January. A month that flies by, and is also incredibly long. Was this helped by the weather, which spent the first half of the month being 20-30 degrees above normal and dry before dipping into the sub-zero (in degrees Fahrenheit) range and still being dry? No, no it wasn’t. The rest of the country seemed to be getting more snow than it could handle. But here we were high and dry. Through all those gigantic winter storms, we had barely enough snow to cover the grass. Am I one of those weird people who loves the cold and snow? Yes, yes I am. And I am feeling cheated out of my winter weather this year. Some of the things I read in January:
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins Walter, an ordinary drawing teacher, is on his way to the manor where he has been hired to teach the niece of the wealthy Mr. Fairlie when he encounters a mysterious woman dressed entirely in white. She is in distress, so Walter helps her out and continues on to the manor where he meets his students, the beautiful Laura Fairlie and the strong-willed Marian Halcombe. Walter ends up falling in love with Laura, and she with him, but she has been promised in marriage to a man of dubious character. Mayhem slowly ensues. The Woman in White was originally serialized, so I understand why it ended up being so long: it’s easy to let a serialized story run away from you. The first half of this book is incredibly slow and will take many pages to explain a simple thing. If you manage to get through the first half, the second ratchets up the tension with asylums, secret identities, secret societies, a charming but sinister character, and plenty of psychological drama. The Woman in White’s blend of the gothic and realism makes it a quintessential Victorian novel, but if you’re looking to get through a story quickly, this is not the book for you.
Bog Queen by Anna North In 2018, an American anthropologist named Agnes discovers that a body recovered from an English bog is not the murder victim from fifty years ago that they thought it was. Instead, the body is much, much older and its discovery puts Agnes in the middle of the opposing forces of industry, environmentalism, and criminal investigation– a place that her sheltered upbringing has left her woefully unprepared for. Meanwhile, 2000 years earlier, a priestess travels from her home near the bog to the city of Camulodunum to meet a king allied with the Romans who have been coming to Britain in ever greater numbers. The unnamed priestess is unsure of the Romans, but is curious about the greater world, even if her people are suspicious. For the sake of progress and knowledge, she will risk everything. This book comes in at a tightly-written and well-paced 288 pages, but it suffers from a dual-timeline narrative, which is often a turnoff for me, given that I usually find one of the timelines far less interesting. That was the case here, too. I found the historical timeline less interesting than the modern one about Agnes. She was a strange and complex character who was incredibly capable and confident in her abilities as an anthropologist, but her father’s overprotectiveness left her unable to handle most social situations. While Agnes’s character did grow throughout the book, it was a realistic change. She didn’t wake up one morning and discover that she’d become a social butterfly, which I appreciate. The priestess’ tale was less interesting to me, which made the narrative drag a bit. Still, if you love a good bog book, this is a good one to try.
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, translated from Italian by William Weaver In the mid-1300s, young Adso of Melk and his Franciscan mentor, William of Baskerville, travel to a wealthy Italian monastery to investigate allegations of heresy. The heresy investigation soon turns into a murder investigation when monks start dying horrifically. William must use all his powers of observation combined with his knowledge of theology and philosophy to find the murderer before more deaths occur. Meanwhile, two delegations come to discuss church politics, and there are long discussions of what makes a good person, and whether or not it is sinful to laugh, among other things. I read this book years ago, but it had been long enough that I’d mostly forgotten what happened and whodunnit, so it was almost like reading it again for the first time. I had a great time. I love William’s wry observations and Adso’s earnest cluelessness, and I even enjoyed the philosophical discussions. I spent nearly three weeks with this book and loved it all, even Brother Jorge’s diatribes against being happy. What a jerk. 10/10, will read this book again. What I’ve Been Listening To:
I tried Billie Eilish’s first album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, not too long after it came out in 2019. I enjoyed it at the time. It seemed to me like the kind of album I would have been obsessed with if it had come out when I was nineteen, but I didn’t latch onto it then. For some reason, I tried it again this past week. Apparently, I needed to be in my forties to really appreciate it, because I have listened to it three times this week. Eilish’s sound is soft and strange, but she has such confidence in her voice that it doesn’t matter how strange or normal a song might be, she just gets up there and makes the music hers. She’s not trying to sound like anyone else. She doesn’t need to. She is perfectly self-possessed and makes exactly the kind of music that she wants. There’s no mistaking her sound for anyone else’s, and I love that about her. Eilish’s next two albums, Happier Than Ever (2021) and Hit Me Hard and Soft (2024) are also excellent albums and showcase Eilish’s growth both as a person and as a musician. When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? highlights a teenager who is a little frightening in her confidence, while the next two albums showcase an artist with a bit more life experience who is experimenting with her sound. I’m looking forward to hearing what else Eilish is working on. Hopefully 2026 will bring us a new album. What I’ve Been Watching
Though I’ve decided to make 2026 a year where I actually watch movies instead of just listening to people talk about them, the main thing I want to watch is my favorite Star Trek series, Deep Space Nine. It was the first Trek series to run after Gene Rodenberry’s death, and took the franchise in directions he wouldn’t have gone by doing things like having conflicts between the main cast of Starfleet officers. When it first aired- and for a long time afterward- it was billed as the grittiest of the Trek shows, though I feel like plenty of episodes of The Next Generation were just as dark in tone as DS9’s, it’s just that DS9 couldn’t fly to a new location in the next episode. Since it was set on a space station, they had to deal with the same characters and develop them over time. This gave us some of the best Trek villains (Gul Dukat, Kai Winn), the franchise’s first forays into multi-episode plot arcs, and some of the greatest snark in all of Star Trek. I started my rewatch last year, but fell off of it pretty quickly. I re-subscribed to Paramount+ this year specifically to do this instead of getting the DVDs from the library. I also plan to watch the new Starfleet Academy show, as I’ve been hearing great things about that one. I want to get caught up on Strange New Worlds, and watch the Section 31 movie with Michelle Yeoh, if only to see more of her as Philippa Georgiou. I kind of want to re-watch Discovery, too. It had its ups and downs as a show, but I enjoyed it overall. Basically, I want to watch a lot of Star Trek this year. Traveling in Books is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you can tell Traveling in Books that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won't be charged unless they enable payments.
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Sunday, 1 February 2026
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