The Long Loud Silence by Wilson Tucker. Post-apocalypse (biological warfare), published in 1952. Not sure what to make of it. I’m about halfway through, and except for the female characters (treated as troublesome sex objects), it reads like a survival manual. Stay away from big cities, stock up on canned goods and ammo, drive something sturdy and nondescript, head south where it’s warm, etc.
It’s not bad, but I’m hoping Santa brings something better soon.
Marshal is really interesting. He’s a minor character in Sharon Kay Penman’s trilogy about Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine (he helped to save Eleanor from being abducted once, was captured himself, and she personally ransomed him). I’ve recently read a couple of books specifically about him: The Greatest Knight, a slightly romancey historical novel by Elizabeth Chadwick, and a biography: William Marshal, The Flower of Chivalry, by Georges Duby. Both were pretty good, and both have some nice details about tournaments.
The reason we know so much about Marshal is that his son commissioned an epic and reasonably accurate poem celebrating his life, L’Histoire de Guillaume le Marechal, and a mostly intact manuscript has survived.
I can tell you’ve taken a personal interest in him, Your Grace. 
And it was excellent. Really disturbing. Butnow I think when the author said he was a ‘lurker’ at the SDMB he was just blowing smoke. Anyway, highly recommended sorta whodunnit crashing prose quick read that makes a great journey, like this:
Chaos -> Order.
Now reading Gouverneur Morris - An Independent Life.
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I just finished **Portuguese Irregular Verbs **by Alexander McCall Smith, and I am baffled.
It seemed to be a light-hearted romp among the weird world of academics, and so it began, but suddenly the last chapter veered wildly into the protagonist’s concerns about deadly radioactivity in the waters of Venice, Italy. I wondered if the publisher accidentally grafted the last chapter of some other author’s book onto this one.
Weird, unsettling, and a turnoff for all Smith’s other books.
Re The Knife of Never Letting Go
Riveting and well-written, but!
I knew right away what was probably going to happen to my favorite character, because that’s what happens to dogs in books…and it did, and I was devastated, but everything happens for a reason and it will all work out in the end right? Or maybe he’s not really dead, Ben wasn’t…
Hey, where’s my happy ending?
Todd? Oh fuck. Painful.
The next day (after a brief recovery period), I zipped through Wally Lamb’s Wishin’ and Hopin’: A Christmas Story. Sweet story of kids and Catholic school and the sixties. Forgettable. I have a feeling it’s not as funny as he meant it to be.
Just begun: My Soul to Keep, by Tananarive Due.
I finished the last of my Robin Hobb trilogy, Fool’s Fate. I’m enjoying my foray back into traditional fantasy.
I’m now reading Three Hands in the Fountain, another Marcus Didius Falco historical mystery. Falco is trying to track down a serial killer who’s dumping body parts into Rome’s water supply (yuck), but he’s checking out the aqueducts, which is neat.
Then may I recommend Pat Conroy’s The Great Santini, which has some great scenes “of kids and Catholic school and the Sixties.”
Thanks for the recommendation - I’ve actually already read that one!
I’ve read that, and it was good.
Oh my god.
See, I remembered from other threads that we have the same issue about animal death scenes in books, but all of a sudden you were already reading it, and while I tried to be (I think) pretty upfront in my original mention that it was a little emotional, I kept wondering if I should PM you and warn you about that particular thing, but then I wasn’t sure if it would be spoiling the plot for you.
There isn’t anything like that in book 2, btw.
It’s okay, delphica. Like I said, I had a feeling it would come, but it still packed quite a punch! I wouldn’t have wanted you to spoil it.
approaches book 2 warily
Finished:
Rogues’ Gallery: The Secret History of the Mogul and the Money that Made the Metropolitan Museum by Michael Gross. Eh, this was a dud. I hated how the author was constantly breathless with excitement at the shocking news that rich people can behave badly.
The Book of William: How Shakespeare’s First Folio Conquered the World by Paul Collins. Fun, quick, smart read.
The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance by Elna Baker. I thought it was engaging and funny. It’s a memoir of Baker’s dating experiences in New York City, a topic which has been done eleventy million times, but the hook here is that the author is a practicing Mormon. It’s light reading, but also very well-written.
Still working from the impulse-buy closet: Pretty Boy Floyd by Larry McMurtry and [somebody] Ossana (?). The novel is fleshed out from a screenplay they wrote several years ago. It’s a fun read, plenty of flavor, but if Santa brings something better, I probably won’t finish it.
Floyd was killed not far from the small Ohio town where I grew up, and his body was brought to a funeral home there. I’ve always had a soft spot for ol’ Pretty Boy.
SPOILER! 
I’m kinda liking him too. Maybe he’s been romanticized, but he doesn’t seem particularly venal. But dumb! If the book is correct, his first major crime was robbing the armored car that picked up the cash at the place where he worked (a bakery), after which he quit the job and bought a new car.
Just finished Wayne Barlowe’s God’s Demon, about a rebellion in Hell led by a demon lord who wants to win God’s forgiveness and return to Heaven. Barlowe’s still a better artist than a writer, but it wasn’t bad. He heavily relies upon Dante’s Inferno for background but adds quite a bit of interesting stuff himself.
I started it and put it down. I may pick it back up, but it wasn’t grabbing me.
Finished ‘Under the Dome’ early in the week and moved on to Scott Sigler’s ‘Contagious’, which I finished Christmas Eve.
Undecided what to read next. Possibly Crichton’s ‘Pirate Latitudes’.