2017 Halloween Book Bingo
Margery Allingham: Traitor’s Purse
16 Tasks of the Festive Season: Square 16 – Kwanzaa Headless Chicken Parade Part 2: Albert Campion* Well, I suppose that’s what I get for not checking a book’s online blurbs before reading it. I downoladed this book purely because it was available on Audible and it was one of Allingham’s Campion that I hadn’t […]
Read More
Black Cat Productions Presents: Halloween Bingo 2017: Update 12 — Bingos No. 10-13 and BLACKOUT!
My Square Markers and “Virgin” Bingo Card: “Virgin” card posted for ease of tracking and comparison. Black Kitty: Read but not called Black Vignette: Called but not read Black Kitty in Black Vignette: Read and Called Black Kitty Center Square: (Read = Called) Completed Spreadsheet: (Note: Physical print editions unless stated otherwise) […]
Read More
Halloween Bingo 2017: Update 11 — Triple Bingo (Nos. 8, 9 and 10)
Bingo No. 8: Left column. Bingo No. 9: Bottom row. Bingo No. 10: Four corners and center square. The “bingo” squares and books read: Bingo No. 8: Bingo No. 9: Bingo No. 10: There’s a nice symmetry to the fact that the bingo call which will give me my […]
Read More
Halloween Bingo 2017: Update 10 — “Read-Out” (Reading Blackout)
OK, so all six outstanding final bingos are riding on the three squares yet to be called, with “Classic Horror” a guaranteed multiple bingo and the other two squares potential ones. Only one of the as-yet outstanding square calls is not on my card. “Real” blackout will thus tumble in either on Oct. 29 or […]
Read More
Sharyn McCrumb: She Walks These Hills
Hanging the Elephant (Also: Final 2017 Halloween Bingo Read) Well, I’m glad that this year’s Halloween Bingo ended on a high note for me — in terms of writing, that is, even if not topically. She Walks These Hills is one of Sharyn McCrumb’s Ballad novels, set in the Roan Mountain / Cherokee National Forest […]
Read More
Halloween Bingo 2017: Update 9 — Bingos No. 6 & 7
Bingo No. 6: Top row. Bingo No. 7: Second column to the right. The “bingo” squares and books read: Bingo No. 6: Bingo No. 7: I’ll have another bingo (all four corners and the center square) when “Classic Horror” is called, and I also have a certain incentive to finish my last […]
Read More
Halloween Bingo 2017: Update 8 — Bingo No. 5!
Vertical, right down the middle. The “bingo” squares and books read: And now that “Country House Mystery” has been called, I actually do have an incentive to also finish my last bingo book — Sharyn McCrumb’s She Walks These Hills — fairly soonish after all, as a “Supernatural” call now will give me […]
Read More
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu: Carmilla
I’d never read anything by Sheridan Le Fanu, even though In a Glass Darkly — the short story collection which includes Carmilla — has been sitting on my TBR for a minor eternity … no pun intended. So when Carmilla was picked as the “Classic Horror” group read, I made a snap decision to […]
Read More
Antonia Hodgson: The Devil in the Marshalsea
Well, if this doesn’t count for “Darkest London,” then I don’t know what will. Our narrator is tossed into the Marshalsea prison for being in debt to the tune of several months’ salary — a bit more than £20.00, which would have been a year’s salary or more to the poorer classes, but our Tom […]
Read More
Peter May: Coffin Road
This book is billed as a stand-alone following May’s Lewis Trilogy, but that’s not actually quite correct, as the policeman from whose perspective part of the story is told (DS George Gunn) actually features in an important role in the Lewis Trilogy as well, and even the actual protagonist of that trilogy (Fin Macleod) and […]
Read More
Gabriel García Márquez: Crónica de una muerte anunciada (Chronicle of a Death Foretold)
I read this book in Spanish and I am glad I did — based on the translation of the title alone, I don’t know how many other subletlies I might have missed if I had gone for a translated version. García Márquez’s novella deals with an honor killing, and beyond what is implied in […]
Read More
Halloween Bingo 2017: Update 7 — Bingos No. 3 & 4!
Bingo No. 3: First column to the right. Bingo No. 4: Second row. The “bingo” squares and books read: Bingo No. 3: Bingo No. 4: I’ll have a double bingo in the wings once “Amateur Sleuth” is called, and more immediate bingos for “Classic Horror” and “Country House Mystery.” Complete […]
Read More
Halloween Bingo 2017: Update 6
My Square Markers and “Virgin” Bingo Card: “Virgin” card posted for ease of tracking and comparison. Black Kitty: Read but not called Black Vignette: Called but not read Black Kitty in Black Vignette: Read and Called Black Kitty Center Square: (Read = Called) Current Status […]
Read More
Jo Nesbø: The Snowman
I debated giving this book a 4.5 star rating for the addictive quality of Nesbø’s writing alone — but let’s face it, I don’t particularly like serial killer novels, I found few characters here with whom I could truly empathize; and between Harry Bosch, John Rebus and Kurt Wallander I’ve also reached a certain saturation […]
Read More
C.S. Forester: The African Queen
C.S. Forester’s wartime story about a trip down a mighty African river — OK, so it’s typically billed as a blend of romance and adventure (which is doubtlessly correct), but there are also enough elements of suspense for me to feel justified to claim it as a “Romantic Suspense” read — heck, there’s even […]
Read More
Margery Allingham: The Crime at Black Dudley
Oh, good grief, can you say repetitive, redundant and stuffed with filler? There is a story in there somewhere in this book, but by the time of the main characters’ third (re)capture at the hands of the bad guys and subsequent failed escape attempt I’d essentially forgotten — and stopped to care — what […]
Read More
Halloween Bingo 2017: Update 5 — BINGO No. 2!
Third (= middle) row. The “bingo” squares and books read: […]
Read More
Ovid: Metamorphoses & Apollodorus: The Library of Greek Mythology & Plutarch: Life of Theseus
For the “Monsters” square, I decided to revisit Ovid’s Metamorphoses — I had initially only been planning on the “Perseus and Medusa” and “Theseus and the Minotauros” episodes, but David Horovitch’s fabulous reading drew me right back in and I decided to — with apologies to Odysseus and his companions at Circe’s court — go […]
Read More
Terry Pratchett: Men at Arms
I’m not a big fan of werewolf or shifter literature — but I’ll gladly use any excuse out there to read another book from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, so here we go! Men at Arms is part of the Night Watch subseries; it’s the first book in which the Watch’s werewolf recruit Angua makes her […]
Read More
James D. Doss: Grandmother Spider
I “rediscovered” James D. Doss’s Charlie Moon series during last year’s bingo — in fact, I had been sufficiently impressed with what I’d read about the books when I first found out about them years ago to buy several of them at a time, only to let them get buried, however, under a pile […]
Read More