I'm trying to get a jump start on my reading goal this year, so I've been reading a lot. So far I've finished:
The Cat Who Blew the Whistle and The Cat Who Said Cheese, both by Lilian Jackson Braun. Because I have a shameful addiction to cozy mysteries. Especially the kind with cats in them. But not talking cats. That's just cheesy.
Stir of Echoes by Richard Matheson and The 'Geisters by David Nickle. I feel like this is gonna be a horror year. These are the first books I've read by either of these authors and I've already picked up some more.
A Feast of Snakes by Harry Crewes and Beartown by Fredrick Backman. Because nothing says good times like violently dysfunctional small towns.
The Cuckoo's Calling. This is the first Cormoran Strike novel by J.K. Rowling, writing as Robert Galbraith. I enjoyed it. She hits the P.I. noir tropes the same way she hit the fantasy tropes in Harry Potter. The end result is entertaining and very readable, and fits comfortably in the genre. If I had to pick one thing I really admire about Rowling's writing, it would be her ability to tell a story that feels familiar without feeling derivative.
Sarin's War by L. Fergus. This is a standalone novel in a larger series, which I haven't read. It felt kind of like novelized anime, which I liked; for me it's a popcorn book -- it doesn't have a lot of nutritional value, but it was fun and tasty and I wouldn't mind another handful. I doubt I'd have picked this up if I didn't know Fergus, but now I'll probably go back and read the first two also.
Currently I'm reading Oath Sworn by Meg Mac Donald. I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, I admire the things that it does well, like sophisticated world building and complex social and political situations and flawed heroes struggling with the conflict between their desires and their duties. On the other hand, those are the exact things that tend to turn me off fantasy. (As Big Peat said in the Robert Jordan thread: "Some people don't like trad fantasy" and I'm one of them. Honestly, if she weren't a pal I wouldn't be reading it because I know this about myself.)
I'm also rereading The Hobbit, which based on my previous statement about not liking fantasy, might reasonably lead you to think I'm a glutton for punishment, but really it's because I had a Hobbit themed birthday party to attend, which included a 32 question Tolkien quiz. Fortunately there were also Tolkien themed cocktails. And since I'm a quarter of the way through, I may as well finish it. It's been years since I read it.
I'm interspersing the two with short stories from Robert Bevan's 4d6 collection. Which is also fantasy, but it's fantasy with lots of swearing, fart jokes, and puns. That's my kind of fantasy.
And in the nonfiction stack, I have three chapters left of Stephen Pinker's Enlightenment Now, which I started last year (November or early December) but then put on hold while I read Factfulness by Hans Rosling. I'm glad I did it in that order because Pinker draws a lot on Rosling's work, but also expands in other areas, and I feel like Factfulness might have seemed repetitive if I'd read them in the reverse order. And I really enjoyed Factfulness.
