Thanks. That book is definitely on my wish list.
I enjoyed the Melissa Albert book too. Also liked her first novel The Hazel Wood a lot.
Thanks, I’ll have a look for it!
Finished The Facemaker: A Visionary Surgeon’s Battle to Men the Disfigured Soldiers of World War I, by Lindsey Fitzharris, which was quite interesting.
Now I’m reading Provenance, a science fiction novel by Ann Leckie.
I really liked it. Admittedly, the sections covering the serial killer are more lurid, but I enjoyed the minutiae of the World’s Fair too.
Finished Lost Stories, a 2005 collection of 21 Dashiell Hammett short stories never before seen in book collections and not seen at all since their publication in magazines 60-100 years ago. Some had been heavily changed and retitled the last time they were seen, which Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine was notorious for doing. Includes his very first story, 1922’s “The Barber and His Wife.” The vast majority are not detective stories, but all are written in his familiar noir style. Interspersed with details of Hammett’s life at the time he wrote each one. Very good, and the first of several volumes concerning Hammett. I would not mind reading the subsequent volumes.
Have started Agent Running in the Field, by John Le Carre, his penultimate novel and the last one published before his death.
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenager. (Also of Time Traveler’s Wife fame). I was really excited to read this when it came out (2009)and felt a bit disappointed. I found my current copy of the book in a Little Free Library, so I thought I’d try again. So far, much more of a charming read.
I’ve got a copy of Money Magic (by Jessie Susannah Karnatz, aka the Money Witch) going as well. She’s right, financial matters are not terribly exciting to read about but constructing some practical rituals around them can make it more fun or memorable/meaningful.
I asked to another poster in last month’s thread, and I’ll ask it again: Why? Wouldn’t you rather quit and read something enjoyable?
My gf really liked the book. I’m 60% through it and it’s a little more interesting than it was. I want to be able to discuss it with her, so I’ll finish it. I have three really good books patiently awaiting my attention.
Finished listening to Sparring Partners by John Grisham. It’s three novellas with three totally different subject lines and plots, although all are related to the law and lawyers, as are almost all of Grisham’s novels.
Very enjoyable and entertaining, as are almost all of Grisham’s novels.
I’m looking for more entertaining audiobooks. Right now I’m looking at Clive Cussler, Nelson DeMille, and Patricia Cornwell, three authors whose books I don’t believe I’ve read. Can anybody give me their thoughts on any or all of these folks?
Finished Our Crooked Hearts. I liked that the story treated the use of witchcraft seriously. It wasn’t silly, like a girl trying to get a boy to like her, or catastrophic, like the end of the world for all humanity! Just consequential, you know, like it is in reality. 
Moody and dark and nicely written. I put a library hold on The Hazel Wood, by the same author.
Finished Provenance, a science fiction novel by Ann Leckie, which I enjoyed.
Now I"m reading The Arts by Hendrik Willem Van Loon.
Just released today, Deadbeat Druid by David R. Slayton, Book 3 of The Adam Binder Novels. Contemporary fantasy. I’m listening on Audible (mostly blind, so I’m an audiobook-only “reader”) while I’m working in my home office. Good narrator and the writing is solid, but I’m so far finding this slightly less captivating than the first two books (which were included in the Audible membership, so I’m not too unhappy about burning a credit on book 3).
Next up is the third book in The Rook Files, Blitz by Daniel O’Malley, also released today.
I’m also working through Wolf Hall by the recently departed Hilary Mantel. It’s good, but dense, so I’m taking it a little at a time.
I just finished an audiobook of David Sedaris’s short-story collection Me Talk Pretty One Day, having not read it in many years, and once again enjoyed it very much. Sedaris’s delivery is, as always, at least half the fun. Some standouts: the title story, about his struggles to learn French; “A Shiner Like a Diamond,” about his sister Amy’s impish sense of humor; “Make That a Double,” about coping with the French language’s insistence that every noun has an (often counterintuitive) gender, which can be sidestepped by using plurals; and “I’ll Eat What He’s Wearing,” about his dad’s bizarre insistence on hiding food and then eating it long after it’s spoiled.
I’ve begun an audiobook of Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile (1937); I saw one of the movie adaptations, many years ago, but have never read the book. Half an hour in, and I think I can already tell who the murder victim on the Nile steamship cruise is going to be.
I enjoyed Cussler’s Raise the Titanic! and Vixen 03, and DeMille’s The General’s Daughter, very much. Haven’t read any Cornwell.
Thanks!
Glad to! Of the three, the Titanic book is the best, I’d say.
I finished reading The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson.
I’m glad I read it, although it really dragged for the first third.
I’m returning now to rereading Robert Crais’ novels in the order they were written. Really enjoying The Wanted. Crais has a new book being released next month that I preordered and I’m looking forward to it.
Started today on a YA horror, Dead Flip, by Sara Farizan. It’s about three kids in the eighties, one of whom is taken over by a supernatural pinball machine. The timeline goes back and forth between the late eighties and early nineties, which makes it a little confusing…there wasn’t a huge difference between those time periods. The author seems to be trying to pull a Ready Player One, with a dump of cultural references on every page, and the characters are a flock of teenagers, hardly distinct from one another. However, I’ll continue a little further.
Are new books mostly released during certain months? I’m wondering because it seems like a couple of times a year, ALLLL of my library holds come in at once. It’s happening now.
I know a ton of my Amazon pre-orders (and others) are coming in… Just waiting for the new Chequy book. vibrates in anticipation