Man in the Red Coat (2019), a non-fiction work about the Parisian Belle Époque.

 

9) MARY ELEANOR WILKINS FREEMAN, Silence and Other Stories (1898)

I've long been a fan of American novelist and short story writer Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman (if one can be called a fan for having once read one or two of her collections). I even blogged about her briefly here. She's now best remembered for her ghost stories, but her many stories on non-ghostly matters contain some powerful treasures (along with a fair amount of unremarkable periodical fiction written to pay the bills). This collection must go on my Dozen because I simply must tell you about the title story. By Jove! "Silence" is one of the most harrowing stories I've ever read, and absolutely bloody brilliant to boot. I was white-knuckled gripping my Kindle for the duration. The story of an Indian attack on a New England village during the French & Indian War, the brilliance is that it is seen and experienced almost entirely through the eyes of the women of the village, including the village witch and a young girl whose fiancé is kidnapped in the attack. Its suspense and power stem partly from the fact that we see little of the actual violence, leaving it to our imagination, as the women are sheltering while the men fight off the attack. The dynamics between the women are riveting, both during the attack and in the period of recovery and rebuilding after. The story might be compared to Susan Glaspell's "A Jury of Her Peers" or Harriet Prescott Spofford's "Circumstance", the latter also featuring a colonial setting. Most of this collection's other stories pack less of a wallop, but "The Little Maid at the Door", set on the outskirts of Salem during the witch trials, comes close. It's not a perfect story, but again the author's shifts in perspective—from a very convincing, and downright eerie, portrayal of the genuine superstitious terror of two of the town's righteous citizens to the tragic consequences of that superstition—are excellent. Wilkins Freeman's work is public domain and readily available online, and you should check out these stories if you're interested in very powerful, highly original storytelling, but don't blame me if a sleepless night results…

 

8) JOSÉ MARIA EÇA DE QUEIROZ, The Maias (1888) (translated by Margaret Jull Costa)

I mentioned this book in one of my pathetically few posts earlier this year, so I'll just reiterate here what a gorgeous thing it is. Part soap opera (with an incest theme no less!), part a mockery of Romanticism and noble feelings, it's entirely entertaining and has a perfect, melancholy but funny ending. Do have a look at it if you like sprawling 19th-century dramas, and give Portugal's native son a bit more of the attention he deserves. (And this makes three 19th century books in this year's Dozen—who could have foreseen that?!)

 

7) FRANCESCA WADE, Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife (2025)

"'Forget grammar,' she wrote one day (perhaps around dinner time), 'and think about potatoes.'" How anyone can resist Gertrude Stein's playfully wacky, gloriously pompous, and ultimately transformative experimental work is—well, to be honest, not remotely beyond comprehension, but I do adore her no matter what anyone says. And after her lovely Bloomsbury book, Square Haunting (2020), I would read just about anything Francesca Wade puts on paper. But what made the book extra thrilling, apart from my passion for Stein, was that, as she notes in the introduction, Wade was the first researcher to make an in-depth exploration of the archive of Leo Katz, an eccentric Stein scholar who had for many, many years promised major revelations from his extensive interviews with Alice B. Toklas in his book-in-progress, which alas remained "in progress" and never actually written right up until his death. The book offers irresistible glimpses of Gertrude and Alice, and—more extensively than most books about Stein—of Alice after Gertrude's death. Some of the incidents are familiar, some definitely not. There's a rather hair-raising tidbit about Stein's first purchase of a Picasso, a portrait of a girl, when Gertie was unsure of the legs and feet and Picasso's increasingly desperate dealer offered to cut it in half and discard the lower portion (she ultimately took the painting whole). There's Virginia Woolf's reaction, in a letter to a third party, to attempts to urge the Hogarth Press to publish Stein's massive early novel The Making of Americans: “We are lying crushed under an immense manuscript of Gertrude Stein’s.” They didn't publish it. And there's a quite harrowing tale of the escape from Paris, as the Nazis approached, of Picasso's world-famous portrait of Gertrude, tied to the roof of their car. (Note that comma—it was the painting tied to the roof, not Gertrude herself.) I was engrossed from start to finish, as much for Wade's sharp, engaging prose as for the promised Katz revelations—which partly concern the turbulent time following Alice's discovery of a hitherto-unknown love affair from Gertrude's past, with a woman who had continued to be her friend and with whom Alice had also become friends. Oh, and then there's the little matter of the prison break Alice helped bring about…

 

6) BEVERLEY NICHOLS, Murder by Request (1960)

People have been telling me for years that I should read Nichols' gardening- and house-oriented books, and I confess I've never done it. But I didn't realize he'd written mysteries as well. Nor could anyone have imagined that I'd come across one of them, complete with dustjacket if a bit mildewy, in a bookshop in Lisbon. Murder by Request was the last of five mysteries he wrote—the others being No Man's Street (1954), The Moonflower (1955) (aka The  Moonflower Murder), Death to Slow Music (1956), and The Rich Die Hard (1957). Have any of you read these? I don't fancy my chances of finding any more of them in Lisbon, and my recent Oxfam visits failed to turn them up as well, so they may constitute the substance of a future British Library run. The setting of this one is a "nature cure establishment" at which Nichols' detective, Horatio Green, becomes a reluctant resident. I found it all quite entertaining.

 

5) EVA MENASSE, Darkenbloom (2021, translated by Charlotte Collins)

It's possibly unfair that I should include a work of contemporary fiction in my Dozen, since this was likely one of only two or three such works I read this year. That said, it's a dark delight that I really loved, so what the heck. There are definite shades here of W. G. Sebald and Olga Tokarczuk, for fans of those authors, but it's also very much its own thing. It's set in 1989 in an Austrian village, near the border with Hungary, wrestling with its World War II demons while coping with the uncertainty of East German and Hungarian border openings in the book's present day, as the Iron Curtain begins to collapse. So much fascinating history covered here, many things that I knew about on some level but had never considered as part of a whole. I'd never thought about the many people who were alive to see both of these historic turning points, or of how they might have processed the change and upheaval they had witnessed. Highly recommended if you're interested in this topic. It seems that only one other of Menasse's novels has been translated, Vienna (2005), but I definitely want to check that one out as well.

 

4) VICTOR L. WHITECHURCH, The Canon in Residence (1904)

I very nearly score a fourth 19th century title here. I happened across a mention of this novel after reading one of Whitechurch's later mysteries. The mystery was adequate and entertaining, but fairly forgettable, but this tale, after it's Alpine opening, becomes—yes!—a cheerful village comedy. It's the very amusing tale of a young clergyman, in the early stages of stuffy conservatism to which his ilk are prone, who, on holiday on the continent, finds himself without his ecclesiastical garments, which have been stolen by a fellow hotel guest with an urgent need for their disguising properties. His own subsequent behavior in mufti, as well as that of the fake clergyman wearing his clothes, lead to misunderstandings and rumours when he's back in England among the new constituency he takes on as a newly-minted canon. It's rollicking good fun, and indeed a very FM-like novel, if only it weren't written by one of those pesky men…

 

3) DOROTHY L. SAYERS, The Nine Tailors (1934)

Here's the other re-read of the year that I'm allowing into my Dozen, because it was one of the high points of the entire year. I first read it in 2008, and my re-read highlights what an abominable memory I have. For 17 subsequent years, I thought of it (and recommended it) as a "winter novel." Indeed the first eighth or so of the novel does make wonderfully vivid use of an extreme winter in a village in East Anglia, but the rest unfolds at various seasons until the mystery of the corpse in the village bell tower is finally resolved. I know how wonderful Gaudy Night is, but I have to say this one gets my vote for the very best Sayers. Indeed, it's also one of those mysteries that one could very nearly imagine without any murder at all, because its village setting and cast of characters are so wonderful to spend time with. I've promised myself I won't wait 17 years for another re-read.

 

2) MINA CURTISS, Other People's Letters: In Search of Proust (1978)

Discovered by accident while looking into Proust's letters, edited and translated into English by Curtiss, this is her delightful memoir of the eventful search for them and the people she met along the way—including Proust's housekeeper, Celeste Albaret, who had a few years before (1972) published a memoir of him (in print now from New York Review Books). I found it completely irresistible, but made no notes on it at the time (seeing as I finished reading it the day before we moved to Lisbon, I hope I can be forgiven for that particular slackness). But a second reading is going to have to happen soon—perhaps I'll review it then, even after it's already appeared in my Dozen. At any rate, you need not love Proust to enjoy her adventures and encounters with those who knew him. It might also be of interest to some of you that Mina was the sister of Lincoln Kirstein, who was the co-founder of the New York City Ballet among other things, and who is mentioned in cultural records of the time by more famous people than you can shake a stick at.

 

1) SUSAN GILRUTH, Death in Ambush (1952)

It's partly the seasonal spirit that leads me to place this one at the top of my list, and partly because it was acquired during (and therefore provides fond memories of) our trip to London. (The British Library is a dangerous place with its 3-for-the-price-of-2 deal on its own publications—I escaped with only 6 Crime Classics this time, due to the fact that I was already eyeing a growing pile of books in our hotel room as a result of my Oxfam visits, and becoming vaguely worried about getting them home; otherwise it would surely have been 9, or 12. Or 15?) But in its own right, Death in Ambush is an irresistibly charming, lighthearted, Christmas-themed mystery, the first of Gilruth's seven mysteries to make its way back into print, though it's actually the second she published. It's a cheerful village whodunnit—not absolutely a comedy per se, though it certainly has its wry humour, but its village setting and characters reminded me of the Mrs Mallory mysteries by Hazel Holt, or indeed of a sort of Provincial Lady Deals With Death. Lee Crauford, our heroine, is staying with friends, a doctor and his wife, in the South of England, when a much-loathed former judge is murdered. Practically everyone in the village has a motive to kill him. Lee doesn't (intentionally) do much sleuthing herself, but as she gets pulled into the social rounds of the village, she comes across clues and passes them on to her "friend", Scotland Yard Detective-Inspector Hugh Gordon, whom she had met in Gilruth's earlier novel, Sweet Revenge (1951). Their relationship is undoubtedly flirtatious, despite her status as a married woman, and the introduction by Martin Edwards gives us the background that Gilruth's own marriage (to a doctor, no less, which must have given her insight into the life of a doctor's family, entertainingly portrayed here) had ended a few years before she began writing (no mention of whether a real-life Detective-Inspector was involved). It's quite a fun read, and I'm very much hoping the BL will get round to reprinting her other books in due course. Otherwise, here are a few more titles for the next time I head from the British Library shop upstairs to the reading rooms.

 

And that's that!

What are some of you lovely readers' favorite books of the year? Recommendations are welcome. And merry Christmas, happy holidays, delightful gatherings and festivities, or lovely quiet times by a fire with a good book, whichever you prefer!

An intriguing digression: JORGE LUIS BORGES, Professor Borges (c1966)

Some of you may be interested in this book I picked up randomly a while back, and which somehow survived the great pre-Portugal book culling. It’s comprised of a series of lectures given by the great Argentinian author and poet Jorge Luis Borges in 1966, on the history of English lit (really British literature, as Scotland and Ireland in particular come into play, but the book cover says English, so be irritated with the publisher, not me), and it’s certainly unlike any other survey of the subject you’ll ever encounter. As readers of his otherwordly short fiction know, Borges seems to have read absolutely everything, and (unlike some of us) could actually remember what he’d read and keep it at his command. The sometimes astonishing tidbits he tosses carelessly into a lecture, and the sense of spontaneity as he “speaks”, made the book surprisingly thrilling to read, even when a lecture focused on authors or works I knew nothing about or don’t particularly enjoy.

There are some quirky choices here, to say the least. There are 25 lectures in all, of which the first 7 are devoted to Old and Middle English poems, and many are the works he discusses that I'd never so much as heard of before. But those are themselves apparently only the tip of a vanished iceberg: One of those tidbits I mentioned appears here, as he casually evokes the melancholy thought of a whole rich body of literature that no longer survives:

The story of the origins of English poetry is quite mysterious. As we know, all that remains of what was written in England from the fifth century—let’s say, from the year 449—until a little after the Norman Conquest in the year 1066, besides the laws and the prose, is what has been preserved by chance in four codices, or books of manuscripts. These codices suggest the existence of a prior literature that was quite rich.

I very nearly began to research what new discoveries in this area have been made since Borges’ lectures, but I spend enough of my time in rabbit holes these days, so if anyone out there happens to be an expert and wants to share…

He then jumps directly into the 18th century—never mind those pesky bores like Chaucer, Milton, and Shakespeare—and devotes three classes to Johnson and Boswell, followed by a class dedicated to James MacPherson, whose invention of the supposed Celtic poet Ossian, though fraudulent, was also, according to Borges, pivotal in the development of Romanticism (and a precursor of Walt Whitman to boot). I'd never heard of Macpherson either, I sadly acknowledge.

The syllabus becomes a bit less unexpected for a few classes, in which we encounter the likes of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake, Carlyle, Dickens, and Browning. Ah, familiar ground! But then Borges spends most of 5 classes discussing Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris. (Bright side: I knew very little about either, so learned a lot.) The course then ends, a bit abruptly, with a session on Robert Louis Stevenson, and a quick gesture towards Oscar Wilde. As I said, not a selection of authors and works most scholars today would put together (nary a mention of Sterne, Smollett, Fielding, Austen, Eliot, or the Brontës either), but of course that’s what makes it so interesting.

Another rabbit hole I’ve been trying to simply peek into without actually going down is Borges’ mention of The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, a book published in 1896 with an elegant design by William Morris and illustrations by Edward Burne-Jones, “considered a masterpiece for the exquisite harmony of its design, typography, and illustrations.” If you’d like to abandon caution and dive right into the rabbit hole, the Library of Congress has the book online in color here and it seems pretty stunning.

If I hadn’t picked up this book, I would likely never have known that Dante Gabriel Rossetti was a nephew of John Polidori, made famous as Lord Byron’s doctor and as the author of the Gothic novella The Vampyre (1819). Could I have lived without that kernel of knowledge? Most certainly, though it is a rather fun fact. But could I have so happily lived without Borges’ mention of Jane Carlyle as perhaps the real writer of the Carlyle household, for her voluminous correspondence? Perhaps not—at any rate, I’ve now got three volumes of her letters on my Kindle. Have any of you read these? Amazing how there's always new things to discover...

Safe and sound

I am, I know, the world's worst and least reliable blogger, but I had to chime in today to thank some of you who expressed concern after Wednesday's terrible funicular derailment here in Lisbon. Fortunately, we were nowhere in the vicinity at the time, though it was shocking and distressing to hear about and we're so sad for the victims and their families. It could certainly have been us on another day, so although of course terrible things happen every day all over the world, it does somehow hit a bit harder when it's so immediate and personal.

It's also particularly sad for the city because the trams and funiculars have become such symbols of Lisbon in recent years. They were, of course, originally practical public transportation for locals, but since they became Instagram-famous, they're must-sees and must-photographs for visitors to the city, particularly the Gloria funicular, which crashed on Wednesday, the most famous of the three funiculars, and Tram 28, the similarly Instagram-able tourist favorite of the city's six tram lines, which winds through the most famous and scenic areas of the old town. People wait for an hour or more in high season to take Tram 28 (we did it on our first trip here). Of course, the tragedy of this accident would be just as awful if it had involved a different vehicle, but somehow it feels a bit more personal that it happened on the world-famous funicular.

BTW, brief insider tip for tram fans: If you're one of those travelers (like Andy) who absolutely must recreate exactly what you've seem on social media, then Tram 28 is unavoidable. Just go to the first or final stop on the route, preferably early in the day or late, and prepare to wait. But for those (like me) who just think the vintage trams are a fun and charming experience and will enjoy the ride and the scenery regardless, you might like to know that Tram 24, for example, which doesn't go through Alfama but does pass under the magnificent aqueduct and through the popular Principe Real neighborhood, is often not crowded at all... Just please don't post about it on Instagram!

There's your free Lisbon tourism tip for the day, as a thank you for the concern about our safety. And although I will not make any specific promises about future posts, as I'm too prone to breaking promises, I will say that I have begun jotting notes again as I read, which makes the chances of me being unable to resist sharing thoughts with you here and there much higher. I won't promise that the thoughts will be worth reading, but you never know!

Hope you're all doing well!

(A poor substitute for a) Furrowed Middlebrow Dozen 2024

Well, obviously this blog hasn't exactly become a hive of activity since my "return" last month. The rather sweltering Lisbon summer should have made staying indoors and furiously blogging a natural thing to do, but instead on many days it seems to leave me incapable of anything but draping myself across the furniture and reading. (In all fairness, the heat here is at least dry, so it could be much worse, there are absolutely gorgeous days interspersed with the hottest ones, and the payoff of it all is that by evening it's generally a delight to sit outside—as opposed to San Francisco where one would very often freeze one's tits off if you tried to dine al fresco.)

But now, casting my mind back to our distant, chilly San Francisco days, and reviewing my list of books read, it seems I did do quite a lot of good reading last year, albeit less focused than in previous years. When the anticipation of the move was too much for serious reading, I devoured some quite good mysteries. In addition to those in the list, BRUCE GRAEME's Seven Clues in Search of a Crime (1941), the first book of seven in his series of bibliomysteries about bookseller Theodore Terhune, was a delight, and I've since read a couple more in the series. I continued my on-again/off-again obsession with EDITH CAROLINE RIVETT, better known as E. C. R. LORAC and/or CAROL CARNAC. My days of access to San Francisco's interlibrary loan treasures are over, but I made hay while the sun shone and still have a considerable number of scanned books from those glory days, including a number of Rivett's books. The highlights for last year would include Murder in Chelsea (1934, Lorac) and The Striped Suitcase (1946, Carnac). (Terribly excited to note that later this year Lorac's Still Waters is being reprinted by the British Library, set in the same locales as my 2023 fave, The Theft of the Iron Dogs.) I also continued my enjoyment of some of CLIFFORD WITTING's leisurely, character-focused village mysteries—some find them dull, some delightful, but his debut, Murder in Blue (1937), which I enjoyed very much last year, might be a good test case to see where you fall along that spectrum. And I had had KATHLEEN HEWITT's wartime mystery Plenty Under the Counter (1943) on my shelf for ages, and when I finally got round to it, I ate it up like candy—funny, well-paced, with plenty of wartime interest right on top of the counter. Definitely recommended.

My long-overdue reading of some "classics" is in full swing now, but was just getting started last year. I did quite enjoy IVAN TURGENEV's A Sportsman's Sketches (1852), which I've meant to read for a good three decades or so because Hemingway was always mentioning it. I've chilled to most of Hemingway now, and Turgenev may have limited appeal for some readers for some of the same reasons, but I loved the slices of life of rural 19th century Russia.

I spent a lot of time in 2024, in anticipation of our move, reading history and travel with a European slant. JUDITH HERRIN's Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe (2020) stimulated my curious but ongoing passion for old churches and made a Northern Italy trip a must as soon as we can make it happen. CORRADO AUGIAS's The Secrets of Rome (2005), a random find at the library sidewalk book sale, proved a riveting look at Rome at various times in its history, and CHRISTOPHER WOODWARD's In Ruins (2001), though not focused on Rome alone, provided excellent fodder for a future Southern Italy trip… (Most fascinating tidbit: when botanists visited Rome in the 17th and 18th centuries, they discovered species of plant life in the overgrown Colosseum that existed nowhere else outside of Africa or the Middle East; the possible explanation? That the seeds had arrived in the digestive tracts of wild animals imported to Rome to be killed in ancient spectacles. Mind blown.) I'm usually well behind the times when it comes to new books, but something inspired me to read SEBASTIAN SMEE's Paris in Ruins (2024) hot off the presses, and the tale of the Impressionists involved in and influenced by revolutionary unrest in 19th century France was an engrossing read and enriched my enjoyment of those artists. And finally, learning more about the art we hope to see on our travels led me to JONATHON JONES's Earthly Delights (2023), a lovely history of Renaissance art. The interest it aroused in art of all kinds has since become a bit of an obsession (I haven't made an art database yet, but I have made a spreadsheet…).

For the long-overdue Dozen itself, I tried to select the more "on topic" titles that I particularly enjoyed last year. 

12) JOSEPHINE BELL, Total War at Haverington (1947)

This would have been a perfect novel to blog about when it was fresh in my mind, but … woulda coulda shoulda. This is the first of Bell's non-mysteries I've read and I enjoyed it tremendously. Tracing the fictional mid-sized town of Haverington through the war, beginning to end, it offers a fascinating glimpse, á la Winifred Holtby's South Riding, of the practical logistics of wartime—accommodation of refugees, rationing, bombs, and all. Its flaw for me, probably introduced by a publisher who felt the logistics themselves wouldn't sell books, is a melodramatic romance element that's rather drab, but it's nevertheless a fascinating read.

11) E. H. CLEMENTS, Bright Intervals (1940)

I actually blogged about this one! A sort of mystery novel, complete with detective but missing a murder—just a delightful, quirky family's adventures on holiday in Devon. More mystery writers should take a break and show us their detectives' holidays. Vera on holiday, anyone? Sherlock Holmes (in rehab, perhaps)? 

10) ANNE HEPPLE, Scotch Broth (1933)

An author who has floated around my periphery since I started blogging, this is the first of her books I've actually read. Apparently most of her books tend toward melodramatic romance, but I happened across Scotch Broth, which is (mostly) a cheerful comedy about two sisters who, despite having homes elsewhere, take a country cottage for a getaway. It was just what I needed, but she must be unable to leave melodrama behind entirely, as there remains a dog-shooting, an episode of madness, and a suicide mixed in (!!). They didn’t bother me overly—the shooting occurred "off stage", and the madness and suicide are loathsome characters, so I breezed on by—but some readers would likely be put off.

According to Mary Rawnsley's bio of Hepple, this is the most autobiographical of her novels, which leads me to speculation. Hepple had two half-sisters, Agnes Ancroft and Jane Hukk, both of them novelists as well. The sister in Scotch Broth is named Jane, and Jane Hukk is known to have settled in Berwick after her return from India with her husband, so that makes sense. Agnes was living in London by 1939 at least, and seems to have remained unmarried. Whenever I look at this family, I always wonder about Maud Batchelor, author of the wonderful novel The Woman of the House, who was herself née Batty, as were Anne and her sisters (Ancroft was a pseudonym for Agnes, not a married name). Could she have been related as well?

9) JOAN COCKIN, Villainy at Vespers (1949)

Several years ago, I came across mention of the three mystery novels written by Joan Cockin, but could never track them down until Galileo Publishing reprinted them in the past couple of years. (In a delightful working of irony, Galileo also reprints the mysteries of Joan Coggin, and one wonders if there's a slightly careless reader somewhere who thinks all the books are by a single author.) I've read all three of Cockin's books and this one, in which her detective, Inspector Cam, must solve a case while on holiday with his family in Cornwall, was my favorite. 

8) HARRIET LANE LEVY, Paris Portraits (2011)

Admittedly, this is a very slight book (just over 100 pages including illustrations) and I only came across it because of my interest in Gertrude Stein (new book about Stein by Francesca Wade is arriving today or tomorrow at a Lisbon bookstore that does special orders—my cup runneth over!). But it's a lovely, quirky little thing that made me wish Levy had written many more books (she did write one other, about her youth in San Francisco, 920 O'Farrell Street [1947]). Levy was a childhood friend of Alice B. Toklas, and was with Alice on her first visit to Paris, where she met Gertrude. Her account of the other Steins is delightfully ambivalent ("I hated myself for not being able to tell them to go to hell"), and her wry observations about the talented and famous are entertainingly down-to-earth and unimpressed. Though it belongs in a  proper review, I'm going to squeeze in here Levy's summation of the "retirement" of Mildred Aldrich, another friend of Stein whose memoir A Hilltop on the Marne (1915) is a favorite of mine:

And so she bought the home of a peasant in Huiry, about thirty miles from Paris, furnished it with her belongings, dissolved all her Paris connections, and settled in the village.

Came the First World War.

The village of Huiry was evacuated under the order of the British commander. Along with the other inhabitants Mildred Aldrich was advised to leave. The hill on which she lived was in the direct line of march of the German army. British officers explained to her that her home stood between the fire of the Germans and the British.

Mildred refused to leave. She said that she would be of some service to the British.

All the foreigners left Huiry except Mildred Aldrich.

The Battle of the Marne was fought in front of her cottage.

That was her retirement from life.

Paris Portraits can be enjoyed in an hour or two as a medicinal antidote to the nightly news…

7) EDITH WHARTON, Roman Fever and Other Stories

Can you believe that my only previous Edith Wharton reading was Ethan Frome?! I really like that novella, bleak and despairing as it is, but it's hardly representative of Wharton's work, and picking up this collection (for fifty cents!) was an eye-opener. I expected something very much like Henry James, who was a friend and influence on Edith, and that may apply to some of her work, but I didn't expect the delightful and sometimes vicious sense of humor that comes through in these stories. The title story, along with its Roman setting and its two older women reminiscing about earlier visits to the city, has one of those endings I've talked about before—where you feel like shrieking with joy at a surprise twist. And "Xingu," about one of those characters who like to make others feel intellectually inadequate and how she gets her come-uppance, has an ending like that too. Some of the stories are more serious, and some of the endings don't work as well as these, but good heavens, what I've been missing not reading Wharton!

6) DOROTHY LAMBERT, A Present for Mary (1952)

5) DOROTHY LAMBERT, Harvest Home (1950)

I've already announced, in my previous post, that Dean Street Press will be reprinting an additional four novels by Dorothy Lambert, and the fact that one of these delights is going to be reprinted and the other isn't (yet) indicates how torturous the selection process was. A Present for Mary is a charming comedy with gentle thriller elements, when a stranger convinces a young girl to take a parcel through customs for her, with unexpected results. And Harvest Home is a humorous tale of a group of eccentric Londoners who find themselves helping with the harvest on a friend's family farm. Both are as charming as you'd expect from Lambert, but so are the other three we selected, so Present will have to wait a bit longer.

4) MRS. PHILIP CHAMPION DE CRESPIGNY, The Missing Piece (1927)

An amateur detective in the form of a chatty spinster—I mean, could anything be more ideal for me? And that it's as charming as it sounds was a joy. Celia Gaythorn investigates the murder of one of her niece's friends, and must try to out-logic the surly Inspector on the case, who has settled on the local baker as his scapegoat ("I only hoped the inspector had not yet put his threat into effect and arrested the poor man—and if he had what on earth should we all do for bread in the morning?")

3) WILLA CATHER, Not Under Forty (1936)

This was another bargain find in a thrift store in Berkeley (oh, Friends of the Berkeley Public Library Bookstore, how I miss thee!), and it set me off on a Willa Cather reading craze last year which included Shadows on the Rock, which I'd never read before and quite liked, and My Antonía, one of my all-time faves. This is a short book of six essays, not all of them memorable, but two are absolute delights. In "A Chance Meeting," Cather describes her encounters with a formidable old woman in a hotel in the South of France, who turns out to have considerable literary credentials of her own (I don't want to give it away, as it makes such a wonderful impression when you read it). And in "148 Charles Street" Cather writes of her friend Annie Adams Fields, whose husband, James T. Fields, was a founder of the Ticknor & Fields publishing house. The two therefore entertained a host of literary elites, and when Annie was widowed she became a close companion of author Sarah Orne Jewett, who was also a friend of Cather's. The essay is a memorial to Fields, but it made me want to read Fields' own book, Memories of a Hostess (1922), compiled after her death from her extensive diaries.

2) RACHEL COHEN, A Chance Meeting (2004)

I love when one book leads directly to another, and it was Cather's essay "A Chance Meeting" which led me, in some errant Amazon or Google search, to Rachel Cohen's utterly brilliant book, subtitled "Intertwined Lives of American Writers and Artists, 1854-1967." It also gave Cohen her title, and she writes a bit about Cather here as well as many other delightfully random and often unexpected encounters, culled from casual mentions in biographies and given flesh by Cohen's diligent piecing together and savvy sensibility. We read about Henry James being taken as a child to be photographed by Matthew Brady, and Brady subsequently photographing Walt Whitman. We see W. E. B. DuBois going with mentor William James to visit Helen Keller, and Hart Crane and Charlie Chaplin going out on the town. As the chapters ventured later in time, they became a bit less interesting for me, and most readers may find some chapters more intriguing than others, but overall this is one of the most unique and lovely books I've ever read. It has now been reprinted in the New York Review Books Classics series.

[I honestly can't remember if it was here or in Cather's longtime companion Edith Lewis's memoir Willa Cather Living, or perhaps both, but somewhere last year I came across and was much struck by Cather's chance meeting with Vaslav Nijinsky in Paris, during part of which time Nijinsky, who as we know suffered serious mental health issues, stood facing a corner, believing himself to be a horse.]

1) CLAIRE HARMAN, All Sorts of Lives: Katherine Mansfield and the Art of Risking Everything (2023)

I've loved Katherine Mansfield for ages, but I have a slightly ambivalent relationship with biography (a genre that leads you to fall in love with someone only to watch them die), so Harman's somewhat experimental approach was perfect for me. Harman looks at Mansfield's life through examination of ten of her best stories, which provides a lovely sense of the author's joyous but at times agonizing life and creative process. A really beautiful book. Mansfield is on my list to re-read as soon as, but in the meantime I'm tempted to dive back into Harman's book. (She does present Mansfield's tragic and criminally premature death, of course, but somehow in a more episodic context it wasn't quite so devastating to read about.)

And that's that (at least for a few months before it's time for a 2025 Dozen)! What I have lacked in timeliness, I have made up for in wordiness, so I hope you enjoy some of these recommendations, and I hope you all had a great reading year in 2024 as well. Ah, it was a simpler time back then…