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

[kyrilson]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

As soon as I started Maisie Dobbs 3 the reasons I'd hesisated after book 2 came back in force. To borrow from a few GR reviews, the "solve by aura" "woo spiritualist BS" was overpowering in this one and not what I want, so hooray for TSG having DNF as a category. On to Fiona Sherlock's Twelve Motives for Murder

Yes! I read the first two and gave up on that series for very similar reasons. I need to have clues that make sense and that you can actually follow to a logical conclusion. Those books, at least the two I read did not have this and I stopped after reading the first two.

[Fbone]

The Messenger by J.N. Chaney & Terry Maggert

I was expecting military sci-fi with aliens but got silly fiction with non-humorous comedy. Forced dialogue and convenient plot solutions didn't help elevate this reader's rating.
At least it was free monetarily. Rated D [1 star].

[Uncle Robin]

4.5/5 for The Second Death of Goodluck Tinubu, a very creditable second in the series, with interesting atmosphere again from the Botswana setting, this time in a very different part of the country. Now on to The Last Dance by Martin L. Shoemaker, intrigued by the protagonist's Korean name.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: "Naughty: Nine Tales of Christmas Crime" by Steve Hockensmith. A freebie. I meant to read this late last year....

And they were all the expected light crime fun for Christmas stories that they promised.

Next up: Four to Score by Janet Evanovich. Her fourth Stephanie Plum adventure. I got this as a freebie at Fictionwise way back in February 2010.

[Uncle Robin]

4.25/5 for The Last Dance , in no small part for the honor given to the book's dedicatee, Buzz Aldrin. Now for something completely different, The Glass Ocean by Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig and Karen White

[ReadingManiac]

Originally Posted by Dngrsone

I am halfway through Dust by Elizabeth Bear and about the same in Grave Secrets of Dinosaurs: Soft Tissues and Hard Science by Dr. Phil Manning and about 40% into In Conquest Born (Audio) by C S Friedman.

Dinosaurs was getting a little tedious, so I took a sci-fi break from real sci... and I only listen to audiobooks for my work commute.

I'm about halfway through an Elizabeth Bear book, The Origin of Storms. My first time with her and having mixed feelings. Sometimes it seem brilliant, other times it feels slow.

[ReadingManiac]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Finished Shadow of a Dead God by Patrick Samphire.

A similar theme to many other self-published books I've read recently. The main character was fairly well developed but the author spent many paragraphs/pages on introspection, conflict and self-doubt. The writing skill was passable but not anything special. It had that amateur feel to it. The story was entertaining ending on a cliffhanger. Rated D+ [2 stars].

Great title. I don't like books that end on cliffhangers though.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by CRussel

I get all of the detractions about the Maise Dobbs books, but in spite of that, I still enjoy them. Not enough to pay release-day prices, but enough to get in line for them at the Library. (There are fewer and fewer series for which I will, or can, pay release day prices. But Maise was never on the list.)

It's been a long time, but my recollection is that the Maisie series improved after the first few books. I still gave up on the series after half a dozen or so, however. I never liked the character enough to keep going.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

I started my year off thusly:

• Poem of the week - "Burning the Old Year" by Naomi Shihab Nye
• Audiobook - returning to the old favorite of Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
• At-home e-reader - Perhaps the Stars by Ada Palmer
• Travel e-reader - my ever constant re-reading of War and Peace (round 6, overall, I think)

I have now finished Winesburg, Ohio.

My poem this week was Homesick by Hugo Williams

I am catching up some New Yorker short stories via their podcast on audio before I start another audiobook.

[Uncle Robin]

Currently reading Charlie Lovett's The Lost Book of the Grail and enjoying the author's style. I smiled at this

Arthur Prescott sometimes thought he was born in the wrong generation. It’s not that he thought he should be a Knight of the Round Table, but he should at least be living in the 1920s with Jeeves pulling on his morning coat for him, or better yet in the 1880s, discussing the relative merits of Gladstone and Disraeli in a first-class railway carriage. These daydreams generally came to an abrupt end as soon as he thought about things like public sanitation and penicillin

and was impressed by this, my kind of snide.

“Good afternoon, Arthur,” said the precentor. “Always so nice to see you.” That tone of voice, thought Arthur, must be what had inspired the invention of the word disingenuous.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: Four to Score by Janet Evanovich. Her fourth Stephanie Plum adventure. I got this as a freebie at Fictionwise way back in February 2010.

It was OK. I don't have 5-7, and I don't think I'll be getting them.

Next up: Strange Attractors by Jeffrey A Carver. The second of his Chaos Chronicles. A freebie from the author, available here in the MobileRead Library.

[Moe The Cat]

Started a re-read of Jim Bowering's Green Comet trilogy, available free on his website.

[astrangerhere]

I started a book from my TBR (Christmas present from my wife) - Helen Macdonald's Vesper Flights. I loved H is for Hawk, so no big risk here.

[Uncle Robin]

REALLY enjoying the Lost Book of the Grail, in large part because of what it says about books. Early on, the two leads share this exchange:

"I just read a great monograph on the postbook library from this guy I heard at ALA.”

“I’m sorry, are you speaking English?”

“ALA is the American Library Association.”

“But what do you mean by the ‘postbook library’?”

“It’s amazing. You see, technology is exploding the possibilities for libraries. Now they can exist virtually. Imagine a library that has no building, almost no expenses, and can be used by everyone on the planet.”

“A library without books?”

“Yeah, pretty cool, huh?”

“You do know that library is derived from the Latin librarius, meaning ‘concerned with books.’ Not computers—books.”

“If you want to play the etymology game,” said Bethany, “I read in this same article that the word librarius is derived from liber, meaning ‘the inner bark of trees.’ Do you really think we need to fill our libraries with the inner bark of trees?”

Then at around 3/4 of the way, the same theme returns, this time in a C16 setting

[Uncle Robin]

4.5/5 for The Lost Book of the Grail, great fun, and I liked that the grail hunter was a fairly devout agnostic. Now on to The Canterbury Papers by Judith Knoll Healey