Another slow reading week. I finished the third Joe Leaphorn novel by Tony Hillerman, Listening Woman. I liked it, but thought it was weaker than the 2nd novel, Dance Hall of the Dead.
Done with Hillerman, I went through the TBR bookcase and nothing appealed. Not a single thing. Lots of great stuff, but nothing I wanted to crack open. That doesn’t happen often. Finally I picked a SF novel sent as a get-well, and have managed a page and a half.
Barbara and I went to the annual Spring Garden Fair Sunday, something we do, and look forward to every year. It was only my second time going anywhere or doing much, and I overdid it. Thus the brevity of this post. More next week on my and Barbara’s reading.
Walk in beauty.
Tip the Wink 
I hope this coming week will have you feeling better, Richard. In the meantime rest and heal well.
This week I finished John Connolly’s THE REAPERS, part of his Charlie Parker series although the main focus is one his bad*ss friends Louis and Angel. I read read C. L. Moore and Henry Kuttner’s EARTH’S LAST CITADEL and Arthur C. Clarke and Frederik Pohl’s THE LAST THEORUM. The first was an old fashioned gosh-wow, knockem sockem SF adventure; the second (Clarke’s final novel and Pohl’s pentultimate novel) was a fascinating blend of themes the authors had used in earlier works.
Having exhausted my local library’s collection of Batman graphic novels, I’ve moved on to Marvel’s The Avengers — three graphic novels that were just not as much fun as the Batmans. I’ve also started an Asterix omnibus of three GNs — these are much more enjoyable.
I’m trying to decide on a debut novel for this Friday’s FFB. I’m sure I will come up with something. Meanwhile, I’m looking forward to your Hillerman review.
Jerry, Barbara has read that.Connolly, and says she liked it. But then she likes all his books. I may have read that Kuttner & Moore a long while back, only the title remains in memory. I didn’t bother with the Clarke, as his books got weaker in the last couple of decades. I like the earlier novels and short stories, especially the latter.
I like the Avengers well enough, but would have gone to Ironman GNs when you ran out of Bats. I also highly recommend Astro City, a fine group of GNs by Kurt Busick.
Fair warning: before I had finished my re-reading of the Hillerman, Bob Byrne did a couple of excellent posts on Hillerman and the first and second books. So most of my review is a link to those articles. You could go there and read them ahead of time and be fully up to speed.
Oh, and JLA I like better than Avengers, or at least some of them.
When I’m in a mood like yours, I usually turn to some short stories. I just finished reading and correcting and grading 100 research papers! Of course, no pleasure reading occurred while this was going on. But, there’s only two weeks left to the Spring Semester. I’ll be a free man soon! And, Diane and I have tickets to the new CAPTAIN AMERICA movie that opens a few days from now!
That’s a good idea, George. Enjoy the movie.
Nothing like an illness or a hospitalization to let us know what frail vessels our physical bodies are. Take it easy and give yourself tme to fully recuperate. Easier said than done, I know.
I’m currently reading WHO FEARS DEATH by Nnedi Okorafor, a Nigerian-American author with whom I was unfamiliar. The book was in a list of recommendations of post-apocalyptic fiction. It’s set in an Africa where a generations-long war between light and dark-skinned tribes has destroyed vast territories. The heroine (born after her mother was raped by a man from the opposing army) is distrusted by her mother’s people but has shape-shifting and healing gifts. I’d describe it more as magical realism than post-apocalyptic fiction, but I’m enjoying it nonetheless.
Deb, who knew? I thought I’d be fully recovered and my old self, but I should have known better since I still have a 10 pound lifting limit, and will for another month! Everything weights more than that! I’m not a fan of post-apolyptic stuff, any more than zombies, vampires or horror.
That 10-pound limit thing reminds me of my late father-in-law. When Lou had his prostate surgery the doctor told him not to lift anything heavy. So on the way home from the hospital he stopped off at the grocery and brought home a frozen turkey.
So, he’s back in the hospital…this time the doctor picked up a sheet of paper and told him, “Do NOT lift anything heavier than this.”
I’m sure you are a lot more sensible than he was.
After I had twins via c-section almost 18 years ago, my discharge instructions from the hospital said not to lift anything that weighed more than five pounds for the following six weeks. Since each twin weighed more than five pounds at birth, I knew that was one admonition I was hardly likely to follow!
Ha!
Yes, well, after I fell through the sprinkler box, I ripped out one of the sutures and bled like a stuck pig, but we stopped it with compression. I probably should have gone to emergency but I was darned if I was going to go through that. So now all the others are about healed, but that largest one is not.
Reading the new Laura Lippman WILDE LAKE, which is great. Phil is reading INFORMATION OFFICER by Mark Miles, which he likes a lot.
I’ve been meaning to read one of Lippman’s books for a long time. I hear they’re great.
Just take it easy for as long as you need to. I think the older we get, the longer rehab can take.
New arrivals: DELIVER US FROM EVIL, a trade paperback edition of one of Peter Turnbull’s Hennessey & Yellich procedurals; and BITTER RECOIL, the first Posadas County/Bill Gastner book by Steven F. Havill, both from PaperbackSwap. I’d read the latter, of course, but Jackie wants to try the series.
I read the latest in Havill’s series, COME DARK, which I liked a lot. It’s a very good regional series. Then I read the second Hennessey & Yellich book, DEATHTRAP. This one is very nasty indeed.A man – a young reporter – is found dead in his car, seemingly a suicide by carbon monoxide but actually a murder victim. It turns out he was investigating a murder committed 18 years earlier, for which a woman was convicted and is still in prison. It goes from there. I have another 6 or 8 of the series on hand and will probably read the next one fairly soon.
Current reading: that country house murder anthology edited by Martin Edwards and MURDER AT THE 42nd STREET LIBRARY, first in a new series by Con Lehane.
Except for that country house collection, I’ve not heard of anything you mention. I guess I’m really out of touch!
That library book is new.
At one point I read a lot of police procedurals – McBain, J. J. Marric (John Creasey), Maurice Procter, etc. Peter Turnbull has written a lot of them.
I think you might like the Havill books. It is a rural county in New Mexico adjacent to the Mexican border. I like them a lot.
I’ve heard many good things about Hillerman. I’ve got a couple of them around
Charles, the one to try is DANCE HALL OF THE DEAD.
I’m late to the party, I know.
” I went through the TBR bookcase and nothing appealed. Not a single thing. Lots of great stuff, but nothing I wanted to crack open. ”
this happens to me way more often than I want to admit. I have the shelves of “Stuff I should really read and review. . . soon”. and that’s where I start, when looking for a new read, I swear! but then other stuff keeps calling to me….. so i read it instead.