Book Beginnings: Russians Among Us by Gordon Corera

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Not only does Gilion host the European Reading Challenge and TBR 26 in 26 Challenge on her Rose City Reader blog but also Book Beginnings on Friday. While I’m no stranger to her European Reading Challenge, a few years ago I decided to finally participate in Book Beginnings on Friday. After taking last week off I’ve returned with another post.

For Book Beginnings on Friday Gilion asks us to simply “share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week, or just a book that caught your fancy and you want to highlight.”

MY BOOK BEGINNING

It was humid enough for haze to rise off the tarmac as fourteen people crossed paths for a few brief moments at Vienna airport on July 9, 2010. The fourteen—all accused of being spies—were changing planes but also exchanging lives.

Last week I featured Elyse Graham’s 2024 New York Times best-seller Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II. Before that it was John le Carré’s 2003 spy novel Absolute Friends. This week it’s Gordon Corera’s 2019 Russians Among Us: Sleeper Cells, Ghost Stories, and the Hunt for Putin’s Spies.

As I mentioned earlier one of my many reading goals for 2026 is to read more books on espionage. After finishing Book and Dagger I was in the mood for additional cloak and dagger stuff and remembered buying a Kindle version of Russians Among Us last March. After starting it early this morning I’m pleased to report there’s a darn good chance this book will go on to make my year-end list of Favorite Nonfiction. It’s also inspired to me to check out the much talked about podcast The Rest is Classified which author Corera co-hosts with best-selling spy author David McCloskey.

Here’s what Amazon has to say about Book and Dagger. 

With intrigue that rivals the best le Carré novels, Russians
Among Us tells the explosive story of Russia’s espionage efforts
against the United States and the West—from the end of the Cold War to the present.

Spies have long been a source of great fascination in the world of fiction, but sometimes the best spy stories happen in real life. Russians Among Us tells the full story of Putin’s escalating espionage campaign in the West, the Russian ‘deep cover’ spies who penetrated the US and the years-long FBI hunt to capture them. This book also details the recruitment, running, and escape of one of the most important spies of modern times, a man who worked inside the heart of Russian intelligence.

Two New Reading Challenges

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I’m happy to report this year, like in previous years I’ll be taking part in a number of reading challenges. Once again I’ll be participating in old faves like the European, Mount TBR and Historical Fiction reading challenges, as well as newer ones like Reading By the Numbers. But this year I’ll also be taking part in two new ones.

Immigration Reading Challenge. Jennifer at Introverted Reader, who also hosts the Books in Translation Reading Challenge recently resurrected this old fave of mine once hosted by Colleen from Books in the City. Over the course of 2014 her challenge inspired to read books featuring immigrants from a diverse array of countries including Iran, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan and Hungary. Since then I’ve gone on to read other books by, or about immigrants including more recently I Am My Father’s Daughter: Living a Life Without Secrets and The Wrong End of the Telescope. This sounds like the perfect challenge for these desperate times. “With the current anti-immigrant climate here in the United States, and to some extent in other countries as well, 2026 seems like a good year to bring this challenge back.” I couldn’t agree more. I hope to read at least 10 book and make it to “Level Four.”

Bookish Books Reading Challenge. Hosted by Susan at Bloggin’ ’bout Books this will be the other new challenge for me. According to her the goal is to read “bookish books that are still lingering on our shelves and TBR lists. Any book counts as long as one of its main themes is books (reading them, writing them, hoarding them, stealing them, eating them, burning them, decorating with them, organizing them, sniffing them, selling them, etc.). Any book that is essentially bookish in nature counts.” Over the years as part of my series “Books About Books” I’ve featured numerous books that would fit this bill including The Lost Gutenberg: The Astounding Story of One Book’s Five-Hundred-Year Odyssey, Syria’s Secret Library: Reading and Redemption in a Town Under Siege and The Book Smugglers: Partisans, Poets, and the Race to Save Jewish Treasures from the Nazis so I’d be a fool not to take part. For my inaugural year I’m opting for the “Toe in the Door” level of participation of 1 to 10 books.

These sound like great reading challenges and I can’t wait to begin participating.

Library Loot

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Even though I’m working my way through Elyse Graham’s Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II as well as Kim Leine’s The Colony of Good Hope, and about to start Fareed Zakaria’s Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present didn’t stop me from dropping by the library the other day and borrowing more books. As always I hope to apply these towards a number of reading challenges. So add four more to that towering stack of library books by my reading chair.

A Bookshop in Berlin: The Rediscovered Memoir of One Woman’s Harrowing Escape from the Nazis by Françoise Frenkel (2019) – I’m looking to apply this one towards multiple reading challenges including the Bookish Books and Immigration reading challenges.

Between Two Rivers: Ancient Mesopotamia and the Birth of History by Moudhy Al-Rashid (2025) – Years ago I used to get a lot of ancient history. I think I’d like to start doing that again.

The Ottomans: Khans, Caesars, and Caliphs by Marc David Baer (2021) – One of several books about the Ottoman Empire and Turkey I’m hoping to read in 2026.

An Honorable German by Charles McCain (2009) – Another piece of historical fiction for The Intrepid Reader‘s Historical Fiction Reading Challenge. Something about this book just made me wanna grab it.

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted Claire from The Captive Reader and Sharlene from Real Life Reading to encourage bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write-up your post, steal the Library Loot icon and link your post using the Mr. Linky on Claire’s blog.

Book Beginnings: Book and Dagger by Elyse Graham

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Not only does Gilion host the European Reading Challenge and TBR 26 in 26 Challenge on her Rose City Reader blog but also Book Beginnings on Friday. While I’m no stranger to her European Reading Challenge, a few years ago I decided to finally participate in Book Beginnings on Friday. After taking last week off I’ve returned with another post.

For Book Beginnings on Friday Gilion asks us to simply “share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week, or just a book that caught your fancy and you want to highlight.”

MY BOOK BEGINNING

The call to adventure came in libraries, in faculty offices, at campus football games. Few of those called were remotely prepared for this moment.

Last week I featured John le Carré’s 2003 spy novel Absolute Friends. Before that it was Franklin Foer’s 2004 How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization. This week it’s Elyse Graham’s 2024 New York Times best-seller Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II.

As I mentioned earlier, one of my many reading goals for 2026 is to read more books on espionage. After hearing the author Elyse Graham interviewed on the On the Media podcast I knew this had to be one of those books. Once Amazon slashed the price of its Kindle edition back in July I eagerly grabbed a copy. Currently I’m about half way through it and quite happy with my purchase. There’s even a darn good chance it ends up making my year-end list of Favorite Nonfiction.

Here’s what Amazon has to say about Book and Dagger. 

At the start of WWII, the U.S. found itself in desperate need of an intelligence agency. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a precursor to today’s CIA, was quickly formed—and, in an effort to fill its ranks with experts, the OSS turned to academia for recruits. Suddenly, literature professors, librarians, and historians were training to perform undercover operations and investigative work—and these surprising spies would go on to profoundly shape both the course of the war and our cultural institutions with their efforts.

2025 In Review: My Favorite Nonfiction

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I apologize for the lateness of this post. After being distracted by a million different things here’s my favorite nonfiction books of 2025. Of course if this post looks familiar it’s because it’s pretty much this same darn thing I posted back in November for my Nonfiction Year in Review. As you can see this year’s selection is a mishmash of history, politics, infectious disease and memoir. And if you’ve been following my blog for any length of time you probably know that’s pretty much the kind of books I read.

My Favorites 

For 2026 I’m hoping to read more espionage, history and memoirs. In response to our current political predicament I’m also planning in reading more political stuff. By year’s end I guess we’ll see how well I stuck to those intentions.

Book Beginnings: Absolute Friends by John le Carré

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Not only does Gilion host the European Reading Challenge and TBR 26 in 26 Challenge on her Rose City Reader blog but also Book Beginnings on Friday. While I’m no stranger to her European Reading Challenge, a few years ago I decided to finally participate in Book Beginnings on Friday. After taking last week off I’ve returned with another post.

For Book Beginnings on Friday Gilion asks us to simply “share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week, or just a book that caught your fancy and you want to highlight.”

MY BOOK BEGINNING

On the day his destiny returned to claim him, Ted Mundy was sporting a bowler hat and balancing on a soapbox in one of Mad King Ludwig’s castles in Bavaria.

Last week I featured Franklin Foer’s 2004 How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization. Before that it was Nobel Prize-winning author Saul Bellow’s 1959 novel Henderson the Rain King. This week it’s John le Carré’s 2003 spy novel Absolute Friends.

Even though I recently featured le Carre’s A Most Wanted Man I couldn’t help adding this one after grabbing a copy a few days ago from my public library. I guess I’ve been in the mood to read the master British espionage author after hearing the Inside the John le Carré Tradecraft Exhibition episode on the excellent Spybrary podcast. One of my many reading goals for 2026 is to read more cloak and dagger stuff set in contemporary times. Perhaps I’ll kick that off with a couple of John le Carré thrillers.

Here’s what Amazon has to say about Absolute Friends. 

Today, Mundy is a down-at-the-heels tour guide in southern Germany, dodging creditors, supporting a new family, and keeping an eye out for trouble while in spare moments vigorously questioning the actions of the country he once bravely served. And trouble finds him, as it has before, in the shape of an old German student friend, radical, and onetime fellow spy, the crippled Sasha, seeker after absolutes, dreamer, and chaos addict. After years of trawling the Middle East and Asia as an itinerant university lecturer, Sasha has yet again discovered the true, the only, answer to life — this time in the form of a mysterious billionaire philanthropist named Dimitri. Thanks to Dimitri, both Mundy and Sasha will find a path out of poverty, and with it their chance to change a world that both believe is going to the devil. Or will they? Who is Dimitri? Why does Dimitri’s gold pour in from mysterious Middle Eastern bank accounts? And why does his apparently noble venture reek less of starry idealism than of treachery and fear? Some gifts are too expensive to accept. Could this be one of them? With a cooler head than Sasha’s, Mundy is inclined to think it could.

2025 In Review: My Favorite Fiction

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With the year just about over here’s my list of my favorite novels I read in 2025. Like always almost all of these I borrowed from my small town library or through Overdrive/Libby. As you can see there’s a ton of historical fiction as well as a little cloak and dagger stuff.

My Favorites 

  1. One Final Turn by Ashley Weaver (2025)
  2. The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure (2013)
  3. Small Wars by Sadie Jones (2010)
  4. The Bucharest Dossier by William Maz (2022)
  5. The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray (2021)
  6. The Children’s Blizzard by Melanie Benjamin ( 2021)
  7. Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder (1991)
  8. Oromay by Baalu Girma (1983/2025)
  9. The Other Einstein by Marie Benedict (2016)
  10. The Wages of Sin by Harry Turtledove (2023)

Honorable Mentions

  1. Metropolis by Philip Kerr (2019)
  2. Basil’s War by Stephen Hunter (2021)
  3. Shanghai by Joseph Kanon (2024)
  4. An Artful Assassin in Amsterdam by Michael Grant (2020)
  5. Budapest in Pieces by Richard Wake (2022)
  6. Winter Blood by Allan Martin (2022)

2025 European Reading Challenge Wrap-Up

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Another year of Rose City Reader’s European Reading Challenge has come to a close. Throughout the year I try to read as many books as possible set in, or about different European countries, or by different European authors. With one country per book and each book by a different author I found myself moving from book to book across Europe, like some modern day armchair traveler’s version of a Bella Époque grand tour of the European continent. I’ve been participating in this reading challenge for years and it’s still one of my all time favorites.

Last year I read and reviewed a personal best of 30 books. This year I’m afraid it was just 18. Just like in past years, there’s a variety of countries represented, ranging from large counties like Russia and Germany to smaller ones like Estonia and Switzerland. For the first time ever it’s all fiction with much of it historical fiction. Tossed in for good measure there’s a little Nordic Noir, a work of alternate history and even one piece of Christian historical fiction.

  1. An Event in Autumn by Henning Mankell (2014) – Sweden
  2. Winter Blood by Allan Martin (2022) – Estonia
  3. Vienna Nocturne by Vivien Shotwell (2014) – Austria
  4. One Final Turn by Ashley Weaver (2025) – Portugal
  5. Metropolis by Philip Kerr (2019) – Germany
  6. Small Wars by Sadie Jones (2010) – Cyprus
  7. The Bucharest Dossier by William Maz (2022) – Romania
  8. The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue (2025) – France
  9. Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder (1991) – Norway
  10. Three Stations by Martin Cruz Smith (2010) – Russia
  11. The Rest Is Memory by Lily Tuck (2025) – Poland
  12. The Devils of Cardona by Matthew Carr (2016) – Spain
  13. Black Skies by Arnaldur Indridason (2013 – Iceland
  14. The Other Einstein by Marie Benedict (2016) – Switzerland
  15. The Wages of Sin by Harry Turtledove (2023) -United Kingdom
  16. An Artful Assassin in Amsterdam by Michael Grant (2020) – The Netherlands
  17. Budapest in Pieces by Richard Wake (2022) – Hungary
  18. The Begotten: A Novel of the Gifted by Lisa T. Bergren (2006) – Italy

For next year my goal is at least 21 books. Hopefully with a bit more self-discipline and a little luck I’ll pull it off.

2025 Cloak and Dagger Reading Challenge Wrap-Up

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The Cloak and Dagger Reading Challenge has become one of my favorite reading challenges. I enjoy a good spy novel now and then as well as the occasional piece of Nordic Noir. Plus, in recent years I’ve developed a taste for historical whodunnits set in a various eras and exotic locations. But perhaps above all the challenge synchs well with the European Reading, Books in Translation and Historical Fiction reading challenges. As 2025 draws to a close it’s time to look back on what I read for Carol’s lovely little reading challenge.

  1. An Event in Autumn by Henning Mankell (2014)
  2. Winter Blood by Allan Martin (2022)
  3. Budapest in Pieces by Richard Wake (2022)
  4. Metropolis by Philip Kerr (2019)
  5. One Final Turn by Ashley Weaver (2025)
  6. Basil’s War by Stephen Hunter (2021)
  7. The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure (2013)
  8. The Second Sun by P. T. Deutermann (2025)
  9. The Bucharest Dossier by William Maz (2022)
  10. One Man’s Flag by David Downing (2015)
  11. Shanghai by Joseph Kanon (2024)
  12. The Devils of Cardona by Matthew Carr (2016)
  13. Black Skies by Arnaldur Indridason (2013)
  14. An Artful Assassin in Amsterdam by Michael Grant (2020)
  15. Three Stations by Martin Cruz Smith (2010)
  16. Jack of Spies by David Downing (2014)
  17. Oromay by Baalu Girma (1983/2025)

This year I read 17 books set in a variety of places ranging from Iceland to Ethiopian-occupied Eritrea. For my efforts I earned the “Detective” level of participation which sounds kinda cool. The Cloak and Dagger Reading Challenge has been lots of fun and I fully intend to do it again in 2026. Who knows, I might even read 26 books and make it to “Inspector.”  Tune in next year and find out.

An Artful Assassin in Amsterdam by Michael Grant

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One of my pleasant surprises last year was Michael Grant’s 2019 thriller A Sudden Death in Cyprus. Merely wanting something set in Cyprus for Rose City Reader‘s European Reading Challenge I didn’t expect much. Low and behold I flat-out loved the book, finding it “fast-paced, intelligent, well-written and pleasantly dripping with dark humor.” So enamored with A Sudden Death in Cyprus I later secured a copy of its follow-up An Artful Assassin in Amsterdam. After ignoring it for a year last week I finally read it. I was not disappointed.

Our favorite former career criminal turned crime writer David Mitre has traded the beaches of Cyprus for the canals, museums and cafes of Amsterdam. Officially on tour to promote his latest novel he’s also agreed to help an old associate track down his missing daughter he fears might be mixed up in the local underworld. But after not one but two amateurish attempt on his life he realizes someone wants him dead, and he’s clueless who it might be. But who should come to his aid but his old frenemy FBI Special Agent Delia Delacorte. She’ll help him catch his intended killer and find the missing young woman but he’s gotta help her foil the looming theft of a priceless Vermeer. He agrees and but soon realizes the only way to ensure the painting doesn’t get stolen is to steal it himself.

The result is a quick paced, frequently humorous romp full of clever plot twists. Mitre is one of those delightful anti-heroes who’s impossible not to like: whips-mart, resourceful and in the end will always do the right thing, even if it might kill him.

Just like Allan Martin’s Winter Blood I can find no mention anywhere online of a follow-up to An Artful Assassin in Amsterdam. Perhaps in the next few years the’ll be one, and if that happens I look forward to featuring it on this blog.