Scotland
Ian Rankin: Knots and Crosses
Blurb: ‘And in Edinburgh of all places. I mean, you never think of that sort of thing happening in Edinburgh, do you …?’ ‘ That sort of thing’ is the brutal abduction and murder of two young girls. And now a third is missing, presumably gone to the same sad end. Detective Sergeant John Rebus, […]
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Two Christmas Mystery Short Story Anthologies
Festive Tasks Master Update Post HERE Festive Tasks, Door 21 — Good Luck Charms and Traditions: Read a book from the fantasy genre, or one with something on the cover that refers to “luck”. Festive Tasks, Door 24 — Cherished Memories: Read a book with a split timeline, one that takes place in the present […]
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Margaret Oliphant: The Library Window
Festive Tasks Master Update Post HERE Task 3: “Whenever five or six English-speaking people meet round a fire on Christmas Eve, they start telling each other ghost stories,” humorist Jerome K. Jerome wrote in his 1891 collection, Told After Supper. “Nothing satisfies us on Christmas Eve but to hear each other tell authentic anecdotes about […]
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June 2021 and Mid-Year Reading Recap
Sigh. Well, I think posting a monthly (and even half-year) reading recap a full three weeks into the next month has to be some sort of record, even for me, but here we are. And I admit that at this point I’d even been contemplating holding off another week so as to combine this with […]
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Dorothy L. Sayers: The Five Red Herrings
Dorothy L. Sayers is occasionally accused of having gotten too caught up in her research for a given book; and the two mysteries that routinely come up in this context are The Nine Tailors (bell ringing, published in 1934) and, well, The Five Red Herrings (1931), which, although chiefly concerned with fishing and painting, also […]
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May 2021 Reading Recap
Still a lot of work on the back end of the blog, including on my “featured authors” pages (see the right column on the main Literature page and the introduction of my April 2021 recap post). So, contrary to plans, still no new posts in my alphabet blogging series in May. However, the time-consuming back end […]
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Val McDermid: Still Life
After Ann Cleeves’s Red Bones, another May 2021 armchair visit to Scotland; though this time to Edinburgh — with brief but significant excursions to the English Midlands, Ireland and Paris, that is. (France yet again, too — after I had already read Agatha Christie’s Mystery of the Blue Train, Georges Simenon’s Maigret’s Holiday, and Arthur […]
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Ann Cleeves: Red Bones
Ann Cleeves’s Shetland series became a “go-to” series for me, whenever I am looking for a profoundly atmospheric (preferably Scottish) setting, with its very first book, Raven Black. Needless to say, I’m also a huge fan of the TV series starring Douglas Henshall as the series’s protagonist, Jimmy Perez; never mind that in the books […]
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February and March 2021: Reading Recap
Well, go figure. The first quarter of 2021 is already behind us, never mind that I’m still having to remind myself on occasion to write “2021” instead of “2020” … (and we’re even a week into April already, but let that go). Anyway, since I never got around to doing a “February in review” post, […]
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Shaun Bythell: Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops
Shaun Bythell: Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops This was actually a holdover from February — I had already started the book once but stopped reading after chapter 1, teetering on the verge of a DNF, before ultimately deciding “just finish it; it’s short, what the heck” one Sunday morning in early March […]
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An Alphabet of My Likes and Dislikes: “Q”
This is a post belonging to a new blogging project — the title is pretty much self-explanatory, I think; the project’s introductory post can be found HERE. Credit for the idea: BeetleyPete. As always, the only thing linking the two items mentioned in this post in my mind is that they both start with the […]
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An Alphabet of My Likes and Dislikes: “N”
This is a post belonging to a new blogging project — the title is pretty much self-explanatory, I think; the project’s introductory post can be found HERE. Credit for the idea: BeetleyPete. As always, the only thing linking the two items mentioned in this post in my mind is that they both start with the […]
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2020 in Facts and Figures
I already posted my main 2020 in Review and Looking Ahead to 2021 posts a while ago — only on my new blog (separate post to come) –, but I held back on my 2020 reading statistics until the year was well and truly over. And for all my good intentions when posting my mid-year […]
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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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Bookshop Goodies
I went book gift shopping for a friend today and decided to treat myself to a few goodies, too:
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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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Ian Rankin: A Song for the Dark Times
24 Festive Tasks: Door 5 – Bon Om Touk, Book: Read a book that has the moon, or an ocean, river, lake, or other body of water (larger than a puddle) on the cover, read a manga, or read a book set anywhere in Asia. As my book for this square, I’m claiming Ian […]
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Josephine Tey: Inspector Grant Series
Having already read two books from Tey’s Alan Grant series (The Daughter of Time and The Franchise Affair) as well as her nonseries novel Brat Farrar in past years, and Miss Pym Disposes at the beginning of this year, I took the combined (re)read of The Daughter of Time and the play Dickon during the pandemic buddy […]
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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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Snakes and Ladders, 2020 Edition – TA’s Master Tracking Post: DONE!
Tracking courtesy of Charlie and Sunny, as always, of course! SPACES AND DICE ROLLS 1. Author is a woman — Patricia Wentworth: Pilgrim’s Rest (finished April 1, 2020) 2. Genre: mystery 3. Set in the twentieth century 4. Published in 2019 5. Published in 2018 6. Title has a color word in it 7. Author’s last […]
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