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

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

Oh golly! Cold gulab jamun is not good. Piping hot gulab jamun is wonderful, night and day difference. It's amazing how much difference the temperature makes in texture and even flavor. Whoever gave you cold ones did you a real disservice.

Every desi I've ever known in my more than 4 decades of acquaintance with gulab jamun, that's who.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by CRussel

I personally don't understand! The pandemic has not made me even a _little_ more inclined to read anything dark. In fact, the opposite. I find myself doing marathon re-reads of old favourites and series. For example, I'm now working my way back through the Honor Harrington books. Mostly as audio, but sometimes switching over to my Kindle. But I also started a new series, The Murderbot Diaries, by Martha Wells. I'm not sure quite why they're working for me, but they are. However, they're seriously overpriced at Amazon (>$10 for a novella of 150 pages???), so I'm having to be patient at the Library.

This reflects my mood for the year pretty well. I've been picking stuff that I already know I like, or stuff that isn't too dark.

Even the Murderbot comment matches. I read the first (bought on special) a while ago and was entertained enough that I will be happy to read more, but not enough to pay the premium prices currently being asked for what are barely novellas. Maybe they'll come down before my battery runs out .. or not - publisher's choice, I have plenty of other stuff to read.

[cc_in_oh]

COVID didn't affect my reading much - I had just started Montalbano whern we got locked down in March so I finished that and am now about halfway through Maigret. Took some breaks for latest Connelly, Nesbo, Rankin, Butcher and a few more that my libraries came through with.

The lockdown had an upside for me though - I walked off 35 lbs while finally getting into PG Wodehouse audiobooks (thanks to someone here mentioning the brilliant The Small Bachelor).

[bs10000]

I felt the need for something light so I started Kris Longknife: Emissary. I have a like/hate relationship with each and every book in this series. But I keep coming back.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by bs10000

I felt the need for something light so I started Kris Longknife: Emissary. I have a like/hate relationship with each and every book in this series. But I keep coming back.

I know exactly what you mean. I kept reading them, right up until he went to self publishing, and apparently decided he needed neither an editor nor a proof-reader.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

It's the pandemic. Totally changed how and what I read.

In March, I read Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas -- including all those endless lists of observed species swimming past the porthole, and when done, read it again cover to cover.

Then I could only read short stories (thank you pulpmeister for the Past Master series)

Then it was the old familiar favorites - Wells, more Verne, Conan Doyle, Stevenson, etc.

Now I'm plowing through the complete works of H.P. Lovecraft ...

Hardy is next on my list, with George Eliot.

I'm unable to read anything contemporary ...

I hear you on nothing contemporary. The Victorians were made for a pandemic. In the past few years I’ve worked my way through Trollope’s two great series, recently finishing up with The Last Chronicle of Barset and I’m bereft. Hence Hardy. But what I really want to do is start all over again with the Parliamentary novels. While I like Trollope’s stand-alones, they just don’t have the richness of the two worlds of Parliament and Barsetshire. And in addition, I have to confess to recent rereads of both Pride and Prejudice and Emma and I thought those were two books I’d never look at again, as I’ve pretty much got them memorized.

And George Eliot is also on my “time to go back to her” list. Middlemarch of course and my other favorite, the under-appreciated (IMO) Daniel Deronda.

Originally Posted by CRussel

I personally don't understand! The pandemic has not made me even a _little_ more inclined to read anything dark. In fact, the opposite. I find myself doing marathon re-reads of old favourites and series. For example, I'm now working my way back through the Honor Harrington books. Mostly as audio, but sometimes switching over to my Kindle. But I also started a new series, The Murderbot Diaries, by Martha Wells. I'm not sure quite why they're working for me, but they are. However, they're seriously overpriced at Amazon (>$10 for a novella of 150 pages???), so I'm having to be patient at the Library.

One of the pandemic effects for me is that having mostly given up on mystery novels, I’ve been dipping back into some of my favorite Golden Age (and somewhat later) authors. A particular favorite has been the Judge Dee books by Robert van Gulik.

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

I'm the same. A side-by-side comparison of my all-time stats versus 2020 stats at The StoryGraph shows a clear preference this year for shorter and faster-paced, and for fiction over nonfiction

Another change I noted this year was that while my fiction to nonfiction ratio seemed about the same, I read a lot more memoirs than heavy history this past year. I think about my reading plan for 2021 and I’d like to have one history topic, but I can’t settle. It makes me tired just to think about it, but I know I’ll miss it if I don’t.

[Elektron]

Just finished The Novice, ending with a nasty cliffhanger. Onto book 2!

[poohbear_nc]

*snip*

I hear you on nothing contemporary. The Victorians were made for a pandemic. In the past few years I’ve worked my way through Trollope’s two great series, recently finishing up with The Last Chronicle of Barset and I’m bereft. Hence Hardy. But what I really want to do is start all over again with the Parliamentary novels. While I like Trollope’s stand-alones, they just don’t have the richness of the two worlds of Parliament and Barsetshire. And in addition, I have to confess to recent rereads of both Pride and Prejudice and Emma and I thought those were two books I’d never look at again, as I’ve pretty much got them memorized.

And George Eliot is also on my “time to go back to her” list. Middlemarch of course and my other favorite, the under-appreciated (IMO) Daniel Deronda.

I got as far as The Eustace Diamonds, which I enjoyed immensely, but hit a brick wall with Phineas Redux.

Similarly, I hit another brick wall with Doctor Thorne.

I've never read Daniel Deronda - perhaps I shall jump in my Eliot journey there .. rather than at Middlemarch.

[Bookstooge]

Just wrapped the evening up with The Ghost by Max Brand. I think the man was a genius with the short story and the western setting.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

*snip*




I got as far as The Eustace Diamonds, which I enjoyed immensely, but hit a brick wall with Phineas Redux.

Similarly, I hit another brick wall with Doctor Thorne.

I've never read Daniel Deronda - perhaps I shall jump in my Eliot journey there .. rather than at Middlemarch.

I love Middlemarch. I think issy and I reread it around the same time this year. Deromda is on my list for 2021.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

Similarly, I hit another brick wall with Doctor Thorne.

Dr. Thorne is the stinker of the 12 novels. Quite the draggola, IMO; I know Bookpossum thought the same. Supposedly it’s John Major’s favorite novel, which tells the tale about him. The last two Barsetshire novels were back up to form. Mrs. Proudie!

I did like Phineas Redux; I thought the weakest of the Parliamentary books was the last. Then I read that it had been severely edited and that the original, roughly 50% longer, is much better and has been published. I still plan to read it, but the last time I looked it wasn’t available in digital (yet, I hope).

[issybird]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

I've never read Daniel Deronda - perhaps I shall jump in my Eliot journey there .. rather than at Middlemarch.

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

I love Middlemarch. I think issy and I reread it around the same time this year. Deromda is on my list for 2021.

I hope people like Deronda now that I’ve puffed it. It’s not a universal taste and George Eliot can be hit or miss. Nothing could get me to read Silas Marner again!

[Uncle Robin]

Just time for one last mystery/thriller before the year ends, Inadvertent Disclosure, by Melissa Miller. The series debut was underwhelming, let's see if book two is better.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by issybird

Nothing could get me to read Silas Marner again!

Amen to THAT! I admit, I was forced to read it in school, and it was a ghastly slog. Never read another Eliot, and I'd find it hard to try one now, even though the Silas memory has dimmed somewhat with age. All that's left is the existential dread.

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by CRussel

I also started a new series, The Murderbot Diaries, by Martha Wells. I'm not sure quite why they're working for me, but they are. However, they're seriously overpriced at Amazon (>$10 for a novella of 150 pages???), so I'm having to be patient at the Library.

Originally Posted by gmw

I read the first (bought on special) a while ago and was entertained enough that I will be happy to read more, but not enough to pay the premium prices currently being asked for what are barely novellas. Maybe they'll come down before my battery runs out .. or not - publisher's choice, I have plenty of other stuff to read.

The novel (#5 in the series, proper novel length, with #6 due at the end of April) was $2.99 or so at Amazon a couple of days ago. Shortly before its release, Tor.com's ebook club had a special promotion: books 1-4 were each free for one day over the course of a week. I'd already picked the first two up cheap, so I got the next two (finishing the initial origin arc) that way and read all four back to back. Very satisfying, that.

So... it might be worth your whiles to join the ebook club and watch your email box starting around March. I can't guarantee anything, of course, but what have you got to lose?