Here’s the list for week 4 of Short Story February. This week I read 19 stories, mostly out of just two anthologies, both good ones. Later this week I’ll also do an additional post with my thoughts about the entire month’s short story reading. Stories read:
- The Flying Corpse – A.E. Martin from Big Book of Locked Room Mysteries
- The Flying Hat – Vincent Cornier from Big Book of Locked Room Mysteries
- The Day the Children Vanished – Hugh Pentecost from Big Book of Locked Room Mysteries
- The Twelfth Statue – Stanley Ellin from Big Book of Locked Room Mysteries
- All At Once, No Alice – William Irish from Big Book of Locked Room Mysteries
- Beware of the Trains – Edmund Crispin from Big Book of Locked Room Mysteries
The Locked Bathroom – H.R.F. Keating from Big Book of Locked Room Mysteries- The Case of the Revenant – Johnny Mains from Sherlock Holmes Abroad
- The Message On the Sun-Dial – J.J. Bell from Murder At The Manor
- The Horror At Staveley Grange – Sapper from Murder At The Manor
- The Mystery of Horne’s Copse – Anthony Berkeley from Murder At The Manor
- The Perfect Plan – James Hilton – from Murder At The Manor
- The Same To Us – Margery Allingham from Murder At The Manor
- The Murder at the Towers – E.V. Knox from Murder At The Manor
- An Unlocked Window – Ethel Lina White from Murder At The Manor
- The Big Rain – Poul Anderson from Worldmakers ed. by Gardner Dozios
- When the People Fell – Cordwainer Smith from Worldmakers
- The Long Shot – Nicholas Blake from Murder At The Manor
- Weekend At Wapentake – Michael Gilbert from Murder At The Manor
With the Michael Gilbert story, I finished the Murder At The Manor anthology, and it was a good one. There were two stories that I liked less than the rest, but over all very enjoyable. Recommended for those who enjoy golden age country house mystery stories.
Barbara listened to about a third of the audiobook of Lee Child’s Worth Dying For (mistakenly reported as finished last week) before realizing she had already read the book. Well, it happens, and Reacher seems to do a lot of the same kind of stuff in each book. Also, even the library staff couldn’t help her get another audiobook onto her phone. It’s the fault of their software, something called Overdrive, which apparently works okay with Android phones but not okay with Apple. Bah.
Now she’s reading Irene by Pierre Lemaitre, the first in the series (she read the second a week or two ago). She has a couple more library books sitting here, so she’ll have plenty to read as the year turns from February to March.
Have you read any of these stories or authors?
What are you reading? Any short stories?
Tip the Wink 
I’m reading Library books that are going to come due by the end of the week. I finished my Ruth Rendell mystery for FFB. We’ve had a couple window installers here working for a couple of days. We’ve replaced 15 windows with new, energy-efficient insulated models. More home improvements, more economic stimulus!
For some reason I thought you replaced windows a year or two ago. Must have been thinking of something else. For Rendell, I read the first Wexford.
I think maybe it was the roof that George did last time.
I remembered the roof too, Jeff.
I have an anthology of stories by Jen Conley to read. I will report on that next week. It is coming out in the spring. Almost done ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE.
I’ll be interested in your opinion of LIGHT. Barbara liked it a lot, though she said parts of were sad.
Way to stimulate the economy, George! Jackie is trying to keep up. Besides all the shopping here, she’s already had three Amazon orders delivered to the hotel. It’s lucky we have a one bedroom suite, as the front closet looks like an Ecco shoe warehouse!
I put the MANOR book on the list to get when I get home. I loved that locked room anthology. THis week I read (and in some cases, reread) Patti Abbott’s MONKEY JUSTICE collection. I recognized some of the stories from a previous reading but others were new to me. For such a nice woman she certainly does have a dark outlook in her writing
Most of the week I was reading the last two books in Nathan Lowell’s space opera series about Ishmael Wang that began with QUARTER SHARE – CAPTAIN’S SHARE and OWNER’S SHARE, nearly 1000 pages in all. The first was better. The latter was too long and somewhat disjointed, and it left something of a bad taste where it ended. As I’d expected, however, he is now doing a spinoff of the series with Wang, bringing back some characters from his earlier books. I did buy the ebook of the first,
Current reading: Robert Silverberg’s pulpy BLOOD ON THE MINK, originally written ca. 1959, about counterfeit money, reprinted by Hard Case Crime. I haven’t bought any “real” books down here but I have downloaded a few.
I’ll never understand why some people, usually females, need so many shoes. I have four, including my slippers, and that more than enough. I liked Edwards’ anthology, and bought SERPENTS IN EDEN, another one of his, which I’ll start soon. However, there are a LOT of collections and anthologies still untouched here, so I’ll probably keep reading short stories. I do want to get to the first Craig Johnson novel, which has been burning a hole in my TBR.
As with George and Jackie, I’m about to stimulate the economy by installing a walk-in shower in our master bathroom. It will take a while to find a decent plumber to do the work because we are so new to the area. I’m sure the economy needs the money more than I do, **sigh**
I read only one novel this week: John Connolly’s THE KILLING KIND, the third in his Charlie Parker series. Strong meat.
As I have mentioned before, you must be contagious, Richard. The rest of my reading was consumed by short stories, finishing three anthologies. Henry St. Clair’s EVENING TALES FOR WINTER, my FFB for this week, is an expansion of his TALES OF TERROR, one of the earliest American supernatural anthologiues (dating back to 1835). Peter Haining’s THE HELL OF MIRRORS is a 1965 British horror anthology with stories ranging from very good to sorta ho-hum.
The Asimov-Greenberg-Waugh anthology Fairies was Number 12 in the Isaac Asimov’s Magical World of Fantasy series. As with most of their anthologies, this one was a good mix of familiar and unfamiliar stories.
I’m about to start my Ruth Rendell for this Friday’s FFB.
My story-a-day tally for this week included tales by Thomas Burnett Swann, some author called anonymous (and, boy, did that guy write a lot of stories!), Rev. H. Caunter, Margaret St. Clair, Anne McCaffrey, and Henry Slesar. A story by Seabury Quinn later on today will round off the week.
Hope you are prepared for a hearty Leap Year Day celebration! Here in Florida, I think I’ll celebrate by taking a nap.
Gosh, Jerry, a shower. Now you’ll have all the modern conveniences! You couldn’t have just hooked up a hose to stand under on the sand? You Florida types are nature boys at heart, right? Not being a horror reader (why bother when I can just look at the political news?) most of your reading doesn’t appeal to me, except your story-a-day. Which McCaffrey story did you read, and which Slesar?
The McCaffrey was “Freedom of the Race,” Richard — her first published story, from Hugo Gernsback’s SCIENCE FICTION PLUS, October 1953. You probably wouldn’t like the Slesar, a horror story from a 1964 FANTASTIC — “The Knocking in the Castle.” Most of my short story reading lately has been SF, fantasy, and related.
The big rain is certainly a good un. Love me some Poul Anderson
It’s a long time favorite, Charles, and I’m thinking of doing a post specific to it. I’ve already downloaded the cover from Analog.
I finished 64 stories in February, total of 120 for the year, which is three more than last year at the same time. (Yes, there was an extra day this year.)
Jeff, amazingly I read more than you did for February: 79. But my annual is lower and you’ll continue to pull away as I get back to reading novels with occasional short stories.
That’s a lot of short stories 🙂
We use Overdrive where I work, and I know there have been issues with apple’s newest OS. They have this article on their website, don’t know if you’ve seen it before? http://help.overdrive.com/customer/portal/articles/2323453
Yes, I saw it, but it was really of no help. Odd thing is, I can get the books on my iPad, but Barbara can’t make it work on her iPhone. Both are updated with the latest IOS. Sometimes tech is so strange. Thanks, though, for the tip. Once again, condolences to you.
Thanks Rick.
Technology can be a strange things sometimes.