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I had been waiting for several new books by favorite authors. They came and I enjoyed them all. I did have expectations and they were met, thank goodness. In general, I liked the characters and the settings of the stories and I felt the need to find out how the main heroes were doing as I used to do with the Tony Hillerman stories and the Cadfael stories.
I have read:
The Beautiful Mystery (Armand Gamache Series #8) by Louise Penny
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/...
No outsiders are ever admitted to the monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups, hidden deep in the wilderness of Quebec, where two dozen cloistered monks live in peace and prayer. They grow vegetables, they tend chickens, they make chocolate. And they sing. Ironically, for a community that has taken a vow of silence, the monks have become world-famous for their glorious voices, raised in ancient chants whose effect on both singer and listener is so profound it is known as “the beautiful mystery.”
But when the renowned choir director is murdered, the lock on the monastery’s massive wooden door is drawn back to admit Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir of the Sûreté du Québec…
Once more the personality of the Chief Inspector is of vital importance to my interest in the story. I did not know who did it until the end and it is a closed door type of story. There were several suspects and fair clues. The mystery is solved, but the ending makes me sigh about waiting for the next book. There is a definite story arc to this series which makes it important to read the books in order. As I have said before, I found the first book slow, but friends insisted that I keep reading and I am glad I did.
Still Life
A Fatal Grace
The Cruelest Month
A Rule Against Murder
The Brutal Telling
Bury Your Dead
A Trick of the Light
The Beautiful Mystery
A Sunless Sea (William Monk Series #18) by Anne Perry
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/...
…The victim’s name is Zenia Gadney. Her waterfront neighbors can tell him little—only that the same unknown gentleman had visited her once a month for many years. She must be a prostitute, but—described as quiet and kempt—she doesn’t appear to be a fallen woman.
What sinister secrets could have made poor Zenia worth killing? And why does the government keep interfering in Monk’s investigation?
While the public cries out for blood, Monk, his spirited wife, Hester, and their brilliant barrister friend, Oliver Rathbone, search for answers. From dank waterfront alleys to London’s fabulously wealthy West End, the three trail an ice-blooded murderer toward the unbelievable, possibly unprovable truth—and ultimately engage their adversaries in an electric courtroom duel. But unless they can work a miracle, a monumental evil will go unpunished and an innocent person will hang.
This story has a very important point about a serious problem of the times. As usual, I got drawn into Oliver’s problems who battles for the defendant while Monk and Hester try to find the truth. It is a gripping tale. One reason that this series is better read in order is that Monk’s history is a part of it all. He had amnesia after an accident and throughout the books he learns more about what kind of a man he was.
Face of a Stranger
A Dangerous Mourning
Defend and Betray
A Sudden, Fearful Death
The Sins of the Wolf
Cain His Brother
Weighed in the Balance
The Silent Cry
Breach of Promise
Twisted Root
Slaves of Obsession
Funeral in Blue
Death of a Stranger
Shifting Tide
Dark Assassin
Execution Dock
Acceptable Loss
A Sunless Sea
The Crowded Grave (Bruno #4) by Martin Walker
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/...
It’s spring in the idyllic village of St. Denis, and for Chief of Police Bruno Courrèges that means lamb stews, bottles of his beloved Pomerol, morning walks with his hound, Gigi—and a new string of regional crimes and international capers. When a local archaeological team looking for Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal remains turns up a corpse with a watch on its wrist and a bullet in its head, it’s up to Bruno to solve the case. But the task will not be easy, not with a meddlesome new magistrate eager to make a strong impression, an ongoing series of attacks by animal rights activists on local foie gras producers, and a nearby summit between France and Spain approaching—not to mention two beautiful, brilliant women vying for Bruno’s affections.
Complicating events even further, the professor in charge of the dig is soon reported missing, leading Bruno to suspect that the past and the present are bound up in dangerous ways. As summer approaches, the wine growing cooler and the fruit sweeter, Bruno's investigations take him indelibly deeper into contemporary Europe’s dark history of terrorist and counterterrorist tactics—and toward a dramatic finale.
As always, in these stories, the history of France is mentioned (the time of the Resistance especially). The books are not as exciting as some, but it is the setting and the characters that make me want to visit. The books do not have to be read in order, but it helps to understand Bruno’s relationship to Isabelle.
Bruno is his own man despite being hired by the mayor. He knows everyone and teaches many of the village children how to play tennis and rugby. He was in the Army previously and has that experience as an asset though he rarely carries a gun. Except for one big thing that hurt my heart, this was the best one, yet.
Bruno, Chief of Police
The Dark Vineyard
Black Diamond
The Crowded Grave
A Wanted Man (Jack Reacher Series #17) by Lee Child
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/...
All Reacher wanted was a ride to Virginia. All he did was stick out his thumb. But he soon discovers he has hitched more than a ride. He has tied himself to a massive conspiracy that makes him a threat—to both sides at once.
OK…so I spotted a plot device. That is not a bad thing. It gave me some needed foreshadowing and I was able to pat myself on the back. Good writers do use plot devices. I like Jack Reacher because he will go into impossible situations to save people.
There are so many books in the series, I don’t know if they could be read in order, though I did it that way. This book, as the last one did, seems to go back before some of the others. I think it can easily be read as a stand alone.
Killing Floor
Die Trying
Tripwire
Running Blind
Echo Burning
Without Fail
Persuader
The Enemy
One Shot
The Hard Way
Bad Luck and Trouble
Nothing to Lose
Gone Tomorrow
61 Hours
Worth Dying For
The Affair
A Wanted Man
I am still reading two other fairly new books and the jury is out at the moment on them.
The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/...
The possibilities are endless. (Just be careful what you wish for. . . .)
1916: The Western Front. Private Percy Blakeney wakes up. He is lying on fresh spring grass. He can hear birdsong and the wind in the leaves. Where have the mud, blood, and blasted landscape of no-man's-land gone? For that matter, where has Percy gone?
2015: Madison, Wisconsin. Police officer Monica Jansson is exploring the burned-out home of a reclusive—some say mad, others allege dangerous—scientist who seems to have vanished. Sifting through the wreckage, Jansson find a curious gadget: a box containing some rudimentary wiring, a three-way switch, and . . . a potato. It is the prototype of an invention that will change the way humankind views the world forever.
I have been told that the story starts slow and gets better. It is not a bad story…not at all. I just have not worked up a lot of concern for the characters. I am pleasantly drifting along in a huge balloon from world to world. I am a bit bored, I admit.
Cain at Gettysburg by Ralph Peters
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/...
Two mighty armies blunder toward each other, one led by confident, beloved Robert E. Lee and the other by dour George Meade. They’ll meet in a Pennsylvania crossroads town where no one planned to fight.
In this sweeping, savagely realistic novel, the greatest battle ever fought on American soil explodes into life at Gettysburg. As generals squabble, staffs err. Tragedy unfolds for immigrants in blue and barefoot Rebels alike. The fate of our nation will be decided in a few square miles of fields.
Following a tough Confederate sergeant from the Blue Ridge, a bitter Irish survivor of the Great Famine, a German political refugee, and gun crews in blue and gray, Cain at Gettysburg is as grand in scale as its depictions of combat are unflinching…
I guess if I was hoping for another Killer Angels, it is not that, yet. Early days, though.
I have ordered:
The Tainted City by Courtney Schafer, a fantasy and sequel to The Whitefire Crossing.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/...
Dev is a desperate man. After narrowly surviving a smuggling job gone wrong, he’s now a prisoner of the Alathian Council, held hostage to ensure his friend Kiran — former apprentice to one of the most ruthless mages alive — does their bidding.
But Kiran isn’t Dev’s only concern. Back in his home city of Ninavel, the child he once swore to protect faces a terrible fate if he can’t reach her in time, and the days are fast slipping away. So when the Council offers Dev freedom in exchange for his and Kiran’s assistance in a clandestine mission to Ninavel, he can’t refuse, no matter how much he distrusts their motives.
Wonders of the Invisible World by Patricia A. McKillip (short stories)
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/...
Stylistically rooted in fairy tale and mythology, imperceptible landscapes are explored in these opulent stories from a beloved fantasy icon. There are princesses dancing with dead suitors, a knight in love with an official of exotic lineage, and fortune’s fool stealing into the present instead of the future. In one mesmerizing tale, a time-traveling angel is forbidden to intervene in Cotton Mather’s religious ravings, while another narrative finds a wizard seduced in his youth by the Faerie Queen and returning the treasure that is rightfully hers. Bewitching, bittersweet, and deeply intoxicating, this collection draws elements from the fables of history and re-creates them in startlingly magical ways.
Cast in Peril (Chronicles of Elantra Series #8) by Michelle Sagara
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/...
It has been a busy few weeks for Private Kaylin Neya. In between angling for a promotion, sharing her room with the last living female Dragon and dealing with more refugees than anyone knew what to do with, the unusual egg she'd been given began to hatch. Actually, that turned out to be lucky, because it absorbed the energy from the bomb that went off in her quarters.
So now might be the perfect time to leave Elantra and journey to the West March with the Barrani. If not for the disappearances of citizens in the fief of Tiamaris—disappearances traced to the very Barrani Kaylin is about to be traveling with…
Chronicles of Elantra series
Cast in Shadow
Cast in Courtlight
Cast in Secret
Cast in Fury
Cast in Silence
Cast in Chaos
Cast in Ruin
Cast in Peril
I really like this series, but the last story was a bit of a yawn. I am willing to try this one in hopes that things get going again because I do like the characters.
The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Series #13) by Alexander McCall Smith
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/...
Precious Ramotswe is haunted by a repeated dream: a vision of a tall, strange man who waits for her beneath an acacia tree. Odd as this is, she’s far too busy to worry about it. The best apprentice at Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors is in trouble with the law and stuck with the worst lawyer in Gaborone. Grace Makutsi and Phuti Radiphuti are building the house of their dreams, but their builder is not completely on the up and up. And, most shockingly, Mma Potokwane, defender of Botswana’s weak and downtrodden, has been dismissed from her post as matron at the orphan farm. Can the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency help restore the beloved matron to her rightful position?
No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency
Tears of a Giraffe
Morality for Beautiful Girls
Kalahari Typing School for Men
Full Cupboard of Life
In the Company of Cheerful Ladies
Blue Shoes and Happiness
Good Husband of Zebra Drive
The Miracle at Speedy Motors
Tea Time for the Traditionally Built
The Double Comfort Safari Club
The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party
The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection
The same reasons apply as to why I need to read this one and that is to spend time with favorite characters in a favorite setting.
Albert Of Adelaide by Howard Anderson
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/...
Having escaped from Australia's Adelaide Zoo, an orphaned platypus named Albert embarks on a journey through the outback in search of "Old Australia," a rumored land of liberty, promise, and peace. What he will find there, however, away from the safe confinement of his enclosure for the first time since his earliest memories, proves to be a good deal more than he anticipated.
Alone in the outback, with an empty soft drink bottle as his sole possession, Albert stumbles upon pyromaniacal wombat Jack, and together they spend a night drinking and gambling in Ponsby Station, a rough-and-tumble mining town. Accused of burning down the local mercantile, the duo flees into menacing dingo territory and quickly go their separate ways-Albert to pursue his destiny in the wastelands, Jack to reconcile his past.
Encountering a motley assortment of characters along the way-a pair of invariably drunk bandicoots, a militia of kangaroos, hordes of the mercurial dingoes, and a former prize-fighting Tasmanian devil-our unlikely hero will discover a strength and skill for survival he never suspected he possessed.
Told with equal parts wit and compassion, ALBERT OF ADELAIDE shows how it is often the unexpected route, and the most improbable companions, that lead us on the path to who we really are. Who you journey with, after all, is far more important than wherever it is you are going.
OK. I admit that I feel this is a wild undertaking, but it was a deal where if I bought one book, I got one free and I decided to take a gamble. What can I say?
Some Kind of Fairy Tale by Graham Joyce
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/...
Acclaimed author Graham Joyce's mesmerizing new novel centers around the disappearance of a young girl from a small town in the heart of England. Her sudden return twenty years later, and the mind-bending tale of where she's been, will challenge our very perception of truth.
For twenty years after Tara Martin disappeared from her small English town, her parents and her brother, Peter, have lived in denial of the grim fact that she was gone for good. And then suddenly, on Christmas Day, the doorbell rings at her parents' home and there, disheveled and slightly peculiar looking, Tara stands. It's a miracle, but alarm bells are ringing for Peter. Tara's story just does not add up. And, incredibly, she barely looks a day older than when she vanished.
Another gamble on my part, but how else can you find out?
On my TBR pile:
A new series from an old series.
Son of Heaven by David Wingrove
Wiki says:
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Between 1972 and 1982 he wrote over 300 unpublished short stories and 15 novels.
He started work on a new fictional project called A Perfect Art. Between 1984 and 1988, when it was first submitted, the title was changed twice, becoming first A Spring Day at the Edge of the World and then finally Chung Kuo, under which title it was sold to 18 publishers throughout the world. The Chung Kuo series ran to eight of nine planned volumes before the series was cancelled and the author had to prematurely finish the story in the eighth volume, which both he and readers found unsatisfying.
In 2008 Nicolas Cheetham at Quercus Publishing bought the rights to the series and planned an ambitious reprinting and repackaging of the sequence, 'recasting' it as eighteen shorter novels (including a radically re-written finale) and an all-new prequel novel, provisionally entitled When China Comes. Quercus abandoned the project after Cheetham left, but Cheetham reacquired it for his new publishers, Corvus Atlantic in 2009. The reissuing of the series was planned to run from September 2010 to May 2014, commencing with the prequel novel, now retitled Son of Heaven. However, this was followed by news of a delay to Spring 2011 and the addition of a second prequel novel, Daylight on Iron Mountain.
So what new or recent books are you reading? Is there an author you like so much that you will buy every book that comes out by that author?
Diaries of the Week:
Write On! Absent Characters
by SensibleShoes
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Thursday Classical Music OPUS 95: The World's Oldest Holocaust Survivor
by Dumbo
http://www.dailykos.com/...
BOOKS THAT CHANGED MY LIFE--Philip K. Dick's Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
by Dumbo
http://www.dailykos.com/...
AIDS Walk Austin 25 years - seeking 25 donations of $100
by anotherdemocrat
http://www.dailykos.com/...
From Neon Vincent’s Saturday Overnight News Digest (OND)
Michigan State University: Reading the classics: It’s more than just for fun
Published: Sept. 14, 2012
http://news.msu.edu/...
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Reading a classic novel such as “Pride and Prejudice” can be entertaining, but, according to new research by a Michigan State University professor, it also can provide many other benefits beyond that.
“What took us by surprise is how much the whole brain transformed in shifting from pleasure to close reading, and in regions far beyond those associated with attention and executive functions,” Phillips said. “In one subject, for example, we saw literary analysis activating areas of the brain that we use to place ourselves spatially in the world and areas dedicated to physical activity.”
Phillips said this work could shed new light on the debate regarding the value of studying literature and majoring in the humanities.
NOTE:
plf515 has book talk on
Wednesday mornings early.