Just finished Gwendy’s Final Task by Richard Chismar and Stephen King, the third and final book in the Magic Button Box trilogy.
Overall it was a fun read, I couldn’t put it down. It went where I thought it was going to go.
Now reading The Annotated Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott, and which I didn’t even realize existed until I stumbled across a copy in Dogtown Books. I love “the Annotated…” series, and frequently add to my collection.
I grabbed The Palace Papers by Tina Brown for my flight from LHR to ORD. I like the royal family especially QEII and their book is good. Not gossipy, but factual in that you draw your own conclusions. I checked out the digital version of Appointment with Death by Agatha Christie for before bedtime reading.
I read two novels, similar in some ways: Sara Paretsky’s Overboard and Mette Ivie Harrison’s The Prodigal Daughter.** Both center in large part on a woman trying to save and protect a teenage girl from Very Bad People and Very Bad Things.
Paretsky’s detective, Chicago private eye VI Warshawski, accidentally finds Julia, who has run away from her aunt and uncle, who don’t have her best interests at heart. (Think the Grimm Brothers and wicked stepmothers.) The novel is more complex than just this, but the central theme is finding Julia after she runs away again, and keeping her safe from the uncle and aunt and corrupt police officers who are looking for her after VI locates her once more.
Harrison’s protagonist, Linda Wallheim, is a Morrmon homemaker in Salt Lake City, a feminist struggling with Mormonism; her grown son alerts her that Sabrina, his child’s teenage babysitter, has run away from home. Linda eventually pieces together what happened (it’s grim) and locates Sabrina, only to have Sabrina run away again…
Both books are rather cynical regarding the way society works. Both books are well written, Paretsky’s in particular; both raise questions about institutions (the police, the Mormon Church). Neither book has a particularly happy ending, Harrison’s in particular. Glad I read them both, though.
When I was a child, I very much enjoyed my copy of Bernard Miles’ Favorite Tales From Shakespeare. Actually, everything I know about the works of Shakespeare is contained in that one book. So I decided to buy the sequel: Well-Loved Tales From Shakespeare. It has The Tempest, As You Like It, Othello, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Julius Caesar. The illustrations by Victor Ambrus are wonderful. I expect this experience to pay off immediately by my improved performance at couch Jeopardy! So far, though, all I have learned is that The Tempest su-HUCKED. 
Just started listening to The Gods of Guilt by Michael Connelly. This is a book in the Lincoln Lawyer series that I seemed to have missed reading when it was released.
Finished it. Meh. Not sure I’ll go on to the sequel.
Still digging John Scalzi’s The Kaiju Preservation Society.
I’m now well into Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway by Jonathan Parshall
and Anthony P. Tully, which got good reviews and which, unlike previous books I’ve read about the decisive 1942 carrier battle, focuses on the Japanese side of things (the authors are not fans of Adm. Yamamoto, as it happens). Pretty interesting for a naval history geek like me.
Finished Well-Loved Tales From Shakespeare, but I didn’t love them very well. This book has a Little Free Library in its future.
You’re right about it dragging. I read 292 pages of it before finally giving up. If you finish it, could you tell me how it ends? I am curious (just not curious enough to sit through the dragging middle).
This made me think of the trailer for the old Jerry Lewis movie, the original The Nutty Professor
DON’T REVEAL THE SURPRISE MIDDLE!
Finished Red Moon by Kim Stanley Robinson. Started at the beginning of last month but I read it over these past weeks on and off. Overall I enjoyed it. It is not as good and deeply reflective of human nature in the lens of science-fiction which his Mars trilogy was outstanding in touching on. But it still had a philosophical theme into a US-China Cold War, systems of government and economies, technological advances encroaching on society, paranoia, being thrown into new cultures and an exciting mystery plot that it all wraps into.
I also finished a biography of Clement Attlee called Citizen Clem by John Bew. Attlee was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945-1951. He defeated Winston Churchill in a landslide just weeks after the war in Europe ended. Churchill in national broadcasts attacked Attlee warning that should he be elected the Labour government led by Attlee would lead to a Gestapo in Britain. Churchill was a war time leader and tried to bank on his popularity during the war to stay in office but Attlee actually proposed policies and programs to rebuild Britain in a post-war mindset. The men who came back from the battlefields did not deserve to go back to how it was before. The women who took over from the men in domestic work and domestic production did not want to go back to how it was before. Whereas Churchill offered very little about what happens now the war is over. That goes back to his days before the war and before becoming PM where he was widely disliked by the working class of Britain as someone who squashed worker protests. Attlee was elected and under his tenure instituted a series of reforms that changed Britain for good - most notably the creation of the NHS.
Finished The Bronze God of Rhodes by L. Sprague de Camp, which I enjoyed.
Now I’m reading Bird Brother: A Falconer’s Journey and the Healing Power of Wildlife, by Rodney Stotts with Kate Pipkin.
Found an…interesting book called What Is A Woman by Matt Walsh.
Finished Bird Brother: A Falconer’s Journey and the Healing Power of Wildlife, by Rodney Stotts with Kate Pipkin, which was okay.
Now I’m reading Ubik by Philip K. Dick.
Did you get to the part where Henry reveals his own deal with Lucien? This is what happens after that:
Summary
Henry gets frustrated by how none of his friends remember he’s dating Addie and keep repeating the same things when he (re)introduces her. Addie narrates her life story to him and tries to figure out a way for both of them to escape Lucien’s deals, but then finds out that Henry’s deal is only for a year. At the end of that year he’ll die. The end is coming up soon, so Addie meets with Lucien and renegotiates her deal to keep Henry alive. She tells Lucien that, if he’ll let Henry live, she’ll stay with him (Lucien) as long as he wants her to, knowing that he’s fickle and as soon as he’s tired of her she’ll be allowed to die.
This is the cheesy part:
Summary
Henry edits Addie’s life story and publishes it anonymously as “The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue.” 
Finished listening to The Gods of Guilt by Michael Connelly.
Next up: The Late Show by the same author.
Finished Ubik by Philip K. Dick, which was very well done.
Now I’m reading The Nowhere Office: Reinventing Work and the Workplace of the Future, by Julia Hobsbawm.
Thank you! (You’re right, that is cheesy.)
Finished The Nowhere Office: Reinventing Work and the Workplace of the Future, by Julia Hobsbawm. Meh.
Now I’m reading Anthropocene Rag by Alex Irvine, a science fiction Weird Western.
Basilica: The Splendor and the Scandal: Building St. Peter’s R.A… Scotti
A brief, high overview of the construction of St Peters Cathedral in the Vatican city, which spanned more than a century and involved some of the greatest artistic and religious personalities of the Renaissance.
Not a deep scholarly work, but an interesting read.