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

[ATDrake]

Another that week in which few books were finished, but I finally did get to Tim Powers' Declare, which I read in one sitting and which was excellent, by the way.

I got this basically because Charles Stross mentioned it in the back of The Atrocity Archives as a kind of alternative take on how his story might have gone, so I was expecting it to be more about

Spoiler:

Lovecraftian references and not so much the Biblical/Arabian Nights stuff

, but it was creepy and compelling entertainment anyway.

Highly recommended for anyone interested in mashups of Cold War spy thrillers and supernatural horror.

And I might as well mention Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World by Margaret MacMillan, which I finished slightly before Declare and which kind of had some bearing, what with the world divisions which led to the tensions and so forth.

This was a non-fiction history book about the post-WWI Treaty of Versailles which basically set up the world as we know it today.

MacMillan concentrates mainly on the personalities of the decision-makers (back blurb says she's a descendant of British PM Lloyd George) whose petty rivalries and failure to grasp stuff influenced things a lot more than you might think. There are also chapters devoted individually to the influences and outcomes of each smaller nation/area from those little Balkan places to the Mediterranean regions and how they lost/gained land and eventually ended up the way they are now.

It's actually more compelling when focusing on the dysfunction between the big 3 (Clemenceau, Wilson, Lloyd George) because she goes into a lot more detail about them and provides plenty of anecdotes about their backgrounds and interactions and those of their frustrated assistants (Lord Curzon, etc.).

The chapters about the smaller countries, while interesting, suffer a little by comparison because MacMillan probably couldn't provide much more than a few mostly factual details about their leaders and such perhaps due to lack of readily available English-language sources and while informative, they read a lot drier by comparison. It does pick up again when the book reaches Japan/China and the Middle East in which the "Great Powers" have a greater stake and act accordingly by having their representatives meddle in ways that have thoroughly messed up those regions to this day.

Overall, a very interesting (and long, at 11000 locations, though the last 12% was for the references) look into how interpersonal politics ends up shaping official policy.

All those special conferences of world leaders where they supposedly get together to make high-and-mighty resolutions for their countries (Kyoto, G-whatever)? Beneath the pomp and circumstance, turns out it's all backstabbing and petty jealousy and endless bickering while trying to sabotage each others' goals, which makes it vastly more entertaining than the official news coverage we regularly get on these things.

Also, since I earlier noted that this e-book (from the library) was flawed by having no links to its many numerically subscripted citation footnotes scattered throughout the text, I should mention that I finally found one lone properly linked footnote at the 70% mark. It was to a comment which helped explain what something in particular which I forget was.

[flopis]

I am reading George C. Chesbro "An Affair of Sorcerers". Chesbro developed a dwarf detective named Mongo. It is a detective mystery novel: Book 3 of a 15 book series. He is good.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

And I might as well mention Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World by Margaret MacMillan, which I finished slightly before Declare and which kind of had some bearing, what with the world divisions which led to the tensions and so forth.

This was a non-fiction history book about the post-WWI Treaty of Versailles which basically set up the world as we know it today.

If this is a topic of interest, and you haven't read it, I also recommend Barbara Tuchman's _The Guns of August_, which focuses on the same time and concerns. It won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-fiction in 1962.

There's a Kindle edition available: http://www.amazon.com/Guns-August-Ba.../dp/034538623X
______
Dennis

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

If this is a topic of interest, and you haven't read it, I also recommend Barbara Tuchman's _The Guns of August_, which focuses on the same time and concerns.

That does looks interesting, and I bet the library has a paper copy. Thanks for the recommendation!

Le book du bus ride was actually two books (okay, 1 and 68/100ths) in Tamar Myers' Den of Antiquities cozy mystery series starring an antiques dealer as the amateur sleuth.

I picked up A Penny Urned, which is something like #7 in the series, because it was set in Savannah, Georgia: a location I've always rather liked because I'm weirdly fond of tiny pocket cities with good historical preservation societies and salacious murder cases.

This was an okay read, though I have to say that I'm surprised that Abigail Timberlake, the amateur sleuth, goes around solving murders instead of committing them, considering how incredibly irritating her supporting cast is and how often she expresses that irritation.

Mind you, Timberlake is in no position to cast stones herself, because she really looks best when set against her companions' more extreme qualities, and is one of those really amateur sleuths who fumbles around and jumps to conclusions and mainly seems to solve things by eventually blundering into the right answer mostly by accident.

I'm sure the author means for these characters to come across as quaintly eccentric, but they really seem more like delusionally lunatic caricatures at times. I don't know, maybe if I had better acquaintance with American regionalisms it would all look much more folksily charming.

Nightmare in Shining Armor, which comes chronologically and publication-date after, is shaping up to be a much better read, despite the fact that I'm not as invested in the setting and scenario.

But the irritating character mannerisms seem toned much farther down (or maybe the narrator is just spending less time around the most annoying ones and ranting a bit less in her internal monologue, or they've all grown on me like fungus) and the whodunnit is much harder to guess, with multiple possibilities, whereas with the first one it was pretty easy to see where it was trying to lead.

The books do have a certain sense of humour and a few good lines and some very funny moments and if another one in the series had a setting/theme "hook" that interested me, I'd probably pick it up (from the library, mind you). But overall I'd say a much better coastal southeastern US antiques dealer amateur sleuth solving murder mysteries with her quaintly eccentric "such a character!" friends and family with aspirational social snobbery is Mary Kay Andrews' cozy chick-lit suspense series set in Savannah, which also come with recipes.

Of course, YMMV because according to the library e-book listings, this series was popular enough to make it to at least 15 books.

After that long, don't you a) start to run out of ideas as well as cutesy pun-based titles, b) empty the town of people willing to be anywhere near the amateur sleuth and thus likely killed in the line of investigation? I think someone once crunched the numbers for Midsomer Murders and concluded that the region had something like a 70%+ residential attrition rate.

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by boxcorner

Here's I wrote after reading The Ballad of Johnny Madigan. I look forward to reading your comments.

I finished that and am now onto Treason

The Ballad of Johnny Madigan was in some ways a bit of a disappointment in that I wanted a read about the Civil War from a participants point of view, and the first half of the book satisfied that. Although the second half was still about Johnny, the shift of action away from the battlefield was a might disappointing. However the story was a good read overall.

(Two things jolted me ...
Calisthenics and guerrilla - I hadn't realised these words originated in the 1800's - made me look them up ! )

[SeaBookGuy]

ATDrake:

My library recently added the entire Den of Antiquity series as downloadable ebooks - just in time as they're from Harper Collins!

I read the penultimate one recently (Poison Ivory); Abby herself I could deal with, but her assistant
C. J. was every bit as insufferable as I'd remembered with her "Shelby" stories.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Drove up to Gainesville to pick up my son at UF for spring break. It's 4 hours in the car so I decided to listen to _Red Mars_ by Kim Stanley Robinson, an audio book I picked up from Audible quite a while ago.

I've gotta say, it is quite a slow start. Not at all what I expected. Seems like a lot of politics and blah blah background, etc.

I'm not sure if I should give it a bit longer. I listened to the first two hours.

BOb

Just a quick note. Two hours of an audiobook is slower then two hours of reading. So if you read for those two hours, you would be farther along then you are now.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Just a quick note. Two hours of an audiobook is slower then two hours of reading. So if you read for those two hours, you would be farther along then you are now.

Depends on how fast you read, eh?

I'm very slow....

[phenomshel]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

That does looks interesting, and I bet the library has a paper copy. Thanks for the recommendation!

Le book du bus ride was actually two books (okay, 1 and 68/100ths) in Tamar Myers' Den of Antiquities cozy mystery series starring an antiques dealer as the amateur sleuth.

I picked up A Penny Urned, which is something like #7 in the series, because it was set in Savannah, Georgia: a location I've always rather liked because I'm weirdly fond of tiny pocket cities with good historical preservation societies and salacious murder cases.

This was an okay read, though I have to say that I'm surprised that Abigail Timberlake, the amateur sleuth, goes around solving murders instead of committing them, considering how incredibly irritating her supporting cast is and how often she expresses that irritation.

Mind you, Timberlake is in no position to cast stones herself, because she really looks best when set against her companions' more extreme qualities, and is one of those really amateur sleuths who fumbles around and jumps to conclusions and mainly seems to solve things by eventually blundering into the right answer mostly by accident.

I'm sure the author means for these characters to come across as quaintly eccentric, but they really seem more like delusionally lunatic caricatures at times. I don't know, maybe if I had better acquaintance with American regionalisms it would all look much more folksily charming.

Nightmare in Shining Armor, which comes chronologically and publication-date after, is shaping up to be a much better read, despite the fact that I'm not as invested in the setting and scenario.

But the irritating character mannerisms seem toned much farther down (or maybe the narrator is just spending less time around the most annoying ones and ranting a bit less in her internal monologue, or they've all grown on me like fungus) and the whodunnit is much harder to guess, with multiple possibilities, whereas with the first one it was pretty easy to see where it was trying to lead.

The books do have a certain sense of humour and a few good lines and some very funny moments and if another one in the series had a setting/theme "hook" that interested me, I'd probably pick it up (from the library, mind you). But overall I'd say a much better coastal southeastern US antiques dealer amateur sleuth solving murder mysteries with her quaintly eccentric "such a character!" friends and family with aspirational social snobbery is Mary Kay Andrews' cozy chick-lit suspense series set in Savannah, which also come with recipes.

Of course, YMMV because according to the library e-book listings, this series was popular enough to make it to at least 15 books.

After that long, don't you a) start to run out of ideas as well as cutesy pun-based titles, b) empty the town of people willing to be anywhere near the amateur sleuth and thus likely killed in the line of investigation? I think someone once crunched the numbers for Midsomer Murders and concluded that the region had something like a 70%+ residential attrition rate.

The series, if I recall correctly, is still going. I was about to say, she must be hitting a note with someone, because they're selling A. Well enough for the libraries to buy them, and with these budget cuts they don't buy just everything anymore, and B. well enough for the publishers not to be dropping them.

Originally Posted by SeaBookGuy

ATDrake:

My library recently added the entire Den of Antiquity series as downloadable ebooks - just in time as they're from Harper Collins!

I read the penultimate one recently (Poison Ivory); Abby herself I could deal with, but her assistant
C. J. was every bit as insufferable as I'd remembered with her "Shelby" stories.

My mother adored them. Me, I found both series (but most especially the Pennsyvania Dutch one), okay, but irritating in spots. Irritating enough that I'll finish both series eventually....but they're nowhere close to the top of my TBR mountain.

[kennyc]

Hope you are feeling better Shel.

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Just a quick note. Two hours of an audiobook is slower then two hours of reading. So if you read for those two hours, you would be farther along then you are now.

But sometimes the audio book is more enjoyable then the read book. Current example is The Hitchhiker's Guide I'm now listening to from Audible. I liked the book, but the English narrator has put a fun twist to the story.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I'm starting another book that I know absolutely nothing about. It's called What Time Forgets: The Daughters of Ard Creggan by K. E. Redmond. It just caught my eye... we'll see.

Just a heads-up for other potential readers; the Kindle version of this ebook is one of the most atrociously formatted books I've seen in a while. I had to pause for a little "editing" session and now I'm starting over.

My guess is it was converted to mobi from another format and no one bothered to proof it.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Just a quick note. Two hours of an audiobook is slower then two hours of reading. So if you read for those two hours, you would be farther along then you are now.

That's true. Basically, I got into a bit of "Part 2 - The Voyage Out" I think it was called.

That said, I have yet to have anyone here say... yes Bob, it gets much better... keep at it... so my current decision is to not continue with it.

BOb

[Michael McLovin]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Just a quick note. Two hours of an audiobook is slower then two hours of reading. So if you read for those two hours, you would be farther along then you are now.

ever tried to read and drive at the same time?

[maianhvk]

er, I know this sounds cheap, but come on, I'm still fond of fairy tales!