April Reading Thread

[Ubergeek]

Over the weekend I finished, My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones, an excellent slasher movie-inspired coming-of-age-novel. Gory in spots, but also funny.

Chainsaw is the first of a trilogy, so I'm now on to the second book, Don't Fear the Reaper.

I enjoyed " My Heart is a Chainsaw " and didn't realise ( or had forgotten ) it was the start of a trilogy . I saw books 2 and 3 in a book shop yesterday . So , thank you for the reminder Randy M , and I'll put them on my " to be read " list .

 

[HareBrain]

Finished The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner. Overall very good. My only real quibble is that the second half of the book only happens because two characters have decided to meet at a place and time seemingly chosen only for authorial convenience - no other reason is given. Also, a weird epic tone takes over toward the end, which I don't object to but couldn't help noticing. A couple of names in the last few pages seem lifted from Tolkien (especially Govannon), so maybe Garner was on a LOTR kick when writing the final pages.

 

[Hugh]

Tony Hillerman "Talking God"
Ninth in the series of crime mysteries starring Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee of the Navajo Police.
This is the first I've found disappointing, but this could be because I've enjoyed the others so very much. Part of the problem may be that most of the action takes place in Washington DC rather than on Navajo land - so the atmospheric landscape plays no part. In addition, unusually for me, I had a good sense of how the plot would unfold early on, and I doubt that's because I was particularly astute. Finally there's an odd loophole in the plot that seems pure carelessness on the part of the writer.

 

[Bick]

I’m now starting Asimov’s Mysteries, by, you guessed it, Isaac Asimov. I have a 1968 first edition HB of this volume. It’s a cross-genre collection of SF mysteries, and it’s where he finally published his first short story Marooned off Vesta (1939), though the rest of the collection dates from about 1956 through 1966.

 

[Elentarri]

1177B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed: Revised and Updated (2021) by Eric H. Cline.
Interesting overview the three centuries before the Bronze Age Collapse, but only one chapter dedicated to an overview of the multitude of hypotheses promoted for the actual collapse. Some examination of the "Sea Peoples". Interesting but flawed.

Now onto After 1177B.C. by the same author. But I might see if I can squash Peoples of the Sea by Immanual Velikovsky in, just to see if there is anything interesting he has to say.

 

[Hugh]

Leonard Woolf "Sowing"
First of five volumes of autobiography, published in 1960, age 80.
A surprise to find myself reading this, but I found his memoirs on Sri Lanka (the second volume) interesting, likewise his novel set there. It now looks like I might be reading all five in due course. He was born in 1880 so there are the occasional moments that show how times change in London - for instance he remembers as a child drinking milk from the cow tethered in the corner of St James' Park. Then there's also a brief description of London slums as in this description of witnessing a confrontation with police: Those who have never seen the inhabitants of a nineteenth century slum can have no idea of the state to which dirt, drink and economics can reduce human beings.... They were human beings, but they made me sick with terror and disgust in the pit of my small stomach.
This volume ends with his time at Oxford where he becomes close friends with those who later become known as the Bloomsbury Group. I've never understood the fascination some have with this mob, but it now seems that I'll be reading more about them through Leonard's eyes.

 

[Hugh]

Addendum to the above: Cambridge, not Oxford.

 

[Vertigo]

This volume ends with his time at Oxford

Cambridge?

[teach me to refresh the page before I post! ]

 

[Danny McG]

Tomorrow's children by Daniel Polansky.
A run of the mill post apocalypse yarn - I've read worse - this one's ok

 

[Chris von shannow]

The Resolute (Star Legend Book 4) Just finished it series is running out of steam​

 

[Pyan]

Just finished a re-re-read of Look to the Lady - one of the 1930s Campion mystery/detective novels by Margery Allingham.

Sometimes a portrayal on TV sets the look of the characters in a book forever in the mind's eye - for me, with Campion, it's Peter Davison (with Brian Glover as Lugg) in the 1989/90 BBC series...

 

[Pyan]

And Poirot and Hastings, of course - I'm always astounded by the casting of Peter Ustinov in the part...

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

I have started Nova 1 (1970) edited by Harry Harrison, an anthology of mostly new SF stories, although it also has a reprinted poem from Ray Bradbury and a reprinted story (that is also apparently an excerpt from the novel Memoirs of a Spacewoman) by Naomi Mitchison,

 

[Dave Vicks]

On deck either THE SIMULATION HYPOTHESIS by Rizwan Virk.Or SHRINKS
by Dr.Jeffrey A. Lieberman, M.D.

 

[HareBrain]

Needing something long on my Kindle for a few days abroad, I panic-bought The Great Hunt, book 2 of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time. I read book 1 ages ago, and then the first chapter of book 2 shortly after, but couldn't get into it at the time. This go, I did get several chapters in, and enjoyed it at the start, but then, my god, the dragging. Was ever an author in less of a hurry than Jordan?

Hmm, well, I decided to give it another chapter, and despite a few irritations, he drew me in with some juicy mysteries.

 

[Dave Vicks]

SHRINKS,by Jeffrey A. Lieberman, M.D.
& Ogi Ogas ,2015.
About Psychiatry.

 

[Chris von shannow]

Anyone tried "A Court of Thorns and Roses" by Sarah J Maas ??

 

[BAYLOR]

ROCANNON’S WORLD by Ursula K. Le Guin

 

[The Big Peat]

I have just finished Guy Gavriel Kay's The Lions of Al-Rassan, and it has left me rather empty. Like, I don't know what to do with my life now it's done.

Finished The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner. Overall very good. My only real quibble is that the second half of the book only happens because two characters have decided to meet at a place and time seemingly chosen only for authorial convenience - no other reason is given. Also, a weird epic tone takes over toward the end, which I don't object to but couldn't help noticing. A couple of names in the last few pages seem lifted from Tolkien (especially Govannon), so maybe Garner was on a LOTR kick when writing the final pages.

Govannon is a fairly standard rendering of Gofannon, one of the characters from the Mabinogion and seemingly a mirror of the Irish smith god Goibniu.

Hmm, well, I decided to give it another chapter, and despite a few irritations, he drew me in with some juicy mysteries.

Bwahaha.

Is very slow going in some places though, yes.

Anyone tried "A Court of Thorns and Roses" by Sarah J Maas ??

I tried it briefly a while ago but wasn't intrigued.

 

[kythe]

Anyone tried "A Court of Thorns and Roses" by Sarah J Maas ??

Not yet. I have a couple of coworkers who rave about this book, but my daughter says she tried reading it but didn't finish. She found it a very slow-moving romance. It is currently "included" in an audible subscription. I do subscribe to Audible, and may try listening to it. Since I wouldn't be paying for the book, it won't hurt anything if I find it isn't my style.