I just read The Perfect Nanny, a French novel that has received a lot of buzz. It wasn’t as good as I had expected but it made for a compelling read. Also quite harrowing since the plot includes the murder of two young children (though you know it is going to happen from the first page).
Now I’m reading Red Clocks by Leni Zumas. A sort of dystopian, Handmaid’s Tale style novel about a future in which abortion is outlawed.
I started the week out with two recommendations, one from my best friend and one from my husband’s best friend.
My friend recommended The Call, the basic premise of which is that when children become teenagers, their bodies are yanked away at a random time, and unless the teenager can defend themselves in some sort of fight, they never come back. And most people don’t come back. I didn’t like it, so after getting 20% of the way through I returned it for a refund.
My husband’s friend, on the other hand, picked out a book I’m enjoying: A Good Month for Murder: The Inside Story of a Homicide Squad, a true crime story about an unusually busy month for the homicide department in PG County, Maryland in February 2013, and the steps they go through trying to solve the crimes.
After abandoning The Call, I picked up The Simplicity of Cider. I’m only about 20 pages in, but from what I can tell so far, it’s about a man and his son coming to work at an apple orchard, and a romance developing between the man and the daughter of the owner, who also works in the orchard. I figured it’d be a good pick for Valentine’s Day.
On audio book, I’m listening to The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, which is the sequel to The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. I’m halfway through, and I’m going to go out on a limb and say that as far as I can remember, this is the best sequel I have ever read. There’s beautiful imagery, problem-solving and adventure, and I absolutely love how the author has characterized the characters of the under-world. Rather giving in to the temptation of creating neat sides, a good side and and evil side, she’s done a great job of exploring the nuances of good and evil, and how there’s a bit of good and evil in everyone.
I’m a sucker for books set in familiar locales*, so I just had a free sample of this sent to my Kindle. Thanks!
*It didn’t work out for me with Wilde Lake this past summer, but like I said…“sucker.” Plus, true crime!
Well, I wasn’t going to mention it, but since you brought it up, both my husband and his friend actually work on the department, so that’s why he recommended the book to me. Not only do I recognize the locales, I even recognize the names of a few of the “characters”!
I’m still reading Dolkart’s Silent Hall. I’ve picked up the New Annotated Frankenstein by re-annotated Leslie S. Klinger and have it at my bedside. Also by my bed is Superman - The Sunday Classics, containing the first color Superman comic strips. It goes well with the earliest Superman Comics and earliest Action Comics. All I need to pick up now is the earliest collected Superman daily comics strips and I’ll have a complete set.
I just received River of January by Gail Chumbley. It’s the story of the real-life romance between an actress/skater and a pioneer aviator in the 1930s and 1940s, the mother-in-law and father-in-law of the author. she discovered the details in a seties of preserved letters and memorabilia, and has been putting it together in to a couple of slightly fictionalized volumes. I’m interested because a historical book I’ve been writing concerns the actress/skater’s father, and I’ve been digging up his biography. I’ve been corresponding with the author because I have pieces of her family history she was unaware of, and she has family photos and details that I never would have even guessed at from the publicly-available record. Neat stuff. I just sent her a record of a wedding I dug up last night.
On audio, I just finished George Carlin’s Last Words. I didn’t even know that this book existed. The guy who reads it – Tony Hendra (not the British comic of that name) also contributed to the book, and was a close associate of Carlin’s for over 40 years. He reads the book in a pretty decent imitation of Carlin, and when he does bits from Carlin’s routines they’re spot-on perfect.
Now I’m reading on audio Douglas Preston’s Lost City of the Monkey God, supposedly a true story. Preston used to write for the American Museum of Natural History, and wrote a history of that institution, so he might be able to get his facts straight. But I know him better from the series of outrageous thrillers he has written , both solo and in collaboration with Lincoln Childs, starting with The Relic, which I can easily believe was written by someone who worked at the AMNH (“Gee, what would happen if a monster got loose inside the Museum?”). Other books (Reliquary, The Ice Limit, Beyond the Ice Limit were also pretty clearly suggested by the AMNH and items inside its halls. Preston is one of my guilty pleasure reads, like Clive Cussler. But this is supposed to be a TRUE story. Nevertheless, given his other output, I’m inclined to distrust it. So far, though, he’s punched the right skeptical buttons, acknowledging that Mitchell-Hedges was a con man and the infamous Crystal Skull a fraud. Reviews of the book seem to treat it as pretty accurate, but things I’ve read by archaeologists are dismissive. we’ll see what happens in the book. I’m still at the beginning.
Finished. It pulled me through until the end, but really didn’t pay off. Parts were just implausible, other threads didn’t tie up neatly but I don’t feel like thinking them over any more. Bleh.
Next up: Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits by kick-ass author David Wong.
Just as wonderful as ever - lots of laugh-out-loud moments. Mr. Norrell has just helped the Royal Navy by casting an illusion of a vast armada to keep the French fleet in port.
! I have friends on the force in DC and Baltimore County, but no one in PG – and, to my knowledge, no one in Homicide. Is your husband in the book??
No, he’s on the department, but he’s never worked in homicide. That would have been cool, though, to see how a journalist would depict my husband in a true crime story!
I just finished “Throne of the Crescent Kingdom” by Saladin Ahmed, and about to start “Furies of Calderon” by Jim Butcher. First I have to finish this week’s comic pile.
I enjoyed “Furies of Calderon” far more than I had any right to. 
[Allegedly, the basis of this series was someone making a dare he couldn’t write a series based on the most absurd paring of two things the person making the dare could come up with … he took the dare … and the person chose “a lost legion of the Roman Empire” and “Pokémon”]
http://www.fantasyliterature.com/author-interviews/jim-butcher/
That’s hilarious.
I was challenged once to write a good poem using “shards” and “tendrils.” I actually won awards for the resulting sonnet, which shows that sometimes you just need a good challenge!
“Art thrives on limitations” - Nicholas Meyer
The series is actually a very enjoyable read, if you like that sort of fantasy.
Sounds like a good challenge to write H.P. Lovecraft-based poetry.
I would love to read your shard-and-tendril sonnet, if you have a copy handy! 
Here you go! There used to be a sound file, too, but that seems to have been lost since I migrated the site.
http://www.juliecarter.net/blog/2006/06/the-sweet-sweet-sound-of-pothur/
I love it!
Really, it is awesome and well deserved awards.
I’m currently reading Jo Walton’s Among Others. I’m pretty sure I put it on my list of things to read someday after seeing someone mention it here. So far, I’m really enjoying it. The main character is a Welsh teenager who loves to read sci-fi and fantasy who attends an English boarding school in the late 70s. There are also fairies.
I just finished Hounded, by Kevin Hearne, about a 2000+ year Druid living in modern Arizona. My husband described it as kind of like the Dresden Files, but more fun. I may read more of the series when I need something fluffy.
Between the Welsh and Irish names in these two books, my head hurts.
I loved the Dresden Files, so I just downloaded a free sample of this to my Kindle. Thanks!
(I love this thread! :D)
I liked the first three or four books, even tho the main charaacter is such a Gary Stu. After the book with the skinwalkers, I felt the narrative got tedious and it was more like watching a live action LARP than reading a novel. And I really, really loath Granuialle. Please sir, you can’t write good female character so stop trying.
Yeah, I got through four, noted in a review that they were like “candy,” and then never felt any desire to pick up another one.