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Book 32 for 2025: “My Name Is Emilia del Valle”, Isabel Allende

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

The last two books of hers that I read were set in the more recent times when Salvador Allende and later Pinochet were presidents of Chile. This one dates back to the 1800s and the Chilean Civil War. In 1866 a nun of Irish descent living in San Francisco has a passionate affair with a Chilean aristocrat and becomes pregnant. He abandons her; their daughter becomes the woman in the title of this novel. She is raised by a loving step father, an intellectual teacher from whom she learns to be independent and defy societal norms. At a young age she becomes the writer of short pulp fiction novels using a fake male name. The income from these helps her family live a reasonably good life.

Bored with writing these lucrative little books, she convinces a San Francisco newspaper to hire her as a journalist where she works along with a more seasoned journalist, Eric Whelan. Eventually, the two are sent to Chile to cover the civil war and violence occurring there. She sees this as not only an opportunity to satisfy her adventurous spirit but also an opportunity to find her biological father. She encounters dangers, almost gets killed, and sets off to find herself in the far southern reaches of the Chilean wilderness, learning from the indigenous people who live there how to survive in remote mountains.

Note: One of the places she goes was nearly impossible for non indigenous people to find during the 1800s and many never made it. Today, it is a popular area for hiking, camping, and exploring nature.

Book 31 for 2025: “Cold Kitchen: A Year of Culinary Journeys”, Caroline Eden

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What a delightful, entertaining book! The title refers to her basement kitchen in Edinburgh, Scotland, where she lives when she is not wandering the globe. Each chapter highlights a certain place in her travels, in this case Ukraine, various countries in Central Asia, e.g. Uzbekistan, Russia, and the city of Istanbul, which she says is one of her favorite cities to visit especially in winter when tourists are gone. In one chapter, “Russian Railway Pies”, she and her husband ride the train from Moscow to the eastern shore of Russia–the Trans Siberian Railway journey. They did this in winter when the temperature in some places they stopped were as low as 50 below zero.

Each chapter contains her experiences in an individual country or city. She describes the places in detail, the people she meets, the food she eats. She also relates her feelings regarding these places, many of which she had previously visited, how they have changed over the years for better or worse–worse in the case of Russia, what they mean to her. In each chapter she always goes back to her kitchen, her dog, hiking the Scottish highlands, and her cooking, usually a recipe where she is trying to re-create a food she ate in one of these places she loves.

This is her most recent book, published in 2024. She also has a series of books about particular places where the entire book is dedicated to that particular place. Mostly, she has travelled in Central Asia, Russian, the Balkans, Turkey. I enjoyed this book so much, I plan to read another one about her other adventures. She is not just on these adventures for fun but also as a career so she knows many journalists, diplomats, officials in these places.

Book 27 for 2025: “Violeta”, Isabel Allende

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Although technically not a sequel, “Violeta” seems to be a sort of sequel to “A Long Petal of the Sea”. If you are interested in Chilean history just before, during, and after the demise of Chilean president Salvador Allende and the horrors of Pinochet’s rule which the CIA helped to implement, this novel is for you.

This is the story of one woman, Violeta, told from her viewpoint via a long memoir written for and to her grandson. She begins life as the youngest child of a wealthy businessman whose poor and risky decisions lead to the family’s downfall, forcing them to escape to the remote, far southern regions of the country. It is the tale of a strong, passionate, determined woman who lived a lifestyle far ahead of her time, other family members, the far right Hitler sympathizing German farmers who immigrated to the far south, and others she knew including a renegade pilot who flew contraband and “prisoners” for various nefarious groups. Although not a murder mystery or a work of fiction that could be called adventurous, the story of Violeta’s life is so fascinating that I kept wanting to read on and on.

Books 24 and 25 for 2025: “Song Yet Sung”, James McBride and “The River Is Waiting”, Wally Lamb

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“Song Yet Sung” is the final book for me for McBride. I have now read all his books. Like most of his novels, this one is historical, taking place when slavery still existed. Here the setting is the coastal/tidal areas of Maryland and Virginia where many of the men make a living on the water harvesting seafood. This includes both whites and blacks, slaves and free. At least one escaped slave lives in the swamps where no one has been able to find him. One of the characters is an attractive, tough, ruthless woman who makes her living hunting down escaped slaves and sometimes even capturing freemen and selling them South as slaves. Another is a retired slave hunter who cannot get over the death of his son. Finally there is a widow who owns several slaves but totally depends on them for her living, one of whom is a major character in the novel. I had no idea how people lived in this area of the country, the codes, both slaves and free persons, used to survive and sometimes escape. There is a lot of violence in this novel but also plenty of hope and redemption.

“The River Is Waiting” has made it to the top ten fiction list for the last couple of weeks. Without doubt it has to be one of the most depressing novels I have ever read. A young man who hides his addictions causes a horrible, tragic accident. Sent to prison where he really does not fit in at all, he experiences many horrific events but also has a cell mate who is a kind and caring person. Add to this the two hideous, sadistic prison guards and their actions and you have a tale of woe relieved occasionally by acts of honor, beauty and kindness.

Note: Decades ago when I worked at a DOE facility where everyone had to take a psychological test to get a clearance to work there, a specialist came to give us a presentation on the test and how the results were used. As I read “The River Is Waiting”, I kept remembering something the presenter told us: when a test was given at a maximum security prison, the guards scored higher on hostility and anger than the inmates.

Book 21 for 2025: “A Trip of One’s Own: Hope, Heartbreak, and Why Traveling Solo Could Change Your Life”, Kate Wills

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This book was not quite what I expected. It is somewhat memoir in that she talks about her career as a journalist accompanied by photographers and such which is not really on your own, about her marriage and divorce, the new guy, and actually traveling on her own. However, a large part of it, which is quite fascinating, is the history of the solo women travelers in history starting with the nun Egeria, who wrote about her own travels throughout the Middle East in the years AD 381-384. Centuries later the book, “Itinerarium Eerie”, provides the details of her journeys and her “boundless curiosity”.

The book provides details of the adventures of many women who traveled solo: Emily Hahn, Nellie Bly, Martha Gellhorn–once married to Hemingway, Annie Londenberry, Gertrude Bell–the first woman to ride by camel across the Empty Quarter in Saudi Arabia, Helena Swanwick, Ethel Smyth, Jean Baret–the first woman to circumvent the globe, Isabelle Eberhardt, Elspeth Beard. I realized in reading this I had actually read about one of these women, Sarah Hobson, who rode all over Persia (Iran) on horseback disguised as a man and have read several books about Gertrude Bell. In the 1700s, Jeanne Barat sailed around the world on a scientific expedition disguised as a man. In 1983, Elspeth Beard circumvented the globe on a motorcycle to heal the trauma she had suffered. Others rode bicycles, some used various forms of navigation, but all defied the norms of their time. Many encountered all sort of dangers and nearly died.

Yes, the book does give women advice on how to travel safely alone, what to pack, etc. And toward the end she tells the reader how to find adventures nearby in the countryside or streets where you live, how to open the eyes and ears, all the senses, and notice your surroundings in new ways.

Book 19 for 2025: “Tell Me Everything”, Elizabeth Strout

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This latest Strout novel takes the reader back to Crosby, Maine, the site of most of her other novels. The same cast of characters appear, Olive, the Burgess boys, Lucy, William, Margaret, and all the others. This one, however, has a new twist, a heinous murder occurs. The most obvious suspect is the victim’s reclusive son who lived with her. Bob Burgess is hired as his lawyer. Lucy starts visiting Olive and they tell each other stories about people they have known , what Lucy calls “unrecorded lives”. Meanwhile, Lucy keeps asking, “What does anyone’s life mean?” Lucy and Bob take walks every week, spending the time talking about all the things they feel they cannot talk about with anyone else. William becomes more obsessed with the parasites he is studying and never quits talking about them.

This, like all of Strout’s novels, focuses on relationships, the good and the bad, and how they sustain us, sometimes transform our lives, sometimes nearly ruin us. Although, readers do not have to read her novels in sequence and this one could be read alone, I think it would make more sense to the reader to at least read three others first: “Olive Kitteridge”, “The Burgess Boys”, and “Oh, William”.

Strout has a unique, easy to read style, that is both simple and profound. She talks about people as they are with empathy and concern. She talks about the many forms of love–“…it is always love. If it is love, then it is love.”

Book 18 for 2025: “The Great Hippopotamus Hotel”, Alexander McCall Smith

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After reading 17 serious books to date this year, I decided it was time to read something lighter and found this latest in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series at the library. If you are looking for lighter reading, sort of mystery stories without murders, and insights into a different culture, Botswana, this series is for you. Start with at least several near the beginning of the series so you get to know all the main characters to fully appreciate what occurs and who’s who.

This novel gets its name from a traditional hotel located way out in the countryside far from city. It is a relaxing place with a lovely veranda and native gardens full of flowers and succulents. Strange things begin to occur–food poisoning, scorpions in rooms, laundry disappearing from the clothes line–too many for it to be by accident. The hotel manager comes to see Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi for help. At the same time Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni has a male client who asks him to find him a fancy, red, Italian sport car without his wife knowing anything about it. With their customary good humor and kindness, these characters set out to solve the problems of the hotel and deal with the sports car issue.

As usual in this series, one learns that quite often people accuse the wrong person, that things are often not as they seem, and that your own prejudices and inclinations can lead you totally astray.

“Barbie Doll”–in honor of my mother

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Barbara Lewis Duke, pretty, petite, blue-eyed and blond, my

mother, one fearless, controlling woman. Long after Mom’s

death, Dad said, “Barbara was afraid of absolutely on one

and nothing.” They married late, 34 & 38. He adored her

unconditionally. She filled my life with horses, music, love,

cornfields, hay rides, books, and ambition. Whatever she felt she

had missed, my sister and I were going to possess: books,

piano lessons, a college education. Her father, who died long

before I was born, loved fancy, fast horses. So did she. During

my preschool, croupy years, she quieted my hysterical night

coughing with stories of run away horses pulling her in a wagon.

With less than one hundred pounds and lots of determination,

she stopped them, a tiny Barbie Doll flying across the Missouri

River Bottom, strong, willful, free.

Note: This was first published in an anthology and later in my poetry memoir, “On the Rim of Wonder.” My mom loved the color pink and roses, had a rose garden. In the summer there were always crystal bowls on the dining table with roses floating. Today I have roses floating in two stemmed crystal bowls in my kitchen.

Book 16 for 2025: “The Blue Hour”, Paula Hawkins

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Given the nature of the previous book I read by this author and this novel, I have come to the conclusion that she likes to create seriously disturbed, dysfunctional characters. The setting helps with the “mystery”–a somewhat remote island which really is not an island except when the tide comes in. Only one house with only one inhabitant, a steep wooded slope that ends in a rock outcrop with a long plunge to the sea, the disappearance twenty years before of the philandering husband of the famous artist who lived there, and now a lonely, strange, old woman living there alone add to the atmosphere. The relationships among several other characters reveal the continued class structure of British society, its effects. and add to the unsettling nature of the story. To top it all off, a gruesome discovery is made about an art exhibit of the deceased, famous artist who once lived on the island. Although not classified as a mystery, this really is several bizarre mysteries combined. If you like British stories, art, and mystery novels, you will like this novel.