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

[DiapDealer]

Currently reading The North Water by Ian McGuire. Longlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize.

A nineteenth-century whaling ship sets sail for the Arctic with a killer aboard in this dark, sharp, and highly original tale that grips like a thriller.

It's a bit more seedy than I would have liked, but we'll see how it turns out. A very short novel.

[poohbear_nc]

Just finished The Hatred of Poetry by Ben Lerner - a clever book-length essay examining the seemingly perpetual dialectic between the condemnation and defense of poetry ... from the Plato to the present ... which includes a fascinating response to Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Marianne Moore, among other poets. Lerner obviously is well read and quite a wordsmith in prose, as well as poetry. Highly recommended.

I'm also mid-way through W.G. Sebald's The Rings of Saturn -- and still am not quite sure what I'm reading (memoir, travelogue, novel, rambling stream of consciousness?) - but it's beautifully written and translated (Michael Hulse) and I'm thoroughly enjoying the voyage ...

[Joseph J Bailey]

Just finished Unbroken after Boys in the Boat.

I was in the Olympic spirit!

Both were wonderful reads of Olympians overcoming adversity.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by Fbone

To change things up I'm now reading The Plague Court Murders by John Dickson Carr. Nothing liked a locked room mystery to get the juices flowing.

I didn't guess the murderer because a few things weren't clear to me. It would have helped if I was familiar with the role of Viola in Twelfth Night. Still, I don't think this was Carr's best effort. Interesting how even in 1934 "clue" was spelled "clew." Rated C- [2 stars].

Next is a library book, The Last Policeman by Ben H Winters. The description caught my interest.

What’s the point in solving murders if we’re all going to die soon, anyway?

Detective Hank Palace has faced this question ever since asteroid 2011GV1 hovered into view. There’s no chance left. No hope. Just six precious months until impact.

[Dngrsone]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You know it's a quote from Shakespeare? It's said by one of the witches in Macbeth: "By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes."

I did not realize, but I am not surprised: it seems like The Bard is responsible for half our language and idioms.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Next is a library book, The Last Policeman by Ben H Winters. The description caught my interest.

It's a trilogy. That's the first book; the other two are "Countdown City" and "World of Trouble". I bought all three in an Amazon UK Kindle Daily Deal about a year ago.

[WT Sharpe]

I've started reading The Adventures of Superman (1942) by George Lowther. It was the first Superman novel, originally published only four years after the debut of Shuster and Siegel's iconic creation in the comic books.

[CRussel]

I'm in the middle of the second of an unknown number of Penric novellas by Lois McMaster Bujold, Penric's Shaman. For some reason, I had decided I wasn't interested in these, even though I've very much enjoyed her books over the years, so I've had the first, Penric's Demon, sitting in my TBR for a while. Then the other day I was looking for something shorter, and someone here had mentioned it, so I went ahead and read it. Should have known! I very much enjoyed it, so quickly bought the second and am enjoying it as well.

However, I'm now in a bit of a conundrum. The latest book from Nathan Lowell, Milk Run, came out this morning, and I want to read it NOW. But I also want to finish Penric's Shaman. Oh, and I've got a chapter due to the editor in 3 days and it isn't done.

[Loosheesh]

Originally Posted by Loosheesh

Next up is a continuation of the archaeological mysteries with the fifth book, The African Quest, and *maybe* Fellowship of Fear by Aaron Elkins. And I'm 40% through Friday's Child by Georgette Heyer, so I may try to finish it as well.

I read and enjoyed The African Quest, but Fellowship of Fear was just OK for me. I'm continuing on with both series; next up is The Dark Place (book 2/Gideon Oliver) and The Etruscan Chimera (book 6/Lara McClintoch).

Friday's Child is still at 40% (), and I still want to complete it soon. I also want to try Friday the Rabbi Slept Late; blaming that one on HarryT and pdurrant

I'll be happy if I complete at least two of these this new week!

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by Loosheesh

Friday's Child is still at 40% (), and I still want to complete it soon. I also want to try Friday the Rabbi Slept Late; blaming that one on HarryT and pdurrant

I'll be happy if I complete at least two of these this new week!

All Georgette Heyer's Regencies are quiet pleasures that sometimes grow to outloud chuckles. I try to space them out to savor and save them. Friday's Child was a good one!

Finished Penric's Shaman. Next I'll do a quick re-read of Exile before diving in to Milk Run.

[Loosheesh]

Originally Posted by CRussel

All Georgette Heyer's Regencies are quiet pleasures that sometimes grow to outloud chuckles. I try to space them out to savor and save them. Friday's Child was a good one!

Out-loud chuckles indeed - some of them are hilariously funny! I've read 6 of them so far this year, four of these during one week in May - it was a great week

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I've started reading The Adventures of Superman (1942) by George Lowther. It was the first Superman novel, originally published only four years after the debut of Shuster and Siegel's iconic creation in the comic books.

Finished this last night before going to catch Pokemons. It was quite enjoyable, but the body count far exceeded that of the later Silver Age Superman, or any Superman since. This guy was killing people right and left. To be sure, most were in enemy submarines that he punctured, blew up, or otherwise sank, but one rather nasty fellow he deliberately punched with all his strength, knowing full well the fellow would never survive. Wonder what his adopted parents, Eben and Sarah Kent, would have thought?

Lots of fun and very interesting to see how the character has evolved over the years.

[drjd]

Originally Posted by drjd

Next I am planning to take The Man in High Castle by Philip K. Dick.

Finished The Man in High Castle by Philip K. Dick bridging the genres of alternate history and science fiction, and another book The Broken Bubble by the same author.

Next up, The Girl from Baghdad by Michelle Nouri.

[John K]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Next is a library book, The Last Policeman by Ben H Winters. The description caught my interest.What’s the point in solving murders if we’re all going to die soon, anyway?

The same idea can be found in The End of Science Fiction by Sam Smith published by BeWrite in 2004.

No matter how important your job . would YOU turn up for work knowing that you and every living being on the planet will be dead before pay day? A beautiful young woman is brutally murdered - just as governments around the world announce that the universe will end in five days' time.

But amid global chaos, dedicated detective Herbie Watkins stays on the case, determined to discover the killer against a merciless clock that's ticking away his own final hours.

[HarryT]

Just finished "Dead on My Feet", by William Mark Simmons, which I bought from Baen in 2003. A sequel to "One Foot in the Grave". Baen description:

A year ago, Chris Csejthe (pronounced "Chay-tay") was completely human - then a blood transfusion from the Lord of the Undead changed everything. Now he is a hunted man, sought by human and vampire alike for the secrets he knows and the powers that his mutated blood may bestow. So far he's dodged undead assassins, werewolves, a 6,000-year-old Egyptian necromancer, and Vlad Dracula himself. But now he's really got problems.

The dead are turning up on his doorstep after dark to ask for justice and the police want to know where all those corpses are coming from. Undead terrorists are testing a doomsday virus on his new hometown and he's caught in the crossfire between a white supremacist militia and the resurrected Civil War dead. His werewolf lover, jealous of his dead wife's ghost, has left him. And the centuries-old and still very beautiful (and very deadly) Countess Bathory is determined to have his uniquely transformed blood for her own dark purposes.

Now, more than ever, life sucks!

Very enjoyable. Recommended.