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

[issybird]

Originally Posted by issybird

I followed this up by finishing Lauren Groff’s book of shorts, Brawler, also published this year. Fantastic. So since maybe I’m on a roll with 2026 publications,

I jinxed it. I read Five by Ilona Bannister yesterday afternoon and evening and it was execrable. Total gimmick plus contrivance plus agenda. I only finished it because it was short and I didn't want to start something new last night. (I'm reading other books but I wasn't in the mood.)

This is what I do all too often, alas. I see a short stellar mention of a new release and think, "That might be good," and put it on my OverDrive holds lists. By the time it shows up I've forgotten everything about it and don't bother to look into it and just dive in. To my regret.

Sometimes I do scan my holds list and purge it when on reflection I realize I really don't want to read something (Yesteryear got the boot), but all too often something that's not to my taste is the new shiny with a ticking clock before it has to go back.

I don't learn.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by issybird

I think Nero Wolfe is my favorite detective. And Michael Prichard as narrator is a near* perfect match for the material. (*His women's voices aren't quite there). I also have gone back and am very slowly working my way through the Wolfe books from the beginning; I'd read most of them but there are a few toward the end that will be new to me. Unlike most very long series, even the later books are mostly up to standard and some are among my favorites. The Doorbell Rang! That last scene....

I agree. I recently listened to Valediction by Robert Parker. It is also read by Michael Prichard and I kept thinking why is Archie Goodwin helping Spenser.
The Doorbell Rang is the next Nero Wolfe on my list. I finished A Right to Die about two weeks ago. I am really looking forward to The Doorbell Rang. As you said that is the perfect ending. It is already in my Audible library waiting for me. Once I finish my current listen, I will start it. My wife and I listen to some books together. We do this when we are traveling. We finished The Commodore last week and just started The Iceman.
Apache
Apache

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Apache

We finished The Commodore last week

The Aubrey/Maturin book? Ahh! One of the greatest series of all times, even though the quality did fall off a bit toward the end.

I own the Simon Vance narrations of this series; which do you have? I like the Patrick Tull versions also; he does a better Stephen but I prefer Vance's Jack.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by issybird

The Aubrey/Maturin book? Ahh! One of the greatest series of all times, even though the quality did fall off a bit toward the end.

I own the Simon Vance narrations of this series; which do you have? I like the Patrick Tull versions also; he does a better Stephen but I prefer Vance's Jack.

Sorry I did not list the author. It were both part of the WWII book series by P. T. Deutermann. I do agree about the Aubrey/Maturin books though I haven't started on the audiobooks. I hope to before the end of the year.
Apache

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Apache

Sorry I did not list the author. It were both part of the WWII book series by P. T. Deutermann. I do agree about the Aubrey/Maturin books though I haven't started on the audiobooks. I hope to before the end of the year.
Apache

I forgot to mention that while I enjoyed Deutermann's The Commodore, I was not crazy about the late Dick Hill's narration. His voice rubbed me the wrong way sometimes. He's done a ton of work for big name authors, so clearly he has fans.

[Apache]

The Commodore seems to be the last one narrated by Dick Hill. The Iceman is narrated by John Pruden.
Apache

[Dr. Drib]

Just finished 'While the Women are Sleeping,' by Javier Marias, a writer whom I highly admire, but now unfortunately dead from covid.

JUST started 'Silencio', by Clyo Mendoza. This is a novella, and her writing is incredibly beautiful. I should be able to finish this today, unless I die. I'm looking forward to it - the reading, you wits!

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by Apache

<snip> I do agree about the Aubrey/Maturin books though I haven't started on the audiobooks. I hope to before the end of the year.
Apache

Oh, you're in for a treat! Either the Simon Vance or the Patrick Tull narrations are excellent. Others, less so. I'm about due for another round of these myself.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Oh, you're in for a treat! Either the Simon Vance or the Patrick Tull narrations are excellent. Others, less so. I'm about due for another round of these myself.

I was scrambling for DRM-free audiobooks to listen to while swimming this summer after having mostly used up my backlog last year (grr, OverDrive!) and decided it was time. I did start with H.M.S. Surprise, though; I felt the first two would suffer from overexposure as I dipped into them fairly frequently early days.

And speaking of editions, I was checking to see what’s out there and was appalled to see that Audible has listed abridged editions. Why, Audible, why? I don’t blame Tim Piggot-Smith for narrating them, a gig’s a gig, but why would anyone want to listen to them?

[Apache]

Originally Posted by issybird

I was scrambling for DRM-free audiobooks to listen to while swimming this summer after having mostly used up my backlog last year (grr, OverDrive!) and decided it was time. I did start with H.M.S. Surprise, though; I felt the first two would suffer from overexposure as I dipped into them fairly frequently early days.

And speaking of editions, I was checking to see what’s out there and was appalled to see that Audible has listed abridged editions. Why, Audible, why? I don’t blame Tim Piggot-Smith for narrating them, a gig’s a gig, but why would anyone want to listen to them?

I agree. I refuse to buy abridged editions of any book. I made that mistake once in the eighties with a series on cassette and did not realize until I had bought it that it was abridged. I had read the book years before and I remember thinking somethings missing. I then realized that it was abridged. Never again. Especially the Aubrey/Maturin series.
Apache

[DiapDealer]

I once read Jaws in a condensed Reader's Digest before I fully understood the ramifications. My parents had a ton of those when I was a kid. To this day, I have no idea what I missed. But I don't think I ever read another condensed/abridged book. I never saw the point.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

I'm reading some nice, challenging books right now in the lead up to my sabbatical next month.

• Kobo: A Century of Fiction in The New Yorker: 1925-2025 edited by Deborah Treisman - I am getting mired down in a number of stories in a row written by men who have since shown a lot of bad behavior and I am not one of those "separate the art from the artist" people. I just need to skip some of them to keep this moving.
• Kobo: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - a re-read along with my wife who has never read it before. We're on a chapter a day pace.
• Paperback: Riverwork by Lisa Robertson
• Hardcover: The 2024 edition of The Letters of Emily Dickinson edited by Christanne Miller and Domhnall Mitchell
• Audio/Library: Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family's Feuds by Lyndall Gordon

I finished both Riverwork and Lives Like Loaded Guns. Riverwork was a nice intellectual challenge, though I had to frequently pause to look up things as I have very limited familiarity with French literature. The Dickinson book was fascinating for about 2/3 of the space, but tailed off quite a bit at the end.

Currently:

• Kobo: A Century of Fiction in The New Yorker: 1925-2025 edited by Deborah Treisman. I will finish it eventually
• Kobo: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - 6 more days to go on my buddy-read with my wife
• Hardcover: the 2024 edition of The Letters of Emily Dickinson edited by Christanne Miller and Domhnall Mitchell
• Hardcover: The Parliament by Aimee Pokwatka
• Audio: In the Best Families (Nero Wolfe #17) by Rex Stout

[issybird]

I’ve finished Flashman and the Angel of the Lord wherein Flashy takes part in the raid on Harper’s Ferry and the usual hijinks ensue. The Flashman series is one of my absolute favorites and I only rarely allow myself the treat of reading one (only two to go! :gulp: ); that said, this is probably my least favorite so far. No doubt in part because all series, even the best, deteriorate, but also because for me the setting is pretty homespun compared to the exotic east. Still, imperfect Flashman still beats almost everything.

I’m currently reading the first volume of Henry “Chips” Channon’s diaries; dish about English society and and the corridors of power in the interwar years is so much jam to me. Delicious stuff.

Also reading Son of Nobody by Yann Martel. It’s an Iliad pastiche complete with exigesis by a mediocre academic. Mildly amusing and at least different from the typical ancient lit retellings that have flooded the market lately. Most of which are terrible.

[nana77]

I'd read "Ancillary Sword" by Ann Leckie; I like the way she gets onto the prose by defining and describing the means of even a little flick of an eye, or the tiny gestures, during conversations. Doing that without the reading feels on a slow-motion, off course.
Not sure if I menaged to pinpoint it, but essentially the plot is about socials, civics and citizens, by the eyes of the military-grade, ancillary Breq.

I've liked "Frankenstein Alive, Alive!"

In 2012, Wrightson and writer Steve Niles began publishing a comic book series titled Frankenstein Alive, Alive! which is billed as a "sequel to Wrightson's acclaimed 1983 illustrated version" by IDW Publishing. Wrightson won his first National Cartoonists Society's award in the category Comic Books for Frankenstein Alive, Alive! in 2013.

Thought the 1983 version would be too a nice reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie...n_Alive,_Alive!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie...s_Frankenstein

Wrightson used the revised 1831 text of the novel by Mary Shelley and spent seven years drawing over 60 detailed pen-and-ink illustrations. The illustrations themselves are not based upon the Boris Karloff or Christopher Lee movies or any other films, but on the actual book's descriptions of characters and objects. Wrightson also used a period style, saying "I wanted the book to look like an antique; to have the feeling of woodcuts or steel engravings, something of that era"

Did read "Event Horizon: Dark Descent", by Christian Ward (from the Fanatical bundle); imho nice illustrations in there too; didn't watched the "Event Horizon" movie, to which the graphic novel is a prequel.

[Fbone]

Just finished The Murder at World's End by Ross Montgomery.

Locked-room mysteries are my favorite. So, when I discovered that a new one was published this year [2026], I requested it from the library. It did not disappoint even as the solution was rather easy to deduce when you separate the red herrings from the actual clues subtle though they were. The setting being an island off the coast of Cornwall circa 1910 added to the locked-ness. Suspense and humor done competently. This is his first adult novel but has written many children's books. Rated B [4 stars]