Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading?

[Mike Hobart]

Books of December -
it's a long time since I kept a reading log, but here is my book list for the last month.
1Q84 book three (Murakami)
Vhast 02 • Engaging Evil (Lenehan, Cary J.)
Tales From the Cafe (Coffee 2) (Toshikazu Kawaguchi)
Vhast 03 • Clearing the Web (Lenehan, Cary J.)
Forever Rumpole (John Mortimer)
White Face (Edgar Wallace)
First Form at Malory Towers (E. Blyton)
Finders Keepers (Emily Rodda)
Wild Adventures of Sherlock Holmes 2 (Will Murray)
If you lived here, you'd be home by now (Christopher Ingraham)

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next I read Walkaway by Cory Doctorow. A very good near-future SF story.

I have cheated a little - reading many short works on my TBR list to make my 2024 numbers look better:

The Serpent's Tail by Sarah A. Hoyt
Castor by Sarah A. Hoyt
With Her Eyes by Cixin Liu
Curse 5.0 by Cixin Liu
Grace Immaculate by Gregory Benford
Emerging Legacy by Doranna Durgin
Defender 1 by Neil Gaiman et al.
Sculpture Stories by Neil Gaiman
Rare Bit Fiends by Neil Gaiman
Fortunately, The Milk... by Neil Gaiman
Love, Fishie by Maddy and Neil Gaiman

I can only really recommend Fortunately, the Milk.... and Emerging Legacy

I will pick something for the new year in the new year.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Next is Foundation by Mercedes Lackey.

A good start to this series. Lackey certainly draws you in with the right amount of introspection and world building. She doesn't overdo descriptions of things. That said since this is the first in the series there was a great amount of background material and little action. Also, some things are not explained either fully or not at all. This leads to inconsistencies. This is probably one of those books the reader should just run with the storyline and don't over examine the details. Rated C+ [3 stars].

Next, I'll complete Chalker's The Four Lords of the Diamond series with Medusa: a tiger by the tail.

[Uncle Robin]

Wang Hui's China From Empire to Nation State is a fascinating and very dense read. It's also a great example of the importance and value of highly skilled literary translators. It also taught me a new word, one I correctly parsed from context - enfeoffment. From never having seen it before to finding it 26 times in one book

[issybird]

I've started This One's On Me the sixth Bandy book by Donald Jack. I checked Goodreads and was startled to discover it's been over ten years since I read the prior book; here's my review:

Not as amusing as the earlier books. Perhaps Canadian politics aren't as funny as the Great War.

Which pretty much says it. Here's hoping Jack's back on form with this one.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I will pick something for the new year in the new year.

I read the second in Genevieve Cogman's Scarlet Pimpernel with Vampires series, Elusive, which was excellent.

And now I'm reading The Children of Jocasta by Natalie Haynes. It looks like this is more like her excellent Stone Blind (about Medusa) than the rather dry Divine Might (info on the Greek Godesses).

I am having a little trouble with the timeline of the chapters, but each chapter is good.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

And now I'm reading The Children of Jocasta by Natalie Haynes. It looks like this is more like her excellent Stone Blind (about Medusa) than the rather dry Divine Might (info on the Greek Godesses).

I have mixed reactions to Haynes's books. Like you, I enjoyed Stone Blind and didn't care for Divine Might; with the latter, it was mostly her trying far too hard to make it "relevant". My favorite book by her is Pandora's Jar which made my ten-best list in 2022.

So, that said, I abandoned Jocasta's Children. It just grated.

Spoiler:

Impossible to believe that Jocasta was shocked, shocked at the thought of marrying an old king. That was a totally modern note that didn't seem realistic. I loathed the nicknames for the children. And Haynes revamped the Oedipus myth to the extent that it was unrecognizable. Ugh.

I'll be interested to find out what you think.

[astrangerhere]

This is what I've got going now:

Paperback:
Selected Letters by Virginia Woolf (2008 edition collected by J. Trautman Banks)

Kobo:
Orbital by Samantha Harvey

Audio:
Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Frazer - this is a re-read via audio for me. I recently received The Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder and wanted a refresher on her life before I set on her letters.

[JSWolf]

I have two books on the go.

The Brutal Telling (Chief Inspector Gamache #5) by Louise Penny
What Could Possibly Go Wrong? (The Chronicles of St Mary's #6) by Jodi Taylor

[TheBereaved]

Just about done Leviathan Wakes (Book 1 of The Expanse series) by James S.A Corey.

Great start to the series.
Gonna head straight into the second one right after.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by TheBereaved

Just about done Leviathan Wakes (Book 1 of The Expanse series) by James S.A Corey.

Great start to the series.
Gonna head straight into the second one right after.

The series of The Expanse on Amazon Prime is quite good.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

IAnd now I'm reading The Children of Jocasta by Natalie Haynes. It looks like this is more like her excellent Stone Blind (about Medusa) than the rather dry Divine Might (info on the Greek Godesses).

I am having a little trouble with the timeline of the chapters, but each chapter is good.

Originally Posted by issybird

I have mixed reactions to Haynes's books. Like you, I enjoyed Stone Blind and didn't care for Divine Might; with the latter, it was mostly her trying far too hard to make it "relevant". My favorite book by her is Pandora's Jar which made my ten-best list in 2022.

So, that said, I abandoned Jocasta's Children. It just grated.

Spoiler:

Impossible to believe that Jocasta was shocked, shocked at the thought of marrying an old king. That was a totally modern note that didn't seem realistic. I loathed the nicknames for the children. And Haynes revamped the Oedipus myth to the extent that it was unrecognizable. Ugh.

I'll be interested to find out what you think.

I hated the split time period, in which the chapters ?alternated between two points in the story timeline. I hated the prologue, which introduced a character, though not by name, and a treatment which then gets ignored in the rest of the book.

I was also surprised that Jocasta was so surprised at the idea of marrying an older man.

But there were other major plot holes. Such as

Spoiler:

Jocasta's husband being unwilling/unable to has sex with her, supposedly because of his homosexuality, and yet he had fathered at least three children with a mistress.

It was OK as a retelling of Oedipus. I didn't even mind the plot changes (given that there's no definitive version). I hated the choice of how to tell it.

Next up: One Fine Day the Rabbi Bought a Cross by Harry Kemelman. The tenth in his Rabbi Small mystery series.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: One Fine Day the Rabbi Bought a Cross by Harry Kemelman. The tenth in his Rabbi Small mystery series.

Which was the expected quick read, a fun mix of Judaism and murder mystery.

Next up: Set in Darkness by Ian Rankin. The 11th in his Inspector Rebus series.

[Karellen]

Just finished Acts of War by Tom Clancy & Steve Pieczenik
Tomorrow I'll start on Airport by Arthur Hailey