Dana’s Year in Books

What did you read this year?

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2023

62,739

pages read

169

books read

Dana Stabenow

Need a House? Call Ms. Mouse by George Mendoza

Shortest Book

pages

Longest Book

1,209

pages

Average book length in 2023

371

pages

Most Shelved

5,862,448

people also shelved

Roman Law and Maritime Commerce by Peter Candy

Least Shelved

people also shelved

Highest Rated on Goodreads

it was amazing

5.00 average

Life in Egypt under Roman Rule by Naphtali Lewis

Dana’s first review of the year

It is books like these that make it possible for unscholars like me write historical fiction.*

My Eye of Isis novels are set in the time of Cleopatra and the research for this book comes from papyrus records buried beneath millenia of sand referring to the title subject, Egypt when it ceased to be a client state of Rome's and became just another province under a Roman prefect. Two hundred pages long, divided into 10 chapters, superb indices, and t It is books like these that make it possible for unscholars like me write historical fiction.*

My Eye of Isis novels are set in the time of Cleopatra and the research for this book comes from papyrus records buried beneath millenia of sand referring to the title subject, Egypt when it ceased to be a client state of Rome's and became just another province under a Roman prefect. Two hundred pages long, divided into 10 chapters, superb indices, and translations of passages from individual papyri lend color and life to the narrative and a real feeling for Pax Romana on the south side of the Mediterranean. I especially enjoyed this letter from a student in Alexandria writing home about the inadequacy of his tutor.

I have rejected Theon. Yes, I too have formed a low opinion of him because he is so irresponsible by nature...realizing that there is no benefit to be had from [any available] tutor just paying steep fees for nothing, I am relying upon my own devices. Write me quickly what you think...I'm sure I'll do just fine, the gods willing, just listening to the public lectures...

I think the gods were willing and he did do just fine.

There's a farmer's almanac and a list of tolls for travelers (a road toll for a ship's captain was 8 drachma, where the toll for a prostitute was 108 drachma, which says something about how the toll keepers judged their different incomes) and spells for restraining hostile spirits. An artaba was a measure of grain equal to about 1 1/6 bushels. An aroura was a measure of land equal to about half an acre or a third of a hectare. Interestingly, there is no mention of fees paid doctors and lawyers although both are very much present in people's lives as demonstrated in the records. At this rate I'm never going to be able to figure out what Keren charges for a fee.

Fun for the reader and infinitely useful to the writer. Bravo!

*See also Adrienne Mayor's Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs: Unconventional Warfare in the Ancient World and Laurence Bergreen's Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu. ...more

DANA’S 2023 BOOKS

The Dust and The Heat by Michael Gilbert

Leave the Grave Green by Deborah Crombie

Dreaming of the Bones by Deborah Crombie

Garden of Lamentations by Deborah Crombie

The Man Who Hated Banks by Michael Gilbert

The House at Sea's End by Elly Griffiths

A Killing of Innocents by Deborah Crombie

The Atlas of Middle-Earth by Karen Wynn Fonstad

The Language of God by Francis S. Collins

Murder on the Red River by Marcie R. Rendon

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers

Field Notes from a Catastrophe by Elizabeth Kolbert

The Smartest Kids in the World by Amanda Ripley

The Detective's Daughter by Lesley Thomson

Egypt in the Age of Cleopatra by Michel Chauveau

Greeks in Ptolemaic Egypt (Volume 2) by Naphtali Lewis

The Masterharper of Pern by Anne McCaffrey

The Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey

The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies by Alison Goodman

To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers

Fuzzies and Other People by H. Beam Piper

The Secret World of Weather by Tristan Gooley

Because Our Fathers Lied by Craig McNamara

What You Are Looking For Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama

Dana’s last review of the year

Five people in present day Tokyo have come to crossroads in their lives and find their way to their local library, where reference librarian Sayuri Komachi felts objects while she listens to their stories and then creates a list of books for them to help them on their way, along with a felted object of her own making, a tiny frying pan, a tiny cat, a tiny globe, a tiny plane, a tiny crab, all of which resonate with something in their lives. (Late Five people in present day Tokyo have come to crossroads in their lives and find their way to their local library, where reference librarian Sayuri Komachi felts objects while she listens to their stories and then creates a list of books for them to help them on their way, along with a felted object of her own making, a tiny frying pan, a tiny cat, a tiny globe, a tiny plane, a tiny crab, all of which resonate with something in their lives. (Later she claims her choice of object is completely random, but we don't believe that for a moment.)

Twenty-one year old Tomoka discovers she isn't stuck in a dead-end job after all and that the job itself isn't dead end, either. Thirty-five year old Ryo, an accountant who longs to open an antique store, reads a story in Ms. Komachi's newsletter that leads him to a man who has two jobs who tells him "The moment you say 'don't,' you're done for." Forty-year old Natsumi turned her back on her dream of becoming a book editor for motherhood and Ms. Komachi shows her one thing does not have to exclude the other. Hiroya, thirty, unemployed and living with his mother, failed to get a job as an artist out of design school and turned his back on ambition. Ms. Komachi is not having it.

Ms. Komachi rolls her head again and lifts an index finger. "I'm going to give you a math lesson."
"What?"
"In the case of one hundred people, one person doing the thing they want to do, there is only yourself, which means one person out of one, which is one hundred percent."
"Huh?"
"So there's a hundred percent chance."

Now there's a mathematical formula I can get behind.

Masao, newly retired, has learned three things: That sixty-five is not as old as he thought, that he has no hobbies, and that without a job to define him he has become invisible to society as a whole and perhaps even to his wife and daughter. He finds himself at the library taking a Go class and asks Ms. Komachi to recommend some books on how to play. She adds in a poetry book, which leads by various ways and means through his near arrest for pedofilia outside a playground and into the basement office of his building's super, a man we have met before. It is quite the learning experience.

Until now, I have always thought of things in terms of whether or not they could be useful to me in some way. But that may have become my stumbling block. Now I know the importance of the heart being moved, I have a list of things I want to try...My plan is to appreciate every new day. And take a wide view of things."

Ms. Komachi asks each of them "What are you looking for?" in a manner which makes all of them ask themselves, What am I looking for? Ms. Komachi never fails them (see title). A lovely, gentle fable for our times, and a terrific translation, too. Highly recommended. ...more

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