Oops, I meant Margaret George.
I was baffled for a few hours, thinking that the mystery writer and the history writer were the same person… Why had I never noticed that before?
I recently finished In Blackest Night. One of DC’s many story arcs. One of the better ones I might add.
Yesterday I read Curses! A F**ked up Fairy Tale. The best way I can describe it is the Nightside meets Grimm’s Fairytales. Humpty Dumpty gets scrambled, Little Red Riding Hood is a psychotic axe wielding maniac, and the main character is a villain who’s been cursed against both doing anything bad, and having to do anything anyone asks him as long as it’s not bad.
Started reading Buffy: Season 8, and should be through with those comics tomorrow, or Thursday at the latest. When I finish that I’ll probably start one of Harry Turtledove’s alternate history books. Not sure which one yet.
Besides Catching Fire, the second book of the Hunger Games trilogy, I’ve been reading Looking at Pictures, a collection of essays on pictures in British Museums that were apparently originally short television essays broadcast by the BBC. Interesting stuff – I picked the Pelican paperback up at a used book shop. Someone evidently bought it in England (the price is in pre-decimal pence units, with no equivalents for other countries).
I’ve stumbled across the audiobook Globish: How the English Language became the World’s Language by Robert McCrum, creator of “The History of English” series. It’s sort of an updating of that work, with emphasis on more recent developments and the rise of American English. Fascinating stuff.
I finished reading The Hunger Games trilogy last weekend, and started on Mercedes Lackey’s Fortune’s Fool. Though I greatly enjoyed getting through The Hunger Games, I did feel like I was reading a cotton candy dystopian novel; I was engaged but not challenged by the material, which is what I seem to be needing lately. So far, Mercedes Lackey seems to be setting up for some smutty plotlines-- she uses a lot of words that denote how lovely and attractive and gallant the protagonists are. Having never read her stuff before, I think I may have picked up a foray into fantasy-romance novels instead of one of her better fantasy novels. We’ll see whether I finish it.
Just starting Stephen King’s Full Dark, No Stars for my second book club.
I’m in the middle of Hitch-22, Christopher Hitchens’ autobiography. I’ve read some of his columns and essays over the years, but sitting down and reading this much of his writing is a different experience. It’s exceptionally good. I’m only just getting into the part where his career starts to take off, but he’s already written about visits to Cuba in 1968, pre-solidarity Poland, and dictatorial Greece and Argentia in the early 1970s.
Tonight, just finished CSS Alabama vs. USS Kearsarge: Cherbourg 1864 by Mark Lardas (yes, I know), one of Osprey Publications’s concise but good military history books. It’s all about Confederate commerce raiders during the Civil War and the U.S. Navy’s (usually unsuccessful) attempts to catch them. Good illustrations, and an interesting analysis about why one ship or the other prevailed in the battles of that era.
My recent reading has taken a nautical, Napoleonic bent lately, as I tore thru the latest in Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series, Crucible of Gold and am almost done with the audiobook of L.A./Louis A Meyer’s third Bloody Jack volume: Under the Jolly Roger: Being an Account of the Further Nautical Adventures of Jacky Faber.
Is it just me, or has the Temeraire series become more of a travelogue than an alt-history of the Napoleonic Wars with dragons? Yes, The Little Corporal is still a threat in the latest installment, but Will Laurence and Temeraire have traveled to China, Africa, Australia and now South America, seeing very little of the actual fighting between Britain and France. And no matter where they go, it seems the locals invariably treat dragons better than the Europeans do. :rolleyes:
I did find Novik’s alt-history of the Incan Empire rather interesting; and the idea of the South American dragon breeds having feather-like scales a clever (if slightly misplaced) reference to the quetzalcoatl (aka Feathered Serpent). The novel also felt on the short side, although it was 50 pages longer than its predecessor, Tongues of Serpents. There was more action, and a little less angst in this installment; as well as a somewhat surprising revelation about one of the supporting characters.
I’d recommend it if you’re already a Temeraire fan; however, Novik provides very little in the way of recap, so do NOT start the series with this novel & you may even want to re-read the last few books in the series before tackling this one.
Miss Jacky Faber continues her misadventures in the third Bloody Jack novel - she finds her way back to England and comes within a hair’s breadth of being reunited with her beloved Jaime; however, a misunderstanding on her part drives her away and she ends up back on the sea, first on another Navy ship, then on a ship of her own. Once again, she makes narrow escapes, meets new friends and makes new enemies. But through it all, Jacky remains irrepressibly optimistic and full of devilment.
I’ve grown quite fond of Miss Faber thru the course of the three books I’ve read so far, thanks in no small part to Katherine Kellgren’s superb narration. I’m not quite done with the book (about a half-hour left) but having already downloaded the next audiobook, I’m sure she’ll find a way out of her current dire circumstance.
Finished Theft Of Swords one book that contains the first two books of the Riyria Hexology(?) It was well written and fast-paced. Each book stood alone, but the two were also linked. Further, like that the author was self-published and then became popular enough to get a contract.
I will read the other two (or other 4 if you prefer.)
I’m more than halfway through, and it’s pretty good. “1922” is about the price you pay for evil deeds, and “Big Driver” is about how crime, and revenge, can change even a good person. I just started “Fair Extension” and I’m liking it, too.
I finished the Hunger Games series. I loved the second book and found the third disappointing in comparison. I’m now reading A Night to Remember and also started The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures." My sister read the latter and recommended it to me.
As did my wife’s book club. It’s long been on my to-read-someday list.
I finished** Handling the Undead**, by John Lindqvist, the author of Let the Right One In. This time, Lindqvist turns the zombie novel on his head, focusing less on bloody death and destruction and more on what it would feel like to have a loved one come back from the dead. This book has received terrific reviews, both here and on Goodreads, but I didn’t enjoy it at all. I feel like I missed a fundamental element of this book. I didn’t care for any of the characters, I wasn’t impressed by the quality of the prose and the ending struck me as silly.
Currently, I’m reading **Aloha From Hell **by Richard Kadrey. This is the third in the Sandman Slim series, about a guy who was sent to hell for eleven years, fought his way out and now battles ghouls and monsters in Los Angeles. I recommend this series to any one who likes the Dresden File books, but wishes they included more swearing, whiskey and references to obscure punk rock bands.
Little Big Man. While I saw the movie way back when it was new, I never managed to read the book. While fiction, the lifestyles of Native Americans was very well researched by the author. I also recently finished Horseman, Pass By, by Larry McMurtry, which was the basis for the movie Hud.
Thomas Berger, author of Little Big Man, also wrote one of my favorite retellings of Arthurian myth, Arthur Rex. I recommend it (although King Arthur comes across a little too wimpy in it, IMHO).
Just finished King’s Full Dark, No Stars last night and mostly liked it. The last story, “A Good Marriage,” is the best of the four in the collection, I think. Otherwise I’m browsing through Cheney’s autobio, In My Time, and a new bio of the Queen, Her Majesty by Robert Hardman. Both are pretty good.
Finally finished Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin. I broke down and downloaded it to the Kindle – the book was just too heavy to hold. I’ve heard a lot of complaints that GRRM doesn’t move the story forward, and that’s probably true. But it ended nicely, so I sorta forgot the standing-in-place that went before.
Also read Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell and then downloaded the first season of the TV series. It was really cool to watch the series right after reading the book – there’s Matty and Deborah and Captain Brown! Much fun. It’s about a small English village populated mostly by widows and spinsters. There’s a lot of humor and affection, and I came away sympathetic to people who don’t like change.
Currently reading my first P.G. Wodehouse, Damsel in Distress, and am laughing a lot.
Got the itch for some more Flashy after finishing Gray Lensman, so I went to the store and picked up Flashman and the Angel of the Lord. The lack of electronic editions for the Flashy series is a crime, I tell you. I’m just barely started in; it’s a bit slow moving so far. The American Flashman adventures are not my favorites, generally speaking–I’m looking for the mad colonial British adventures from Flashy, but we’ll see.
Once this is done, I think I may re-read* Watership Down*, in honor of what will by then most likely be my new tattoo.
Just finished the audiobook of The Mysterious Howling (The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place #1) by Maryrose Wood.
Not only did the title catch my eye, but Katherine Kellgren is the narrator - she’s doing a smashing job on the Bloody Jack series by Louis A. Meyer, so I was looking forward to hearing her take on another author! And neither she nor Ms. Wood disappointed.
Miss Penelope Lumley, a graduate of the Agatha Swinburne Academy for Poor Bright Females takes a job as governess for Lord and Lady Ashton; more accurately, for the three feral children the Lord discovered during a hunting trip. Apparently literally raised by wolves, the children - Alexander, Beowulf and Cassiopeia - are not nearly as Incorrigible as they seem, at least not under Miss Lumley’s firm but kind guidance.
Think Lemony Snicket meets Charlotte Bronte - the general setting & sensibility (somewhat) of the latter with the dark humour and asides from the narrator of the former. Katherine Kellgren does an outstanding job with Ms. Wood’s entertaining tale. And like the Series of Unfortunate Events, there appears to be a larger tale in the telling.
I’ll definitely be continuing on with this series; preferably via audiobook.
I recently finished Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey: The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle, by The Countess of Carnarvon.
This was pleasant and interesting, Highclere Castle is the manor used in the series. The biggest link between the real Highclere and the plot of the TV show is that it was in fact converted to a hospital during WWI. That, and the general notion of having upstairs and downstairs, although this book, written by a member of the family, mostly focuses on life upstairs.
Lady Almina, the Countess during the era of Downton Abbey, was quite a character – she was an illegitimate daughter of one of the Rothchilds, so was ridiculously wealthy, and used her money to live exactly as she wished. Her husband was the financial backer of Howard Carter, and was involved in the discovery of King Tut’s tomb.