dugoni, balle, greene

I've just reached the final chapter of the 17th book from my 26 in 26 list - a list of the 26 ebooks on my Kindle that I intend to read before the door finally closes on 2026. The book in question is The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell by Robert Dugoni. All I knew going in is that it had been compared to the work of John Irving which was recommendation enough. I've read half a dozen Irving novels and loved them all. He takes the reader on a deep, deep dive into the lives of his characters; often from childhood, through adolescence and into world of the adult. And so it is with Sam Hell, actually born Samuel Hill, who is also born with red eyes, hence the nickname that stays with him throughout his life. I'm going to rate it four stars. I've really enjoyed it.

Two other books I've recently read, from the list, have neatly dovetailed with my other, and ongoing, reading project about railway journeys to different European countries. The first of those books was On the Calculation of Volume Book II by Solvej Balle - I've written about how much I enjoyed Book 1, in this series of seven novels, in my post 52 in 25. That first book had been set in France, so I hadn't realised that Tara, the main protagonist, would take me with her on many train journeys across Europe in this sequel. We visited Finland, Sweden, Norway, Germany, and Belgium, before returning to France. This was a great start to my project, I've been able to stick several (virtual) red pins in my (virtual) map of Europe. It was also a great book, which ended on a great cliffhanger. I've rated it 4.5 stars.

My second read from the list was Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene. I had huge misconceptions about this book before going in. I knew it wasn't like Greene's other novels. It wasn't a spy thriller, all dark shadows, clouds of cigarette smoke, and men in sharp hats that hid their eyes, and the secrets they were keeping. I'd recently watched the black and white film adaptation of Greene's novel The Third Man (1949) directed by Carol Reed, and starring Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, and Orson Welles. It enlisted all of the above visual tropes, and I knew I wasn't in the mood to read a book that used them too. Hence my choosing this title to sample something of Greene's work that was maybe a bit different. Perhaps it was the title that misled me. It put me in mind of the E.M. Forster novel, A Room with a View, wherein a very Edwardian maiden aunt type character chaperones her shy young cousin on a trip to Italy. It could be that I was confused by that, or the fact that Maggie Smith played the older cousin, and the aunt in the film adaptations of both Room and Travels. But either way, this novel was nothing like that novel, and neither 'aunt' was remotely like the other. What did happen though was that Aunt Augusta took a trip on the Orient Express through France, Switzerland, Italy, and Yugoslavia, and onwards to Istanbul. This was very satisfying, and has allowed me to push a couple more pins into my map. And there was a bit of international espionage, secrets, mystery, smuggling, and general criminal activity, and the CIA got involved at one point. I rated it 3.5 stars.