The "I am currently reading" thread

[taxman 12]

I'm now well into The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths.

 

This is a departure from her usual Ruth Galloway  / Magician and Copper series'.  A nice combination of Gothic horror story and modern murder mystery. Really enjoying it.

[feargal 21]

Rereading The Lollypop Shoes by Joanne Harris, to get me ready for her new book, The Strawberry Thief.  I love her writing, I don't think she's done a duff book. 😊

[feargal 21]

I picked a generic thriller from the charity table - Pursuit of Honour by Vince Flynn.  I should have known what it was going to be like from the cover... Dan Brown calls it a "sizzler"!  😁.  Maybe I've just not got to that bit yet. 

 

I've got The Essex Serpent to read next. 

[taxman 12]

I'm currently half way through A Delicate Truth by John Le Carre. 

 

The absurd and utterly unbelievable premise that a Minister of the Crown would procure services from a dodgy private company run by a close friend and paid for by taxpayers money - completely without any basis in reality. Cough.... Liam Fox...cough.... Adam Werrity....

[taxman 12]

Circe by Madeline Miller.

 

A retelling of the Greek myth expertly done.

[metalman 21]

Just finished 'Britain by the book' by Oliver Tearle, and I'm now half way through his other book, 'The Secret Library'. Very interesting collections of literary snippets for those of a bookish nature.

[feargal 21]

I finished The Essex Serpent, which was really good.  Atmospheric, nicely meandering and relaxing. 

 

Onto 'The Slap' by  Christos Tsiolkas now, which was recently made into  TV series.  I'm undecided so far... All the characters could probably do with a quick backhander. 

[taxman 12]

The Seagull by Ann Cleeves.

 

Never read any of her Vera Stanhope series before and I never watched the TV program either. I do like the Shetland books so gave this one a try.

 

Very good so far and therefore another series for me to look out for in charity shops.

[metalman 21]

Just finished The Human Division by John Scalzi, another instalment in his Old Man's War series. I really like these: there's clever science fiction, bits of comedic interlude, good human interest, and a pacy plot (even though this one was originally a collection of shorter episodes). If it has a fault, it's that all the characters talk in exactly the clever, witty, wisecracking sarcastic way that you expect Scalzi himself to talk. But it's a minor quibble - great fun.

 

Now onto To Challenge Chaos by Brian Stableford, one of his earliest books and one of the first few published under the DAW imprint back in 1972.

[taxman 12]

Good Morning , Midnight. A Dalziel and Pascoe novel from Reginald Hill.

 

Really got into this straight away.....it looks as if it's obvious what's going on but 3/4 through and I'm sure there is a twist somewhere.

 

Of course I can't read a D & P novel without picturing Warren Clarke and Colin Buchanan in the lead roles.

[Brooker11 10]

Just read Hornet Flight by Ken Follet, set in Denmark during WWII it follows a resistance movement plotting to photograph a German military installation and get the pictures to England, its a tad overlong but I enjoyed it.

[metalman 21]

I've just read 'Oddities' by Commander R.T. Gould. Gould was a bit of a polymath in his time (he was, for example, chosen to dismantle, clean and reassemble John Harrison's original marine chronometer - the instrument talked about in Longitude by Dava Sobel - and wrote an authoritative book on the subject) and also appeared on the BBC's Brains Trust sometimes. This was a collection of essays about puzzling phenomena of various kinds that had attracted his interest; there was a second volume called Enigmas a few years later.

 

After that I've gone back to the Golden Age detective stories with 'Shot at Dawn' by John Rhode (generally considered one of his better efforts) and now I'm half way through 'The Shop Window Murders' by Vernon Loder which was recently reprinted by Collins.