Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading?

[covingtoncat73]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I just finished Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meaning of Life by Daniel C. Dennett. The last couple of chapters were enjoyable, but the rest of the book seemed to be in competition with his hero's Origin of Species for the dryness award. The science was solid, but the presentation was lackluster. The most enjoyable passages, with the exception of those final two chapters in which he truly seemed to come alive, was when he was quoting other scientists and authors.

It took me forever and a day to get through that book, and now I'm rewarding myself with another Brother Cadfael tale: Saint Peter's Fair by Ellis Peters (the fourth Brother Cadfael book) .

Oh, I loved the Brother Cadfael books! My great aunt had them all and I read them when I was a teenager.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Next I'm going to read the final book in an alternate history trilogy while I still remember the events in the previous two. Necessary Evil by Ian Tregillis.

A nice conclusion to this trilogy. No loose ends. I did think there were a few convenient omissions and coincidences to make the story line work. Those "sudden revelations" that solve a dead end. This is probably normal in alternate history novels. The author did quite a bit of research on wartime Britain and it makes the book more realistic and informative. Rated C+ [3 stars].

My next read will be a Star Trek. My Enemy, My Ally by Diane Duane.

[bfisher]

Originally Posted by covingtoncat73

Oh, I loved the Brother Cadfael books! My great aunt had them all and I read them when I was a teenager.

I read them when they were initially published. Really glad to see them available in ebook. I'm planning a Cadfael binge over Christmas.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by tilia

When I've posted in this tread earlier, I've ended up in a reading slump. Hope the same thing doesn't happen this time

After finishing the 13th Kate Shugak book, A Grave Denied, I'm now reading Murder on the Ballarat Train by Kerry Greenwood. I started the Phryne Fisher series this summer, and so far they have been entertaining.

Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch
I love this series so much I ended up saving this book for almost a year It was great when I finally read it.

All three of these are amongst my favourite series. Best part is, you've still got lots left to read just in those series! Sadly, they're all ones that I've already read everything in the series and I'm waiting impatiently for the next.

Finished Mouse and Dragon, by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. This is the direct sequel to Scout's Progress in the Liaden Universe. Next up, Conflict of Honors.

[CharredScribe]

Right now, I am reading Bom Boy by Yewande Omotoso.

Loving it so far. It is a beautifully crafted story told in three time periods, roughly ten years apart each, about a young man living in Cape Town - it is told from his perspective, and that of his biological parents, and adoptive parents. The multiple narrators has an interesting effect in that the main character, Leke, feels distant from the reader, which is exactly how he feels from everyone else around him - distant, isolated and lonely.

Highly recommended.

[covingtoncat73]

Originally Posted by bfisher

I read them when they were initially published. Really glad to see them available in ebook. I'm planning a Cadfael binge over Christmas.

Awesome! I should check out the eBooks. I might like to re-read.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: My Real Children by Jo Walton. I know nothing of this book except that it's by Jo Walton, and so I am certain to enjoy it.

And enjoy it I did. An excellent and moving story.

Next: from one of my newest purchases to my oldest unread, bought in October 2004, The Cybernetic Brains by Raymond F. Jones.

[trichobezoar]

I finished reading Four: The Traitor: A Divergent Story and now I'm going to watch the film Divergent!

I might read the series again, now that I have more insight as to what's going on. I think Veronica Roth, the author, was writing about current political events and events that might occur in the future... Writers often do so. *pensive* Anyway, that's my take on the series.

'Hope everyone's enjoying the written word!

[HarryT]

Just finished "At Bertram's Hotel", by Agatha Christie, which was originally published in 1965.

Jane Marple, the elderly amateur sleuth, takes a holiday at London's Bertram's Hotel, a place of which she has fond memories from her youth. The establishment has retained a mixed Edwardian and Victorian atmosphere, from its prim staff to its elderly patrons. In its tearoom Miss Marple encounters a wartime friend, Lady Selena Hazy, who reveals that she frequently thinks that she recognises people in the hotel only for them to turn out to be complete strangers. Miss Marple is intrigued by her fellow guests, who include the famous adventuress Bess Sedgwick, 20-year-old Elvira Blake and her legal guardian Colonel Luscombe, and a forgetful clergyman, Canon Pennyfather. Miss Marple's curiosity about the hotel is interspersed with a back-story about a Scotland Yard investigation into a series of daring robberies from banks, mail trains, etc. (and naturally the two turn out to be connected!)

An excellent book: one of the best of the later Christies, to my mind. Interesting to note that Christie was 75 when she completed this book: the same age as Miss Marple herself is depicted in the book. Bertram's hotel is based (not the criminal elements of it, obviously!) on the real "Brown's" hotel in London.

Very highly recommended.

[Luffy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Just finished "At Bertram's Hotel", by Agatha Christie, which was originally published in 1965.

An excellent book: one of the best of the later Christies, to my mind. Interesting to note that Christie was 75 when she completed this book: the same age as Miss Marple herself is depicted in the book. Bertram's hotel is based (not the criminal elements of it, obviously!) on the real "Brown's" hotel in London.

Very highly recommended.

It's one of the best Agatha Christie books I've read, and the inspired review I posted at Goodreads earned me 2 likes, which is ample for me. I would not have guessed that it was one of the later books. She overachieved with this one.

[Luffy]

I just finished reading and reviewing Dead Witch Walking and I liked it a lot, and it would have got 5 stars with a better conclusion.

Now I'm going to read, starting tomorrow, the classic that Little Women is. I've never read it so far, as I don't know if an abridged version half read while I was a toddler counts. I seem to remember that there was a lot of sadness in the book. I'm quite eager to read it, as there are no book like it nowadays. If there are, then I'd like to get examples.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Luffy

It's one of the best Agatha Christie books I've read, and the inspired review I posted at Goodreads earned me 2 likes, which is ample for me. I would not have guessed that it was one of the later books. She overachieved with this one.

For the last 18 months or so I've been reading all Christie's (non-Romance) books in publication order (interspersed with other reading, of course). It's been interesting to see how her writing changed over the course of the decades. Approaching the end of the road, now: 67 books read, 14 to go.

[DrNefario]

Originally Posted by HarryT

For the last 18 months or so I've been reading all Christie's (non-Romance) books in publication order (interspersed with other reading, of course). It's been interesting to see how her writing changed over the course of the decades. Approaching the end of the road, now: 67 books read, 14 to go.

I've been doing a similar exercise, but my numbers are roughly the opposite way round. I have 60 to go. They are easy enough to read, but I keep giving myself more urgent commitments. Are you counting the autobiographies? Only I make it 80 books, not 81.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

I've been doing a similar exercise, but my numbers are roughly the opposite way round. I have 60 to go. They are easy enough to read, but I keep giving myself more urgent commitments. Are you counting the autobiographies? Only I make it 80 books, not 81.

I'm sure you're right about the number - I've lost count, to tell you the truth!

The 14 to go doesn't include either the autobiography or "Come, Tell Me How You Live", her diary of her travels with her archaeologist husband, Sir Max Mallowan. I'm particularly looking forward to reading that, having a great interest in that field myself.

[PurpleStar]

I finished The Undead Pool by Kim Harrison. I thought it was excellent! I will get to The Witch With No Name at some point to finish the series.

I'm now reading Mercy by B.J. Daniels. It is a western romantic suspense novel published by Harlequin. I got into these books after I read a freebie and have now read 2 of her series. They are good books! Nice hunky cowboys on the covers too!