What Fiction are you reading this week, June 20, 2021?

[hermetic]

Happy Fathers' Day

Nice man cave.

I finally got Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz and I cannot put it down. It's 608 pages long and in 3 sittings I am already halfway through it. I so enjoy how Horowitz's writing flows nicely, along with the little tricks he employs in his stories. I also love that he writes about writing and authors and editors. He draws some really brilliant conclusions about them all.

I'm also reading Parable of the Sower: A Graphic Novel Adaptation. Not everyone enjoys GNs but I love 'em. It's just rare to find one that is beautifully rendered and also great literature; this one fills the bill. It just came out last year and it's really powerful. If you are not familiar with the original story, it's about us in the year 2024 and the country is in social chaos caused by unattended environmental and economic crises. Written in 1993 by Octavia E. Butler.

Listening to The Girls in the Garden by Lisa Jewell. "Imagine that you live on a picturesque communal garden square, an oasis in urban London where your children run free, in and out of other people's houses. You've known your neighbors for years and you trust them. Implicitly. You think your children are safe. But are they really?"

Wishing everyone a beautiful day of Solstice. Sending cooling thoughts to people in TX, CA and other areas where temps are soaring.

[QED]

1. Horowitz is fabulous!

I've had the same experience reading his books.

Just started an Ursula Le Guin - The Dispossessed. I haven't read any of her books for many years.

[hermetic]

2. Neither have I

She was one of the best, though. Her books never disappoint.

[The King of Prussia]

3. "Sycamore Gap" by LJ Ross

A whodunit set in Northumberland - a young woman's body is found stuffed inside Hadrian's Wall. Although it's the second in the series, it's my first read of this author. Ticking all my boxes so far.

Two oddities earlier in the week (to avoid spoilers I won't name the books). One whodunit where the detective gets it unambiguously wrong, and another whodunit where the identity of the murderer is SO obvious that the whole novel becomes pointless.

It's #IndieBookshopWeek here in the UK so at the end of the week we are visiting two of the finest bookshops in North West England (and going to the seaside!) @PritchardsBooks and @BroadhurstBooks .

It's more than 2 weeks since my second vaccination, so I am now strutting about like Mr Bertie Big Bollocks.

Stay safe!

[hermetic]

5. LOL!

That was a fun thing to Google.

Just be sure to do all that strutting when you are outdoors only.

[hermetic]

6. Oh, and this...

Murder and mystery are peppered with a sprinkling of romance and humour in this fast-paced crime whodunnit set amidst the spectacular scenery of Hadrian's Wall country in Northumberland.
"LJ Ross is the queen of Kindle" - Sunday Telegraph
"A literary phenomenon" - Evening Chronicle

Attn: Cozy fans

[The King of Prussia]

19. I've finished it now

Despite the way the blurb sounds, it's not a cozy.

[hermetic]

20. Thanks for that

I use the Fiction Database to get a lot of my info. For every book, they list its genres and classification. Both said cozy for this book, as well as mystery, police procedural, romance, etc. I don't know who assigns these labels but I guess in the future I will not give too much credence to what they are calling a cozy.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

4. Currently working on Into the Blue

by Robert Goddard. I really like his stuff. He's a vastly underappreciated writer, I think.

[hermetic]

7. Sounds pretty good

“Cracking good literature entertainment . . . had me utterly spellbound . . . [Into the Blue is] a book that will push the edges of late night fatigue. . . . It’s the storyteller as magician; we only see what he wants us to see, when he wants us to see it.”—Washington Post Book World

“Impossible to put down . . . totally compels you from the first page to the last . . . a wonderful storyteller.”—Yorkshire Post

He's got 31 other books out there so maybe we can get him some more appreciation.

[PennyC]

8. Still Pendergasting

I just finished the Helen trilogy (oy!)and started White Fire last night. Pendergast, now with moar Sherlock!
Oh, and we just started watching "House" for the first time. I had heard that the character was Holmes-ish, but I never made the connection with the names..."House" and "Holmes."

[hermetic]

11. I'm doing the same thing!

Watching House. I had seen season one but am now catching up on the rest. Never occurred to me that House was a medical Holmes, but I can see it. Fun.

[Jeebo]

9. Ben Bova's last novel.

At least, I'm sure it's his last novel because it just hit the bookstore shelves and he just died. Bova has written some really good stuff and I have read most of it. This one is "Space Station Down" about a terrorist attack on the International Space Station. One blurb review on the cover says "Think Die Hard happening two hundred fifty miles above the earth". I just started it, only 25 pages in, and it grabbed me immediately.

-- Ron

[hermetic]

12. I did not hear about Bova.

How sad. He died November 29, 2020, from COVID-19-related pneumonia and a stroke.

He had a writing career of 60 years, was the author of more than 120 works of science fact and fiction, six-time winner of the Hugo Award, an editor of Analog Science Fiction and Fact, an editorial director of Omni; he was also president of both the National Space Society and the Science Fiction Writers of America.

[bif]

10. "Paris by the Book"

Almost done with it. Excellent book. Really enjoying it.

[hermetic]

13. Nice

Looking forward to reading it.

[bahboo]

14. read Parable of the Sower a few months ago...

fantastic....just sucked you into that world. I can't remember the companion book, but that was great as well. Didn't realize there was a Graphic adaptation...

[hermetic]

15. That just came out last year

There is also Parable of the Sower: The Concert Version, a work-in-progress opera written by American folk/blues musician Toshi Reagon in collaboration with her mother, Bernice Johnson Reagon. The adaptation's libretto and musical score combine African-American spirituals, soul, rock and roll, and folk music into rounds to be performed by singers sitting in a circle. That sounds like fun.

[bahboo]

16. sounds very cool...thx for the info...

[cilla4progress]

17. Where the Crawdads Sing.

Heart already in throat.

[hermetic]

18. Oh gosh, yes

This incredible story reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were, and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.

[yellowdogintexas]

21. The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra book 1 in a series of 5

On the day he retires, Inspector Ashwin Chopra inherits two unexpected mysteries.

The first is the case of a drowned boy, whose suspicious death no one seems to want solved. And the second is a baby elephant.

As his search for clues takes him across the teeming city of Mumbai, from its grand high rises to its sprawling slums and deep into its murky underworld, Chopra begins to suspect that there may be a great deal more to both his last case and his new ward than he thought.

And he soon learns that when the going gets tough, a determined elephant may be exactly what an honest man needs. . .

I just finished a WW II book "The Secretary", which was really good.

Germany 1940. As secretary to Himmler, the leader of the SS, Magda spends her days sending party invitations to high-ranking Nazis, and her evenings distributing pamphlets for the resistance. But Magda is leading a dangerous double life, smuggling secrets out of the office. It’s a deadly game, and eventual exposure is a certainty, but Magda is driven by a need to keep the man she secretly loves safe as he fights against the Nazis…

Forty years later. Nina’s (Magda's granddaughter) heart pounds as she steps into an uncertain future (from East to West Berlin after the fall of the Wall) carrying a forged passport, a few bank notes, and a scribbled address for The Tower House taken from an intricate drawing she found hidden in her grandmother’s wardrobe. Separated from her family and betrayed by her country, Nina’s last hope is to trace her family’s history in the ruins of the past her grandmother ran from. But, when she finally finds the abandoned house, she opens the door to a forgotten story, and to secrets which will change everything: past, present, and future…