January 2014 Reading Log...this should be interesting....

So the next couple blog entries will be pretty boring if you aren't interested in what I'm reading...but hey, if you want to know what I'm reading, boy are you in luck!

I had a run of reading Elizabeth Peters books.  She wrote a lovely series about Amelia Peabody and her family. Every couple years I re-read the whole series because I'm a dork.  The books have mystery, clean romance, cats, naughty children, archaeology...good "bubble gum" reading, with a twist of actual history thrown in so I feel like I'm learning something.  We meet Amelia in the 1880's and follow her and her family through the early 1920's and then pick them back up a few generations later. In case you don't know Mrs. Peter's work, she wrote under three names.  As Elizabeth Peters she wrote a lot of historical fiction.  She also wrote suspense as Barabara Michaels and non-fiction Egyptology as herself, Barbara Mertz.

1.  Curse of the Pharohs (Elizabeth Peters)
2.  The Mummy Case (Elizabeth Peters)
3.  Lion in the Valley (Elizabeth Peters)
4.  The Chronicles of Downton Abbey (Jessica Fellowes and Matthew Sturgis)--If I'd purchased this book, it would have been an impulse buy.  It was near the check-out station at the library and looked interesting.  It actually had a great deal of text--discussing the history of the real family who lived at Highclere Castle (Lord Carnavan, who sponsored Egyptian expeditions, including Howard Carter's that resulted in finding King Tut...)  There were some descriptions of how the show is filmed, etc.
5.  The Deeds of the Disturber (Elizabeth Peters)
6.The Last Camel Died at Noon (Elizabeth Peters)--this is actually my favorite Elizabeth Peters book--if you've ever read The Moonstone or King Solomon's Mines you might really love this one, too.  I don't think you have to read books 1-5 to enjoy it...the first time I read the Amelia series I actually just read them as I found them, out of order, and later re-read them in order to make some things "make sense".

We did continue listening to the 39 Clues books in the car as well--I believe we listened to books 10 and 11, whatever they are called, in January, finishing the first series--it is still entertaining me as well as The Boy and The Girl, so, yay!  And I watched a lot of Downton Abbey after buying the season on Amazon, so that interfered with my reading.

Stay tuned for February's report!