March! And it’s already in the 60F/mid teens C, I am a tad concerned for summer…
So Whatcha all readin’?
On Kindle: The Clackity by Lora Senf. It’s a YA horror/fantasy about a traumatized girl having to go on a quest, keeping one step ahead of a serial killer’s ghost, and a monster called The Clackity. It’s long on creativity and a bit short on impending doom or a sense of urgency. I am enjoying it nevertheless.
In Print: Somewhere Beyond the Sea by T. J. Klune. The sequel to House in the Cerulean Sea this time we get Arthur’s thoughts and POV.
On audio: still trying to get thru Big Swiss by Jen Beagin. I have the thought that she read Running with Scissors by Augustin Burroughs and thought “I can do that!” and sadly, no she can’t.
Khadaji was one of the earlier members of SDMB, and he was well-known as a kindly person who always had something encouraging to say, particularly in the self-improvement threads. He was also a voracious, omnivorous reader, who started these threads 'way back in the Stone Age of 2005. Consequently, when he suddenly and quite unexpectedly passed away in January 2013, we decided to rename this thread in his honor and to keep his memory, if not his ghost, alive.
Thank you, @DZedNConfused ! I’m just going to repost this here from earlier today (forgot it was the end of the month):
Finished The Garden, it was decent.
Started this morning on Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman, the story of a medieval knight and a girl who claims to see angels, journeying through a plague-ridden land on a quest.
Not to jinx anything, but it’s been a really good reading year so far!
I am reading Star Wars The Mask of Fear. It’s a novel set literally days after the Republic was reformed into the Galactic Empire and features Mon Mothma and Bail Organa navigating the new normal.
The subject matter seems very fitting considering…
Started on Collision of Lies by Tom Threadgill. Looks like it might be a pretty good detective novel focusing on a bus/train collision 3 years earlier that killed 20, 17 of which were schoolkids. Or maybe some of them survived?
How to Winter: Harness Your Mindset to Thrive on Cold, Dark, or Difficult Days Kari Leibowitz
The author, an American psychologist, examines how people in far northern latitudes (particularly Tromso Norway which has two months of darkness) cope with winters, without developing SAD. As someone who lives in a moderately cold climate, I am ok with low temperatures, but not seeing the sun for weeks would be difficult.
The answer, it seems, is having a positive attitude. Caffeine also helps, Nordic people drink more coffee per capita than anyone else.
The book is basically common sense (“focus on the positive aspects of winter, not the negatives”) but it’s pretty well-written common sense, so I give it a thumbs up.
I really enjoy Buehlman, and this book is a great example of why. Most historical horror feels very much written by a modern person. Between Two Fires is horrifying using horrors that feel like they would make total sense to their medieval characters. It’s great.
I’ve picked up three or four books since the last time I posted.
I’m reading Treasure Island to my twelve-year-old. Damn, this book slaps. If you’ve never read it, do yourself a favor and check it out!
A Short Walk Through a Wide World, by Douglas Westerbeke: a woman is cursed never to stay in one place too long, so she’s constantly traveling. It reminded me a lot of a Claire North novel, with a supernatural premise explored in great depth. I enjoyed the read, but I don’t know that it’ll stick with me.
Voyage of the Damned, by Frances White. A bunch of magically-blessed noble kids get on a ship together, and then the mayhem starts. Murder mystery combined with queer romance combined with political intrigue fantasy, with a snarky, self-loathing protagonist. I liked it well enough, but every aspect of the book has been done better elsewhere (see: Gideon the Ninth, Sailing Close to the Wind, Glass Onion, etc.) Still, pretty fun for a debut, if you’re willing to overlook some flaws!
You Know What You Did, by K.T. Nguyen. I tried to keep reading it even though the one-page prologue began two different paragraphs with “All of a sudden,” which is nails on a chalkboard. I continued reading it even after a character said, and this is almost a direct quote, “Mom, this kombucha was made in San Francisco, but locally made is better for us and for the environment!” which is totally how people talk in the real world and not one of the most excruciating lines of dialogue I’ve ever read. But by page seven the ubiquitous fucking adverbs were just too much and I had to put it down. I have no idea if the story was any good, the writing was going to drive me to violence.
The Sympathizer, by Viet Thanh Nguyen: my wife got this from her brother for Christmas, and I picked it up once she was done. Now THIS is a well-written book: bone-dry humor, subtle characterization, beautiful prose. I wish the author believed in quotation marks, but that’s a minor quibble: three chapters in and I’m really enjoying it.
Finished The Oxford Book of Theatrical Anecdotes, edited by Gyles Brandreth, which I enjoyed; The Great Sweepstakes of 1877: A True Story of Southern Grit, Gilden Age Tycoons, and a Race That Galvanized the Nation, by Mark Shrager, likewise; and An Episode of Sparrows, by Rumer Godden, which is the best novel I’ve read so far this year.
Next up: Gobsmacked: The British Invasion of American English, by Ben Yagoda and Death Without Company, a Walt Longmire mystery by Craig Johnson.
Finished Between Two Fires. It was really good, though gruesome (you have been warned). Five stars.
Started today on At the Bottom of the Garden by Camilla Bruce, blurbed as “a gothic masterpiece”. After reading 50 pages, I’m still not sure how seriously I’m supposed to take this book. An evil woman, (who I am picturing in my head as Madame Medusa from The Rescuers) adopts two young girls with hopes of getting her hands on their fortune. But they will thwart her with their paranormal abilities. See, this is why I shouldn’t have bragged about how well my reading was going this year.
I had my first dnf of the year with Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister. The premise sounded interesting but the main character got on my last raw bleeding nerve by the second chapter.
My book pile is rather small at the moment because I need to make a library run, but I’m also reading Washington by Ron Chernow and Little Drummer Girl by John le Carre. This is an interesting time to be rereading LDG. As for Washington, I finally made it through the revolutionary war. Those chapters dragged on as much as the finance chapters did in Alexander Hamilton. I’m interested in neither war nor economics so that’s why they dragged.
My Oldest Sister got me a Kindle when I had surgery in December and I’m using it for all the series I don’t have physical shelf space for. First one up: Rivers of London. I’m up to Broken Homes, but I’m saving that for Friday when I’m getting my next dose of chemo.
i am reading john j nance thrillers, catching up on some i missed. his thrillers involve aviation. i did once read one on a plane. that was something.
i’m reading a fan fiction called hermione granger and the philosopher’s stone. i was really pulled in. it comes at the harry potter series from hermione’s point of view. wow! just wow! i’m on chapter 8. she’s about to meet snape for the first time.
Below the Edge of Darkness: A Memoir of Exploring Light and Life in the Deep Sea
Edith Widder
The author, a marine scientist, recounts her life exploring the deep ocean and working to understand bioluminescence, including setting a depth record for diving in a mechanical suit and being on the team that first filmed the giant squid.
The Science of Murder: The Forensics of Agatha Christie by Carla Valentine, overal an okay book, however it is rather dry in places, particularly at the end, but the subject matter is interesting and the author does a good job of tying fiction and true crime together through the use of forensics. The true crime examples from the past were the best part of the book. My one critique that a good editor should have caught and fixed was the continuous repetition of phrases like “Christie studied forensics” throughout the book.
The Clackity by Lora Senf. A YA book about a girl who has to defeat a monster to save her aunt, the book feels like a debut novel, however it is well written and immensely creative. Parts of it feel like something L. Frank Baum would have thought of and other parts were quite a bit darker. The Mother Witch was my favorite part of the book and got a “Well damn, that was good” seal of approval. My only critique was the lack of impending doom. We were told there were consequences if Evelyn failed but we really didn’t feel them. However, the last two houses were engrossing and page turning as all the pieces came together.
The Seven Dials Mystery by Agatha Christie, another early one with all the attendant racism and classism. Not anywhere as cringey as The Chimneys it’s definitely not one of her better books. Dame Agatha was not that good with believable espionage although the multiple viewpoints made a clever twist and several well done red herrings. Was absolutely not expecting the villian reveal even given my critical “No way man” opinion of a character’s explanation of the papers’ attempted theft.
DNFed:
Big Swiss by Jen Beagin, It’s like the author read Carol by Patricia Highsmith and Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs and thought “I can totally do a mash up of these two books.” Spoiler alert: No she can’t. The characters were mostly unlikeable, Sabine and Pinyon being the only exceptions, I knew very soon that the two main characters weren’t going to have a happy ever after, their sex was so creepy I wanted a bath.
Finished At the Bottom of the Garden. I don’t want to say it was good, but it wasn’t terrible. All the ghost and witchcraft stuff was all right, plus any chapters told from the girls’ point of view. One character was just too ridiculous (the one I called Madame Medusa, Goodreads reviewers liken to Count Olaf. Yeah, I’m frickin’ old.)
I thought Chernow’s Washington was terrific, but if you want a very good, concise, one-volume bio of Washington, I suggest Richard Brookhiser’s Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington. Not too much war or economics in there.
Last week I finished Headhunters by Jo Nesbo, a dark comedy/crime thriller about an arrogant corporate headhunter who runs murderously afoul of his latest recruit. It was adapted as a crazy-good 2011 Norwegian film which is actually, I think, better than the book. The movie has a very different ending and jettisons a major character and subplot.
Also just finished Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence, “Lawrence of Arabia,” his short memoir of his experiences in the Middle East during World War I. Elegant prose and several interesting stories (some of which, later scholarship suggests, were exaggerated). Lawrence’s admiration for his Arab friends and allies comes through clearly.
I’ve now begun an audiobook of Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White, very entertainingly read by the author himself. I’d forgotten a lot about the children’s classic since I last read it, and am enjoying it all over again.
I’ve been bouncing around detective series from different cultures.
First an interesting East Indian mystery part of a series set in 1920s with a feisty young detective. Reading it for the cultural interest. Murder under a Red Moon
Now onto a medieval detective from Knights of the Templar era… Apothecary Mechior by Indrek Hargla. Finnish history - also part of a series.
I’ll just make passing mention of couple of the best science books. Song of the Dodo and also Your Inner Fish.
