2018 Halloween Book Bingo
Joy Ellis: Jackman and Evans & Matt Ballard Series
As a new discovery, this is a carry-over from 2018, when Ellis’s Their Lost Daughters completely knocked me sideways during Halloween Bingo. I’ve since read her entire Jackman & Evans series — my favorite entries still being Their Lost Daughters as well as, coming very close, book 4 of the series, The Guilty Ones […]
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John Dickson Carr: The Hollow Man – Re-Reading Progress Update: 30% (approximately)
This is a reread, but I’m in sore need of a palate cleanser. Nothing better to turn to than the most celebrated and tricky locked room mystery ever — which definitely is a book that calls for being read a couple of times in order to yield all of its secrets. And what really stands […]
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Discworld: Here is your bimonthly belated reminder …
… that the next group read is upon us and has (umm, theoretically) already started, on August 1, to be precise. (I swear I was going to post about this earlier this time around, but oh well …) The book is Wyrd Sisters, the second of the Witches subseries — and the first book in […]
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Six Characters Who Made a Career Change
24 Festive Tasks: Door 7 – Mawlid, Task 4: Muhammad was a merchant before becoming a religious leader. List 5 books on your shelves in which a key character makes / undergoes a radical career change. 1. Brother Cadfael: A career change can hardly get any more radical than going from crusading soldier to […]
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Three Moonlighting Book Characters
24 Festive Tasks: Door 10 – Bon Om Touk, Task 4: Which are your 3 favorite books where a key character is “moonlighting”? Three moonlighting characters: 1. Dr. John Watson: The good doctor actually has a full-time practice as an MD — which doesn’t stop him from routinely going sleuthing with London’s self-declared “only […]
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My Favorite Books of 2018
24 Festive Tasks: Door 9 – Thanksgiving, Task 1: List the 3 books you’ve read this year you’re most “thankful” for (your favs) or the one book you’ve ever read that changed your life for the better. 2018 was an excellent reading year for me, both in terms of quantity and quality — yet, […]
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Halloween Bingo 2018: Blackout!
(Also, bingos Nos. 12 & 13 …) The Books: Country House Mystery: Georgette Heyer: Penhallow (Ulli Birvé audio) Cryptozoologist: Patricia A. McKillip: The Forgotten Beasts of Eld (Dina Pearlman audio) Romantic Suspense: Susanna Kearsley: A Desperate Fortune (Katherine Kellgren audio) Terrifying Women: Mary Roberts Rinehart: Locked Doors (Anne Hancock audio) Terror in a Small Town: Joy Ellis: Their Lost Daughters (Richard Armitage audio) A Grimm Tale: Angela Carter: The Bloody Chamber (Emilia […]
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Terry Pratchett: Wyrd Sisters
One of those Discworld books that only get better with every single reread. Pratchett absolutely hit his stride with this … one of my all-time favorites, by far not for the Shakespeare references alone. Original post: ThemisAthena.booklikes.com/post/1797970/reading-progress-update-i-ve-read-332-out-of-332-pages Narrativium: Where the Falling Angel Meets the Rising Ape – Terry Pratchett and Discworld Project Page Reviews […]
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Halloween Bingo 2018 Update Post – Reading Blackout and Bingo No. 2
The Books: Country House Mystery: Georgette Heyer: Penhallow (Ulli Birvé audio) Cryptozoologist: Patricia A. McKillip: The Forgotten Beasts of Eld (Dina Pearlman audio) Romantic Suspense: Susanna Kearsley: A Desperate Fortune (Katherine Kellgren audio) Terrifying Women: Mary Roberts Rinehart: Locked Doors (Anne Hancock audio) Terror in a Small Town: Joy Ellis: Their Lost Daughters (Richard Armitage audio) A Grimm Tale: Angela Carter: The Bloody Chamber (Emilia Fox / Richard Armitage audio) Genre: Horror: Michael […]
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Daphne Du Maurier: Rebecca – Listening Progress Update: 33%
Final square — revisiting Rebecca with the idea of a comparison review of the 3 audio versions I own (narrated by Anna Massey, Emma Fielding, and Emilia Fox, respectively). Original post: ThemisAthena.booklikes.com/post/1795957/reading-progress-update-i-ve-read-33
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Susanna Kearsley: A Desperate Fortune – Listening Progress Update: 172 of 943 Minutes
23 squares down, 2 to go. So far it’s mostly enjoyable — let’s hope it’s going to stay that way. Turns out I could also have included that in my “Summer of Spies” reading … Original post: ThemisAthena.booklikes.com/post/1795704/reading-progress-update-i-ve-listened-to-172-out-of-943-minutes
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Andrew Taylor: The American Boy – Listening Progress Update: 20 of 590 Minutes
Down to my last 3 books (and squares) — this one, Romantic Suspense, and Gothic! Original post: ThemisAthena.booklikes.com/post/1794981/reading-progress-update-i-ve-listened-to-20-out-of-590-minutes
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Neil Gaiman: Norse Mythology – Listening Progress Update: 90 of 390 Minutes
Gaiman says in the introduction that he didn’t revisit his own childhood favorites — Kevin Crossley-Holland’s and Roger Lancelyn Green’s renditions of the Norse myths — but this comes across decidedly more like an update of those books, i.e., The Norse Myths for Young Readers, than an adaptation of the actual Edda texts. I’m enjoying […]
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M.P. Shiel: Prince Zaleski and Cummings King Monk – 162 of 219 Pages
What an odd mixture of mystery and gothic horror. Clearly in the tradition of Edgar Allan Poe … with elements of Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe, Arthur Conan Doyle, and G.B. Shaw mixed in for good measure. Thank you, Tigus, for a second contribution to my Halloween Bingo reads! Original post: ThemisAthena.booklikes.com/post/1794805/reading-progress-update-i-ve-read-162-out-of-219-pages
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Fredric Brown: The Fabulous Clipjoint
Reading Progress Updates 40 of 176 Pages @Tigus: I’ve finally started Ed & Am No. 1 … and am loving every page. Thank you so much, once more! Original post: ThemisAthena.booklikes.com/post/1792910/reading-progress-update-i-ve-read-40-out-of-176-pages 176 of 176 Pages What a great read. Thank you so much, Tigus! Original post: ThemisAthena.booklikes.com/post/1794164/reading-progress-update-i-ve-read-176-out-of-176-pages
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Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling): Lethal White
Reading Progress Updates 20 of 1350 Minutes Slight change of plan … I guess I have a row to catch up on after all now! (4th row on my card.) Original post: ThemisAthena.booklikes.com/post/1793461/reading-progress-update-i-ve-listened-20-out-of-1350-minutes 215 of 1350 Minutes “‘I’ve heard … that there may be photographs.’ ‘Photographs,” repeated Strike. “Winn can’t have them, of course. If […]
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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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Anthony Berkeley: The Wychford Poisoning Case
The fifth time, this year alone, that I’ve found myself running into a fictional incarnation of the (in)famous real life case of Florence Maybrick, the American-born Liverpool housewife convicted, in 1889, of having murdered her husband by administering to him a dose of arsenic obtained by soaking flypaper in water — allegedly in aid of […]
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Mary Roberts Rinehart: Locked Doors
The second of Rinehart’s “Nurse Hilda Adams” stories; in terms of setup, of the “woman in peril” kind of tale that Rinehart specialized in — and which I’m usually not a fan of, but I’ll gladly make an exception here. Nurse Hilda is the epitome of what is called a “feisty” young woman in certain […]
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Patricia McKillip: The Forgotten Beasts of Eld
My first book by McKillip; a short(ish) fantasy tale substantially in the traditional mold with a strong female heroine — a sorceress living on a mountainside high above the fighting human empires down in the plain; alone but for the company of a number of magical beasts. At the risk of sounding jaded, the basic […]
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