Finished it. It’s the first in a series and I don’t think I’ll read any of the others; I’d give it maybe a C.
I’m enjoying Before Watchmen: Minutemen/Silk Spectre by Darwyn Cooke and Amanda Conner, another good Watchmen prequel graphic novel.
I’ve begun Living in Truth, Beauty and Goodness by Jeffrey Wattles, a theology/values book that isn’t thrilling me. Very dry. Doubt it will pass my 50-page rule.
Just about to start the audiobook of Max Brooks’s World War Z. I liked the movie, although I understand it was quite different from (and much more focused than) the book.
Finished The Eight Curious Cases of Inspector Zhang, by Stephen Leather. Eight short stories featuring Leather’s somewhat-famous – among certain expat circles in Southeast Asia anyway – Singaporean police detective. Very good albeit somewhat light. One of the stories, “Inspector Zhang and the Dead Thai Gangster,” I’ve read before, I believe in the anthology Bangkok Noir, edited by Christopher G. Moore. In that story, Inspector Zhang is tasked with solving the murder of a Thai gangster on board a 90-minute Singapore Airlines flight from Singapore to Bangkok, and he must solve it before the passengers disembark.
Sometime this week I’ll start The Vanishing Witch, by Karen Maitland. She specializes in medieval tales. This one is set, or at least starts out, in Lincoln, England in 1380. An attractive widow with two children becomes accused of witchcraft amid a spate of unnatural deaths. I believe the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 will be a factor in the story.
I am still stuck on Scott Pratt’s Joe Dillard series: the other night I started book #5, Conflict of Interest. During the last book I started to get frustrated with the protagonist’s ridiculous temper and bad decision-making, and I almost decided I wouldn’t keep going with the series, but late in the story the character’s wife (finally) called him on his stupidly risky bullshit and he seemed to have a revelation. I’m only a few chapters into the current book, so we’ll see.
A little while ago I was completely tickled to learn via P.D. James’s Facebook page that there will be a new book in two weeks! James is my all-time-favorite author; she died in 2014, at the age of 94. The Mistletoe Murder: And Other Stories is a collection of four short stories, two of which feature a young Adam Dalgliesh (a name other James fans will instantly recognize). I don’t believe these are new stories – Amazon just calls them “previously uncollected” – but I’m not aware of ever reading any short stories by her so I think they’ll be new to me.
I finished The Creeping Shadow, the 4th in Jonathan Stroud’s series. This was a great read and the series is not lulling at all (initially I was wondering if it could hold interest for more than say, a trilogy).
I also read Five Children on the Western Front, by Kate Saunders, and it’s an homage/sequel to Five Children and It. I think this is the kind of book that works the best if you are already very familiar with the original series, because I think you have to have already bought into the whole premise to really fully appreciate the conceit. I cried the entire time, just about.
And I FINALLY finished End of Watch, which I enjoyed. My only complaint here is that I already know I like Stephen King’s supernatural stories, so I was especially into the first book in this series which, to me, seemed like a fun time seeing SK write a straight thriller, and I thought that concept was going well.
On a recent plane trip, I read Case Histories, which is the first of a mystery series by Kate Atkinson (a private investigator in looking into three cold cases and they end up being related to each other – in more of a cosmic, philosophical way than the back of the book description would have you think). It was riveting, it’s Kate Atkinson so the writing is above average. I had a bit of a hard time relating to the characters and the situations they were in – maybe it was too British for me. Has anyone read more of this series? I’m on the fence about how much I need to seek them out.
I finished Johannes Cabal, The Detective by Jonathan L. Howard today. I have to say it wasn’t as good as the first book. I think the tension between Leonie and Cabal wasn’t strong enough to fuel the plot. I frankly missed both her father and Horst through the whole book. Nevertheless, it had some fabulous moments, like Cabal’s dismay, after being thrown out of an airship, that his dressing gown had opened up and everything was … well flapping in the breeze
I’ve read the Jackson Brodie books. I liked Case Histories, and I think the next three are even better - as long as you enjoy the way her stories jump around in time. Atkinson doesn’t believe in telling a story in chronological order.
I’m in the middle of the new Connie Willis book, Crosstalk. I usually love Willis’s work, but I was not excited by the description of this one, and so far it has not exceeded my expectations. Not that it’s a bad read - if nothing else, it’s amusing to see Willis finally give her characters cell phones (not to mention telepathy) and still hinge her plot on miscommunication.
I’ve just discovered the Sir Robert Carey historical mystery series, by P.F. Chisholm (Patricia Finney). I have read a lot of historical mysteries, and these are exceptional. The writing gives you a great sense of time and place (late Tudor England) without once resorting to mayhaps or methinks. Robert Carey was a real person: his grandmother was Anne Boleyn’s sister Mary, so he was at least a cousin of Queen Elizabeth, and probably her nephew. Despite his connections he was a penniless younger son and he took a post as a Warden in the English Marches, close to the Scottish border, which was the Wild West of Tudor England. The author claims that Carey’s adventures in the novels are based on real events. The first book is called A Famine of Horses.
I finished The Thousandth Floor by Katherine McGee a week or two ago. It wasn’t real substantial, but it hooked me. It’s basically about rich people keeping secrets, backstabbing one another, and hooking up.
When I finished that book, I picked up Soulless by Gail Carriger, in honor of Halloween. The book takes place in an alternate, steampunk 19th century. In this alternate world, werewolves and vampires exist, and are recognized by British society. The main character, who is called “preternatural” and has no soul, is attached by an undocumented vampire. So then everyone’s trying to figure out how undocumented supernatural beings are coming into existence. I absolutely love the book.
I bought Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training by Mark Rippetoe this weekend, for both my husband and I to read. But my husband has really taken to the book, and brought it all around the house with him. I’ve begun to realize that reading this book will first necessitate keeping track of it, so it may take me a while to get through the book.
Whoops, meant to say attacked. Though I suppose technically I could answer your question and say “her neck,” because he attacked her by digging his teeth into her neck and trying to feed on her!
I’m deleting all my bookmarks for the major news outlets, getting rid of my twitter app, staying out of the Election forum and between now an November 9 I plan to reread as many Jane Austen novels as I can fit into a month. I started Persuasion last night and I feel better already.
I think I want to read this, but I’m not sure. How familiar do you need to be with the previous books? It’s been many years since I read them, though I do recall the Psammead as a cantankerous wish-giving magical being.
I ran out of library books and all the books I own are currently packed up, so I’m allowing myself to read some of the goodies saved on my Kindle. Today it was a short Lockwood & Co. story, The Dagger in the Desk, and a couple of Johannes Cabal tales, Johannes Cabal & the Blustery Day and Exeunt Demon King. All delightful.
You don’t need to remember any details of the plot, but it’s more (IMHO, of course) that you have to buy into the premise of this twee English family and their extremely English adventures with this magical creature that manage to be both pragmatic and fantastical at the same time. I think you have to be genuinely fond of the concept – not even the specific books, but fond of maybe the innocence of children’s fantasy books from the early 20th century – because that’s what contrast of the horrors of WWI rests upon in this book.
