P.D. James
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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February and Mid-March 2020 Reading Update
I never got around to doing this at the end of February, so what the heck … I might as well include the first two weeks of March, since that month is half over at this point already, too. But then, February was such a universal suck-fest in RL that I didn’t even make it […]
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My Rainy Day Reads
24 Festive Tasks: Door 5 – Bon Om Touk, Task 1: List / tell us about your favorite rainy day reads. Any- and everything that — with or without a mug of hot tea and some chocolate or other snacks — makes me feel all warm and comfortable (while still engaging my brain cells, […]
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Halloween Bingo 2019 PreParty — Question for 08/09 (Day 9): Book Suggestions for the New Squares? Part 1: “Paint It Black”
Today’s prompt is for favorite horror reads; that not being much of my thing (outside, perhaps, the gothic classics and anything more edifying or funny rather than scary), I think I’m going to leave that prompt to Char, Bark’s Books (aka Bark at the Ghouls), and the site’s other horror fans. Instead, I’m going to […]
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Halloween Bingo 2019 PreParty — Question for 08/06 (Day 6): Favorite Seasonal Covers — Mysteries and Crime
Original post: ThemisAthena.booklikes.com/post/1931388/halloween-bingo-2019-preparty-question-for-08-06-day-6-favorite-seasonal-covers-mysteries-and-crime
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Halloween Bingo 2019 PreParty — Question for 08/01 (Day 1): Mystery or Horror?
Mystery, definitely. For one thing, I’m a total chicken — I can’t look at blood (not even, or rather, especially not my own, e.g. in medical procedures); and anything shocking, spooky, or otherwise unnaturally unsettling just has me running for the rafters. That’s particularly true at night — which is when I’m doing a […]
Read MoreBooks With a Difference
Responding to Moonlight Reader’s “call for papers (= titles / authors)” — there are quite a number of excellent lists out there already; anyway, here’s my contribution … or a first draft, at least. Links go to my reviews (or status updates / summary blog posts / author pages) to the extent I’ve posted any. […]
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My Personal Literary Canon, Part 2: “Veteran” Readership
24 Festive Tasks, Door 5, Task 3: Tell us: What author’s books would you consider yourself a veteran of (i.e., by author have you read particularly many books – or maybe even all of them)? The authors by whom I’ve read the most books don’t coincide exactly, but substantially with those that I’d also consider […]
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A Book Stack / Scales Festivus Feat of Strength
24 Festive Tasks: Door 19 – Festivus, Task 3: Have your household scales perform a feat of strength: Place 10 of your heaviest books in a stack on your scales and tell us what their total weight comes to. The books I picked for this task: * My hardcover boxed set of Thomas Mann’s […]
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The Detection Club: Verdict of 13
An anthology published by the 1970s’ incarnation of the Detection Club, edited by its then-president Julian Symons, featuring 13 short stories all premised, in a very loose sense, on the concept of a jury (even if it’s only a jury of one). Contributors include — in addition to Symons — P.D. James and Christianna Brand […]
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2018 Halloween Bingo: The Books So Far
… in the order in which they’re appearing on my card (not the order in which they’ve read them). Soooo … in this year’s twist on RL doing its best trying to throw a spanner in the works of Halloween Bingo fun, I’ve been spending the better part of the month either sitting around in […]
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16 Tasks of the Festive Season: Final Tally
The Markers: Stack of Books: Books read Red Bows and Ribbons: Other Tasks completed Joker cards used: The Squares, Books and Other Tasks: Square 1: November 1st: All Saints Day / Día de los Muertos & Calan Gaeaf Book themes for Día de Muertos and All Saint’s Day: A book that […]
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16 Tasks of the Festive Season: Updates / Blackout
I’ve yet to read at least one book for some of the squares, but I’ve completed a minimum of either one book or one task for all of the squares, and in several cases, more. The Markers: Stack of Books: Books read Red Bows and Ribbons: Other Tasks completed […]
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P.D. James: The Lighthouse
16 Tasks of the Festive Season: Square 2 – Bon Om Touk Murder on a Secret Island P.D. James’s penultimate Dalgliesh novel, revisited courtesy of the splendid unabridged reading by Michael Jayston (known to fans of John le Carré as Peter Guillam from the adaptation of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy starring Alec Guinness as George […]
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Fashionably Late to the Party – Reading Statistics: Top 10 Authors Read
… well, actually I know I am. Couldn’t be helped, though. Seriously. Besides, I couldn’t just show up like that, could I? And anyway: Now that I’m here, though … Top 10 Authors Read: Overall Agatha Christie: 157 William Shakespeare: 83 Arthur Conan Doyle: 61 Ngaio Marsh: 45 Ian Rankin: 42 Ellis Peters / Edith […]
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