January 2019 books

I only read (finished) one book this month, but WHAT a book it was! I am still experiencing symptoms of withdrawal as I start other books and then put them down because I’m mad that it’s not The Spy and the Traitor again. Hmph.

The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War by Ben Macintyre
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I loved every single page of this book! I laughed, I marveled, I worried, I gasped, I...cried? In a book about spies?? YES. IT IS THAT GOOD. This is definitely one of those books that feels like it was written just for me - in one of the photos in the book (and this book does NOT skimp on the photos, yay!) showing a key location of the story, you can see the building in Moscow where Jeremy and I used to live. And reading about the quirks of diplomatic life in Russia brought back a lot of memories - like how you know they're monitoring you, and they know you know they're monitoring you, but it's just plain rude to acknowledge it in any observable way. Or the weird obsession with plastic shopping bags in Russia - oh my gosh, the sheer PRESTIGE of a Stockmann green-and-white shopping bag in Moscow in 2002. It makes so much sense to me how treasured a Safeway bag would have been in the 1980s, as described in this book!

I want to turn back to page 1 and start over again...but I'll pass it on to Jeremy (he's been waiting so patiently) and talk to him about it every five minutes instead.

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Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

DNF. I don't know, it was just squicky and weird and I don't need squicky and weird with my Jane Eyre. (Also, YES, I was mad it wasn't The Spy and the Traitor again.)

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