There are several. I’ve read many of Lindsey Davis’ mysteries (she has two series, one involving Marcus Didius Falco, the other his daughter) .
Steven Saylor also has a series of Roman mysteries.(which I have not read)
I know that there are others , but allow me to present my own Roman mystery – Murder with Trimalchio. See if you can guess what inspired this.
Completed the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. Very good on the whole though a bit dreary at times.
Finished A Square Meal: A Culinary History of the Great Depression , by Jane Ziegelman and Andrew Coe. It was very interesting, and ranged from heartbreaking to surprisingly humorous at times. One favorite anecdote: Farmers often bartered their produce, etc., in town for assorted goods and services. One farmer ate lunch at a restaurant, and paid for it with two bushels each of wheat and oats. He tipped the waitress a bushel of wheat.
Now I’m reading A Psalm for the Wild Built, by Becky Chambers.
That is super exciting, and a little alarming. The right adaptation could be fabulous, the wrong one could suck the joy and life out of the story. But as James Ellroy purportedly said, the book will still be on the shelf.
I just finished We Have Always Been Here and have very mixed feelings. On the one hand, it’s got a very strong Event Horizon vibe, a trippy haunted spaceship thing going on, very off-balancing in the best way. The protagonist is super chilly and uncharming, as her major character trait, and is pretty interesting but not fun to read.
But the book’s science basically hinges on the worst sort of woo quantum mechanics nonsense, as if the author saw What the Bleep Do We Know and mistook it for an episode of Nova. It’s so bad. After I read it I fanwanked the obnoxiously bad science by saying that it was just the protagonist’s bullshit explanation for what’s happening and not meant to be taken seriously. But damn. Nearly ruined the book.
On a long road trip with a friend and his son, we’ve been listening to an audiobook of The Commodore, the next in Patrick O’Brian’s epic Napoleonic naval war adventure series. Capt. Jack Aubrey is named to command a Royal Navy squadron to suppress the slave trade off the west coast of Africa, while his friend Dr. Stephen Maturin deals with his wife leaving him, and also strives to improve the sickbay facilities aboard HMS Bellona, the much larger warship to which he and Aubrey have been assigned.
Finished A Psalm for the Wild Built , by Becky Chambers. It was okay, but not up to the standard of her Wayfarers series.
Now I’m reading Time Was Soft There: A Paris Sojourn at Shakespeare and Co., by Jeremy Mercer.
Finished Patrick O’Brian’s The Commodore, which was pretty good (although a bit implausible when an adversary conveniently commits suicide), and I’ve now begun The Yellow Admiral, the next in the series. Usually I intersperse another book between O’Brians, but this time I was ready to proceed directly to the next. Jack is on blockade duty off the French coast, commanding HMS Bellona but having just made a powerful enemy in Parliament, and Dr. Maturin, at last reconciled with his high-spirited wife Diana, is back aboard as ship’s surgeon.
Finished Time Was Soft There: A Paris Sojourn at Shakespeare and Co ., by Jeremy Mercer. Meh.
Now I’m reading Pinebox Collins, by Rod Miller.
I finished A Tale For the Time Being. This book has two storylines. One is very interesting and the other is very dull. Even though I managed to get through to the end, I was always just on the verge of ditching it. Next time I see “New York Times bestseller” and a review from Oprah’s magazine, I’ll know that I have gone astray.
Oh! And have you been over to Goodreads lately? I stopped by there to mark down my achievement in finishing ATFTTB, and they’ve changed the format. The home page looks okay, but if you look up a book, you’ll get a huge picture of the cover and big buttons to click and reviews that take up so much room on the page you can only see one or two at a time. Even though my eyesight is turning to shit, it’s kind of like sitting in the front row at the movie theatre. Boo!
Started this morning on Poison for Breakfast, by Lemony Snicket. It’s cute, a word that here means, Mr. Snicket’s doing that thing he does. Should be a quick read.
Yeah I HATE the new layout. On my phone or tablet it’s almost impossible to navigate.
Not a fan of the new layout either but over time we’ll get used to it. I still prefer the old SDMB layout but my gripes with the change in layout is gone.
Anyway just finished a book called The Resident by David Jackson. It’s a pretty fun and humorous thriller considering you as the reader are in the point of view of a serial killer on the run from the police hiding in the attic. There’s not actually much fighting let alone killing in the book and it is much more about a game of cat and mouse where the mouse (mice) don’t even know there is a cat nearby.
Finished Poison for Breakfast. It didn’t have much happening plotwise, but was more like spending a day with Lemony Snicket. I didn’t mind doing that.
Started this morning on Honeycomb, by Joanne Harris. It’s a book of fairy tales, which are interconnected and form a narrative arc over the course of the book. It sounds perfect, but at page 50, it’s not what I want right now, so I’m out.
I just returned home from a 12-day road trip. Along the way I listened to four audiobooks, all of which helped pass the time.
I’ve Got My Eyes on You and As Time Goes By by Mary Higgins Clark
The Alice Network and The Huntress by Kate Quinn
Finished Pinebox Collins , by Rod Miller, which was okay.
Now I’m reading A Closet for a Dragon and Other Early Tales, by Allen L. Wold.
Started today on a YA novel, Rainbow in the Dark by Sean McGinty. The main character is a girl with few memories, who finds herself in an artificial, game-like world. It actually sounds quite nice.
Finished A Closet for a Dragon and Other Early Tales , by Allen L. Wold, of which “A Long Time Since Lunch” was the best.
Now I’m reading Loonshots: Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries, by Safi Bahcall.
Just finished The Ruthless Lady’s Guide to Wizardry, a thoroughly enjoyable fantasy set in a not-London-but-clearly-London city and starring a fire witch who’s basically a transplanted Eleanor Shellstrop from The Good Place. The story is rollicking fun.
New thread?
Sorry! I forgot!
I’ve been sick this week and spaced it off.