I finished listening to Dark Angel by John Sandford. Another well-paced, highly entertaining read by a master storyteller. This is his second novel featuring Letty Davenport, daughter of Sandford’s longtime protagonist, Lucas Davenport. The story features women sharpshooters, ransomware hackers, and Russian spies.
I dnfed The Dictionary of Lost Words due to not being able to keep my interest. The book had stopped being about words and dictionaries and was more about "young motherless woman in pre world war I England. (I actually had an inkling it wasn’t for me when I saw the author’s name was Pip.)
Un-trumping America by Dan Pfeiffer. Its very good.
Same here. I hate the orange asshole as much as anybody, but don’t need to read King’s thinly-disguised opinions in his books. It’s not entertaining, and it just seems like whining. Hopefully it will get better.
Finished The Science of Can and Can’t: A Physicist’s Journey Through the Land of Counterfactuals, by Chiara Marletto. Meh.
Now I’m reading Wandmaking 101, by David Hochhalter and Tom Crepeau.
I finished Laura Lippman’s newest standalone novel, Prom Mom. I generally like her writing very much, and I do think this book was nicely written, but on the whole it didn’t really add up for me. Among other things, one of the plot twists revealed at the end doesn’t land very well–my reaction was more “Huh? Where did THIS come from?” than “Wow, that explains everything!” Oh well.
Began Dan Jurafsky’s The Language of Food: A Linguist Reads the Menu. I very much liked Chapter 1, a study correlating the types of words used on menus with the cost of the food; have been less interested in subsequent chapters on topics such as the history of words and dishes like entree and ketchup. We’ll see if I stick with it.
Finished The Outsider, by Stephen King. A beloved high-school English teacher/sports coach is accused of the brutal rape and murder of a young boy in small-town Oklahoma. Forensics evidence and eyewitnesses lock him in as the culprit. But equally strong forensics evidence and eyewitness accounts also firmly place him hundreds of miles away at the time of the crime. What exactly is going on? Reintroduces Holly Gibney from King’s Bill Hodges trilogy. Very good.
Have started reading In a Country with No Name, by Ron Morris. A young American man in Bangkok gets mixed up in politics in a neighboring country. The book does not come out until next year, but the author is a friend of mine and gave me an advance copy. He’s the one I mentioned before who also wrote the recent There Are Still Unknown Places, which I read just before the King novel. Becoming quite the author, he is.
Finishing up Hellburner by Mike Maden, contributing to Clive Cussler’s long-running Oregon Files series. This appears to be Mr. Maden’s first foray into Cussler-land, although he’s been writing Jack Ryan, Jr. novels in Tom Clancy’s series, and has written another Oregon files novel, Fire Strike. He slips into Cussler’s universe and style pretty easily. Cussler’s series are one of my guilty pleasures, especially in audiobook form. But I picked this one up as a paperback a week ago.
Next up, unless I find something else, is Howard Pyle’s The Story of King Arthur and his Knights. I’ve read a lot of the original Arthur literature, and several adaptations, such as T.H. White’s Once and Future King, but I’ve never read Pyle, so this ought to be interesting.
Finished Wandmaking 101, by David Hochhalter and Tom Crepeau. Not recommended.
Now I’m reading Wobble to Death, a Sergeant Cribb mystery by Peter Lovesey.
Started reading The Investigator by John Sandford. It’s #1 in the Letty Davenport series. I just finished #2 and realized I hadn’t read the first one yet.
Yes, I’m old.
I finished The Passengers by John Marrs, a near-future British thriller about multiple autonomous cars being hacked one day by a shadowy bad guy(s). Each of the people in the hijacked cars - a cop, an aging movie star, an Indian woman escaping an abusive husband, etc. - has a secret. Several good twists and turns in the book, which I liked, all in all.
Almost halfway through with JFK, Oswald and Ruby: Politics, Prejudice and Truth by Burt W. Griffin, nonfiction by a retired judge who was a Warren Commission staff lawyer. His primary responsibility was determining whether Jack Ruby was part of any conspiracy. The writing is a bit plodding at times, but I’m pressing on.
Just started Colonel Sun by Kingsley Amis, which was, in 1968, the first non-Ian-Fleming-written James Bond novel. I like it so far. Bond is worried that he’s getting into a bit of a rut, but doesn’t yet know that he’s under surveillance by someone who almost certainly doesn’t wish him well.
Check out Thomas Berger’s Arthur Rex sometime. It’s a knowing and affectionate retelling of the Arthurian tales - the chapters on Sir Gawaine are particularly good.
I reads it when it first came out.
The Sir Gawaine chapter was excerpted in Playboy, with a Frank Frazetta illustration.
If you haven’t read the classic poem (or seen the recent movie), have a look. Berger sexes things up significantly.
Here’s the painting – “Castle of Sin”
Ascension: A Novel Nicholas Binge
In 1991, a giant mountain suddenly appears in the Pacific Ocean. An expedition is sent to climb it, and all of them die or go insane. So, a second expedition is sent. Of course. As the members of the second expedition ascend the mountain, things get weirder and weirder…
Well-written and briskly paced, with some good plot twists and lots of psychological horror.
Highly recommended (if you don’t mind the horror and violence)
Finished Stephen King’s Holly this morning. It was decent. If you already like his stuff, you’ll like this too, though I don’t think it’ll bring any new fans. No supernatural stuff. Actually I was expecting more gory details, but no. It’s just a detective story with an implausible denouement, told in a familiar style.
(Thank you, Stephen, I love you!)
Finished Wobble to Death, a Sergeant Cribb mystery by Peter Lovesey, which I enjoyed.
Now I’m reading Deadly Memory by David Walton. It’s the sequel to Living Memory, a science fiction novel.
Ah, yes, thanks, CalMeacham. I had seen that Franzetta painting before, and saw the recent movie.
Started today on a collection of stories and poems called Midnight Under the Big Top: tales of madness, murder, and magic. Some real big names here and some stories I’ve read previously. The first story was a Stephen King story I’d never read, or maybe I did and forgot about it. It was very forgettable.
And it is available as a kindle book! Found this online:
King wrote “The Night of the Tiger” in 1963 at the age of 16,
Oh all right then. 