Last prompt of the year! I have decided to stray a bit from my list as I was not all that excited about the theme I had chosen, but tweaking is always allowable as this is meant to be fun and just a way for me to explore my shelves a bit. Besides I still have last month's prompt to finish and one from earlier in the year (which I may also fudge on, too).
Since we have just celebrated the thirty year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, it seems like a timely prompt to read about those Cold War days that created the wall. The world is a better place without walls, but I do find that era intriguing--best only to read about in fiction and not live through or with. So I pulled a few books that have a Cold War backdrop to them and will choose one to finish out the reading year.
Stasi Child: A Karin Muller Thriller, David Young -- "East Berlin, 1975. When Oberleutnant Karin Müller is called to investigate a teenage girl's body at the foot of the Wall, she imagines she's seen it all before. But when she arrives she realises this is a death like no other. It seems the girl was trying to escape - but from the West."
Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall, Anna Funder -- "In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell; shortly afterward the two Germanys reunited, and East Germany ceased to exist. Anna Funder’s bestselling Stasiland brings us extraordinary tales of real lives in the former East Germany. She meets Miriam, who tried to escape to West Berlin as a sixteen-year-old; hears the heartbreaking story of Frau Paul, who was separated from her baby by the Berlin Wall; and gets drunk with the legendary 'Mik Jegger of the East', once declared by the authorities—to his face—“no longer to exist.” And she meets the Stasi men themselves, still proud of their surveillance methods. Funder’s powerful account of that brutal world has become a contemporary classic."
Berlin Game, Len Deighton -- "East is East and West is West – and they meet in Berlin… He was the best source the Department ever had, but now he desperately wanted to come over the Wall. 'Brahms Four' was certain a high-ranking mole was set to betray him. There was only one Englishman he trusted any more: someone from the old days. So they decided to put Bernard Samson back into the field after five sedentary years of flying a desk."
Casino Royale, Ian Fleming -- "In the novel that introduced James Bond to the world, Ian Fleming’s agent 007 is dispatched to a French casino in Royale-les-Eaux. His mission? Bankrupt a ruthless Russian agent who’s been on a bad luck streak at the baccarat table."
Then We Take Berlin: A Joel Wilderness Novel -- "Joe Wilderness is a World War II orphan, a condition that he thinks excuses him from common morality. Cat burglar, card sharp, and Cockney wide boy, the last thing he wants is to get drafted. But in 1946 he finds himself in the Royal Air Force, facing a stretch in military prison . . . when along comes Lt Colonel Burne-Jones to tell him MI6 has better use for his talents."
I think I have plenty to choose from with this little pile, but just out of curiosity--do you have any favorites with a setting of this era and part of the world? I seem to be rather light on stories driven by or written by women, which is something I always look for normally.
It is getting unbelievably close to the end of the year and I know I will not be able to write about the many books I have finished that have gone unnoticed or unmentioned. I hope I might squeeze in a few chatty posts about them, but it might not happen.
I have some serious clean up to do--I am reading the last two months/chapters in my Gladys Tabor book and will write about them soon.
For such a long time I was ahead of the game with my Good Reads book challenge, but I am now a book behind. Still, I think I can finish eight books still this month to meet my goal. I am within the last 100 pages of at least three novels at the moment and I would love to clear off another book or two that has been languishing. If not, perhaps I will simply clear them away and start afresh whatever happens.
My blogging will likely continue to be erratic unfortunately. Life is a little crazy and there are family things that are mostly my focus right now. But this, too, shall pass, right? I am sure life will get back to some semblance of normalcy eventually even if it is a new kind of normal.
I would love to hear what you have been up to? What are you reading? What has been your favorite book? A favorite new find for 2019? Or maybe a spectacularly good or absorbing movie or TV show. I feel cut off from my virtual friends and I do miss you! But whatever you are up to, I hope you have a good book next to you!