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

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by alansplace

That list would be posted here.

Originally Posted by Nyssa

Which I just updated to include Bombshells & Skin Game.

Originally Posted by alansplace

I knew that you would.

Thanks to your help, Alan, the list is now fully uptodate! Dresden Files - Chronological Order for Novels & Short Stories

[alansplace]

Originally Posted by Nyssa

Thanks to your help, Alan, the list is now fully uptodate! Dresden Files - Chronological Order for Novels & Short Stories

Yeah! It's looking good! I like the new color coding!

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by alansplace

Yeah! It's looking good! I like the new color coding!

Thank you!

[Tarana]

Finished Summer Knight (Book 4 Dresden Files) by Jim Butcher the other day. Started Death Mask (Book 5 Dresden Files) this morning. Both are audiobook. I have had these for ages, and just never got to them.

Also started Twelve Drummers Drumming on my Nook ST while waiting at the car shop. It was this month's selection for the English Mystery group at Goodreads. So far, interesting.

Abandoned my first book of the year, Where'd You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple. It's popular, so I guess it's just not my style. It was funny, but I liked the characters less and less the more I read, so I finally skipped to the end and was glad I didn't make myself read the rest. Read about 40% total. It was a book club reading selection, but this was one of the book clubs I abandoned because the books were just hit or miss for me.

[VictoriaP]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I've just found out that the C&R special offer will end on 31st January. So I have bought the first one, and I'm going to read it and decide whether to get the rest.

So, now also reading: Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters.

I should finish it before the end of the 31st, so I can decide whether to splurge or not.

I love these myself, but I haven't read them all. I've repeatedly gotten stuck eight or nine books in (I can't remember which book, but there's something about it that I end up about 20% in and can't get any farther.) The first several are among my favorite re-reads though.

I set aside Travels with Charley for now to head back to medieval Wales with Gareth & Gwen for Sarah Woodbury's The Fourth Horseman. For those who've read Ellis Peters' Cadfael books, this series is interesting because you get the King Stephen/Empress Maud/Owain Gwynedd territory disputes and alliances from a totally different perspective.

[Fbone]

Just finished The Affair of the Thirty-Nine Cufflinks by the late James Anderson. It's a typical 1930s British murder mystery. The writing was competent and the characters interesting. The murderer was easy to determine but the side mysteries were harder to explain until the end. The beginning was somewhat drawn out; murder occurred around page 150. Overall, unremarkable. Rated C- [3 stars].

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

So, now also reading: Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters.

I should finish it before the end of the 31st, so I can decide whether to splurge or not.

I'm already over a third of the way through it, and I think I can say I'm really enjoying it. Alas for my book budget!

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I'm already over a third of the way through it, and I think I can say I'm really enjoying it. Alas for my book budget!

Great!

The main characters are inspired by real people. Amelia Peabody is loosely based on Amelia Edwards, author of an immensely popular travelogue called "A Thousand Miles Up the Nile" (which I created a copy of for the MR library), and Radcliffe Emerson on the famously irascible Egyptologist Sir Flinders Petrie.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The main characters are inspired by real people. Amelia Peabody is loosely based on Amelia Edwards, author of an immensely popular travelogue called "A Thousand Miles Up the Nile" (which I created a copy of for the MR library), and Radcliffe Emerson on the famously irascible Egyptologist Sir Flinders Petrie.

I did notice a mention of Petrie in the book. I thought this was about the right time period for him. I suspect he's being kept safely off-stage.

I am now £21 lighter, and 25 books heavier. (I got the Vicky Bliss books too.)

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I am now £21 lighter, and 25 books heavier. (I got the Vicky Bliss books too.)

That's a wonderful deal. I paid about £5 each for them!

[Yapyap]

It really is a wonderful deal. I have all the Amelia Peabody books as paperbacks (and I've read them all - I got into the series before I had access to an ereader and ebooks) and I don't begrudge them the shelf space at all; it's a series I've enjoyed tremendously.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next: An anthology of all the unread James Patrick Kelly short stories that I bought from Fictionwise back in 2004 - some 22 of them, now counted as one book.

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I've now also reading: Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters.

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I'm now also ready Nothing edited by Jeremy Webb, a collection of articles from New Scientist, all to do with nothing.

It's not often I have three books on the go at once! But I've just finished Nothing. An interesting collection of essays on subjects like the zero in mathematics, vacuum, and absolute zero. Enjoyable, but nothing particularly surprising.

Perhaps the best for me was the historical consideration of zero in mathematics.

Now back to Crocodile on the Sandbank (which I'm enjoying a lot), and then back to the Kelly short stories.

[CRussel]

Well, I'm not sure who it was that convinced me to buy a copy of Ben Aaronovitch's Midnight Riot (apa Rivers of London), but I have to think him or her. I'm just finishing it up and I've quite enjoyed it. Oh, it's got some annoying bits, and the writing is maybe a shade on the too cute side, but it's fun, and it shows real promise.

(This is modern London and the Metropolitan Police, but with a senior Inspector who's a Wizard and our young and intrepid Constable who becomes his apprentice.)

[PurpleStar]

I finished Mars, Inc by Ben Bova. It was nothing spectacular, but it kept me entertained throughout.

Next up, Star Trek Voyager: Protectors by Kirsten Beyer.

[Tarana]

Well, I'm not sure who it was that convinced me to buy a copy of Ben Aaronovitch's Midnight Riot (apa Rivers of London), but I have to think him or her.

Wasn't me, but it's in my TBR along with the next one in the series. I'm sure I bought it on a special. Glad to hear that it's something to look forward to. It's been in my library for over a year.

Completed the novella The Ghosts of Ragged-Ass Gulch by Bill Pronzini, which is a detective story, not a western. The story was ok, but nothing special, however the narrator was fabulous. Perfect detective voice, IMHO. His name is Nick Sullivan. No longer for sale at Audible.

Today, I've been listening to Death Masks (Dresden Files). Loving it. I will have to hold off on Side Jobs until after book 12. I only have the audiobook and it doesn't tell you what stories are in what order, etc. etc. and I don't want to spoil the surprises.