That might have been me. I loved that book, but unfortunately my library only has the first two books in the series.
Mine appears to have the first three… par for the course, I suppose. I should be grateful they have all the Harry Bosch books- only one more to go on that series!
I just finished “Thicker Than Water” by Carey, which I think is the fourth in the series. I rate it a good solid “meh”. It fails on a lot of fronts. The motivation for Fix to even get involved in the “case” is pretty tenuous; there’s a lot of rather tedious back story and repetitious explanation, and people seem to make decisions and perform actions that are at direct odds with what we know about them. If nothing else, for a perpetually strapped individual, Fix seems to do an awful lot of very risky pro bono work, and very little actual earning a living.
The worst problem is that the whole “whodunnit” aspect is extraordinarily contrived; people avoid giving straight answers to questions not for any good reason but solely to preserve the mystery for the reader. And it has my least favorite trope in detective fiction; the one where the accused criminal refuses to say anything to exonerate himself/herself from the crime in order to avoid minor social embarrassment.
I am so excited for the new Patrick Ness! I have been obsessively checking the library for when they open the advance hold, and they just did. I clicked it with glee.
For those who have read Into the Wild, I really liked the follow up by Jon Krakauer that was in the New Yorker about two years ago – much more than I liked the actual book. The New Yorker piece links to some other information about the circumstances of his death … and I think overall, while my initial impression of McCandless is that he was a dopey yahoo who made terrible decisions, the things I have learned since reading the book have given me a more sympathetic view of him; that his own mental state, and some of the events of the trip, really prevented him from being able to assess his own situation properly.
The only thing I have read recently was a middle reader, Harrison Squared by Daryl Gregory. It’s essentially a Goosebumps book, with better character development and a more filled in backstory. A teenager moves into a mysterious New England fishing village that is inhabited by weird beings. I would say it was solid – I don’t think I’d push it on any adult readers, but if you know a kid reader who likes that kind of supernatural mystery, this is perfectly adequate.
Finished Ellery Queen. Time for another “classic.” Think it’ll be Wallace Stegner’s Angle of Repose.
I started American Gods at the beginning of the week and was disappointed. I had high hopes because I really enjoyed the other books I’ve read by him (Neverwhere and The Ocean at the End of the Lane), and I knew* American Gods* was one of his more popular books so I figured that one would be, too.
But with this book, I just didn’t care about the characters or what happened. Yesterday I found myself sitting in a waiting room with some time to kill, and I brought my Kindle along but I just didn’t feel like reading American Gods. So at a hundred pages in, I abandoned American Gods and picked up another book: Evergreen Falls, which is doing a much better job of holding my interest. To be fair, Evergreen Falls is a very different sort of book than* American Gods*; the former is a romance and historical mystery whereas the latter is more of a fantasy adventure, so it’s possible that I just wasn’t in the proper mood to enjoy American Gods, but I kind of doubt I’ll try again. Maybe if I get stuck in a waiting room with a book so awful that I’d rather read whatever else I can find on my Kindle!
I am so glad that other people don’t like American Gods. When I read it all of my friends were trying to outdo each other praising it. My reaction was much like yours, except I actually finished it just out of curiosity about how the Big Final Battle was going to play out.
It doesn’t. I almost threw the book across the room at that point.
My waiting room book today was The Way of All Flesh, the tale of young Ernest Pontifex who finds living in Victorian England a great disappointment. It’s interesting in bits and pieces, but ultimately I’m going to donate it to the library.
And yes, I’d still rather read Butler than* American Gods*.
Just popped in to ask: has anyone read The Whispering Swarm by Michael Moorcock? Recommend / would not recommend, it so? Apologies if it’s been thoroughly canvassed and I just can’t find the proper thread.
American Gods is a hard book to love because the protagonist is such a passive character that it’s hard to develop any feelings about him one way or another. Shadow doesn’t seem to have any particular goals, so his role in the book, at least at first, seems to be to be someone who gets dragged along having all this weird and somewhat unpleasant stuff happen to him for no apparent reason. Also, because the American Gods are all somewhat down at the heels at this point, much of the book comes across as a shabby and sort of depressing road trip.
I’m very happy to read that. Sounds like I made the right decision in abandoning it when I did!
I agree, and I don’t think it’s just Shadow, but the whole multitude of other characters as well. There’s Mr. Wednesday, who doesn’t come across as a good guy, but isn’t charmingly evil enough to be much fun, either. And then there’s a zillion of side characters who (1) you can’t keep straight and (2) don’t elicit any sympathy or emotion from the reader.
I forgot to mention that if you feel the need to read something about ancient gods brought into modern times, reach for a copy of Douglas Adams’ The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (Norse) or Marie Phillips’ Gods Behaving Badly (Greek).
For readers of Aaron Elkins’ “bone detective” mysteries I would like to recommend his Turncoat, a book set in the early sixties dealing with the aftermath of WW2 as it played out in occupied/liberated France. As you might suspect the main issue is collaboration with the Nazis during the occupation. A very good whodunnit and a look into a relatively recent history of the technology of the era. No computers! Twenty hours to fly from Barcelona to Corsica! Long distance calls are placed by an operator!
Thanks for the recommendations, but I’m not particularly interested in that genre. The only reason I attempted to read American Gods was because of the byline.
Yep, I’m 21% of the way into Stegner’s “Angle of Repose.”. So far, it’s proven a good choice.
I finished The Devil You Know Mike Carey tonight (it’s still Friday for 55 minutes). Overall it was a very enjoyable book, I did some museum collection archiving back in the early 90s, so I connected with the locale immediately. The took a bit to get into, a LOT of characters and backstory are thrown at the reader right off the bat, but once that was sorted, the rest was a total roller coaster ride. 
Re reading the Poldark Series by Winston Graham.
I’m currently reading my children’s summer reading assignments. Granted, I should have read the books before the kids read them, but they’re older now, so I’m not as fussed. Yes, I’m that mom. 
I finished Almost Home, and am reading The Curious Incident about the Dog in the Night-Time. On deck next is The Eleventh Plague. If I feel like it, I will re-read Holes and The Picture of Dorian Gray.
I, too, was WILDLY disappointed at the lack of a climax. The damn thing just stopped. I walked away thinking the book was just a not very subtle dig at American “culture” and lack of ancient traditions.(Since apparently the Native Americans do not count)
I wildly loved Anansi’s Boys though. SO much better it was like it had been written by another person.
Loot is quite good too, it deals with restoration of art stolen by the Nazis during WWII.
I finished Finders Keepers, the new Stephen King, which is a sequel to his Mr. Mercedes. I enjoyed it well enough, although it’s not going to make my Stephen King top ten. Two spoilered thoughts:
First, I was so surprised none of the characters mentioned how OLD cash from the 1970s would look to a teenager, or anyone really, today. Second, there is a tiny hint that future books in this series might contain a supernatural element … which I thought was too bad, because one thing I found really interesting about these books is to see what SK does when limited to the real world.
I am in about the middle of Seveneves, by Neal Stephenson. It is … okay? I am interested in the topic of space exploration, and I am the sort of obsessive reader who doesn’t mind many, many, MANY pages dedicated to the mechanics of how a particular type of space thing works. But so far, this seems very short on any actual story. Is there going to be a story? This is a long book.