Just started. Interestingly, this story was written to be a Bond movie but was never realized. Released years later for the first time.

Dead Beat by Jim Butcher: Dresden Files number 8. I liked this book a lot more than the previous one, Blood Rites. In this book, Dresden is fighting necromancers, who get their power from anti-life. In contrast, Dresden keeps getting help from friends and allies, many of whom he didn't even know existed. One man says, "After that night, not one baby died. You did something. Because of that, I'll tell you what happened."

Finished Duma Key


It was well written (Stephen King is a master at writing fully realized characters!) but I’ve noticed a couple of King’s newer, longer novels tend to get lost in the weeds a bit at about the halfway point and takes longer than it should to get back to business. I felt 11/22/63 had the same problem.

Read:



Hitchcock's film adaptation of The 39 Steps was in the spirit of Buchan's novel -- missing fingers from one character applied as a prominent feature of the head villain and memorizing secrets out of the country personified as Memory in Hitch's film ("Am I right, sir?") are examples. The novel was more extensive on being on the run and paranoia of being watched and whom to trust. Influential work for spy stories to come.

With other characters on the run I see why The Power-House was not as adaptable to film since the protagnist remains behind to deal with the intrigue. The part in the parlor and the narrator using his wits to escape was a fun read.

Why you ... the lost in the weeds parts of 11/22/63 are some of King's best work. I love it when you can just read about people's lives as he writes them.

I get WHY he does it. King does a great job with letting a character unfold naturally. So in that regard I can appreciate where the story goes. On the other hand, it feels like his books stall out with minute details of the character’s lives, plays it out in a more dragged out fashion than needed, and then slingshots the story for the last 1/3 of the book to the finish line.

It doesn't work for all, of course. I think that's some of his best writing, and for me, it heightens the impact of the 'plot' points, since the characters have become so real to me.

Just finished The Lost City of Z


It was good but I think I liked Grann’s more recent The Wager quite a bit more. There are a couple other Grann books I have on my reading list as well.

I'm currently reading The Running Grave by the very controversial Robert Galbraith aka J.K. Rowling. I'm about a third of the way through and it might be her best book so far. I see why Stephen King loved it. I feel guilty supporting her work, but the Strike books are fantastic. I love the series. Robin and Strike are incredibly well-written characters.

I loved Joyland. It's one of my favorite King novels. I prefer his not so scary works like Joyland, 11.22.63, and Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption.

Finished a couple of excellent recent horror novels:

Boys in the Valley by Philip Fracasi. A simple but good premise: recalling the Gospel story of Jesus exorcising a man to have the released demons go into animals (driving them insane) ... what if something similar happened, but instead of pigs it's a group of boys at an isolated orphanage? It's a lean, mean story that doesn't skimp on character development (over the underage violence).


The Reformatory by Tananarive Due. I loved her older books (like The Living Blood and The Good House) but I've lost track of her career since she seemed to stop releasing horror novels for over a decade. This is a great "return" and you can feel how she's personally invested in telling this story.

The Tananarive is on my to read list for sure!

OK, done with War and Peace. Phenomenal, although the epilogue was a bit of a chore. Don't know what to do with myself now!

I started re-reading this book a couple of days after I finished it. After learning the Big Reveal, I wanted to see how it reads with that knowledge. It is better the second time.

I read The Count of Monte Cristo the same year, and I re-discovered the Hornblower books. So I was immersed in Napoleonics for about a year.

I just watched the Ridley Scott movie, and could stand to read a straight history book, but more inclined I think for either more Russian literature - maybe Dostoyevsky, or something sprawling that Tolstoy liked - Les Misérables perhaps, or maybe Thackeray.

I've also never really read mysteries and need more women authors, so perhaps a Christie?

In the meantime I'm halfway through a short story collection: The Madness of Cthulhu Volume Two.

Reading is pretty great.

I'm over half-way through. Congrats on finishing!

It was my side-hustle for the last month ...

Don't read Agatha Christie without doing the research first. Her bad books are truly awful. All her books are logic puzzles, but in the bad books she leaves out things like character development or plot.

If you want a woman author from the golden age of British mysteries, read Dorothy Sayers or Josephine Tey.

If you want to try American mysteries, you have to start with Farewell my Lovely by Raymond Chandler and The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. Those two authors have influenced everything written since then. I also enjoy the Nero Wolfe books by Rex Stout, which are very much character-driven. I like to listen to Nero Wolfe audio books during road trips, because if I get distracted by traffic and I miss a detail, it doesn't matter because the dialog is so entertaining.

Thanks for the heads-up RE Christie!

My kid has been pushing Sherlock Holmes on me, so if I do mysteries, I might start there. Sayers and Tey sound good, though, too!

Just finished another book that’s been on my “To-Read” list for years: The Haunting of Hill House.


Overall, I think I hyped myself up too much for this as “The scariest book ever!” It was good but I didn’t find it scary or unnerving in the least. It was also far too short. Feels like more of a short story by Jackson than a fully fleshed out novel. I also had the misfortune of constantly thinking of the truly horrible movie remake with Liam Neeson as I read this.

Finished:

Earthlings by Sayaka Murata. That was ... something. I knew this was "out there" and extreme. I don't know if it was the author's style or the fact that this is a translation, but the writing and dialog was awkward. Which was a positive since it blunted descriptions of events that otherwise would've been nauseating. I like that it didn't overstay its welcome at 200 pages.

Also finished:

Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Canas. Well written but I was a bit disappointed. The promised story of vampires vs Mexican cowboys against the backdrop of Mexico/United States conflicts in Texas in the 1840s sounded great. Unfortunately it turned out that was the B story to an awkward young adult "star crossed lovers" romance that wasn't really my thing.

The author's first book, The Hacienda, sounds good but I fear it's going to be a similar thing (the mystery/horror elements taking a backseat to romance). Although skimming reader reviews makes it sound like that isn't the case, so maybe I would enjoy it more. Has anyone here read it?

Finished

Finished


Incredible, finished it in a day

I just started reading Shōgun by James Clavell. This will mark the longest book I’ve ever reading bypassing The Stand by a couple hundred pages. I’m a little intimidated by its length and I’m worried I may lose interest if the story starts to stall halfway through. We’ll see. I’ll give it a go anyway.