January 2020 Reading Thread

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@Bick

Cold Comfort Farm is awesome! I have been reading that book occasionally since I was about 14. That is one of my favorites. If books could be comfort food . . . CCF would be mac and cheese.
 
Ann said:
@Bick

Cold Comfort Farm is awesome! I have been reading that book occasionally since I was about 14. That is one of my favorites. If books could be comfort food . . . CCF would be mac and cheese.
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Yes I’ve heard it’s good. I’m really not in the mood for it at present though, so I’m going to find a SF book this afternoon to tide me over for the last two days at camp.
 
Finished How Compassion Made Us Human by Penny Spikins. Another book that is hard for me to evaluate. It is an attempt to write a popular work on a technical subject. When this works, it works very well. She never got so technical that I could not follow what she was saying, but I thought she spent entirely too much time with the psychological stuff, which I was only moderately interested in), and too little time in the archaeological stuff, which I was very interested in. I would have thoroughly enjoyed the book if it had been limited to 100-150 pages with much less psychological stuff. On the whole, a worthwhile read, if that title is appealing to you.
 
I cracked open House of Chains last night. I last read the Malazan series in 2012, and while elements of the books are familiar, I appear to have missed huge swathes of storylines. Either that, or have totally forgotten them. The latter is most likely, as I had just recently read Night of Knives (Nov 2019), and blanked on one of the main characters. Yikes! I'm tired of these memory slips.
 
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elvet said:
Yikes! I'm tired of these memory slips.
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Sigh! My familiarity with this is only limited by my memory. (see below)

I am debating presently between a book that @dannymcg reminded me about when he pictured "Catspaw" the second of a trilogy. I've "bought" something I don't do very often, most of my reading is from Amazon Unlimited, Psion by Joan D. Vinge. I don't believe I've read it, but I certainly remember contemplating "Catspaw" at one time. None of the blurbs rings a bell, so it should either be a work I've not read or seem like a work I've never read. The other possibility is Cold Dark Places by Kylie Brant an author I've enjoyed before. --- We'll see.
 
Parson said:
Sigh! My familiarity with this is only limited by my memory. (see below)

I am debating presently between a book that @dannymcg reminded me about when he pictured "Catspaw" the second of a trilogy. I've "bought" something I don't do very often, most of my reading is from Amazon Unlimited, Psion by Joan D. Vinge. I don't believe I've read it, but I certainly remember contemplating "Catspaw" at one time. None of the blurbs rings a bell, so it should either be a work I've not read or seem like a work I've never read. The other possibility is Cold Dark Places by Kylie Brant an author I've enjoyed before. --- We'll see.
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I rely heavily on my Goodreads book database to help me sort what I’ve read (and enjoyed or not). I suppose it doesn’t matter, since if I can’t remember the story, it will be like a new book anyhow. But, at least I won’t buy it again. I just have to find it in my numerous (and somewhat untidy) bookshelves. :unsure:
 
The Ghost of the Mary Celeste by Valerie Martin

Martin, best known for the novel Mary Reilly, weaves the historical event of finding the Mary Celeste derelict, all hands missing and no signs of violence, into a story about family, mainly the women in the family of the ship's Captain and his wife. Beautifully written, Martin also incorporates the 19th century fascination with Spiritualism -- Arthur Conan Doyle figures prominently in the novel -- and the family's connection to it.

Anyone expecting a straight-forward ghost/horror story will be disappointed, though Martin doesn't discount the possibility of communication with spirits -- Violet Petra, a main character, is a medium, well-drawn and sympathetic though not without some character flaws. But this novel concerns family, how it works, what life is like without close connections, and the toll on the seafarers family when the sea claims their loved ones. I suspect this is a work that will reward second and third readings.

Randy M.
 
Crime & Mystery: The Hundred Best Books by H. R. F. Keating

Keating admits this is a biased list, but I found it good fun testing my preferences against the preferences of someone more widely read in the genre than I am. First published in 1987, the later choices made by Keating seem to me to hold up -- most the ones I haven't read I've at least heard of. This book will be influencing my future reading -- for instance, I just started The Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham.

Randy M.
 
Randy M. said:
I just started The Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham.
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That's one of my favourites, and I look forward to hearing what you think of it. Even after numerous reads I can't pretend I understand the philosophical/religious aspects brought up by the clergyman, but it's a rattling good tale with an interesting depiction of postwar life, though more of a thriller than the usual whodunnit/murder-mystery type of story.
 
It seems to be a big favorite from all of Allingham's output. Not only Keating, but Phil Rickman in Books to Die For praised it greatly. I enjoyed the first two of Allingham's Mr. Campion series (Miracle Mile and The Case of the Black Dudley) but I'm more interested in reading some of the later books since I've heard the character matured, changing with the times. I'm guessing WWII had a lot to do with that.

Randy M.
 
I'm currently reading this one by our own ctg

Till I Die (And Then What) By C.T. Grey


I'm also doing the proof reading/editing for him as I read my way through it
 
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the jack mars agent zero series are kind of normal for a spy series. like, here insert villain, here insert romantic interest, here betrayal....
 
This month I'm rereading things:

Alan Garner's Stone Book Quartet (The Stone Book, Granny Reardun, The Aimer gate, Tom Fobble's Day)
Ursula Le Guin's The Tombs of Atuan -- excellent writing
about half of Edgar Rice Burroughs's The Gods of Mars, but it wasn't really holding my interest
Lloyd Alexander's The Book of Three -- more intense than I had remembered it as being
 
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