Neat, thanks!
Finished Librarian Tales: Funny, Strange, and Inspiring Dispatches from the Stacks , by William Ottens. Meh. (Best one was about the patron who wanted a book about “Nova Scotia”. She was directed to books about Canada. “No, I want a book about Nova Scotia. You know, the bloke who saw into the future?” (She meant Nostradamus.)
Now I’m reading The Disappeared, by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
Finished The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne. Published in 1922 it was his only mystery book but he became famous afterwards for creating Winnie The Pooh.
The Red House Mystery is a very fun amateur detective story and has a nice easy flow to it. Very simple writing style but kept me interested.
Finished Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, a horror novel set in the 1950s in the mountains of Mexico.
I loved the first two thirds of the book: the growing unease, the disorienting setting, the character’s struggles to stay sane in the midst of madness were all very well-handled.
But this sort of setup is tricky, because there’s a lot of pressure on the reveal. And in this case, the reveal felt almost pedestrian compared to the setup. It was still fun, but it felt like the book shifted gears, from a note-perfect dread buildup to an almost action-movie climax. I couldn’t do any better, but I was still a little disappointed once the author revealed just what the hell was going on.
I remember when this book came out reading a review talking about the enormous liberties she took with other folks’ religious stories, how she was at the forefront of the whiteshamanism new age movement that monetized indigenous folks’ spirituality. The reviewer was decidedly not a fan, and thought that most of what she said was tripe. But I can’t find that review.
I really liked World War Z, so I was very excited to read Devolution, his Bigfoot horror novel. If he wanted to write something to make me root for the monsters, he succeeded: I loathed every character in the book except for those with outsized footwear. Hopefully his next book pays a little more attention to having characters I can give a shit about.
I can believe it. It was all just so “Are you LISTENING to the nonsense you are spouting?!”
Speaking of the Dust Bowl, there is a really good nonfiction book called The Worst Hard Time that painstakingly details the horror of that experience. I’m in no way surprised that would lead to suicide.
Finished The Two-Minute Rule, by Robert Crais. His best standalone I’ve read so far. Reformed bank robber Max Holman is newly released from prison after 10 years. Max wants to reconcile with his estranged son, who became an LAPD officer while he was away. Instead, Max receives the devastating news that his son was gunned down along with three other cops in an ambush. Max teams up with the ex-FBI agent who put him away, Katherine Pollard, to find the killer or killers. The title refers to the maximum amount of time a robber can stay inside a bank and be assured the police won’t arrive. It is impossible for the cops to be there in two minutes after an alarm is tripped, but each second past that increases the risk. Supposedly, true professionals will walk out empty-handed rather than risk staying past two minutes. A recommended read.
Next up is more LA noir goodness with Crais’ The First Rule. A Joe Pike novel, with some assistance from his partner Elvis Cole.
Finished The Disappeared , by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, which I thought was very good.
Now I’m reading Woolly: The True Story of the Quest to Revive One of History’s Most Iconic Extinct Creatures, by Ben Mezrich.
I FINALLY finished John Henry Days by Colson Whitehead. While the author is a tremendous wordsmith and definitely has the gift of prose, I was not enamored with this book. I am definitely not a fan of multiple plots and disjointed story lines, some of which were never resolved nor tied to the main plot. Plus, the ending was totally unsatisfying.
I’m now reading something a lot lighter, Ill Wind by Nevada Barr. I enjoy Barr’s Anna Pigeon books, which are murder mysteries, each set in a different national park.
I read the whole series last year. Mostly good, but after the last two I doubt I’ll be reading any more.
I’m only on book 3 of 19, so I’ve got a ways to go. Looks like she hasn’t written one since 2016?
Yep – that was the last one. Her web page doesn’t mention any works in progress.
Currently reading a YA novel, This Is Not the Jess Show by Anna Carey. It’s basically The Truman Show, set in the 90’s and featuring a teenage girl. I haven’t decided yet whether to finish it, but it’s a very quick read.
I finished How to Astronaut by Terry Virts and really enjoyed it. Funny and informative, often thoughtful, with lots of interesting stuff on the Space Shuttle, the International Space Station, training, mission prep, packing, food, zero G, sleep, politics, experiments and team dynamics, as well as staying healthy in space, being marooned in space, death in space, sex in space (!) and much more. Anyone interested in NASA, science or space travel should run, not walk, to get it.
Just started I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown, a young black woman writing about navigating the minefields of racial politics in contemporary America while keeping her wits and even her sense of humor.
I finished This Is Not the Jess Show, which left me thoroughly unimpressed and a little bit irritated.
Next up, a book of science fiction stories called A Compendium of Margaret St. Clair. I’m not entirely sure what to expect but the cover is nice.
finished Clive Cussler (and Paul Kemprecos’) Serpent, the first of their NUMA Files books. It felt awfully padded, and wrapped up the central mystery in less than 100 pages, after fumfering around for 350. It also bothers me when what seems like a huge, know-all conspiracy with assets everywhere turns out to be little more than a couple of guys at the end. And this was supposed to be a centuries-old Brotherhood of Evil. You’d think they’d have a larger and more dedicated roster. But the book does get points for its usual ludicrous historical revelation.
I also finished reading (on my tablet) The Thief of Bagdad by “Achmed Abdullah”. I’ve long wondered about the srory. Despite several claims to authorship by others, the story for Douglas Fairbanks’ 1924 silent film appears to have been written by Fairbanks himself under the pseudonym “Elton Thomas”. Credits are given to Achmed Abdullah and Lotta Woods as “screenwriters”, but it’s not clear to me what, exactly, they wrote. (other writers are also sometimes cited as contributing to the script) Abdullah was, however, definitely brought it to write the novelization.
The novelization is without a doubt one of the better novelizations that I’ve read. It fleshes out the story considerably. For one thing, it provides names to characters left nameless by the title cards, often designated only by their function. It also adds to the trials Ahmed the titular Thief undergoes, turning many tat were mere interesting vignettes in the film into real tests and trials. There’s also a LOT of “Oriental flavor” larded in, expounding extravagantly on descriptions of locations, personalities, and meals.
“Achmed Abdullah” was a pulp writer back in the days when there was such a classification as “Oriental Tales” (and there were magazines completely devoted to stories set in Middle Eastern, Indian, and Chinese locales) The name “Achmed Abdullah” was a pseudonym, but we don’t know his real name. In fact, his self-delivered biography is pretty suspect, and I doubt that most of it (if any of it) is true. To quote from Wikipedia:
Abdullah wrote the screenplay for Chang, a 1927 Academy-Award-nominated film made by Ernest B. Schoedsack and Merion C. Cooper, who would go on to make King Kong (There’s actually a poster for “Chang” buried in one of the scenes in the 1933 King Kong). He also collaborated on the screenplay for Lives of a Bengal Lancer, among other films.
The story is, of course, that of the 1924 original version of the film, not that of any of the later “remakes” (all of which have very different plots, although the 1961 version comes closer to the original than the others) Well worth the reading.
Now reading Poul Anderson’s David Falkyn: Star Trader, an omnibus edition of the Falkyn novellas and stories.
Just Finished: 1636: The Viennese Waltz , by Eric Flint, Gorg Huff, and Paula Goodlett
Now reading: Ring of Fire IV , edited by Eric Flint
Next up: 1636: The Chronicles of Dr Gribbleflotz, by Kerryn Offord and Rick Boatwright
Finished Woolly: The True Story of the Quest to Revive One of History’s Most Iconic Extinct Creatures, by Ben Mezrich, which I enjoyed.
Now I’m reading A Closed and Common Orbit, by Becky Chambers, which is SF.
I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak
My daughter has been hassling me to read more and got me restarted. Enjoying it so far.
I finished Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. Excellent book. Has everything that made ‘the Martian’ so great. I liked next book after the Martian, Artemis, but that one was more of a three or four star.