July Reading

Back home in my garden 

While we were on the ship in the Mediterranean in July, I didn’t have time or energy to read. We were busy seeing ancient ruins, modern villages, beautiful island scenery, and just watching the water. Long plane trips are a good time to read, though on the two 9-hour trips between Boston and Athens, I mainly slept — one book each way including airport time! 

Since we returned, I have read a few books — especially my chosen follow-up to the trip, which was to read Homer’s Odyssey. Here are the books I’ve read recently.

Airplane Reading

Gary Shteyngart’s latest book, Vera, or Faith is different from his earlier books.
Vera is a ten-year-old girl with some symptoms of Asberger’s like flapping her hands,
and being very very intelligent, perceptive, and socially uncomfortable.
But there’s no medical theme, you have to diagnose her as you read. She’s a person. Good book!

During the trip I read two detective novels by Anthony Horowitz.
I’ve enjoyed the Susan Ryland dramatizations, as well as the third, newest one in the series.
I also liked one with another detective at the center. I suspect I’ll read more.

After the Voyage

Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s horror novels are (oddly) relatable.
I think I like the others better than The Bewitching: it’s too conventionally a horror tale,
with evil monsters and a naive smart girl to defeat them. It was just published.

When we came back, I wanted to read a book about traveling around the Mediterranean.
Odysseus was in a slightly different area, on the other side of Greece,
but nevertheless I found many of Homer’s descriptions very easy to picture, based on experience.
Notice that I read my old, dog-eared version of this ancient classic.

Detective Tom Janssen is entirely new to me.
I enjoyed One Lost Soul by J.M.Dalgliesh. It even has some pretty good food scenes.

Before the Voyage

Autocorrect: Stories by Etgar Keret is an interesting book by the Israeli author.
I read it and a couple others before we left, and I reviewed it July 9.

Blog post © 2025 mae sander