pickLife goes on as charmingly as ever in Thrush Green. Modern life inserts itself with the temporary presence of four members of a rock band, two of whom use drugs, but we only hear about it 2nd or 3rd hand. Major changes are ahead though, with two characters talking about retirement and another no longer able to take care of herself.
bailedI read the first chapter, describing Feyi's first sexual encounter since the death of her husband in an accident five years before. Didn't care enough to continue. DNF
#coffeeandabook
#queerbc
@PuddleJumper
pickThe author says in the preface that the book should be accessible to anybody with a maths GCSE. Apparently a maths GCSE is more difficult than a maths O Level. I kept my head above water (I think) till Chapter 6 when we hit geometry, which was my downfall with school maths as well. I just skimmed Chapter 7 on estimates and approximations but re-surfaced with the FAQ in the final chapter, which was more about mathematicians than mathematics.
pickNightingale on a mission in 1920s New York seeks help from a Wooster-ish school chum.
Great fun. I would like to read the probably fictional books mentioned in the endpapers.
panApprentice gemmologist Murdoc Jern's master is killed as a sacrifice. Can Murdoc escape from Koonga and find out why?
A strange mixture of fantasy faux-mediaeval tropes (apprentices, arcane rituals, quests, rings of power) set in a science fiction world of spaceships, rockets, spacesuits, interstellar travel, and aliens. There were too many threads left hanging and unexplained. They may be explained later, but I'm not sure I will bother.
pickLily's self-discovery as a Chinese-American lesbian in early 1950s San Francisco.
A map of SF would definitely have helped. Location obviously had an important effect on how Lily was feeling at various points in the story but the street names didn't really help me locate myself. But still an interesting and engaging story. I did spend quite some time unsure whether the title meant yesterday evening or the final appearance/performance.
The Miss Chinatown contestants were clustered together behind a canvas screen near the stage.
#FirstLineFridays
pickHumanity has been confined to the Solar System and a few severely overcrowded space stations by the Quill. Rumour says there was a single survivor of a Quill attack.
Good world building with an intriguing and exciting story. 2 minor complaints: the way the story was slowed down by Aaron and Gail's romance. I wish the author had chosen a different name for the aliens - I kept imagining people being massacred with obsolete writing implements.
I AM AWARE as I step into the common room that the majority of people here are almost dead, including me.
#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl
pickCharlie's very bad Christmas after he gets home as told by him, Tori, and Oliver. As a novella, it was a very quick read, made even more so by the large spacing between lines. I enjoyed it, though.
bailedAs I came to the fourth and longest chapter in this book, I realised I really didn't care enough to go on. DNF
pickI felt this, the latest and planned penultimate entry, was the weakest - but then I thought the period it covers was not so interesting in the TV series as well. The book did at least nod in the direction of explaining some of the scenes I found unsettling in the TV series.
A weak Pick, verging on a So-So
pickNot as heart-rending as the TV version in the first half of Season 3
pickA lot of incidents seem to have happened in a different order in the book.
pickFictional account of Henry VIII's third wife, Jane Seymour. I liked the portrayal of Jane herself, even if I'm not sure about the soubriquet the author has given her - it's based on incidents that she seems to have made up.
pickSome of the more iconic lines make more sense on the written page than they did on TV, but Charlie and Tao's confrontation in the bowling alley loos seems to me better motivated on TV, despite Imogen never having been a favourite character of mine. And although I like the focus on Nick and Charlie, I do miss Isaac.
pickSince the TV series has now caught up with the graphic novels I can safely read them without fear of spoilers. It does feel slightly weird - some pages immediately call TV scenes to mind, others are new to me. And of course as usual when reading graphic novels I am mainly text focused and I have to remember to slow down and look at the pictures.
pickA man's body clad only in underwear is found in a cargo of rhubarb on a goods train running from Leeds to London. Scotland Yard asks Kate Shackleton to put her local knowledge to use as they suspect the deceased was involved in a Soviet plot to cause unrest in the mining industry.
Although Kate and her helpers are all in good form I could've done without the political intrigue aspects. I liked the new character PH and hope we see more of him.
pickKate Shackleton and other members of her local photographic society go on a trip to Haworth to witness the handing over of Haworth Parsonage to the nation as the Brontë Museum. Seven went but only six came back because one had been murdered.
There were times when it reminded me a bit too strongly of Cold Comfort Farm, but it was still a good mystery.
pick#ClassicLSFBC
@RamsFans1963
A series of vignettes from the short-lived human exploration and colonisation of Mars and its effects on the Martians.
pickWhen a guest is taken ill and Mrs. Holloway is accused of serving tainted food, only finding out who is poisoning him will clear her name.
A good quick Christmas-y read.
pickA quick read mainly focussed on Bobby and Judith, who help Mrs Holloway investigate a young aristocrat's unsavoury companions. Mrs Holloway herself only appears in cameos at the beginning and end of the story. I enjoyed this, and hope some of the other side characters get their turn in the spotlight.
pickA moneylender is found dead and Lord Clifford, Lady Cynthia's father, is a suspect. Mrs. H and the gang to the rescue!
Again, it feels like a farewell to the series, but apparently there is another one coming out this Spring.
pickKat's friend Joanna's husband, Sam, is suspected of embezzling from the bank where he works. Kat swings into action with her friends to prove Sam's innocence.
The real embezzler was fairly obvious almost from the start but the mystery of Dan's origins gets deeper. And we definitely need more of an epilogue - it's not clear whether Sam was reinstated.
pickKat Halloway's husband's real wife comes to her for help tracing what really happened to Joe, having been told that he did not die at sea but had come back to England with a considerable amount of money.
We get to hear a lot of Daniel's backstory as well as Kat's. Coupled with the increasing closeness of their relationship, it gave this installment in the series a valedictory feel, but there is at least another novel and a novella still to come.
pickIn 1843 John Ferguson travels to a remote island N of Shetland to evict Ivar, the only inhabitant for the last 20 yrs, so that the island can be turned over to sheep. The 2 men have no language in common and John's notes & docs in Norn are destroyed in an accident soon after his arrival.
Fascinating exploration of how the relationship develops through illness and language learning. The ending was unexpected and I want to know what happened next.
pickA true crime podcaster and her wife are snowed in at a Scottish hotel they'd gone to for a long weekend to rekindle their relationship. A guest falls or is pushed from a turret balcony, the first of many deaths on this less than idyllic getaway.
Great fun as a parody and a good mystery as well. The more familiar you are with Cluedo, the more puns you will appreciate. I smiled and groaned and gave the little grey cells a good workout.
