{"id":8283,"date":"2019-12-09T07:29:58","date_gmt":"2019-12-09T12:29:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8283"},"modified":"2019-12-09T07:29:58","modified_gmt":"2019-12-09T12:29:58","slug":"last-books-read-in-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8283","title":{"rendered":"Last Books Read in 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"magician,<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

***Cairo Modern<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Written by Nobel Prize winner\nNaguib Mahfouz, translated from the Egyptian by William M. Hutchins. This story\nof how an unscrupulous college graduate gets his comeuppance captures a bygone\ntime in the city and culture. Originally published in 1945, it\u2019s more\ninteresting than entertaining. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

*****The Magician\u2019s Assistant<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hadn\u2019t heard of this 1997 book by Ann Patchett, but thankfully another tourist left it behind. It was captivating, start to finish and not the first book I\u2019ve read lately about people involved in creating illusions. Sabine\u2019s magician-husband, a gay man named Parsifal, has died, and soon she learns he\u2019d made up his backstory. Grief-stricken, she tries to connect with his real history. Amazon link<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*****Inland<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

T\u00e9a Obreht\u2019s new book is just great, and she vividly captures the essence and rhythms of America\u2019s Old West. In a lawless, drought-stricken Arizona, a family struggles with the politics of water. Meanwhile, several states east, some bright individual in the US Army decides to import camels to use as pack animals\u2014an experiment with unexpected consequences. Amazon link.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

****The Oxford Murders<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Billed as \u201ca scholarly whodunit,\u201d this novel by Guillermo Mart\u00ednez, set in England, provides numerous puzzles for its mathematician protagonists to decipher in order to stop a serial killer. A lot of fun. Amazon link<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

***Sharp Objects<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gillian Flynn\u2019s 2006 debut novel is a page-turner, though you may guess early on who\u2019s killing children in the tiny Missouri home town of the protagonist, Chicago reporter Camille Preaker. Camille has spent time in psychiatric care because she carves words into her body, and I found her experience with that even more engrossing than the mystery!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo: Enrique Meseguer for Pixabay<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

***Cairo Modern Written by Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz, translated from the Egyptian by William M. Hutchins. This story of how an unscrupulous college graduate gets his comeuppance captures a bygone time in the city and culture. Originally published in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8284,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Last Books Read in 2019 -- Ending the reading year with a couple of really enjoyable and beautifully written books, old and new: Ann Patchett and Tea Obreht, plus a couple of mysteries.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1335,52,1288,366,40,3,126],"tags":[1670,1669],"class_list":["post-8283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-amateur-detective","category-crime","category-culture","category-drama","category-fiction","category-mystery","category-reading-2","tag-gillian-flynn","tag-tea-obreht"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/magician.jpg?fit=323%2C390&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-29B","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8283"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8285,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8283\/revisions\/8285"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}