November 2022 Reading Thread

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Busy with: The Real James Herriot: An Authorised Biography by Jim Wight (Jame's Herriot's son). Interesting.
 
I just finished the first volume of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The stories are vivid and full of twists, which makes it hard to put down even if the tales are sometimes implausible. I had always seen Sherlock Holmes as a synonym for "perfect" detective and was initially surprised at how arrogant he can be, and also by his cocaine use. But the mysteries are very inventive and there is never a dull moment.

I just started reading Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. This is a story which drew me in from the beginning with a great premise and vivid scenery, though it seems to be settling more into a romance story. I'm sorry to read that it isn't very historically accurate, so I will try not to pay too much attention to the details or let that detract from an otherwise captivating story.
 
kythe said:
I just started reading Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. This is a story which drew me in from the beginning with a great premise and vivid scenery, though it seems to be settling more into a romance story. I'm sorry to read that it isn't very historically accurate, so I will try not to pay too much attention to the details or let that detract from an otherwise captivating story.
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I read it back in the summer, and was also caught up by the start, but I was continually annoyed by the MC's stupid decisions and was wholly underwhelmed by the plot which for me was bloated as well as implausible. However, I have to confess that I read through to the end, whereas nowadays I'm much more likely to drop a book unfinished, so as an author she certainly knows how to hook even a reluctant/sceptical reader!
 
Dave Vicks said:
Ngaio Marsh
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"It is the Ngaio Marsh," said Goddam solemnly, and Frito and Spam saw mysteriously reflected in the mucky pools eerie visions of bodies with ornate daggers in their backs, bullet holes in their heads, and poison bottles in their hands.
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(One of the wittier sections of Bored of the Rings)

Which brings me neatly to The Return of the King, on whose appendices I now am. It's possible I haven't read ROTK for about thirty years, though I've read Fellowship more often. The "high style" of the immediate post-victory section still irritates me a little (almost every sentence begins needlessly with "and") but this time I noticed how that contrasts (I assume deliberately) with the more familiar style Tolkien uses when the story returns to the Shire. I found the ending moving as always, and (this time) the appendices fascinating. It seems amazing to me now how much work he put into a credible and interesting history of the Third Age, which he wasn't even planning to include in his Silmarillion.
 
Re-reading "Swords Against Death" by Fritz Leiber. Included in a Gollancz volume called "Lankhmar", which collects the first 4 "Swords" books but is annoyingly without contents page - I just finished making my own. Impressed with how a feeling of genuine menace manages to coexist with the humour in these tales!
 
Reading The Shadowman by John Katzenbach.

A crime thriller -
A Jewish renegade in WW2 Berlin helps the SS track Jews in hiding and gets them sent to Auschwitz.
fifty plus years later some very old death camp survivors in Miami are getting killed one by one.

One old lady says, while out shopping, she recognized this renegade (known to the terrified Berlin Jews as 'The Shadowman').

However nobody believes her because she only caught a two second glimpse of him back in 1943, nobody else ever saw his face.

Now the story begins......
 
Had trouble getting into Audio books of Ngaio Marsh,Dorthy Sayers,and short Fiction of Shirley Jackson.
Joe Hill stories where ok at best.
Also could not get into Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes.
 
Judge Dredd: Eclipse By James Swallow.

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Still reading and enjoying Carver's The Reefs of Time, but now I've also started Mr Mulliner Speaking - the second of the three collections of short stories recounted by the inimitable Mulliner from the lounge-bar of the 'Angler's Rest' - by P.G. Wodehouse. The light of perfection in humorous prose has rarely shone so brightly. The first tale has been a hoot.
 
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