I’m not that captivated by Telegraph Avenue, unfortunately. I keep getting sidetracked - first by Stephen Fry’s first two volumes of his autobiography, then by a newly re-released Diana Wynne Jones story which seems to be a retelling of Norse mythology. Very DWJ.
Well, Dodger by Sir Pterry dropped into the kindle this morning. See you all next month!
I saw the Derek Jacobi TV series before I read any of the books, and loved it. Not surprisingly, I always picture Jacobi when I read the Cadfael books.
I sorta liked some of the dramatizations. I’m very cross with the writers for leaving out the relationship between Hugh and Cadfael. They were “best friends” for lack of a better term in the books and the TV series failed to use that in any way.
I really love this series! I’ve read tons of other Cornwell books and enjoyed many of them but I’d agree this is his best works.
I just wasted a ton of time reading Wolfe’s “I am Charlotte Simmons”
Finished *Libriomancer: (Magic Ex Libris Book 1) *a fun new urban fantasy. Libriomancers can use books to do magic. They can reach into books and pull out anything that can fit through the pages. The collective belief of all who have read a book is what powers the magic *and *it must be the *same *printing - preventing libiromancers from having a larger copy printed, so that they can pull larger things out through the pages.
I’m sure if I thought too hard about the plot I could find holes, but I usually avoid that.
There was a little tendency for the author to stray into adolescent fantasy - the hero’s trusty side-kick is a wood nymph, but for the most part he didn’t go into too much detail (in *this *book.)
I enjoyed it, I’ll read the next when it comes out.
Yes, Dodger is good. I liked it a lot.
It led me to pick up a somewhat thematically related non-fiction book that I’ve had lying around for a while:
The Tin Ticket - The Heroic Journey of Australia’s Convict Women by Deborah J Swiss.
I worry that today’s victim-blaming society might eventually drag us back down to the level of late Georgian/early Victorian England, a place with no social welfare at all and where a large part of society lived in conditions which were brutal beyond belief.
We are so much better off both as individuals and as a society and have been for long enough that many people are completely ignorant of exactly how horrific conditions were for so many people in the relatively recent past, and have no clue about how much worse life was for everyone before societies started having some compassion for the poor.
This, where many people were condemned to appalling levels of poverty and degradation, is the “good old days” that some people want us to return to, a world where might (and money) makes right and the poor can literally starve and die in the slums because poor people deserve to suffer. Or they can be shipped to the other side of the planet to be used as forced labour, like the convicts sent to Australia.
Thanks to the recommendations in last month’s thread, I’ve now read all five current volumes of the Locke & Key series. That Joe Hill is one creative bastard. My only disappointment is that I now have to wait for the next volume.
You’re welcome! 
Finished. It was OK, not as epic as I thought it would be. I got a lot of the references, but nowhere close to every one. Well written.
Now starting Vernor Vinge’s Children of Time, a book I actually bought new in July, 2011, and never got around to reading it. (Never cared for the tines in A Fire Upon the Deep, the most interesting part of that novel was the blight.)
Sadly, I found Vinge’s sequel very disappointing. 
I finished Joseph Anton and I’m back to From A Broken Bottle Traces of Perfume Still Emanate. It’s a challenge but I will finish this freaking thing, so help me.
Finished The Long Earth, first book I have EVER read that was completely anticlimatic…
Who knew God was a giant nudibranch?
Not me, that’s for sure!
I’m reading The Violinist’s Thumb by Sam Kean, which is about genetics. It’s very interesting.
Finished Devil Said Bang by Richard Kadrey, the fourth in his Sandman Slim series. These books are more style than substance, but oh! what style. The plot follows James Stark (aka Sandman Slim, aka the new Lucifer) as he tries to reform hell, save the world from other dimensional beings and win the heart of a beautiful woman/monster. Fun stuff and snappy dialog.
Also read The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson. this book is about Rory, a girl from Louisiana spending an adventurous year at school in London. Things become just a mite too adventurous when Jack the Ripper makes a modern return and it turns out Rory can see ghosts.
A book very much in the style of Meg Cabot, with a lot of teenage mundanities and just enough supernatural goings-on to keep things interesting. If you’ve ever wanted to experience an English boarding school without the pesky threat of having to take any A levels, this book is for you.
Yeah, I read the first two - and even though I read a lot of junk, I still have found it tough to get excited about the others…
That does fun! It’s going on my list.
I’m reading “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Diaz. I’m really enjoying it, I love the narrator’s voice.
Started “The Mask of Ra” by P.C.Doherty. He has a great grasp of Ancient Egypt and a way of painting the scene… we just need some actual plot here