Audiobook. The development of a new kind of policing, crime detection, and they were the early pioneers and examples for the world to follow. Only follows the first century, up to the 1920s, though, and not up to today. Dismembering bodies seems to have been a kink or something, there was a lot of it, and then trying to play innocent around all of it. Sounds like a little bit extreme. Interesting comparing it with a CIA counterintelligence book.

Audiobook. This is one I probably should have picked up and read physically rather than listened to for greater comprehension. I didn't really get it, and why the author deviated from the spy intrigue to use his starring spy to serve as a private investigator in a case a woman who knew him as a colleague of others approached. But the characters of all involved were interesting, as well as Smiley's conversations with them over brandy or sherry.

Wonderful sense of place in characterizing L.A. of the late 80s, and great side characters involved and investigated, really ones from the film business. Elvis Cole's relationship dynamics to his partner and his relationship to the two women were also notable. I guess I'm partially into tough man protagonist literature. But why? I'd read more of the P.I. character of Elvis Cole but maybe not the author's later crime novels.

Listened to this via audiobook and it was compelling, with it all being so crazy and insane. Lori's past and character, theirs erotic historical love story of Lori and Chad meeting, explained by visions and prophesying that the Church of the LDS gave a context for, though they followed fringe, radical beliefs. A great character study. All the information about their trials causing a social media firestorm. Excellently researched context.

I was interested in the support group conspiracy/cult vibes and liked learning about the neighborhood gossip and secrets. I like that our main detective could relate to the grief because was still dealing with her own. I liked the thread of playing the self-blaming 'if only' game of chance. But I did want more involving the bus driver and some more things explained.

I started this in April at the park on a mood, and finished in August. Fast-paced (for me, I'm slow), good characterization, fun that Spenser consults his degreed, therapist wife on cases to gauge the psychology and possible motivations behind people, and so that he can think about all the details of the case he's learned and piece some sort of puzzle in how to fix the problem and close the case. Odd I'm going for these tough guy characters.

#wonderouswednesday #eggs

1. I prefer physical copies, but I too often dabble and can't focus to completion. So, it seems I need audiobook format while driving to generally finish books, but I can be picky about what works in audio for me.

3. I haven't figured out a favorite genre yet, or what works for me in finishing books. The last two years much of what I've finished or been getting into is crime, and weird conspiracy/true life mysteries.

Finished yesterday. I was able to read through faster than most novels. Great characterization and setting. I like how Stone is like a fixer, and his character reminds me a lot of Robert B. Parker's Spenser. I didn't think I'd be back into this genre, or longstanding series in general, but I think I'll like more of these. Genre mood of the year, maybe: 90s/early 2000s private investigator crime. More copies of both authors already secured.

Great fun. I was babbling on about this at one point near 40-50% the way through like I was about Poor Things. I did not expect to like it this much.

From Amor Towles and up, some options for my May #bookspin and #doublespin --- a #BOTM backlist pick (#ds), and a thrifted book (#bs), in this case relating to my current reading mood of 80s/90s private eye/neo-noir novels, Ed McBain is close enough. I'm 97% through Manhunt: The 12-Day Search For Abraham Lincoln's Killer, so naturally a novel about John Wilkes Booth family history would fit as follow up, right? I just started Amor Towles' latest.

Hoopla library app audiobook. Based off a true story of the fin-de-siècle strike which was inspired by a recent shipyard strike of the time and area. Good for perspective and gleaning the female experience, historical perspective. I liked the characterization of our protagonist and the difference of her island dialect and character. More sexual themes and content than the book but not the film adaptation of Poor Things. Putting me in an Asia mood.

#tlt #threelistthursday @dabbe

3 favorite actresses from any era:

1. Audrey Hepburn never fails, can do no wrong

2. Ava Gardner, visited the museum dedicated to her in her hometown of Smithfield, N.C., and her gravesite

3. Grace Kelly

Hoopla app audiobook to try out, not sure whether I'd like it. Sweet, cozy little intergenerational found family story with a lot of good reflection on life consideration of values and relationships from our 86-year-old protagonist going on a search to find her old friend she hadn't been in touch with for 50-60 years. I liked the British narrator.

Options for my April #bookspin and #doublespin dreaming, as all coming from one local used bookshop, whose outside sales cart I like to shop and find older hardback copies from, and take a visit to the nearby local microbrewery for a leisurely pint or the lakeside park or Riverwalk.

This turned out to be a neat study of a fascinating and confusing, erratic character and his life. I liked how in the preface/introduction how the author admitted that this doesn't solve any of the many conflicting theories about the Kennedy assignation or shed conclusive light on Oswald or any connection between him and Ruby or Ruby's theorized connection with a wider theory on the assassination; his act complicates things, a monkey wrench.

Last audiobook finished; I need to catch up on my reviews. No interesting recs from Hoopla app after finishing the last, so I decided to try this out. Turned out to be a suitable follow-up to the one I listened to about Jack Ruby, including more background for the CIA's knowledge and suspicion (very well hidden even from the Kennedy assignation investigation) of Oswald, and Kennedy's and Nixon's relation with security agencies and their impact.

Audiobook for January. Not sure what to think, but it was much more on the conspiracy than I wanted, but it was interesting learning about the three secretive nondisclosure global groups of power players and discussions of historical development and international policy. Some quasi-espionage investigative journalism stories included. It was both super detailed with lists of members and big picture, without really providing needed clarity.

During a trip to Israel, in 1984, Roth took his friend David Plante---a gay, gentile writer---to the Orthodox quarter of Jerusalem, Me She'arim, where the two stood on a corner watching Hasidim milling about in their black coats and hats, the boys with their heads shorn except for long side curls.

#firstlinefridays @ShyBookOwl

Some options from my categories picked from two lists for #bookspin and #doublespin : books purchased from a particular local library branch and a local resale charity shop, books bought from a particular local indie bookstore, a Europa Editions book, and Andrew Durbin's Skyland.

Great travelogue of the most crowded spots of protected nature in the nation, with a good bit of excellent social commentary about who travels and why and expectations, as well as many varied musings that come along with each park. It's neat the author decided to attempt to collect a junior ranger badge by completing booklets and their activities for every nation park visited. Light, humorous, informative, reflective. Good for this time of year.

Books and pie raffle bought from Perkins Restaurant & Bakery to support their donations for Give Kids the World Village.

Much disappointment here. It needed more context for the characters and more of what was sparsely provided in the contemporary thread in investigating the past. But I like the narration of the females, the social commentary, the fact that it was character -driven. I usually go for this sort of thing, but it didn't really work for me this time around.

#weekendreads

My options for December's #tbrtarot --- author surname starting with L. I've started three of these, furthest into the David Lindsey.

@CBee

Red is the color of violent death. Red is the color of strong feelings---love, passion, greed, anger, hatred.

#firstlinefridays
@ShyBookOwl

Probably best book of the year so far. It was wonderful getting to know the three figures in a much more intimate way, how they impacted each other's work, behavior, thought, what they went through and where they explored together, other figures they met and befriended, what positive impacts they had on society besides what they are most known for, their character. Wonderful intimate portrait of the men and their relationships, full lives. October

Immersive in research known about ants so far, which I didn't realize was so advanced. The end speaks of how studying ant behavior and mechanisms for living and their systems can help us in tech and society and healthcare research for the future. Informative of systems, how they go about doing things, what they figured out by evolutionary instinct before homo sapiens. Good information on the environmental impacts. Some notes on method, fieldwork.

Hoopla library app audiobook while driving. Most just a matter-of-fact collection of tales of hauntings and the strange occurrences without much drama, so dry and not so scary or dynamic, which is fine by me. I like the editor's side notes + comments, though very occasional. If you like scary stories this might not work for you, if you're just curious about paranormal tales that are collected you might find it interesting. Travel at your own risk.

I included this with my books for October since I finished listening in the car on 11/1. My first Iain Banks!---because someone reviewed one and another recommended a few from him. It was gritty, mildly violent, reminded me of something like A Clockwork Orange or Trainspotting. The relationship dynamics were the best or most memorable aspect. Not much plot, is fine with me; more character-driven. It took place over a short amount of time.

Some library sale and checkout options for the season. Possible/optional partial #bookspin list.

In the days when pirates roamed the seas, they boarded ships armed with cutlasses and muskets and took what they pleased. Modern privateers, known as the private equity industry, plunder without physical violence, commandeering businesses armed with spreadsheets, debt financing, and high-priced lawyers. They operate (mostly) within the letter of the law, some of which they helped to craft. [L]oot [they]...is infinitely richer...
#firstlinefridays

Interesting milieu for a crime mystery procedural, of the theatre business, playwrights, theatre makeup, within the late 70s New York scene. Use of third person in describing responses or affirmations was noted. Fun quotes on actors and writers, food for thought on acting and age. Detective reminds me of both The Expanse sci-fi series and the mystery detective film, See How They Run. Dry, which I like. I hope to read more older lighter mysteries.

I have the serendipitous timing to stumble upon a panel speaking and awareness event at the book in the historic downtown I was visiting circumstantially Wednesday! So giveaways of banned books (mostly kids and youth) to emphasize a need for greater access to diverse stories to build empathy and to expand our awareness of the people and culture out there we meet, to better understand our world, we are not all the same but not all that different.

Never before have I enjoyed researching and writing anything as much as I did the book you hold in your hands....This is a book I always suspected I would attempt someday.

#firstlinefriday

#maymontage #glovesoncover @Eggs @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

#wondrouswednesday @Eggs
1. As a kid: zoologist or nature documentarian, or paleontologist!
2. Let's not remind me and speak of such...
3. Ambient/instrumental/post-rock/downtempo

Supporting an indie bookish merch business someone I follow on Instagram runs independently. If you're on bookstagram, I can refer you over to the account! I guess I'm all about them froggies, gnomes, mushrooms, and boho! 👀😆 Makes sense, I look like an aging hair band rocker!...

@TheAromaofBooks
My April #bookspin + #doublespin options: library books due soon/renewed already or Kate Walbert's book, The Sunken Cathedral; vintage pulp choice or my BOTM, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's Independence.

Some billions of years ago, an anonymous speck of protoplasm protruded the first primitive pseudopodium into the primeval slime, and perhaps the first state of uncertainty occurred.

I.J. Good, Science, Feb. 20, 1959

#wondrouswednesday @Eggs
1. Prologue/epilogue -- yay & both, please!---for context. I also love introductions, author's notes, &c.

2. Features you want to see in more fiction: footnotes, appendices, proper noun/name/location pronunciations, a couple of books feature Welsh names and words, and one fantasy by Zabé Ellor had it---so appreciative!

3. Ideal reading location: wrap-around front porches of old houses! Outdoor patio at microbreweries.

Informative and contextual commentary in the author's anniversary introduction, also spilling out into the text. Good to get some different perspective of society and its relationship to constituents and demographics in the eyes of the law and how investigation would work apart from white privilege and protections. This grey area of realism, seen/treated as untrustworthy & suspicious, and needing to find ways to work around the law in its myopia.

The insane, unreal, larger-than-life, Tom-Cruise-esque antics, intellectual history of this stranger-than-fiction guy, Steve Bannon drives the whole. Trump and Bannon were star-crossed lovers, serendipitously drawn together to create a Perfect Storm of Wonderland. We're All Mad Here. His life and wide career, from Goldman Sachs before it went public to working in China on MMORPG community profit, to Hollywood film production to French conspiracies

I read somewhere that prisoners on death row got a cigarette and a bean-jam bun [Japanese sweets] just before their execution [also, not ideal translation].

#firstlinefridays
@ShyBookOwl

My 2023 #roll100 list.

@PuddleJumper

My latest #bookspin category draw list.

@TheAromaofBooks

A very late #sundayfunday as inspired by @rubyslippersreads

1. Menage Place by Tatum Dixon ( Virgo superego kink/orgyhousecore e-novella) during the late September 2022 hurricane power outage.

2. Dark Winter by John L. Casey (president of The Space and Science Research Facility in Orlando, Florida)

3. Foggy soft rain or 60s weather

@ozma.of.oz

#bookspinbingo board laid out with my TBR (options/themes) game results and my location and miscellaneous prompt jar pulls. #bookspin and #doublespin picks are categories: non-fiction library loan & owned vintage/retro self-help (90s and before). Rolls landed on 3, 13 & 15: Kate Elliott or 500+ pages/philosophy or critical theory/owned romance. #roll100 - Witch's Boy (repeat+CR)/Opal&Nev/Bhagavad Gita or Hindu spiritual text.

@TheAromaofBooks

Who shall deny the excitement of entering a strange city for the first time? Or going ashore in a strange port?
. . .
Evil comes often to a man with money; tyranny comes surely to him without it.

This chapter heading quote reminds of this current read in dark history in this political season.

When I set out to lead humanity along my Golden Path I promised a lesson their bones would remember. I know a profound pattern humans deny with words even while their actions affirm it. They say they seek security and quiet, conditions they call peace. Even as they speak, they create seeds of turmoil and violence.
- Leto II, the God Emperor

#twofortuesday @TheSpineView

1. Music over podcasts (especially walking), but I'm such a chaotic mood listener. I need to zone out while walking, not to have to pay attention + actually hearing things

2. Classical: orchestral, piano and symphony cycles, opera, Celtic music, German pipes, contemporary piano, ambient/instrumental, film soundtracks. I can only listen to audiobooks in the car for local drives around town. 🤷I like the weird stuff.