Supernatural
Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol
Festive Tasks Master Update Post HERE Festive Tasks, Door 16 — Charity: Read “A Christmas Carol,” or read a book in which poverty or hardship are significant plot elements. This is one of my annual Christmas rereads; one of the books I’ll never get tired of — in addition to listening to the audiobook […]
Read More
Tessa Gratton: The Queens of Innis Lear
This was supposed to be the BL community’s first buddy read on the new site, but unfortunately it quickly ended up being a DNF for me. Though after nobody else seems to have liked all of the book, either, I at least don’t feel like a spoil-sport anymore. I guess that’s something after all — […]
Read More
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 … […]
Read More
Terry Pratchett: Eric & Moving Pictures (and a Reprise of the 2019 Good Omens Screen Adaptation)
In the good old BookLikes days (when they really still were good days), we used to have a Discworld group and associated book club, which had committed to reading the entire series in publication order, by way of bimonthly reads. We had gotten as far as Guards! Guards! by the time the site went down […]
Read More
Terry Pratchett: Hogfather (Annual Holiday Read)
24 Festive Tasks: Door 24 – Hogswatch, Book: Read any Terry Pratchett book or a book with a pig on the cover. So, I listened to Hogfather today … and that’s my Festive Task reads done and dusted! (I may do another couple of non-book tasks tomorrow, though.) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Other Hogfather-related Posts: 16 […]
Read More
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 […]
Read More
Santa in Literature: Theodor Storm’s “Knecht Ruprecht” and DEATH as Department Store Santa in Terry Pratchett’s “Hogfather”
24 Festive Tasks: Door 6 – St. Nicholas’ Day / Sinterklaas, Task 2: Share with us a paragraph / quote / description / image of your favorite Santa Claus / St. Nick depiction in popular culture, and then tell us why it resonates with you?” E.g., here is the description of Father Christmas from The […]
Read More
Arthur Conan Doyle: Round the Fire Stories
This is a group of stories originally published individually in Strand Magazine (and other magazines), and in book form first in 1908. A subset of seven stories were recently republished under the title Tales for a Winter’s Night, and I think overall the editors of the republication did pick the stronger bits of the lot. […]
Read More
Arthur Conan Doyle: “The Leather Funnel” and “The Brown Hand” (from “Round the Fire Stories”)
24 Festive Tasks: Door 9 – Calan Gaeaf, Book: Read any of your planned Halloween Bingo books that you didn’t end up reading after all, involving witches, hags, or various types of witchcraft; or read a book with ivy or roses on the cover, or where a character’s name / the title of book is […]
Read More
Looking Ahead to 2021
Since I posted my 2020 Year in Review post yesterday, I figured I might as well go ahead and follow up with the preview post for next year — again, taking the relevant “Festive Tasks” items as my cues. So, without further ado: 24 Festive Tasks: Door 19 – Hanukkah, Task 1: Time to […]
Read More
Arthur Conan Doyle: Tales for a Winter’s Night
This is a group of stories originally published individually in Strand Magazine (and other magazines), and in book form, together with nine other tales, first as as a 1908 collection named Round the Fire Stories. Conan Doyle’s preface reads: “In a previous volume, ‘The Green Flag,’ I have assembled a number of my stories which […]
Read More
Heinzelmännchen
24 Festive Tasks: Door 23 – Hogswatch, Task 2: A Cologne legend dating all the way back to the Middle Ages has it that once upon a time, there was a race of busy little household gnomes called Heinzelmännchen who would come at night and secretly do all your work: If there ever has been […]
Read MoreThe Halloween Creatures Book Tag
Rules: Answer all prompts. Answer honestly. Tag 1-13 people. Link back to this post. ( For me it was SnoopyDoo!) Remember to credit the creator. (Anthony @ Keep Reading Forward)< Have fun! Witch A Magical Character or Book Terry Pratchett’s witches, particularly Granny Weatherwax. And DEATH (preferably in his Hogfather incarnation). No contest. […]
Read More
Aimee and David Thurlo: Second Sunrise
Native American police procedural meets vampires, witches and werewolves. To give the authors their due, I guess with skinwalkers being a key part of Navajo mythology, it’s a proximate thought to capitalize on the past decade(s)’ vampire craze and go full tilt supernatural / paranormal, and the sequence of events that turns our protagonist into […]
Read More
Halloween Bingo 2020: The Second Week (+1 Day)
Posting this on Monday instead of Sunday again … oh well. I guess after a near-phenomenal first bingo week it was only to be expected that the second week would not be quite as fabulous. Mind you, I’m not complaining — my card is coming together nicely, and none of the books I read this […]
Read More
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 […]
Read More
Please pick my final Snakes & Ladders book! — UPDATED: Decision time.
Looks like we have a winner! So, Val McDermid’s fifth Karen Pirie book it is … I am really glad that every book I listed collected votes, though (and it was a close race between the two top contenders for quite a while) — needless to say, I intend to get to all of […]
Read More
Please pick my final Snakes & Ladders book!
NOTE: Clicking on the image will take you to the actual poll. To avoid double counting, please use only the polling site to vote (i.e., don’t also tell me in your comments which books you’re voting for). Thank you! To see the results, click HERE. Original post: ThemisAthena.booklikes.com/post/2321902/please-pick-my-final-snakes-ladders-book
Read More
2019 Reading in Review — the Nonstandard Edition, Part 2: The Bookish Academy Awards
The Bookish Academy Awards / Book Oscars is a questionnaire I found a couple of years ago on the Blogger blog of Ashley / Read all the things and decided to steal it for my then-recent and all-time favorites. Most of my “all-time” answers are still true; however, here’s an edition specifically for my 2019 […]
Read More
Favorite Trolls and Gnomes
24 Festive Tasks: Door 16 – St. Lucia’s Day, Task 3: Trolls, gnomes, dwarves and similar beings (some evil, some less so, almost all of them mischievous) are a staple of Scandinavian mythology and folklore, as well as other folklores and mythologies around the world and, of course, fantasy and speculative fiction. Who is your […]
Read More