Category Archives: 09. Friday Reads

Friday Reads: 07.04.2025

Last weeks reads:

I finished The Naming by Alison Croggan and started reading Real Cool Killers. I’m not sure at this point if I’m going to manage to reread A Month in the Country. I also finished Casting Off, and am holding off for a week or so before starting the final book of the quintet, All Change.

Plans for the week:

  • Start Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset. This is my 4th scheduled Big Read of the year, and is actually an omnibus of 3 books by the Nobel Prize winning Norwegian author. I’m going to be reading all 3 of them: The Wreath, The Wife and The Cross. This is the only time I will put it on my Friday Reads schedule, but I’m giving myself the months of July & August to finish it. I haven’t organized tabs for a rough reading schedule yet, but I’ll be doing that today.
  • Endless Night by Agatha Christie. This is my monthly Agatha reread. I recall loving this one the first time I read it – it’s a very unique book.
  • The Wall by Mary Roberts Rinehart sounds like a fun, gothic-y, seaside murder mystery that should be a great summer read.

I’m also still reading The Last Chronicle of Barset, and am hoping to finish this week so I can put my next Trollope – He Knew He Was Right – on the schedule for next week. I can only read one Victorian doorstopper at a go.

Friday Reads: 6.27.2025

Well, I did finished Black Lamb & Grey Falcon, as I had hoped that I would. I also finished two of the three books in my Friday Reads list from last week – The Killer Inside and The Lady in the Lake. I got sidetracked from Casting Off by Greengage Summer by Rumer Godden because I’ve been looking for a summertime vibe recently, so I just started it yesterday.

So, next up, we have:

  • The Naming is a reread for me – I was looking for a fantasy audiobook, & remembered that I had the first two of this series, so I decided to revisit. I also happen to have the entire series on kindle, so I’ll probably pick up books 3 & 4 in audio format when I get to them, and I can tandem read/listen.
  • A Month in the Country is a very slender book. It’s also a reread, and is a continuation in my quest for books that vibe summer for me.
  • The Real Cool Killers by Chester Himes is on my 20 Books of Summer list, and it from my American Noir omnibus.

Friday Reads: 6.20.25

Something has really reignited my interest in blogging recently. Maybe it’s that I’m finding the internet so much more boring than I used to – enshittification is real.

Anyway, my 20 Books of Summer plan continues. I haven’t posted a review of The High Window (Marlowe #3) yet, but that’s coming. I’m also currently reading The Greengage Summer by Rumer Godden, because I’m also on a quest for books that have a summer vibe to them. That is another planned post, but probably not until July.

I’m also expecting to finally finish Black Lamb and Grey Falcon next week. I’m down to about 150 pages left, which in an 1180 page book is a mere 14% of the book, although it’s long enough to be a novella in its own right. I’m in the final section – Montenegro – and then I have the 75 page Epilogue left. That book has been a marathon not a sprint and I cannot wait to remove it from the sidebar.

So, for next week, I’m planning to read:

  1. Casting Off by Elizabeth Jane Howard: this is the 4th book in the Cazalet Chronicles, which will just leave me with All Change to finish the series. I’m excited to see what’s next for Polly, Clary and Louise.
  2. The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson: this is one of the books in the LOA American Noir of the 1950’s collection and is on my Summer of Noir list. There is also a 2010 adaptation that I may or may not watch.
  3. The Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler: book 4 of the Philip Marlowe series.

Friday Reads 2.2.24

On my agenda for this week/weekend:

I’m finishing up God Save the Queen before I start any of these books, and I’m still slowly reading Beloved and Our Mutual Friend. I’ve made solid progress on both.

  • Centennial by James Michener: this is the book that I’ve pulled off of my set aside shelf. I am currently at 22% and hope to either finish or be about 3/4 finished by my next Friday Reads post.
  • The Last Smile in Sunder City by Luke Arnold: this is a piece of urban fantasy that I stumbled on while I was making my digital TBR. It’s not a book I owned, but it came up during the process and I thought it looked fun. I’ve been enjoying the UF that I’ve been reading, so I put it on hold at my library and here we are.
  • Navajo Autumn by R. Allen Chappell: this is a self-published series that my dad bought for our kindle library before his death. He must have liked them, because he bought – and presumably read – all 8 of them. It’s a short mystery, under 200 pages. If I like it, I have the rest of the series to read. If I don’t like it, I’m taking the entire series off the TBR.

I finished all of the books that were on my Friday Reads post for last week!

Friday Reads: 1.26.2024

This week’s Friday reads includes 2 library books & a random pick:

  • Death at the Deep End by Patricia Wentworth: I decided to use the TBR number generator to pick me a book, and this is what turned up as book #995. So far, I’ve been having good luck with this – my last number generator pick was the book I am reading right now, Spelunking through Hell by Seanan McGuire. This one is book 20 in the Miss Silver series. I’m not sure what number I am at on this series, but it’s also not a series that needs to be read in order, so it doesn’t really matter. I acquired this book on February 1, 2019.
  • Live Bait by P.J. Tracy: This is book 2 in the Monkeewrench series. A friend mentioned that she really liked this series in a conversation on another space, which reminded me that I wanted to continue on with the series after reading the first book.
  • The St. Ambrose School for Girls by Jessica Ward: This is at least the second time I’ve checked out this book. At this point, I’m either going to read it or take it off the list. Hopefully it will be more successful than my last “dark academia” library borrow, This is How We End Things, which I thought was pretty lame.

As you can see from my sidebar, I’m currently reading Between the Woods and Water by Patrick Leigh Fermor and Spelunking through Hell by Seanan McGuire. I expect to finish Spelunking through Hell in the next couple hours, and will probably finish Between the Woods and Water over the weekend. I’m also continuing with my chapter a day approach to Our Mutual Friend, which may be the perfect way for me to read Dickens – I’m at 32%.

Friday Reads: 1.12.2024

My plans for next week:

A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor: this is part of my #readmyhoard challenge for 2024. It is a reread, but I bought a copy of the NYRB edition for my bookshelves after reading a library borrow. I also bought the next 2 books in Fermor’s narrative, which I also plan to read this year. I didn’t want to pick up the continuation without revisiting this one.

Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope: Also a reread. I read the entire Chronicles of Barsetshire about 5 years ago and thoroughly enjoyed them. So much that I decided to revisit them in 2024, and, hopefully, move onto the Palliser novels after I finish up Barsetshire.

Saint Peter’s Fair by Ellis Peters: A theme has developed for next week – I am planning rereads. Several years ago, I bought all but the first 3 Brother Cadfael mysteries when they went on super sale for my kindle. I’ve read a number of them, but I’m not quite sure where I let off. I really loved the series and want to finish it, so, again, I’m embarking on a reread of the books on my account.

All of these books qualify as comfort reads for me. I’m looking down the barrel of ice, snow, and extremely cold weather. My husband & I just made sure that our water pipes are insulated, we’ve unhooked the outside water to avoid frozen pipes, and he’s testing our generator right now. We have plans to hunker down to ride out the winter storm. Hopefully we can avoid a power outage, but if needs must, we are prepared.

Friday Reading Round-Up: 04.01.2022

Last week’s books:

I finished a bunch of books last week. I finally finished The Corner That Held Them by Sylvia Townsend Warner, although I need to take some time to write up a post about it. I also read all three of my #FridayReads books from last week: Close Her Eyes by Dorothy Simpson, Desolation Canyon by P.J. Tracey & Tempest Tost by Robertson Davies. On top of those four books, I read The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard and I finished A Very Great Profession by Nicola Beauman. A very good reading week, indeed!

This week’s plans:

I’m at a loose end right now, and ready to start something new!

 

Because of the Lockwoods by Dorothy Whipple: I read The Priory earlier this year and really loved it. One of the bloggers I follow read & reviewed Because of the Lockwoods a few weeks ago, which inspired me to check it out of the library.

Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie: This is not my favorite Christie mystery because I feel like the puzzle itself is lacking. However, I really like the characters in this one, including the narrator, Amy Leatheran, who is different from Christie’s usual young women, and I love the setting, so I always enjoy reading it.

Silver on the Tree by Susan Cooper: This will finish out The Dark Is Rising Sequence for me. It’s coming off of my TBR cart, so that’s another book to cross off the Mt. TBR Challenge list!

Library Loot

Print Books:

I returned a bunch of books this week that I didn’t get to – it was time to clear the decks a bit.

  1. Browsings by Michael Dirda: I have actually started this one, & I’m reading a few essays at a time.
  2. A Swim in the Pond in the Rain by George Saunders: this is a bit of a project read, but I definitely want to get to it.
  3. Turtle Diary by Russell Hoban: NYRB title. I’m running out of time, so this may end up being catch & release.
  4. Dangerous to Know by Tasha Alexander: I want to get back to this series, but fitting this book into my reading schedule isn’t going to be easy.
  5. Because of the Lockwoods by Dorothy Whipple: I checked this out because I read a review it from a fellow blogger & I loved The Priory.
  6. Pilgrim’s Inn by Elizabeth Goudge: This was a total whim checkout. I’ve never read Elizabeth Goudge.
  7. Read Dangerously: the subversive power of literature in troubled times by Azar Nafisi: checked out, will read.
  8. The Little Sister by Raymond Chandler: I’m not sure I will actually get to this one, but I haven’t ruled it out.

E-Books

  1. Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron: I heard about this on a podcast & it sounds really fun.
  2. The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard: I’ve been hearing about Catherine Ryan Howard for months and I’ve never read anything. This is supposed to be a good thriller. I’ve finished this one, but haven’t returned it because my mom might want to read it.
  3. Desolation Canyon by P.J. Tracy: I honestly can’t remember where I heard about this, but I know someone read & liked it. I also finished this one, but I’m holding onto it in case Caitlyn/mom want to give it a go.
  4. Pavilion in the Clouds by Alexander McCall Smith
  5. A Taste for Death by P.D. James: next up in my Dalgleish reread
  6. Hiding in Plain Sight: the invention of Donald Trump and the erosion of America by Sarah Kendzior: I follow Kendzior on Twitter and she has a new book coming out. That one wasn’t available yet, but this one is.
  7. Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid: I’ve only read Daisy Jones and the Six by Reid, but I really liked it. This one sounds like a page turner.
  8. The Dark Winter by David Mark: This one came up when I was looking for Winter Dark, which a friend mentioned yesterday and I thought it looked good. Checked out on a whim.
  9. The Liar’s Girl by Catherine Ryan Howard: After I consumed The Nothing Man, I decided to dig into Howard’s backlist. This is the first hold that has been delivered.

Book Haul:

I had tiny haul this week!

  1. Winter Dark by Alex Callister: my friend Mike Finn mentioned how much he enjoyed this, and it was only $2.99 for my kindle.
  2. The African Trilogy by Chinua Achebe: I bought this omnibus edition last weekend at my favorite bookstore/coffee shop. Achebe is a DWS author-in-residence for October-December, so I am planning ahead a bit here.
  3. Family Furnishings by Alice Munro: bought at a UBS.
  4. Vanish in an Instant by Margaret Millar: I forgot to mention this one last week, but I grabbed it for the Appointment with Agatha April side read.

Friday Round-Up

I decided to expand my usual #FridayReads post a bit, into a full Friday Books post that dives into my reading plans for the weekend, my library situation, bookish haul, and any other reading organization that I am compelled to share.

Exiled in Paris by James Campbell: This is the last, slightly laggy, book in my James Baldwin author-in-residence project. I started it and was going along pretty well, and then I started feeling sort of slumpish so it’s just been sitting on my nightstand, looking at me accusingly, for over a week. I’m either going to finish it or DNF it this weekend.

Jacob’s Room is Full of Books by Susan Hill: Interestingly, it was Murder by Death’s mediocre review of Hill’s first bookish memoir, Howard’s End is on the Landing, that gave me the impulse to pick this one up. I liked HEiotL much more than she did (although I completely agree with her criticisms). In addition, when I am feeling slumpish, one of my go to solutions is books about books.

The Juniper Tree by Barbara Comyns: I am recently obsessed with the NYRB imprint. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that they have published and haven’t felt it was worth my while. I previously read Our Spoons Came From Woolworths by Barbara Comyns and thought it was grimly interesting. The Juniper Tree is a retelling of among the darkest and most shocking of the Grimm’s Fairy Tales, The Juniper Tree, which is famous for the lines:

My mother, she killed me,
My father, he ate me,
My sister Marlene,
Gathered all my bones,
Tied them in a silken scarf,
Laid them beneath the juniper tree,
Tweet, tweet, what a beautiful bird am I.

This retelling is moving in a very dark direction. I’m strongly hoping that Comyns leaves out the cannibalism.

Library Loot:

I just realized that I have 27 books checked out from the library right now. It’s time to cull.

Print books:

  1. Red Knife by William Kent Krueger: this is due 3/8 and I’m not going to get to it by then. I am going to renew it once, and if I don’t get to it by the end of the renewal, I’ll return it.
  2. First things First by Stephen Covey: I checked this out because the organizational premise sounded interesting, but I’m not even remotely interested in it at this point. Return.
  3. The Sentence by Louise Erdrich: I have been really excited to read this, and it is next up, once I finish my current reads.
  4. Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann: checked out for 1966 in my Century of Women project, but I read a different book already. Return.
  5. Thunder Bay by William Kent Krueger: this is the next book in the series; I’m going to hold onto it and may read it if I want a standard contemporary mystery in the next 3 weeks or so.
  6. Endangered Species by Nevada Barr: This is a catch and release special; I will read it eventually, but not right now. Return.
  7. In a Lonely Place by Dorothy Hughes: One of the 5 NYRB titles I have checked out. I just bought an ebook omnibus with this in it, though, so I’ll likely return it.
  8. Turtle Diary by Russell Hoban: another NYRB title; keep & read.
  9. Stoner by John Williams: third NYRB title; this book was everywhere last year. Keep & read.
  10. Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe by Heather Webber: a little magical realism for a palate cleanser; keep & read.
  11. The Fortunes of War by Olivia Manning: fourth NYRB title; I have read the first book in this trilogy. I’d like to get to the second & third, but I also think that I will probably end up buying this book, so I am fine returning it if I don’t quite get there.
  12. The Corner That Held Them by Sylvia Townsend Warner: fifth NYRB title; keep & read.
  13. The Juniper Tree by Barbara Comyns: currently reading; will be ready to return soon.
  14. Classics for Pleasure by Michael Dirda: this is part of my current obsession with books about books; I may or may not get to it.
  15. Browsings by Michael Dirda: I have actually started this one, & I’m reading a few essays at a time.
  16. A Swim in the Pond in the Rain by George Saunders: this is a bit of a project read, but I definitely want to get to it.

Ebooks:

  1. Notes on a Native Son by James Baldwin: finished & ready to return;
  2. The Skull Beneath the Skin by P.D. James: I’m not going to get to this; return.
  3. Pony by R.J. Palacio: I’m also not going to get to this; return
  4. The Woman They Could Not Silence by Kate Moore: I have 9 days left on this borrow; keep & read
  5. The Day the World Came to Town by Jim DeFede: I have 11 days left on this borrow; keep & read
  6. Ex Libris by Michiko Kakutani: I am not going to get this book; return;
  7. How Reading Changed my Life by Anna Quindlen: I may get to this book; keep;
  8. Book Girl by Sarah Clarkson: I am not going to get to this book; return
  9. Liturgy of the Ordinary by Tish Harrison Warren: I am actually reading this book right now; keep & finish
  10. The Defector by Daniel Silva: this is book 9 in the Gabriel Allon series; keep & read;
  11. Hell’s Half Acre by Susan Jonusas; the subtitle of this book is “the untold story of the Benders, a serial killer family on the American frontier; hell yes; keep & read.

OK, that’s the library situation. Now: book haul for the week. I bought three books this week.

Title: Black Lamb and Grey Falcon

Author: Rebecca West

Published in 1941

Plot summary (Goodreads): Written on the brink of World War II, Rebecca West’s classic examination of the history, people, and politics of Yugoslavia illuminates a region that is still a focus of international concern. A magnificent blend of travel journal, cultural commentary, and historical insight, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon probes the troubled history of the Balkans, and the uneasy relationships amongst its ethnic groups. The landscape and the people of Yugoslavia are brilliantly observed as West untangles the tensions that rule the country’s history as well as its daily life.

This is a doorstopper of a book, and once it arrives, I’ll take a picture. It is 1181 pages. I am not sure exactly how I am going to approach it – probably with caution. It has great reviews on GR, but it is just a monumental undertaking. I’m not sure if I am going to plan to read 50 pages a week and set a pace of 20 weeks or so, or if there is a more natural way to break it up. I won’t really be able to tell until it arrives.

I bought the Penguin Classics Edition.

Title: Library of America Women Crime Writers of the 1940’s

Editor: Sarah Weinman

Pages: 848

This is an anthology that is currently on sale as an ebook (for U.S. readers) for a mere $2.99. I attribute my good fortune in realizing this to my friend Mike Finn, who linked to it in the Appointment with Agatha Goodreads group. Yay, Mike.

Further information from GR:

Women writers have always had a central place in American crime writing, although one wouldn’t know it for all the attention focused on the men of the hardboiled school. This collection, the first of a two-volume omnibus, presents four classics of the 1940s overdue for fresh attention. Anticipating the “domestic suspense” novels of recent years, these four gripping tales explore the terrors of the mind and of family life, of split personality and conflicted sexual identity.

Vera Caspary’s Laura (1943) begins with the investigation into a young woman’s murder and blossoms into a complex study, told from multiple viewpoints, of the pressures confronted by a career woman seeking to lead an independent life. Source of the celebrated film by Otto Preminger, Caspary’s novel has depths and surprises of its own. As much a novel of manners as of mystery, it remains a superb evocation of a vanished Manhattan.

Helen Eustis’s The Horizontal Man (1946) won an Edgar Award for best first novel and continues to fascinate as a singular mixture of detection, satire, and psychological portraiture. A poet on the faculty of an Ivy League school (modeled on Eustis’s alma mater, Smith College) is found murdered, setting off ripple effects of anxiety, suspicion, and panic in the hothouse atmosphere of an English department rife with talk of Freud and Kafka.

With In a Lonely Place (1947), Dorothy B. Hughes created one of the first full-scale literary portraits of a serial murderer. The streets of Los Angeles become a setting for random killings, and Hughes ventures, with unblinking exactness, into the mind of the killer. In the process she conjures up a potent mood of postwar dread and lingering trauma.

Raymond Chandler called Elisabeth Sanxay Holding “the top suspense writer of them all.” In The Blank Wall (1947) she constructs a ferociously taut drama around the plight of a wartime housewife forced beyond the limits of her sheltered domestic world in order to protect her family. The barely perceptible constraints of an ordinary suburban life become a course of obstacles that she must dodge with the determination of a spy or criminal.

Psychologically subtle, socially observant, and breathlessly suspenseful, these four spellbinding novels recapture a crucial strain of American crime writing.

Title: Mutual Admiration Society

Author: Mo Moulton

Published: November 5, 2019

This book has been on my radar for months. I actually checked it out, but it has to go back to the library unread, & I decided to just buy it since I think it’s the sort of book that will hold up to rereads. Not sure when I will start it. I’ll also mention that the Mutual Admiration Society (and Sayers) came up in Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain, which made me all that much more interested in this group biography!

GR summary: A group biography of renowned crime novelist Dorothy L. Sayers and the Oxford women who stood at the vanguard of equal rights.

Dorothy L. Sayers is now famous for her Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane detective series, but she was equally well known during her life for an essay asking “Are Women Human?” Women’s rights were expanding rapidly during Sayers’s lifetime; she and her friends were some of the first women to receive degrees from Oxford. Yet, as historian Mo Moulton reveals, it was clear from the many professional and personal obstacles they faced that society was not ready to concede that women were indeed fully human.

Dubbing themselves the Mutual Admiration Society, Sayers and her classmates remained lifelong friends and collaborators as they fought for a truly democratic culture that acknowledged their equal humanity.

So, that’s it! What are you reading?