The more I read of this book, the more I like it. There is something about it that reminds me of Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five.

The more I read of the book, the less it appears to be the twee adventure story I thought I had stumbled into at the beginning of the book.

Conway had no race or color prejudice, and it was an affectation for him to pretend, as he sometimes did in clubs and first-class railway carriages, that he set any particular store on the "whiteness" of a lobster-red face under a topee. It saved trouble to let it be so assumed, especially in India, and Conway was a conscientious trouble-saver. But in China it had been less necessary; he had had many Chinese friends, and it had never occurred to him to treat them as inferiors. Hence, in his intercourse with Chang, he was sufficiently unpreoccupied to see in him a mannered old gentleman who might not be entirely trustworthy, but who was certainly of high intelligence. Mallinson, on the other hand, tended to regard him through the bars of an imaginary cage; Miss Brinklow was sharp and sprightly, as with the heathen in his blindness; while Barnard's wise-cracking bonhomie was of the kind he would have cultivated with a butler.

Interesting. Not what I had expected given some of the earlier comments in the book.

"Gee, this is some scenery."

Hm. Interesting. Not sure this is going to be a winner. It seems to suffer from the typical attitudes of its time. 

Most of my books of course come from sellers in Europe (chiefly Germany and the UK), but a fair few this year did also end up traveling here from North America, when all told the American offer was better than those by European sellers.

Bought in 2019 and already read:

From Seattle, WA:

James Hilton: Was It Murder?

Candace Robb: The Apothecary Rose (Derek Perkins audio CD)

From Houston, TX:

Ellen Datlow & Terry Windling (eds.): A Wolf at the Door and Other Retold Fairy Tales

Sandra Uwiringiyimana: How Dare the Sun Rise

From Mishawaka, IN:

Daniel Stashower: Teller of Tales

Frederic Raphael & Kenneth McLeish: The Book of Lists

Matin Durrani & Liz Kalaugher: Furry Logic

From McKeesport, PA:

Zen Cho: Sorcerer to the Crown

From Coral Springs, FL:

J.V. Turner: Below the Clock

From St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada:

Jennifer Estep: Kill the Queen

Clayton Rawson: Death from a Top Hat

Bought in 2019 and still on my TBR (don't even comment, please):

From Seattle, WA:

James Thurber: Writings and Drawings (LoA)

Agatha Christie: Rule of Three

From Tucson, AZ:

Stephen King: 11/22/63

From Richmond, TX:

Charles Dickens: Bleak House (Paul Scofield audio CD)

From Houston, TX:

Dorothy Dunnett: The Game of Kings

From Mishawaka, IN:

Penny Le Couteur & Jay Burreson: Napoleon's Buttons

Mercedes Lackey: Arrows of the Queen

Lois McMasterBujold: The Curse of Chalion

Christopher Hibbert: The Borgias and Their Enemies, 1431-1519

Ted Widmer (ed.): American Speeches: Political Oratory from Patrick Henry to Barack Obama (LoA)

Robert Barr: The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont

C. Daly King: The Curious Mr. Tarrant

Eden Philpotts: The Red Redmaynes

Matthew Pritchard (ed.), Agatha Christie: The Grand Tour: Letters and Photographs from the British Empire Expedition 1922

From Windsor, CT:
Elie Wiesel: Night  / Dawn / The Accident (aka Day)

From Frederick, MD:

Samuel Johnson; E.L. McAdam, Jr. & George Milne (eds.): A Johnson Reader

From Kennesaw, GA:

Christopher Isherwood. A Single Man (Simon Prebble audio CD)

Sebastian Junger: The Perfect Storm (Stanley Tucci audio CD)

From St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada:

Otto Penzler (ed.): Bibliomysteries

(Task: The historic (3d century AD) St. Lucia was Italian; yet, like those of many other saints (including, e.g., St. Andrew and St. Nicholas), the most important celebrations of her holiday don’t occur in her place of origin but somewhere else in the world.

List or create a stack of favorite books (minimum: three) featuring a character’s move or transition from one part of the world to another one (or from one end of a large country, e.g., U.S. Canada, Russia, China or Australia, to the other end.)

Alternatively, tell us: Which book that you acquired this year had to travel the farthest to get to you (regardless whether by plane, sea, or whichever other way, and regardless whether it was a purchase of your own or a gift from someone else)?)

They're beautiful -- and actually bigger than I thought ... what a wonderful surprise!

As I said in my PM, I know they will be treasured, both by me and by the friend who'll be receiving one of them as a present.