November 2025: What I Read

 Just like that - it is was November and the end of the year was just around the corner. I've been a bit up and down with my reading. I don't tend to abandon books once I started, but I abandoned two this month. 

Abandoned

The first was Joe Cinque's Consolation by Helen Garner. Joe Cinque was in the ABC Radio National Top 100 Book's of the 21st Century count down, which was my reminder to pick it up. It's written by one of Australia's most talented authors and covers the trial of a famous murder case in the Australia Capital Territory. It's often hailed as a meaningful exploration of culpability, evil and the gap between moral behaviour and the law. It seems that many people have a strong emotional reaction to this book, finding significance of Garner's exploration of these themes. I didn't and I believe I know why. For some years I was a trial lawyer, responsible for defending many accused perpetrators of terrible crimes. I've had occasion to see these issues first hand. I've seen the awful things that people can do to one another. I've seen behind the scenes the awful things that have often been done to them earlier in their lives. I've seen where the law convergers from what would commonly be thought of as fairness. It's usually for a reason that hard to discern. I couldn't finish the book because it wasn't anything that I hadn't see or explored myself.

The second was Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Hurari. This was another one that the ABC count down had recommended to me, but that ultimately I found the pace a little slow and the information a little uninteresting to my particular tastes.

Finished

Piranesi by Susannah Clarke: Another recommendation from the ABC count down and I loved it. This comes very highly recommended. A man lives in a myserious cavernous and seemingly infinite land with a mysterious stranger.

Conclave by Richard Harris: I listened to this on audiobooked and it had me hooked from beginning to end.  The Pop dies, a myserious Bishop arrives and a new Pope must be appointed. It shows how men use each other to gain positions of power. 

The Soul of Kindness by Elizabeth Taylor: I read for my Literary Wives book club and you can read the review here. 

Finally, Murder in the Cathedral by Kerry Greenwood: Greenwood's last novel now that she has passsed. She passed before it the final edit was complete and never saw it published. Reading this one was bitter sweet for me. 

Review: Birds of a Feather by Jacqueline Winspear (#2 Maisie Dobbs series)

 

I was looking forward to this one after reading the first Maisie Dobbs book and it did not disappoint. I still really love Maisie as a character. She is smart, empathetic, and quietly strong. Winspear makes you care about Maisie and want her to cheive with her quiet determination.

This book picks up Maisie’s story as she continues to build her detective practice in post‑World War I London. The case in Birds of a Feather revolves around a seemingly straightforward situation of a missing heiress that slowly unfolds into a far more complex murder case involving missing women whose bodies are found with white feathers. Maisie’s curiosity and kindness drive her to look beyond the surface to solve the mystery. 

I really enjoyed the way Winspear continues to develop Maisie’s character. You can see her confidence and skill growing, but she is never perfect. She is reflective, thoughtful, and has a moral compass that makes her appealing as a detective and a person. The secondary characters are also well drawn, with just enough depth to make them feel real without slowing down the story.

The plot moves at a steady pace and keeps you engaged. It is not a thriller with constant suspense but it is clever and rewarding, and the resolution doesn't feel forced. I liked how Winspear balances the mystery with the historical setting. It gives it a sense of the time while never letting it bog down the story. Overall, Birds of a Feather reinforced why I enjoy the Maisie Dobbs series. It's character driven and I can't wait to keep reading the series. 

4 stars: I really enjoyed it and recommend this series. 

Review: The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon, beautifully crafted historical fiction

 I really liked this one, which again was recommended to me by a colleague who seems to have my taste in books nailed. There is a crime at the heart of The Frozen River but what stayed with me was how thoughtful and rich the novel is. It is a historical novel with weight and a main character so well drawn that she feels real. 

The story is set in 1789 along the frozen banks of the Kennebec River in Maine. A man’s body is discovered trapped in the ice and the local midwife and healer, Martha Ballard, is called to examine the body and determine the cause of death. That man turns out to be someone recently accused of a brutal crime of sexual violence which Martha had documented in her long kept diary. She tries to understand what has happened and comes to believe that the man's murder and the earlier crime are related. So, the novel does unfold the mystery but it is far more a hisotical novel that investigates the reality of life in these earlier times. 

I was drawn to Martha from the very start. She feels vivid and real. She is a woman who is shaped by her calling and her strong commitment to her family and her community. I could picture her coming through snow, carrying her healing bag, tending to births, and supporting women. I think for me it was that sense of Martha as a living person that really carried the novel.

The book is dense in a satisfying way. It asks hard questions about justice, gender, power, and who gets heard when the law claims to be blind. These are all issues that still exist today.  Lawhon was inspired by the real Martha Ballard, an actual midwife whose diaries recorded decades of births, deaths, and community events. She uses that historical material to build a fictionalised crime story that feels honest to the time, the place, and the challenges Martha would have faced.

One of the clearest things the book shows is how women navigate the constraining rules of the time. these limits. Martha, and the other women around her, are constantly balancing survival with duty. Their intelligence and authority authority often go unrecognised by the men and institutions around them. The novel quietly underlines how their labour, including midwifery, domestic work, emotional care, and even chronicling history in diaries, is undervalued but is also essential to the community’s life.

Even though I sometimes struggled to picture the frozen landscape (I am in Sydney Australia afterall and have only seen snow a handful of times), the depth of the characters and the subtle commentary on women’s roles left a strong impression.

4 stars: I really enjoyed it - highly recommended. 

Review: Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, a NYT Top 100 novel

I read Pachinko on the recommendation of a colleague and I knew it was widely admired. When it was recommended to me it was already on my radar because it had come in as number 17 on the New York Times Top 100 Books of the 21st Century list, which I have been exploring. 

Pachinko is a sweeping historical saga following a Korean family over generations. The story begins in a small fishing village in early 1900s Korea with a young woman named Sunja. Her life takes a turn when she becomes pregnant by a man who abandons her. She accepts a chance to marry a kind minister and moves to Japan. From there the novel traces decades of struggle, survival, hopes and heartbreak as her children and grandchildren try to build a life in a country that treats them as outsiders.

Pachinko shows the harsh realities that Korean immigrants faced in Japan. It shows the discrimination, displacement, and unrelenting social prejudice the community faced but Min Jin Lee handles that history with empathy and detail. I love books that follow a family through generations. I find it fascinating to see how families unfold over the years and how what happens in one generation impacts the next - even when they might not realise. It makes me reflect on my own family history. I know very little about it, but I wonder how much of who I am and where I am has been impacted by these people I don't know. 

In short, I did really enjoy this book, although toward the end I began to feel the wide cast of characters and decades-long span start to blur a bit too much. The novel started jumping around between different family groups and people in a much faster way and some of the storylines felt more developed than others.

Nevertheless I think Pachinko is impressive. It’s and ambitious historical novel that shows pain but also shows love and resilience. If you like big, sweeping stories that trace lives across decades and across borders, this is a book worth reading.

4 stars: I really liked it - highly recommended

Review: The Deadly Dispute by Amanda Hampson, an Australian historical cosy detective novel

 

I read The Tea Ladies and A Cryptic Clue earlier in the year and really liked the whole vibe of the Tea Ladies series so I was pretty confident I’d enjoy this one and I did. The Deadly Dispute is fun and just the right kind of cosy crime to sink into on a lazy afternoon.

This time the tea ladies get tangled up in something a bit more dangerous. Hazel has a new job as a tea lady for the workers union on the docks. It isn't what she is used to, but Hazel being Hazel, sets out to make the most of it. It becomes more dangerous though when a dead body turns up and ther eis talk of missing gold from a ship that has come in. Of course Hazel starts asking questions, which inevitably leads to danger. One mystery is never enough of course. Irene becomes involved in troubles related to her employer's attempt at expanding her brothel empire and Betty falls into personal troubles when she reflects on her past and what she has missed. Things get really tense when Hazel disappears, forcing the others to pool their wits to rescue her. 

The characters remain the best part of the series. They are ridiculously loveable, even when they veer into caricature at times. Hazel, Betty, Merle and Irene are flawed, funny, and loyal, and watching them navigate danger while still managing to sip tea and throw shade at each other is exactly what makes this series so enjoyable.

The mystery is satisfying without ever being too heavy. Amanda Hampson keeps things moving. She gives things enough danger to feel the stakes while still keeping the cosy, nostalgic feel of 1960s Sydney and the gentle humour that makes the series so comforting.

Overall, this series continues to be a reliable comfort read. Nothing wildly surprising, but consistently enjoyable. If she keeps writing them, I’ll happily keep picking them up.

3 stars: It was good - enjoyable but forgettable.