British Library
January 2021 Reading Wrap-Up
I only finished eleven books in January, which isn’t a lot by my standards as of the last couple of years, even taking into account that two of the books were decidedly on the long side (all the more as I balanced out the two long books by two extremely short ones). But I decided […]
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2021 Book Buying Plans
24 Festive Tasks: Door 16 – Melbourne Cup Day, Task 2: The odds-on favorite to win this year is Anthony van Dyck, with a betting amount of $8.50. If given that amount of money, what anticipated book(s) coming out in 2021 would you spend it on? (Note: Pony name(s) and betting amount(s) to be added once the […]
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The New “Pride and Prejudice” Edition, and Other Lockdown Book Haul Entries
24 Festive Tasks: Door 18 – Thanksgiving, Task 1: Be thankful for yourself and treat yourself to a new book – post a picture of it. (This can be a library book.) Although being in temporary lockdown for the second time this year doesn’t exactly prove conducive to my reading (nor did most of this […]
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January 2020 Reading
January turned out a bit of a roller coaster in RL, continuing the course things had already taken in December: not quite whiplash-inducing, but with several sickness-prone twists and turns (for however much I’d expected them to materialize) surrounding one major glorious event (which was, however, truly glorious; even if this, too, was something I’d […]
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Halloween Bingo 2019: Tracking Post — Blackout! (And bingos Nos. 12 and 13.)
Many thanks to Moonlight Reader and Obsidian Blue for hosting this game for the fourth year in a row, bigger and better than ever before! Witih today’s call, I’ve blacked out my card, in addition to collecting my final bingos (nos. 12 and 13). Somewhat to my surprise, after completing my books for my […]
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Halloween Bingo 2019: The Fourth Week
Reading blackout before the end of the first bingo month and two more completed bingos in week 4 for a total of three bingos so far — if anybody had told me this going in, I’d have questioned their sanity. Not least because I had a major project to complete this month, which I knew […]
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Halloween Bingo 2019: Tracking Post — Bingo No. 3 and Reading Blackout
* Triple Bingo Happy Dance * Well, that went by much faster than I had anticipated … Many thanks to Moonlight Reader and Obsidian Blue for hosting this game for the fourth year in a row, bigger and better than ever before! I’ll continue tracking my bingos of course — and since we now have […]
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For any mystery fans still looking for a book for the “Fear the Drowning Deep” bingo square …
… this short story compilation from the British Library Crime Classics series looks like it would fit the bill. (Link to Obi’s review HERE: obi.booklikes.com/post/1956924/post) Original post: ThemisAthena.booklikes.com/post/1957146/for-any-mystery-fans-still-looking-for-a-book-for-the-fear-the-drowning-deep-bingo-square
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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 […]
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Golden Age Mysteries: Further Reading
With my Detection Club Bingo card now blacked out, I’m going to track my reading here. (Note: for purposes of completeness, this includes books by the below authors already read prior to the creation of this list.) My priorities are going to be: Arthur Conan Doyle’s / Sherlock Holmes’s adventures, biographies, contemporaries and rivals, as […]
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Detection Club Bingo: My Progress So Far
Whee — only two squres to go for blackout! The Squares / Chapters: 1. A New Era Dawns: Ernest Bramah – The Tales of Max Carrados; Emmuska Orczy – The Old Man in the Corner 2. The Birth of the Golden Age: A.A. Milne – The Red House Mystery 3. The Great Detectives: Margery […]
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Martin Edwards (ed.) & Various Authors: The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories (BLCC)
24 Festive Tasks: Door 20 – Christmas, Book: The third annual edition of the British Library’s anthologies of unjustifiedly-buried Golden Age Christmas mystery short stories, again edited by Martin Edwards. Great fun and a great way to segue into the holiday season, one story at a time. I’m using it as my book for, guess […]
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My Comfort Reads
24 Festive Tasks: Door 8 – Penance Day, Task 1: “Confess” your book habits. Dog-earring? Laying books face down? Bending back the spines? Skimming? OR: Confess your guilty reading pleasure, or comfort reads. It’s probably no secret that my comfort reads are Golden Age mysteries — I’m slowly making my way through the works […]
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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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Edmund Crispin: The Moving Toyshop & Alan Melville: Quick Curtain
A murder is committed — and hilarity ensues Both Edmund Crispin’s Moving Toyshop and Alan Melville’s Quick Curtain are mentioned in the “Making Fun of Murder” chapter of Martin Edwards’s Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books. Both are excellent examples of writers taking something as horrific as murder and turning it right around and […]
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John Bude: The Lake District Murder
A Wasted Opportunity John Bude, Martin Edwards writes in The History of Classic Crime in 100 Books, deliberately set his first three books in picturesque real life locations — which then also appeared in the books’ respective titles — to set a counterpoint to the Golden Age mystery trope of concocting fictional country house settings […]
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Mavis Doriel Hay: Death on the Cherwell
Enid Blyton in Oxford Meh. I think if the protagonists of this mystery had been some 3 or 5 years younger, and if I’d read this in my teens or preteens, I’d have loved it — this is exactly the sort of book I used to swallow way back when (Enid Blyton’s O’Sullivan Twins / […]
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Anthony Berkeley: The Poisoned Chocolates Case
Anatomy of a Murder … Courtesy of the Detection Club Anthony Berkeley (full name: Anthony Berkeley Cox) was one of the co-founders of the legendary Detection Club; he published mysteries both under his own name (minus “Cox”) and the pseudonym Francis Iles, which when he first used it was kept a secret so successfully that […]
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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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Victor Gunn: Death in December
16 Tasks of the Festive Season: Square 3 – Armistice / Veterans’ Day Murder at Castle Cloon This novella by Victor Gunn (one of several pseudonyms of Edwy Searles Brooks) also forms the centerpiece of the second British Library Christmas mystery short fiction anthologies edited by Martin Edwards that I read this month (Crimson Snow), […]
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