It’s slightly embarrasing to admi
t, but I’m still reading the same two books, and making slow work of it, at that. There have been lots of other things going on to distract me from reading. I really want to get back to hitting the books.
. She’s now started A Fear of Dark Water by Craig Russell. She enjoys Russell’s dark, brooding novels.
How about you?
Have you read these books or authors?
What are you reading?
Tip the Wink 
Yeah, but those are really long books.
Bless you, Bill.
Richard, I’m reading a couple of spiritual and motivational books by the renowned spiritual teacher, the late Eknath Easwaran, who established the Blue Mountain Centre of Meditation in California many years ago. I’m usually reading philosophy in between serious works of fiction. It sort of balances out my reading!
Good for you, Prashant. I’m sorely lacking in that balance in my reading; mystery, science fiction, fantasy, some non-fiction and that’s about it for me. I’ll probably just read short stories the rest of this month.
Reading Brooklyn by Coln Toibin.
Don’t know a thing about it, Patti.
No I haven’t.
Some long books this week, but I got through them quickly. All were from the library. First up (not a long one) was the latest from Jeffrey Siger, DEVIL OF DELPHI. I seem to recall you didn’t like this as much as previous books (or maybe I’m wrong), but I liked it a lot.
The NY Times had what I considered an overly enthusiastic review of the latest Lee Child book (MAKE ME) along with a soso review of Michael Connelly’s latest, THE CROSSING. I could not disagree more, as I really liked the latest Harry Bosch book. Bosch is finally retired from the LAPD (and suing over the circumstances) when his half-brother Mickey Haller (The Lincoln Lawyer) convinces him to go to what Bosch considers “the dark side” and investigate a murder to clear Haller’s client. Once Bosch gets involved, his plan, as always is to find the real killer.
I think most readers agree that Stephen King is best as shorter length. A case in point is his new collection of stories, THE BAZAAR OF BAD DREAMS, none more than 60 pages long. I raced through the 500 page book quickly. Not all of these are horror by any means, and if they don’t give you nightmares as some of his earlier books did me, I’d still recommend it.
Two new arrivals from PaperBackSwap.com: a trade paperback edition of Horace McCoy’s 1938 Hollywood novel, I SHOULD HAVE STAYED HOME (can’t remember where I read a review of it) and another of Peter Turnbull’s York-based procedurals, INFORMED CONSENT. These are all quite short and quick reads.
Current reading is mostly short stories. I’m halfway through Joseph Heywood’s HARD GROUND, short stories (mostly around ten pages each) about game wardens in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. After your recent review I got H. Beam Piper’s THE COMPLETE PARATIME from the library and read the first story last night. Before the Connelly and King books I’d started James Renner’s THE GREAT FORGETTING, which I read about on John Scalzi’s blog. And I have at least four more short story collections waiting to be read.
Jeff, I would have guessed you hadn’t read Russell, but one never knows. As for Delphi, after I finished another library book, there were only a couple days before it hd to go back. I started it, but only got a quarter way in. So I had no opinion on it. It was the previous book I thought was weaker, but in retrospect, liked better that on the day I finished it. I’ll get Delphi back and finish it, hopefully by the end of the year.
The last Michael Connelly book I read was THE CONCRETE BLONDE, so you can see I’m far, far behind on the series.I’m not sure why that book didn’t resonate with me, but I’ve not tried another. As for Child, that’s Barbara’s territory, though I may try one eventually.
Since the last thing I need is nightmares, I’ve avoided King for the most part. I liked CHRISTINE well enough, but only tried one other, and con’t remember what it was. I keep thinking I should try THE STAND.
Of course my problem right now is a strange kind of readers block. I putter along with a short story or two a day, and that’s about it. However our landscaping projects are on hold for a couple of weeks (this turkey holiday thing) and it being quite cold out (ice this morning) I may get more reading done. I hope. I’ll keep Peter Turnbull’s INFORMED CONSENT in mind.
I expect you to always have short story collections or anthologies waiting to be read, so that’s no surprise. I have a great many here, too, but getting to them is more problematic for me, for some reason. Still I will have read easily three times as many this year and in any previous one since I started keeping track.
Nothing but correcting Research Papers this week. And helping with Thanksgiving. We’re hosting.
George, what was the general research topic? I imagine your biggest problem is to catch internet pasting. Enjoy Thanksgiving!
I’ve been reading slowly lately too, a combination of work and neither book being all that great.
Yep, we’re in the same boat, Charles. Maybe something will grab your interest soon.
One more anthology, this one downloaded from the library to the Kindle: LOS ANGELES NOIR 2: THE CLASSICS. Chandler, Brackett, Himes, Macdonald, James M. Cain, etc.
Really. I wasn’t aware of that one. What’s your opinion of the selections? I expect I’ve read many of them.
I just started it, with the Paul Cain. If I read it before – I know I did read a collection of his stories – I sure don’t remember it so far. A couple look like excerpts from novels and I know I ‘ve read some, like the Ross Macdonald story.
I’m correcting two sets of MARKETING papers, one set of MANAGEMENT papers, and one set of SUPERVISION papers. Downloaded papers from web sites are easy to identify. None of my students would use words like “exemplify” or “mercurial.”
Really? Sad to say the language has eroded so far.
I’m reading the latest Blaze Western on my Kindle. Wayne Dundee wrote it.