The "I am currently reading" thread

[taxman 12]

On 06/12/2020 at 08:12, feargal said:

I've got a carrier bag full of crime novels and thrillers if you can make use of them Taxman. They've been round our reading circle, and are destined for the charity shop next.   Just PM me an address and I will drop them off. 

Hiya,

 

tried to PM you but apparently you are not recieving messages.....banned again eh? 😉

[alchresearch 211]

This month I have been mostly reading:

 

Troubled Blood by Robert (J K Rowling) Galbraith

Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

 

And then back to working my way through the Joe Pickett (US Parks ranger / detective) novels by C J Box

[max 13]

I've just finished reading Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz which is actually 2 books as there is one contained within the main novel. A really excellent read.

 

Before that I read Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman.

[wearysmith 140]

Christmas present from a mate. He picked me up a signed version. Loved this lass when I was in my teens.

For any that's interested, she's doing an online talk about it in mid January. Details below.





We are pleased to announce that on...

Monday, 18 January 2021

18:30 – 19:30 GMT


Dana will be recounting stories from her memoir, Weren't Born a Man. This book launch and illustrated talk will feature many never-before-seen photographs from her personal archive.



The book launch will be over the internet using Microsoft Teams through a web browser.

*
You need to register for the event here

There is no charge.

We hope you can make it!

*
(There are just 12 copies of the autographed hardback still available,
and we have now released the softback.)
Show Me The Book

[metalman 21]

This month's round-up:

 

Robert B. Parker - High Profile. Cop Jesse Stone investigates the murder of a chat show host and his latest partner. Smart and streetwise as ever.

P. G. Wodehouse - The little nugget. OK, I confess. Having said previously that he was incapable of writing a dull word, this very early effort is more like a straight novel than a typical Wodehouse and came dangerously close.

Richard Osman - The Thursday Murder Club. Enjoyable because it's just the sort of book you'd expect him to write.

Ed Gorman - Cold blue midnight. I'm not usually a devotee of the psycho serial killer genre, but this one was not bad.

Belinda Bauer - The facts of life and death. Another entertaining read with all her usual trademarks (child protagonist, lots of domestic detail, country/coastal setting)  present and correct:  

Karl Shaw - Curing hiccups with small fires. A book about British eccentrics and as such books usually are, it was quite amusing and informative.

Peter Whalley - Bandits. Private eye Harry Sommers investigates murderous goings-on at a South coast amusement arcade. OK.

Philip MacDonald: The choice. Series sleuth Anthony Gethryn investigates the aftermath of a woman's murder, as others present are bumped off one by one.  Macdonald's breathless short-sentenced style moves it along at a decent thrillerish pace.

[feargal 21]

Just finished Westwind by Ian Rankin, his earliest novel it think.  Its a decent story, but very dated in part - one of the cars has (gasp!) central locking, much to the astonishment of the protagonist! 

[metalman 21]

Yet another lockdown so I seem to have got through quite a few books this month:

 

Terry Pratchett - Snuff. Not a great start, I thought this one was overlong and dragged badly in the middle. Maybe it's just me and I've gone off him.

Robert B. Parker - Double deuce. Spenser and his sidekick Hawk sort out some gang trouble in a residential area. As good as always.

Hillary Waugh - The missing man. Excellent police procedural by one of the masters of the genre. Loved it.

Jack Vance - The languages of Pao. Typical Vance hero Beran, the rightful ruler of the planet Pao, is abducted by evil megalomaniac Palafox from the planet Breakness, and has to overcome him to regain his rightful position. An OK Vance, so pretty good compared to most other things.

Jonathan Stagge - Death and the dear girls. Dr. Westlake investigates the murder of an old nanny in a house of repressed Jane Austen-alike females. A good enjoyable mystery; Stagge was one of the pseudonyms used by the writing team of Hugh Wheeler and Richard Webb, with Patrick Quentin being the best known one.

Jenny Randles & Peter Warrington - UFOs: a British perspective. Dating from 1979, Randles' first book, since when she's produced about 50 more about all sorts of paranormal phenomena. OK or complete tosh depending on one's inclination.

Maurice Procter - Man in ambush. Inspector Martineau investigates the murder of one of one of his colleagues in a large provincial city, confusingly called Granchester. Procter was active in the late 1950s and through the 1960s; if, like me, you enjoy John Wainwright, this will be for you too.

Simon Brett - The witness at the wedding. A more satisfying outing for the Fethering sleuths than the one I read in November.

Michel Houellebecq - Atomised. The decline of Western civilisation and the next stage of human evolution, as seen through the lives of two brothers: Michel, a scientist, and Bruno, a perverted waster. Excellent and compulsively readable. 

Lillie Le Pla - The Treasure of Monk's Burn. One of the few books that my mother had when she was a girl and passed on to me was Tangletrees by Lillie Le Pla, so when I saw this one by the same author in a charity shop I had to buy it. From the late 1920s so it's full of the things that children's books used to be full of, like hidden treasure, rather than today's books about teens having angst over their gender and sexuality. And it's all the better for it.

Simon Flynn - The science magpie. Snippets about science, along the same sort of lines as R. L. Weber's A Random Walk in Science. OK, but not as interesting as it could have been as I'd seen a fair amount of the content before.

 

Now reading: Dell Shannon - Cold trail. Back to police procedurals, this time with Lt. Luis Mendoza in Los Angeles investigating a corpse found under the porch of a derelict house.

[mikeG 16]

'Farewell my Lovely' by Raymond Chandler.  Up to page 40.  So far so good.

 

 

[alchresearch 211]

14 hours ago, metalman said:

Terry Pratchett - Snuff. Not a great start, I thought this one was overlong and dragged badly in the middle. Maybe it's just me and I've gone off him.

I think its because of his illness, a few of his later novels lost cohesion., he wrote via dictating to an assistant.  I found "Raising Steam" absolutely terrible, as did many other fans.

 

 

[feargal 21]

Had a walk along Beeley Wood today, and someone has wrapped up and left half a dozen Terry Pratchett books to help yourself to, all the way up the path to Oughtibridge!  I picked up the only non Pratchett, William Kotzwinkle "the bear went over the mountain". 

[metalman 21]

6 hours ago, feargal said:

Had a walk along Beeley Wood today, and someone has wrapped up and left half a dozen Terry Pratchett books to help yourself to, all the way up the path to Oughtibridge!  I picked up the only non Pratchett, William Kotzwinkle "the bear went over the mountain". 

Have you ever read Doctor Rat by William Kotzwinkle?

[feargal 21]

Never even heard of him before today, so I'm interested to start it!