Michael Connelly
Michael Connelly: The Dark Hours
Festive Tasks Master Update Post HERE Festive Tasks, Door 3 — Light(s): Read a book with the sun, or festive lights on the cover, or a book that’s set somewhere sunny. Connelly’s (to date) most recent book of the Harry Bosch universe takes us back almost exactly a year, to NYE and early January […]
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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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Michael Connelly: The Night Fire
My bingo pre-read and a very welcome return to Los Angeles — or at least, the version thereof that constitutes the world of Connelly’s characters, which however only ends up making the city a major character of its own in addition to the humans living in it. Harry Bosch may not officially be a cold […]
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Halloween Bingo 2020: The First Week (+1 Day)
This year’s Halloween Bingo started a lot more promising than last year’s with a strong joint entry in Michael Connelly’s Bosch and Ballard series, and in fact, not one of the books I read earned less than a four-star rating — with the standout being Nicholas Blake’s The Beast Must Die, which turned out to […]
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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 08/13 (Day 13): New Releases?
One recommendation and three expectations: Ann Leckie – The Raven Tower: That rare beast of a newly-released book that worked for me on every level despite all the hype attached to it. Fantasy / supernatural, but without the usual menagerie of magical beasts: instead, an alternative early medieval society and its (very much alive) gods, […]
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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 08/01 (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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Michael Connelly: Two Kinds of Truth
24 Festive Tasks: Door 14 – Hanukkah, Book: Read a book about light, miracles, characters who are Jewish or books set in Israel. OR: Hanukkah commemorates the re-dedication of the second temple in the second century; read the second book in a series or a book with the word “second” or “two” in the title. […]
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Michael Connelly: The Late Show (Renee Ballard, Book 1)
24 Festive Tasks: Door 12 – St. Andrew’s Day, Book: Andrew was the first apostle; read the first book in a series. OR: Andrew and Peter were brothers; read a book about brothers. OR: Read books about or set in Scotland or by a Scottish author, or set in Charleston, South Carolina (which is where the […]
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Michael Connelly: The Late Show / Two Kinds of Truth / Dark Sacred Night
Ballard and Bosch: A Michael Connelly Mini-Binge I managed to fall behind on 3 books by Michael Connelly over the course of the past 2 years — how in the world did that happen? He’s one of my most consistent go-to authors for reliably high quality crime fiction … as well as for taking me […]
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England (the Southern / Central Part), from East to West and Back: Bookish Souvenirs
The Trip: * Chiltern Hills and Thames Valley (to mystery lovers, aka “Midsomer County” — though given that this is an area chock-full of quintessential(ly) English villages, it’s no surprise that it also routinely provides locations for other series, such as Inspector Morse, The Vicar of Dibley, and of course, adaptations of Agatha Christie’s mysteries […]
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Birthday Monster Book Haul
… thanks to my mom, who gave me a bookstore gift card, my best friend, who raided my Amazon wish list (isn’t it nice to know your loved ones know just what you’ll be happiest about?) and a few odd things to which I treated myself: Die Briefe der Manns (The Mann Family Correspondence) — […]
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2015 Reading Recap, Part 2: The Self-Interview
Olga Godim came up with this creative way of summing up her reading year and challenged everyone to do their own. Well, while I’m back here … I’m in! Olga writes: “Creatively, I decided to interview myself about my reading in 2015. The answers could only be book titles I read […]
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2015 Reading Recap
No fancy graphics and no astounding numbers – in fact, rather average numbers for me, these days – but anyway, here we go: Total Number of Books Read: 68 – including rereads – but excluding my current read, Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell (which is bound to take me all the […]
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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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Michael Connelly: Angels Flight
Gripping and true to detail. I read this book on the flight to the U.S. which initiated my move to this country several years ago. Having spent a couple of months in L.A. in 1991 just prior to the first Rodney King trial (which was to spark the upheaval this book, in part, draws on), […]
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