December 2015: What Are you Reading?

[Victoria Silverwolf]

I have started Best SF 11 (2006), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. Of interest is the fact that the book contains several short-short stories from the pages of the science journal Nature.

 

[Extollager]

I would like to finish several books before the year's end, including the Liberian travel-book pair comprised of Graham Greene's Journey Without Maps and his cousin Barbara's Too Late to Turn Back; the Greek Alexander Romance (a Penguin Classic translation); Edmund Gosse's Coventry Patmore; Mark Anderson's Pure: Modernity, Philosophy, and the One; Scull and Hammond's The Art of The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien; and Gene Wolfe's The Shadow of the Torturer, the first volume in his quartet of the Book of the New Sun. If some interlibrary loan books show up soon, however, this goal might not be achieved.

 

[dask]

That looks fantastic, Dask. Could you provide some of the contents?

The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allan Poe - 1845
The Murdered Cousin by J.S. Le Fanu - 1851
Hunted Down by Charles Dickens - 1859
Levison's Victim by Mary Elizabeth Braddon - 1870
The Mystery Of Number Seven by Mrs. Henry Wood - 1877
The Going Out Of Alessandro Pozzone by Richard Dowling - 1878
Who Killed Zebedee? by Wilkie Collins - 1881
A Circumstantial Puzzle by R.E. Francillon - 1889
The Mystery Of Essex Stairs by Sir Gilbert Campbell - 1891
The Adventure Of The Blue Carbuncle by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - 1892
The Great Ruby Robbery by Grant Allen - 1892
The Sapient Monkey by Headon Hill - 1892
Cheating The Gallows by Israel Zangwill - 1893
Drawn Daggers by C.L. Pirkis - 1893
The Greenstone God And The Stockbroker by Fergus Hume - 1894
The Arrest Of Captain Vandaleur by L.T. Meade and Robert Eustace - 1894
The Accusing Shadow by Harry Blyth - 1894
The Ivy Cottage Mystery by Arthur Morrison - 1895
The Azteck Opal by Rodrigues Ottolengui - 1895
The Long Arm by Mary Wilkins - 1895
The Case Of Euphemia Raphash by M.P. Shiel - 1895
The Tin Box by Herbert Keen - 1896
Murder By Proxy by W. McDonnell Bodkin - 1897
The Duchess Of Wiltshire's Diamonds by Guy Boothby - 1897
The Story Of The Spaniards, Hammersmith by E. and H. Heron - 1898
The Lost Special by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - 1898
The Banknote Forger by C.J. Cutcliffe Hyne - 1899
A Warning In Red by Victor L. Whitechurch and E. Conway - 1899
The Fenchurch Street Mystery by Baroness Orczy - 1901
The Green Spider by Sax Rohmer - 1904
The Clue Of The Silver Spoons by Robert Barr - 1904

There's also a blurb on the back cover worth noting: "The content of this volume is superb...The anthology would almost be worth buying for the introduction alone."
I agree. 17½ pages long, jam-packed with information, it gives Sam Moskowitz at his best a run for his money.

 

[Bick]

Many thanks for going to the trouble of providing the full contents, dask, much appreciated. The book looks great, I'll be keeping an eye out for it on eBay...

 

[dask]

Quite okay. Hope you locate a copy. So far this is a great collection without any clunkers.

 

[anno]

Virtual Light - again,and Name of the Wind in my sights for the festive break...just because I never did get around to it...

 

[hitmouse]

Have just read The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, following some random reference either on here or in The Guardian. It was OK but not a good as some seem to make out. A reasonable diversion but not perticularly memorable. Plodded somewhat for the first 2/3, then a relatively straightforward wrap-up. When I read a novel with an ensemble cast in a spaceship hopping between worlds I cannot help thinking: What would Jack Vance do with this situation?

 

[kythe]

I just finished "The City and The Stars" by Arthur C. Clarke. I really enjoy Clarke's far-reaching visions of humanity. He takes a very broad perspective of the future. I also like how he views humanity as a species in the same way most of us view a single organism. As individuals, each person is part of a whole and it is that whole which is the focus of Clarke's stories.

 

[ratsy]

Kythe, I have that on the kindle but haven't made it there yet. Looking forward to it.

I finished Finders Keepers by King. It was not great but still quite well done. I look forward to the third of the series, where the bad guy from Mr. Mercedes will apparently be returning.

I'm reading The Good Girl by Mary Kubica. I have been reading a few of these mystery/thriller type books this year and saw this one on sale a couple weeks ago for kindle at 0.99 so I snagged it. I'm a third done and find it lacks the tension and mystery of Gillian Flynn or the Paula Hawkins I read recently but the prose are pretty good and it does keep me 'turning' pages.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I've discovered I don't have anything I really want to read right this instant. I can't seem to get into any of the books in my iPad today. And I can't even think of anything I want to buy or add that I would feel like reading today. Arrgh!

 

[ratsy]

TDZ. Do you want some of my ever growing TBR pile?

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Oh, I have a pile. I just can't find any of it that I want to read today. But that has been rendered meaningless by the fact that I'm going back to work now.

 

[Vertigo]

The Business by Iain Banks - One of Banks' more accessible mainstream books. Well worth a read. More here.
The First Men in the Moon by H G Wells - a great piece of classic SF, also well worth a read. More here.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

I'm about to start the feminist classic The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friendan (1963).

 

[Mark Ragland]

Just finished Off Armageddon's Reef by David Weber. Good book. While I liked it, the hardcover edition that I read needed a proofreader. It had a number of typos, and in one area of the book, a minor character named Sharpfield was called Sharpset on the same page. Strange.

Just started Robert Ludlum's The Janson Command by Paul Garrison.

 

[Gonk the Insane]

Just finished 2 Tad Williams books back-to-back: Happy Hour in Hell, and Sleeping Late on Judgement Day. Both were pretty good.

Now reading Alan Garner's The Weirdstone of Brisingamon. Early days yet but pretty good so far.

 

[soulsinging]

Still working through Shogun. It's pretty engaging but this one could take me a while.

 

[martin321]

Still working through Shogun. It's pretty engaging but this one could take me a while.

I'm also reading Shogun at the moment (about 60% of the way through). It's very good. I also really like the TV series, which I saw a number of years ago.

 

[Mark Ragland]

While I read Noble House, I have not read Shogun. I think I started it a long time ago, but never finished it.

 

[Fedos]

Just finished Tad Williams The Stone of Farewell. It was a good sequel to the first book in the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series, The Dragonbone Chair, and perhaps a it better than the last because it was paced better. Now I'm on to the next book, To Green Angel Tower.