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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2020 Mid-Year Reading Review and Statistics
What with the pandemic still very much ongoing, BL acting up again, MR’s and Char’s resulting posts re: BookLikes, the BL experience, and moving back to Goodreads, this feels like a somewhat odd moment to post my half-yearly reading stats. I hope it won’t be the last time on this site, but I fear that […]
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Georgette Heyer: No Wind of Blame
Well, this rather improved on me quite a bit upon a reread! I still love the humor (for once, virtually without the sarcasm that is present in so many of Heyer’s other books), Vicky and her mother are pure sparks of joy, and I even remembered the solution (though definitely not all the technical bits, […]
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Georgette Heyer: No Wind of Blame – 3d Spring Buddy Read of 2020
… and I refuse to accept any other / specific reason for the recent flurry of buddy reads; I just intend to go on enjoying them. Also my first Heyer reread since whipping through her entire mystery collection over the course of the past couple of years, and I’m so ready for it. Let’s do […]
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2019 Airing of Grievances: Least Favorite Books of the Year
24 Festive Tasks: Door 19 – Festivus, Task 1: The airing of grievances: Which are the five books you liked least this year – and why? Overall, 2019 was a phantastic reading year for me with decidedly more highs than lows. Of the latter, my worst reading experiences were, in no particular order: Laura Restrepo, […]
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Books Published Under Two or More Different Titles
24 Festive Tasks: Door 14 – St. Nicholas’ Day / Sinterklaas, Task 3 St. Nicholas is a man of many names in English alone – Santa Claus, Saint Nick, Father Christmas … although in the English speaking world he only comes once (at Christmas, not also on December 6 – whereas in Germany and the […]
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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: Fifth Extra Square – Romantic Suspense
Original post: ThemisAthena.booklikes.com/post/1963437/halloween-bingo-2019-fifth-extra-square
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Georgette Heyer: A Blunt Instrument
Heyer at her worst — clichéd, biased, snub-nosed, with one-dimensional characters and a mystery whose solution is staring you in the face virtually from page 1. I only finished it for confirmation that my guess was correct (which, dare I say “of course”, it was), but it was a struggle of the sort I’ve never […]
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BL-opoly: Dice Roll #8
(Germany is UTC (GMT) +1, so it’s already June 7 here and I’m allowed to roll again.) This takes me to square 16: Mountain Cabin — read a book classified as mystery or suspense, or whose title contains all the letters in C A B I N. This is a square I’ve been on before […]
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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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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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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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Georgette Heyer: Behold, Here’s Poison
24 Festive Tasks: Door 2 – Guy Fawkes Night, Book The first Georgette Heyer mysteries I read were her Inspector Hemingway books, which in a way meant I was starting from the wrong end, as Hemingway progressed to the rank of inspector from having been the lead investigator’s sergeant in the earlier Superintendent Hannasyde books. […]
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Georgette Heyer: Penhallow
On the face of it, your classic country house mystery, country estate and horse farm in Cornwall and all; but Heyer wrote this as a contract breaker, and boy, does it ever show. Neither seekers after romance and after knights in shiny armour nor seekers of a genteel country house atmosphere need apply here, and […]
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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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Georgette Heyer: Penhallow — Reading Progress Update: 120 of 833 Minutes
A very different Heyer — more a social study than a cozy mystery (and certainly no romance in sight as yet, either). The victim-to-be is still with us, and going by Golden Age standards, he has to be one of the most loathsome and deserving murder victims yet. It’s a miracle he’s managed to survive […]
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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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Georgette Heyer: Envious Casca
16 Tasks of the Festive Season: Square 13 – Christmas Unseasonable Squabblers This was a season- (and 16 Festive Tasks-) induced reread; Envious Casca actually is, however, my favorite among all the Georgette Heyer mysteries I’ve read so far. Recently republished under the title A Christmas Party (shame on anybody hearing a cash register tinkling […]
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