Round Robins
Halloween Bingo 2021: Card, Spells, Markers and Book Pool
Phew! I’ve had blog display issues for the better part of August due to a stupid WP plugin acting up (and of course, it was a plugin allegedly intended to “facilitate” the import of content into my chosen theme — haha, right), but luckily they were resolved just in time for Halloween Bingo! (Gosh … […]
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Book Characters Turning Over a New Leaf
24 Festive Tasks: Door 4 – Japanese Culture Day, Task 2: Japanese Culture Day was first held in 1948, to commemorate the announcement of the country’s post-war constitution on November 3, 1946, which was to make a new start for Japan. Which book did you read this year where someone was searching for or starting […]
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The Medieval Murderers: The Deadliest Sin
24 Festive Tasks: Door 6 – St. Nicholas’ Day / Sinterklaas, Book: Read a story involving children or a young adult book, or set in the Middle Ages, or a book whose cover is primarily orange (for the Dutch House of Orange) or red (for St. Nick’s robes / cloak), or a book with oranges, […]
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The Medieval Murderers: The Lost Prophecies
This was a reread, which this time around I liked quite a bit better than when I first read it a few years ago. The Medieval Murderers series of round robins are the perfect books for the “Relics and Curiosities” Halloween Bingo category, as their very concept consists in following one (supposedly cursed or unlucky) […]
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Halloween Bingo 2020: The Rest of the Game and Wrap-Up
Sooo, that’s another bingo game behind us already! Many thanks to our game hosts for successfully moving the game from BookLikes to a new venue and organizing one heck of a game despite that venue’s built-in limitations. I had a great time and would only have wished I could have participated more throughout the game […]
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Halloween Bingo 2020: TA’s Game Preparation Post
Note When updating this post during the game, the books actually selected will be highlighted in bold print and with a check mark (√) next to them. Updates Spell invoked: Bingo Flip with Lora — STONE COLD HORROR replaced by READ BY FLASHLIGHT OR CANDLELIGHT Also, as our game hosts have made it clear that […]
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Members of the Detection Club: Ask a Policeman
Reading Progress Update: 8% “The murder — if it was murder — of a man like Lord Comstock was an event of world-wide importance. The newspapers controlled by the millionaire journalist exerted an influence out of all proportion to their real value. Inspired by Comstock himself, they claimed at frequent intervals to be the real […]
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My Historical Fiction Essentials
Finally getting around to this — as per Chris’s invitation, here’s my list (in no particular order, and with major reliance on Chris’s dictum that it’s “fine to list a whole author’s work or series and have it count as one entry”): Hillary Mantel’s historical fiction I’ve yet to try her contemporary writing, but both […]
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Members of the Detection Club: The Floating Admiral
Upon revisiting, much more fun than the first time around. Well, this was a reread for me and I said I was going to “tag along” with MR’s, BT’s and Lillelara’s buddy read — turns out I ended up whizzing through it because I liked it so much better this time around than when I […]
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The April Buddy Reads
Reblogged from: Moonlight Reader All right, everyone, open thread for April buddy reads/readalongs/etc. What I know so far: April 1: Discworld is reading the 4th Discworld book, Mort, which is also the first in the “Death” subseries. The buddy read starts on April 1, and continues through the end of April, so you can jump […]
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Members of the Detection Club: The Sinking Admiral
24 Festive Tasks: Door 10 – Bon Om Touk, Book: Read a book that takes place at sea or on a river OR with water on the cover OR where the plot involves a festival or the moon plays a pivotal role in the plot. In 1931, “certain members” of the Detection Club — in […]
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The Medieval Murderers: The Sacred Stone
16 Tasks of the Festive Season: Square 16 – New Year’s Eve / St. Sylvester’s Day A Miraculous “Sky Stone” Book themes for Hogmanay / New Year’s Eve / Watch Night / St. Sylvester’s Day: a book about starting over, rebuilding, new beginnings, etc. –OR– Read anything set in medieval times. –OR– A book about […]
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Martin Edwards: The Golden Age of Murder
The early history of the Detection Club, told by its current president and first archivist. Martin’s knowledge of both Golden Age detective fiction and the lives of its writers is downright encyclopedic, and he tells a multi-faceted story very compellingly. At times I had the feeling that he was taking his own conjecture a bit […]
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Halloween Bingo 2017: Update 3, Part 2 — Catching up on Reviews
The “bingo” squares and books read: 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 […]
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The Medieval Murderers: House of Shadows
The Medieval Murderers round robin series is, literally, one of those products of an idle evening at the pub — I guess that’s what you’ll get when you have five authors of medieval whodunits talking shop over a pint or two (or three …) of ale. Permanent members of the group, which itself goes by […]
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Abbey Weekend
I spent yesterday and this morning near Maria Laach abbey, a gorgeously-maintained, fairly important (Romanic) Benedictine abbey (founded in 1093) on the shores of a volcanic lake a little less than an hour south of Bonn, celebrating my mom’s birthday and reading my “haunted houses” bingo book — which just happens to be set […]
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Jeannie Come Lately Post: BookLikes Round Robin — Favorite Pre-1980s Movies
Pretty much everybody has seen it at this point I guess, but anyway, here is Book Cupidity’s idea: “Let’s list favorite old (or older) movies. The list can be long or short, with a narrative or no, anything goes. The parameters is that it has to have been made prior to 1980, I sort of […]
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The Medieval Murderers: King Arthur’s Bones
Picking Over Royal Bones Royal births, weddings and burials have fascinated us ordinary humans since time immemorial; and while people’s proprietary interest in the fate of the world’s rulers is easily understandable in societies where those rulers wield supreme power – including the Europe of yesteryear – the fascination is no less noticeable in today’s […]
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Dermot Bolger, Maeve Binchy, Emma Donoghue, Clare Boylan, et al.: Ladies’ Night at Finbar’s Hotel
Chick Lit, or a Victim of Sequelitis? An old adage says that some good things are better left alone – and I’ve certainly found this to be true here, because although this “Finbar” sequel was devised and edited by Dermot Bolger, who also oversaw the original project, I cared decidedly less for this book than […]
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Dermot Bolger, Hugo Hamilton, Roddy Doyle, Colm Tóibín, et al.: Finbar’s Hotel
Longing for love and lost memories in an old Dublin hotel. It’s not exactly Dublin’s first address, the old Finbar’s Hotel on Victoria Quay, overlooking the River Liffey and opposite the palazzo structure of Heuston (erstwhile Kingsbridge) Railway Station – but it’s a place with both character and history: It has survived a fire, among […]
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