Finished *Tart of Darkness *by Denise Swanson. Not recommended. I keep trying to find another good cozy mystery series, but this sure wasn’t it.
Next up: The Library Book by Susan Orlean, which I’m enjoying so far.
My book club read that a few months back and we all really liked it. An ode to the pleasures of a reading, a love letter to libraries and a heartfelt defense of their continuing vitality even in the Internet Age, with some very interesting history along the way.
Just finished it, and it’s as solid as the others in the series. But I realized I missed at least one book–or else I REALLY forgot major plot points.
Finished up a lot of books this weekend
The Fantasies of Robert Heinlein – I’d read them all before, often multiple times, but it’s been a long time. And the book was free.
the Science Fiction Worlds of E.E. Smith – Concordance I picked up at Boskone and have slowly been working through; my bedside reading for months.
Mars Attacks! – I have half of the cards from the original set. This book has full-size reproduction of each card (both sides), a history of the set, reproductions of artwork and the follow-up series, and has four “bonus” cards bound in.
Superman in World’s Finest #2 – a bonus volume I picked up at the comics store when buying some other stuff.
Extremely Silly Signs – a British collection of photos of weird signs. These are mostly new to me, but they marred the collection, IMHO, by including a lot of signs that were deliberately trying to be funny. Still, worth it for their commentary on strange wordless iconic signs. One shows a man standing on a flat surface next to what is obviously a large body of water. It’s not clear at all what the sign is trying to tell you, or warn you about. No railing by the water? no Lifeguard on duty? The book helpfully suggests “Existential poet ahead.”
So now it’s onto finishing Tales of the Marvelous and News of the Strange, the new (relatively) translation of The Epic of Gilgamesh, then onto McCullough’s The Pioneers.
On audio, I finished A Mark Twain Sampler and have moved on to Preston and Childs’ White Fire, the first in their “Red, White, and Blue” trilogy, and the only one of them I haven’t read. It all seems way too “pat” and I can plainly see the strings, but it kills time.
On a weekend trip I played Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe novel The Black Mountain for Pepper Mill. She’d never heard it before
Am reading the most recent novel by Louis de Bernieres – most renowned for Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. The author’s latest-but-one was The Dust Which Falls from Dreams – about an English upper-middle-class family’s experiences in World War I and its immediate aftermath. The novel I’m engaged on at present is its sequel, published last year: So Much Life Left Over – same people in 1920s / 30s. An ongoing delightful, basically gentle story – I’ve been less than mad keen on some of de Bernieres’s output, but I love these two books.
My interest much piqued by this – thanks for mentioning it – having Googled, I’m “on my way” to Amazon to order a copy. I’m a fan of much of Turtledove (though an extreme non-fan of some of his stuff) – prefer it when, as seemingly with this book, he gives decent rein to his imagination on a fresh or at least little-exploited theme, rather than recycling already well-trodden material via his distorting lens (I came to find his protracted binge on the “World War II-related” in recent years, so wearisome that for a fair while I avoided anything new by HT with any connection to that conflict).
This week I’ve got a collection of essays by Malcolm Gladwell, What the Dog Saw. I’m looking forward to the one about Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer. I doubt I’ll finish this book, but plan to pick at it until some more fiction comes in at the library.
I’m also flipping through Simply Keto by Suzanne Ryan. I’ve already decided a keto diet is not for me, but I hope to get some healthy recipes at least.
Thanks Dung Beetle, Siam Sam and everyone for starting the thread!
And a bajillion apologies for dropping the ball! I was miserably sick the end of May and then new job, and old job issues, computer issues ie it died… let’s just say some ancient Chinese person cursed me because everything has been veeeeery interesting lately!
I will try to do a better job going forward…
I’m almost finished The Delirium Brief, the last novel in Charles Stross’ Laundry series. It’s been a fun ride.
Oooh, I hate it when life is interesting. I hope you’re feeling better,** DZed**.
I’m not really enjoying this Malcolm Gladwell book, which is okay because my life’s been too interesting lately also. I hope next week I’ll find a good story to take me away for a while.
Much. MUCH better, Thank you!
I finished The Adventures of Doctor Syn. To say that it was not like the Disney presentation of “The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh” is very much to understate things. The names were the same, and that’s about it. Doctor Syn is a pirate, murderer, drunk, and robber. The book, on its own terms and without reference to the Disney piece, was OK, although very nearly a parody of the “noble pirate” genre. Syn in his incarnation as Clegg the pirate literally makes people walk the plank, but it is presented as OK because he doesn’t do it to Englishmen when he attacks their ships. And he beats his cook to death for reminding him that Syn marooned a slave to keep him quiet about his past.
Next up is Battle: The Story of the Bulge for some military history as a break from fiction. That’s audio/dog walking book. On paper, a book about the last days of celebrities. So far, they have covered John Lennon, Lee Strasberg, John Belushi, and Orson Welles. So far, not particularly insightful. Lennon was being a house-husband and working on an album, and then got shot. Strasberg was teaching acting and had a heart attack. Belushi was abusing drugs and died of an overdose. Welles gave an interview to Merv Griffin and then died of a heart attack. I was hoping for something more gossipy.
Regards,
Shodan
Glad to hear it!
Just finished The Tale Teller by Anne Hillerman. It’s the latest of five novels continuing the Navajo Reservation murder mysteries of the late Tony Hillerman, Anne’s father.
I had resisted reading any more of these after Tony died. I was getting tired of them anyway because his skills were clearly in decline in his last few books. And I didn’t think there was a chance in hell his daughter could re-create the excellence of his early work. But I think she does a pretty good job; at least good enough for me to decide to seek out and read the other four in the new series. The only thing that really bothered me was the extremely slow pace of the story line (yeah, I know it’s probably meant to evoke the leisurely nature of Navajo life, but still), and the fact that most of the plot advancement is through cell phone calls. Maybe I shouldn’t complain about that, though: if Anne Hillerman had written this book in the pre-cell phone era, it would have been 1,000 pages long, at least.
Yep, read it a few years ago myself and kept repeating “WTF???” so much it was starting to sound like a mantra.
I finished Jim Thompson’s After Dark, My Sweet, about the kidnapping of a rich kid which goes awry. It felt padded, and several times I just wanted to smack the characters upside the head - dumb criminals doing dumb things. At the two-thirds mark it was a slog, but by that point I just wanted to see how it ended. Meh noir, all in all, and the title doesn’t even really fit the book.
Just started A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick, a novel about an arranged marriage in 1907 rural Wisconsin. Not impressed so far, but I’ll give it at least my usual 50 pages.
Almost finished with The Last Days of Dead Celebrities, and it is going on as it began. The death of Tupac Shakur was somewhat more interesting, but it would almost have to be (he was shot and his killers were never found). John Denver died in an airplane crash - well, OK. Again, I knew that, and his last few days appeared to be mostly playing golf, which doesn’t exactly exude dramatic irony. And Milton Berle had a big dick. That was the dominant theme of the coverage of his last days. I’ll finish it, but mostly from momentum.
In between I listened to/read Med Ship Airman by Murray Leinster, one of my favorite old-school sci-fi writers. As usual, no better than it needed to be - evil businessmen are using electronic cattle fences to herd people off their planet so they can do a land grab. But engagingly written, and the idea that the planet’s inhabitants are not significantly brighter than cattle sort of works.
Only two chapters in to Battle: The Story of the Bulge by John Toland, and he definitely has my interest. I have read other history by the same author, and my expectations are high and I am expecting as well as looking forward to having them met. The mood of the first couple chapters is “it’s quiet out there - almost too quiet” and it really works. Obviously I know the Krauts are up to No Good and I know how it turns out - but the characters are vaguely but ominously on edge and Toland brings that across.
I think after that I will tackle The Old Curiosity Shop by Dickens. Haven’t read it for years, but I like Dickens generally. And I am sort of in the mood for over-the-top melodrama.
After that, who knows. Maybe something modern, i.e. written in the last thirty years.
Didn’t he write Blink? Maybe I will check that out.
Regards,
Shodan
Finished The Library Book by Susan Orlean. Excellent–one of the best books I’ve read so far this year.
Now I’m reading XL by Scott Brown. It’s a funny YA novel, which I’m enjoying so far.
Agreed!
I’m about halfway through Raising the Fleet by Ernest Arroyo and Stan Cohen, about the US Navy’s ambitious and surprisingly successful salvage operations of its damaged and sunken warships after the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Lots of pictures, reprinted detailed reports from ships’ officers and other interesting stuff, but very poorly edited, with many typos.
Finished XL, by Scott Brown. Recommended, despite a few cliches and implausibilities, due to its overall humor and heart.
Now I’m reading Applied Minds: How Engineers Think, by Guru Madhavan. I’m finding it interesting so far.
Finished The Enemy of the People: A Dangerous Time to Tell the Truth in America, by CNN chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta. The travails of reporting on the current White House with a president who particularly hates this author’s guts. Excellent, excellent, excellent. I cannot recommend this book strongly enough.
Have started Misery, by Stephen King.