It’s been close to 6 months since I checked in here. I just haven’t had the energy to blog, at least in part because I completely lost interest in adding books to my book library. It doesn’t take a lot of time, but I just don’t feel like I get as much out of it as I hoped when I set the blog up to enable me to maintain my own reading library. I have found that I’m honestly not that interested in keeping bookish statistics at this point. The prospect of spending three or four minutes to add each book to my library is a deterrence to actually getting a post up.
So, I’ve decided to try something different and see if it works better for me. I’m going to quit entering books in the book library, and do the occasional reading journal where I post what I’ve finished reading since the last post (unless time gets away from me, as it tends to do, in which case, I’ll just start anew). The inspiration for this comes from Jo Walton’s monthly book posts on Tor.com which are lovely and chatty. She’s a delightfully eclectic reader and her thoughts are a joy to read. I’ve read two years worth in the last few days. (If you are interested, you can find the posts collected here.)
What I recently finished:
Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie: Reread. I am an Agatha superfan, and finished a full chronological reread of all 66 mystery novels with Sleeping Murder in March. I decided to do the round again, one a month, so I read Mysterious Affair at Styles in April, and just finished Murder on the Links. I know that technically Partners in Crime comes between Styles and Links, but I had a reason for the switcheroo that isn’t relevant here.
Anyway, Links is not my favorite Christie. It’s, in fact, not even in my top 10 of her Poirot mysteries. In my opinion, Hastings has never been more annoying or fatuous than he is in this one. I am always happy to send him off to Argentina in the company of his wife, a young woman who was probably already heartily sick of him within weeks of actually tying the knot.
Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy: I’ve just started a book club with some friends, and we selected this one late and kind of on the fly because a few us already owned it. I bought it when it was recently on sale for $1.99. The bottom line here is that I have decidedly mixed emotions. I thought that the writing here was very good, and I really liked all three of the kids. I am much more ambivalent about all of the grown-ups involved here.
Who the hell sends a widower with three young children to a remote Antarctic island that is literally sinking into the sea and then leaves them there? Someone call CPS, please, because that’s the worst idea ever. And, as it turns out, it was, indeed, the worst idea ever.
A World of Curiosities by Louise Penny: I may be done with Chief Inspector Gamache and Louise Penny. I have loved this series for so long, but the last few books have not justified the hopes I have in them. This one is so complicated that I could hardly follow the threads of the plot. In addition, the plot relies entirely on the villain being able to mastermind and foresee every aspect of human behavior in a way that I just could not find believable. Yes, some people are extremely psychologically astute. However, human behavior is not so easily predicted as all that, and a plot that requires seven or eight (or even more) people taking highly specific actions and precisely calculated moments is just not going to work. I cannot suspend my disbelief that much.
This is the 18th book in the series. I already own books 19 & 20. This one annoyed me enough that it’s going to take me a bit of time to dive back in.
Somewhere in the House by Elizabeth Daly: This is a series of mysteries by an American author that my library, fortuitously, has available for digital checkout. I really don’t remember where I even found about the series – somewhere in my vintage mystery travels. The first of the Henry Gamadge mysteries was published in 1940; this one, the 10th, was published in 1946. The cover of this one, with the buttons, actually does relate to the plot, as hard as that may be to believe.
I like this series a lot and find myself returning to it at fairly random intervals. I’ll read one, not really think about it for awhile, remember that I like them and read a couple more in succession. Like most “Golden Age” era mysteries, they don’t really need to be read in order, although the character of Henry Gamadge does meet and marry his wife, and have his first child, through these first 10 books. Beyond that, though, there’s not a ton of character development and the mysteries stand entirely on their own, with just the occasional glancing reference to prior mysteries, like you see in Christie or other GA authors.
What I am currently reading:
- American Prometheus: the Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird;
- Murder in Married Life by Anne Morice;
- Hercule Poirot: The Complete Short Stories by Agatha Christie
Unexpected Night
The Dark Is Rising
The Wee Free Men
Nothing Can Rescue Me