2020 in Facts and Figures
I already posted my main 2020 in Review and Looking Ahead to 2021 posts a while ago — only on my new blog (separate post to come) –, but I held back on my 2020 reading statistics until the year was well and truly over. And for all my good intentions when posting my mid-year […]
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Posthumous Nobel Prize in Chemistry for Sherlock Holmes
24 Festive Tasks: Door 7 – International Human Rights Day, Task 1: Nominate a (fictional) character from one of the books you read this year for a Nobel Prize – regardless which one – or for a similarly important prize (e.g., the Fields Medal for mathematics) and write a brief laudation explaining your nomination.
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Favorite Rainy Day Reads
24 Festive Tasks: Door 5 – Bon Om Touk, Bonus Task: List / tell us about your favorite rainy day reads. I suppose it only takes one look at my list of read books this year to determine my favorite rainy day books, as 2020 was essentially one extended rainy day: Golden Age mysteries and […]
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Christmas Tea, a Book, and a Candle
24 Festive Tasks: Door 2 – Guy Fawkes Night, Bonus Task #2: Host a traditional English tea party, or make yourself a nice cup of tea and settle down with a good book to read. A mug of Christmas Tea with a Yuletide candle and this year’s final (recently republished) Golden Age mystery, Brian Flynn’s […]
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Susanna Gregory: A Killer in Winter
24 Festive Tasks: Door 3 – Saturnalia, Book: The god Saturn has a planet named after him: Read any work of science fiction that takes place in space, or a nonfiction science / popular science book. Or read a book revolving around a large party, ball, or festival, or a story where roles are reversed, […]
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Christmas Pudding
One of my annual Christmas Eve rereads: Agatha Christie’s The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding. And we actually do have one this year, too:
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Michael Jecks: The Mad Monk of Gidleigh
24 Festive Tasks: Door 8 – St. Lucia’s Day, Book: Read a book set in Scandinavia / Northern Europe, by a Northern European / Nordic author, with a predominantly white cover (or white with red lettering), newly released in November or December of this year, or set in the candle-lit world (i.e., before the discovery […]
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Ellis Peters: The Raven in the Foregate
24 Festive Tasks: Door 13 – International Day for Tolerance, Book: Read a book about tolerance, or outside your comfort zone, set in Paris (seat of UNESCO), by or about a Nobel Peace Prize winner, or about a protagonist (fictional or nonfictional) who has a reputation as a peacemaker. Earlier this month I reread […]
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A Bubble Bath and Books
24 Festive Tasks: Door 5 – Bon Om Touk, Task 1: Bon Om Touk takes place on the end of the rainy season with the change of the water’s flow on Tonle Sap River. The flow direction changes twice a year. The change in November symbols the calm of the earth that is no longer […]
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Ngaio Marsh: Off With His Head (aka Death of a Fool)
24 Festive Tasks: Door 10 – First Day of Carnival, Book: Read a book about starting over, rebuilding, new beginnings, etc., or a book where things go “BOOM!”, or with fireworks on the cover. I decided on a minor Ngaio Marsh mini binge, following up Tied up in Tinsel (my NYE book) with another one […]
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Ngaio Marsh: Tied Up in Tinsel
24 Festive Tasks: Door 23 – New Year’s Eve, Book: Read a book about starting over, rebuilding, new beginnings, etc., or a book where things go “BOOM!”, or with fireworks on the cover. For this square, I decided to use my reread of Ngaio Marsh’s Tied up in Tinsel, which is a book where […]
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Classic Christmas Mystery Movie Binge
24 Festive Tasks: Door 21 – Christmas, Bonus Task #2: Watch a favorite Christmas movie. I binge-watched three of my annual favorite Christmas movies last night — Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, The Theft of the Royal Ruby (aka The Christmas Pudding), both starring David Suchet, and the Sherlock Holmes episode The Blue Carbuncle, starring Jeremy Brett and David Burke. […]
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Arthur Conan Doyle: Round the Fire Stories
This is a group of stories originally published individually in Strand Magazine (and other magazines), and in book form first in 1908. A subset of seven stories were recently republished under the title Tales for a Winter’s Night, and I think overall the editors of the republication did pick the stronger bits of the lot. […]
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Georgette Heyer: Envious Casca
24 Festive Tasks: Door 21 – Christmas, Book: Read a book whose protagonist is called Mary, Joseph (or Jesus, if that’s a commonly used name in your culture) or any variations of those names (e.g., Maria or Pepe), or a book with pines or fir trees on the cover, or a Christmas book. I’m […]
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Agatha Christie: Murder on the Links
24 Festive Tasks: Door 19 – Hanukkah, Book: Read a book about light, miracles, featuring Jewish characters, set in Israel, that is the second book in a series, with the word “two” in the title, or with a light on the cover. I’m using Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Links, which I revisited yesterday […]
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Arthur Conan Doyle: “The Leather Funnel” and “The Brown Hand” (from “Round the Fire Stories”)
24 Festive Tasks: Door 9 – Calan Gaeaf, Book: Read any of your planned Halloween Bingo books that you didn’t end up reading after all, involving witches, hags, or various types of witchcraft; or read a book with ivy or roses on the cover, or where a character’s name / the title of book is […]
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Looking Ahead to 2021
Since I posted my 2020 Year in Review post yesterday, I figured I might as well go ahead and follow up with the preview post for next year — again, taking the relevant “Festive Tasks” items as my cues. So, without further ado: 24 Festive Tasks: Door 19 – Hanukkah, Task 1: Time to […]
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2020: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
We’re still a month away from the end of the year, but my reading will probably consist mainly of Christmas books in December, and I hope and pray that life won’t come up and throw anything else at me in the final month of the year, either. So I might as well post my “Year […]
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Arthur Conan Doyle: Tales for a Winter’s Night
This is a group of stories originally published individually in Strand Magazine (and other magazines), and in book form, together with nine other tales, first as as a 1908 collection named Round the Fire Stories. Conan Doyle’s preface reads: “In a previous volume, ‘The Green Flag,’ I have assembled a number of my stories which […]
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Paul Doherty: The Nightingale Gallery
24 Festive Tasks: Door 2 – Guy Fawkes Night, Book: Read a book set in the UK, a political thriller, a book involving any monarchy or revolution, a book about arson or related to fires and burning, or a book that is self-published. As my book for Guy Fawkes Night I’m claiming the one […]
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