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

[treadlightly]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

With that in mind, I am going to do my first re-read of the year: The Hound of the Baskervilles. I read this many years ago and remember enjoying it, but it had been my only exposure to Holmes and I was a bit turned off by the experience last year. Now, I am hopeful that his later works are closer to the Memoirs than the Adventures and I will really enjoy them too.

Another excellent selection. I didn't like it quite as much as the Memoirs, but that may have been because it was a re-read. It feels like time for a break from Sherlock Holmes though, so I need to find something else.

I just finished The Moor (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes #4) by Laurie King which is based on The Hound of the Baskervilles. I really should have read The Hound first as there is a spoiler for it in The Moor. Also, I want to visit Devonshire and try scones with clotted cream and wortleberry jam.

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

I read Hounds first, as a MR book club selection. After I read it, I had to read all the Homes stuff.

My biggest issue with it, while all very enjoyable is in many cases it is very hard for the reader to solve the mystery, because information Holmes knows isn't revealed to the reader until the denouement.

BOb

Agreed. Someone made a comment here that helped me to enjoy these last couple a little more than the first few I read. I don't remember the exact quote, but it was along the lines of "remember that these really aren't mysteries. While there often is a myster, that mystery isn't the point, the point is to focus on Sherlock Holmes and his character and abilities." That is also stated in some of the short stories as Watson is introducing the current case. It helped me to change my focus a little when reading them so that I can enjoy them in the way they were intended rather than not enjoying them as much based on my expectations.

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by treadlightly

Also, I want to visit Devonshire and try scones with clotted cream and wortleberry jam.

I was going to say that I don't have any idea what wortleberries are but I have had scones with clotted cream and huckleberry jam and it is excellent.

Then I looked up wortleberries:

Whortleberry is the local Somerset name for the wild bilberry that grows on Exmoor. This humble fruit goes by many different names, such as; bilberry; blueberry; heidelberry; huckleberry; hurtleberry & wimberry to mention but a few.

Huckleberries are a local plant too (we have some in our yard) and we love them.

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

I was going to say that I don't have any idea what wortleberries are but I have had scones with clotted cream and huckleberry jam and it is excellent.

Then I looked up wortleberries:


Huckleberries are a local plant too (we have some in our yard) and we love them.

Just don't mix them up with dingleberries

[alansplace]

Originally Posted by alansplace

The Space Pioneers by Carey Rockwell, the 4th selection in the Tom Corbett Omnibus turned out to not be quite as good as the 3rd selection, On the Trail of the Space Pirates was, but still, it was a pretty good space opera and also still stayed within the parameters of the old TV show so it was nostalgic to me!

Diana Rowland's Sins of the Demon was really good and I'm looking forward to the 5th (and last [so far anyway]) Kara Gillian novel, Touch of the Demon, I'm going to go ahead and read it next along with the 15th Nancy Drew mystery, The Haunted Bridge by Carolyn Keene (Mildred A Wirt).

The Haunted Bridge was a fun read. Touch of the Demon was quite exciting and also a lot different than the previous 4 novels in the series in that the detective aspect was missing which was because 98% of the story took place in the demon realm. I missed the cop stuff, and hope the series gets back to earth sometime soon. I'm looking forward to the next novel which has an the end of the year estimated release date.

Now on to another Tom Corbett story, The Space Pioneers, the 5th selection in the Tom Corbett Omnibus by Carey Rockwell. Also I'll be reading The House of Silk A Sherlock Holmes Novel by Anthony Horowitz.

Originally Posted by Fbone

The Conan Doyle Estate gave Horowitz permission to write another Sherlock Holmes story and he did a good job. The author researched Victorian London extensively and it made the story come alive. Not as much artful deduction as the originals and the language was somewhat modern. Did they say "that's right" in 1890 London? The ending was not a complete surprise. A red herring and shocking revelations round out this title. Rated C [3 stars]...

[covingtoncat73]

I'm 1/2 way through The first book of The Mongoliad. It is quite the rip-roarer and has multiple authors, including Neal Stephenson and Greg Bear. Knights of a secret order decide to try and kill the Khan of Khans. It turns the pages well.

[Latinandgreek]

Originally Posted by covingtoncat73

I'm 1/2 way through The first book of The Mongoliad. It is quite the rip-roarer and has multiple authors, including Neal Stephenson and Greg Bear. Knights of a secret order decide to try and kill the Khan of Khans. It turns the pages well.

Another one to add to my TBR list

[Dazrin]

Couldn't decide on what to read after The Hound of the Baskervilles, so I filled in the rest of today with some short stories I had on my Kindle.

Did wonders for my "books read" count (up to 20), but really dropped my pages/book average (down from ~400 to 357 pg/bk). My goal for the year is a page goal, so I don't mind counting short stories as books. Right now I am at the same # of books to date as last year, but have 2,400 more pages read.

• Jigsaw by Douglas Smith - A free from Amazon (long ago) sci-fi short about finding some ancient "wormhole capable" space ships.
• The Moon is Green by Fritz Leiber - I haven't read him before, but this was mentioned in a Wool thread (maybe at KB?) as being somewhat similar in concept, so I tried it out. It was good, if somewhat dated, and the similarities are definitely there. I was amused by the "need to destroy the commies" rhetoric while having "committees" that were mandatory/highly encouraged and the the fear that the characters had about being reported and sent down. You can certainly tell what stage the world was in when it was written.
• Rikki-Tikki-Tavi by Rudyard Kipling - I really love this story, I should read the whole Jungle Book someday. My girls are a little young for it right now, but in a couple years I will need to read it to them.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

...I've started another Hugo winner: Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer. I'd heard it might be a bit uninspired, but I'm enjoying it enough after the first 50 pages.

Not only is Robert J. Sawyer a fine science-fiction author, he's also a member of MobileRead. I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

[xg4bx]

Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. I've had the trilogy sitting there for a year or so untouched, picked up the first book for the hell of it and immediately got sucked in.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by xg4bx

Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. I've had the trilogy sitting there for a year or so untouched, picked up the first book for the hell of it and immediately got sucked in.

I hope you like it.. I really enjoyed that Trilogy... it is the last Fantasy I have read (that I recall) that I really enjoyed unlike Song of Fire and Ice which was like work.

BOb

[Apache]

I am rereading some of the early Garrett PI novels by Glen Cook. To me it is like reading Nero Wolfe as a Fantasy.
Apache

[wttwoa]

managed to get the 5 book set of Percy Jackson & the Olympians for $10 and i read the whole first book yesterday and started the 2nd book today, great books so far.

[Shopaholic]

I second The Fault In Our Stars. Good book! Very touching.

I'm reading Divergent by Veronica Roth & then Insurgent. It's the first two in a trilogy with the third coming sometime in the fall apparently. It reminds me of The Hunger Games but I'm enjoying it.

[Crusader]

The last book I finished was Dreams and Shadows by C. Robert Cargill. While I don't normally read urban fantasy I really enjoyed this. It has a rather unique, dark, take on faery creatures and mixes different mythologies and folklore to good effect.