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

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

A Fatal Flying Affair and Rotten to the Core by T. E. Kinsey are the 7th and 8th in his Lady Hardcastle series, and were the expected cozy murder mysteries.

Which brings me up to date!

And then I read Murder in Canton, a Judge Dee mystery by Robert Van Gulik.

And now I'm reading The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle, which is currently just £0.99 at Amazon UK.

[John F]

I'm reading Trying to Save Piggy Sneed by John Irving. I know it has been out for a long time, but I thought it was non-fiction; it has some fiction short stories.

[alansplace]

Just completed reading a new one by Stephen King, 'You Like It Darker: Stories'. Not a novel, but a collection of short fiction written by King. Was GREAT!

[mlewis78]

I am reading Life at the Dakota by Stephen Birmingham (1979) on my kindle. The Dakota is the building at 1 West 72nd Street in Manhattan.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

And now I'm reading The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle, which is currently just £0.99 at Amazon UK.

Which was an interesting fantasy. Very much NOT a standard Tolkin-esque fantasy. I'm not sure it's quite to my taste, but it was very well done.

Then I read Penric and the Bandit by Lois McMaster Bujold - a delight, as always.

And I followed that with An Act of Foul Play by T E Kinsey, the ninth in his Lady Hardcastle mysteries, and the expected cozy murder mystery.

And now I'm reading The Joy and Light Bus Company by Alexander McCall Smith, the 22nd(!) in his No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series.

[JSWolf]

I'm currently reading No Time Like the Past by Jodi Taylor. It's the 5th book in the Chronicles of St Mary's series. There are also a lot of short stores/novellas intersperced with the novels. It's an excellent series.

[Apache]

I just finished all four of Camilla Trinchieri's Tuscan Mystery Series. I enjoyed this series. TI liked the characters, and the food made me salivate.

1. Murder in Chianti
2. The Bitter Taste of Murder
3. Murder on the Vine
4. The Road to Murder

Apache

[alansplace]

I just began reading 'Fairy Tale' by Stephen King.

[fantasyfan]

I would recommend:

English Letters of the XVIII Century

Edited by James Aitken

This 185 page collection has much to recommend it. James Aitken was a Scottish Presbyterian cleric who spent a good bit of his career in New Zealand. He retired to Guildford and there he published this little selection of 18th century letters. He died in 1951.

Aitken opens with a brief but useful introduction placing the art of letter writing in its historical context. Then follows a selection of letters from fourteen authors. Each is given an introduction which generally informs the reader of the recipient, date and background of the letter. The selection includes letters from the following:

Alexander Pope, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Joseph Addison, Mrs Delaney, Rev. Patrick Delaney, James Thomson, Samuel Johnson, Horace Walpole, William Cowper, Fanny Burney, Edmund Burke, William Blake, Charles Lamb, and George Gordon Noel, Lord Byron.

Aiken does well in his selections choosing topics which reveal the personalities and interests of the writers. Perhaps more basic information of the particulars of the political and social events could have been provided in footnotes. For instance, Fanny Burney mentions seeing “the Irish Giant”. The reference is to Charles Byrne who toured Scotland and England in the 1870s. He was advertised as being eight feet tall and was quite a success. Mrs Delaney in Dublin makes reference to some political activity which is never explained and Horace Walpole mentions the attempt of the Young Pretender to take the throne. He also refers to problems with America which are not made clear. Some footnotes would help.

Personally, I enjoyed the letters by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu especially interesting. She was a proto-feminist who has been called the Comet of the 18th century and was one of the most sophisticated persons of the age. Charles Lamb writes in a very engaging style quite different to that used in his famous essays. Of course Samuel Johnson is represented by his angry and contemptuous “Letter to Lord Chesterfield” but there is also the sweet gentle letter to his little six year old Godchild.
This short book contains a great deal of pleasure and is an engaging trip to the 18th Century.

So far as I know, there is no ebook available but it can be obtained as a second-hand Pelican paperback from ABE or Biblio.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by Apache

I just finished all four of Camilla Trinchieri's Tuscan Mystery Series. I enjoyed this series. TI liked the characters, and the food made me salivate.

1. Murder in Chianti
2. The Bitter Taste of Murder
3. Murder on the Vine
4. The Road to Murder

Apache

Hmm. I like Bruno, perhaps I might like these? Time to see if one of my libraries has the first one to give them a try.

[astrangerhere]

I'm reading Esmé Weijun Wang's stellar book of essays The Collected Schizophrenias. A selection of quotes:

Some people dislike diagnoses, disagreeably calling them, boxes and labels, but I've always found comfort in preexisting conditions; I like to know that I'm not pioneering an inexplicable experience.

A fictional narrative is considered nuanced when it includes contradictions, but a narrative of trauma is ill-advised to do the same.

...a primary feature of the experience of staying in a psychiatric hospital is that you will not be believed about anything. A corollary to this feature: things will be believed about you that are not at all true.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

And now I'm reading The Joy and Light Bus Company by Alexander McCall Smith, the 22nd(!) in his No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series.

Which was OK. I think the series is showing its age a bit.

Next up: The Hand of Oberon by Roger Zelazny. The fourth in his Amber series.

There's quite an in-story recap near the start that it woud be better without! At least, for someone who's read the other books recently.

[j.p.s]

I'm reading Frostbite by Nicola Twilley, a journalist and food writer. It's a non-fiction story of refrigeration with plenty of background, including this grisly and wastful example of motivation for for accepting the expense, unreliability, danger, and ungainlyness of early refrigeration.

Spoiler:

Frustratingly, on the thinly populated Great Plains and Texas rangelands in the United States, the endless pampas of South America, and the verdant hillsides of New Zealand, there were cattle and sheep aplenty. Imagine the torments of the meat-starved Londoner when Australians slaughtered their herds of sheep for fleece and tallow and left the meat to rot for lack of sufficient local mouths to feed. Argentinians had the gall to complain of their burdensome surplus, reporting that their livestock multiplied in such numbers that, were it not for the dogs that devour the calves and other tender animals, they would devastate the country. In at least one instance, so great was the congestion that a flock of sheep was driven over a cliff, just to get rid of it.

[Quoth]

Canning was the only option before refrigeration (apart from cattle drives and live rail, or live shipping!). Frey Bentos had a giant plant for corned beef in Argentina.

Frostbite might be very interesting if well researched and written. Sadly there is still live export of livestock for the table rather than local slaughter. Of course some countries eat far too much meat, but that's another story!

[drofgnal]

I finished the two Reacher books. One was written by Lee Child’s sibling, I assume. A definite different writing style, which I didn’t care for. As fate would have it, Amazon had another Reacher deal of the day book, so I’m into my third straight Reacher book, then I’m moving on to Towles, Rules of Civility, then Tigana by Guy Kay,