I finished Little Fires Everywhere and liked it. Plus it was interesting because about the time the book takes place I’d lived very close to Shaker Heights and was there often, so there were a bunch of references to places I knew. I think it’s the first book I’ve read that was like that.
Just finished Bacchanal by Veronica G. Henry. It wasn’t bad, but there were multiple times that I had to re-read something because it didn’t click the first time I read it. It was a good story, I just had trouble with the flow of the writing I think.
Finnegan’s Week - Wambaugh
Hopefully fits my need for detective and mystery
The local summer reading program started again, so I’ve lined up a couple Agatha Christies, Sherlock Holmes, Anthony Horowitz’ Sherlock Holmes, the first of another Colin Cottrell series, and Shades of Grey.
It ended poorly for Napoleon. Anyway, it was an interesting concept for a book – all it did was focus on what happened at Waterloo, indicated where there is continuing dispute, and pointed out bullshit the French evidently still believe about a great drop from a hill… that didn’t exist on the battlefield.
The main book right now is Boswell’s London Journals (1762-1763), and I’ve gotten past the prank involving David Hume and Boswell is just about over his first bout of gonorrhea. They definitely didn’t have us read this sort of “classic” in high school.
Library of the Dead is OK, a bit YA-y for my taste, and too many questions are raised and not answered (apparently it’ll be a series). I likely won’t continue the series after book 1.
Orfeia is solid, a bit ethereal, but that’s in the Joanne M. Harris Childe Ballad series, and they all have that feel.
1/2 through Midnight Library, and it’s… sad, but good so far. The short chapters really get you to keep reading.
I didn’t even know it was a real place until I listened to an author interview. I thought it was a conglomeration like John Green’s Paper Towns.
As far as I could tell, all the places mentioned were real. Or at least there were a lot of real places mentioned. Yeah, Pearl of the Orient really was the favored Chinese restaurant. You’d go to Beechwood Place and not to Randall Park Mall. You’d drive to the east, but not the south.
1 Like
I’ve nearly finished Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything, which has been good.
Also, meteors are scary.
Also, I don’t think it was explicitly stated in the book, but things like this were signs of racism amongst the “un-racist” Shaker Hts residents. While Shaker Hts was (I assume is) mixed race, as you headed south it became more predominately black.
I finished A Study In Scarlet, the first Sherlock Holmes book. Meh. Exactly in the middle, it jumps to Utah and the early Mormon church. I thought there was a problem with the audiobook - that they’d put the wrong disk in.
I finished The Mysterious Affair At Styles, the first Hercule Poirot book. It’s incredibly similar to later Poirot books. Christie had him fully developed from the start, apparently.
I’m working on The Tuesday Club Murders, the second Miss Marple book. It’s pretty much a set of short mysteries, held together by a story about a group of people meeting to talk about mysteries they’ve heard of. All of which Miss Marple solves, of course.
So, the Wambaugh will be my beach book
Starting Rashi’s Daughter (Anton) as my house book, for Women’s Fiction as the genre
My next two genres will be Action & Adventure and True Crime. I will have to see what is in the house. A&A is easy to call a lot of stories. Not sure is I have any True Crime in the house.
Skipping the categories of Comic Books, Graphic Novel, Cookbooks, Self Help, Poetry & Essays.
So after the two above I get to start the cycle again.
Well, Boswell’s London Journals were a bit boring before Samuel Johnson shows up. Too much about Boswell’s whoring and kissing up to aristos higher on the ladder than he.
Once Johnson shows up, you see why Johnson takes over everything – he’s far more interesting than any of the other people and activities. He’s an extremely interesting guy. Seriously, he’d be guest #1 at favorite historical celeb dinner party.
So I thought to read Life of Johnson next… and saw how long it was. So I got an abridged version that’s about 10% of the full, if that. I’m just fine with Bozzy & The Great Cham’s greatest hits for now. Heck, the version of the Journals I read stole a few episodes from the Life of Johnson at the end, just so one would be feeling better about the book, I guess.
Boswell dying at age 54 and Johnson died age 75, which is hardly surprising given Boswell’s behavior.
Interestingly, Agatha Christie grew to despise hercule poirot.
Yeah, that became clear with her Ariadne alter-ego bitching about her Finn detective.
In any case, good thing she wrote her last Marple & Poirot novels decades before her death (though she didn’t publish them til a lot later)
How can you tell them apart?
I read Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, The Bomber Mafia which is loosely about this battle of ideas before and during WW2 about precision bombing versus carpet bombing. Was a pretty interesting book, also napalm sounds pretty hellish.
I have been somewhat ADD in my reading lately, but the one I have stuck with is Rainbow Rowell’s Carry On.
I finished the 2nd Sherlock Holmes story, The Sign of the Four. It’s not quite as bad as the first one, but again spends 1/4 of the book giving the background story after the mystery is solved. I see that book #3 is short stories. I’m guessing that will be where Sir ACD finally hits his stride and eliminates these long drawn out back stories. As with the first book, the back story is again offensive - this time covering the hordes of savage black-skinned opium-smoking (ironic given how the story starts and ends with talking about Holmes’ abuse of drugs) Hindus and Muslims, plus one more murderous black-skinned tiny-footed bare-foot misfigured savage from SA, I think it was. Oh, and I’m not sure if he was being tongue in cheek, but the Sikhs in the story relate to the Brits that they’re just like them - just looking for fortune. Humorous and offensive again whether or not he meant it that way. I thought I had read some Sherlock Holmes long ago, but I definitely have never read these. I’m basically reading them as a basis before reading Anthony Horowitz’ version of Sherlock Holmes.
I think I"ll read one more of the Sir ACD, then go on to Horowitz.