rabbitprincess travels through time and space in 2018 - part 4

Welcome to Part 4 of my travels in time and space in 2018. My categories are named after the titles of the episodes that make up Series 10 (Peter Capaldi's last season) of Doctor Who.



The Pilot - general fiction
Smile - graphic novels etc.
Thin Ice - history non-fiction
Knock Knock - audiobooks and mysteries
Oxygen - plays
Extremis - français
The Pyramid at the End of the World - history fiction
The Lie of the Land - non-fiction
Empress of Mars - SFF
The Eaters of Light - Scotland, Ireland, Wales (Celtic cultures)
World Enough and Time - rereads
The Doctor Falls - group reads

ROOT ticker:




The 2018 Pool:



The BingoDOG:

The Pilot - General fiction



The Pilot is a soft reboot of the series, and as such is a good episode for newcomers to Who. Bill is curious about time travel but at the same time is genre-savvy, so she's not coming into this adventure cold.

This episode contains the Doctor running "like a penguin with his arse on fire" (as described by Bill).

1. Occupied City, by David Peace
2. Those Who Walk Away, by Patricia Highsmith
3. The Power, by Naomi Alderman
4. Campbell's Kingdom, by Hammond Innes
5. The Birds and Other Stories, by Daphne du Maurier
6. Rabbit Cake, by Annie Hartnett
7. Marazan, by Nevil Shute
8. Return of the Sphinx, by Hugh MacLennan
9. The Breaking Point: Short Stories, by Daphne du Maurier
10. The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky (translated by Constance Garnett)
11. The Human Factor, by Graham Greene
12. Captains Courageous, by Rudyard Kipling
13. The Man in the Yellow Raft, by C.S. Forester
14. The Commitments, by Roddy Doyle
15. The Prisoner of Zenda, by Anthony Hope
16. The Book of Dragons, by E. Nesbit
17. Jude the Obscure, by Thomas Hardy
18. Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy (translated by Constance Garnett)
19. While Still We Live, by Helen MacInnes

Smile - Graphic novels, short story collections, essays... all the little weird books



This episode features the Emojibots, which are more menacing than they sound. It also features a prize-winning skeptical emoji that I would like to just wear over my face all the time.

1. Heart and Brain: Body Language, by The Awkward Yeti
2. Norse Mythology, by Neil Gaiman
3. Women & Power: A Manifesto, by Mary Beard
4. Kipling: A Selection of His Stories and Poems Volume 1, by Rudyard Kipling
5. You're All Just Jealous of My Jetpack, by Tom Gauld
6. The Hare Book, by Jane Russ
7. Baking with Kafka, by Tom Gauld
8. Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich, by Stephen Leacock
9. In the Shadow of Agatha Christie, ed. Leslie S. Klinger
10. Heart and Brain: Gut Instincts, by The Awkward Yeti
11. The Thick of It: The Missing DoSAC Files, by Armando Iannucci et al.
12. Mythos, by Stephen Fry
13. The Death of Stalin, by Fabien Nury and Thierry Robin
14. Crimson Snow: Winter Mysteries, by Martin Edwards
15. Postcards from the Boys, by Ringo Starr
16. Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World, by Pénélope Bagieu
17. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, by David Hume
18. Dumb: Living Without a Voice, by Georgia Webber
19. How Do We Look: The Body, The Divine, and the Question of Civilization, by Mary Beard
20. The Little Book of Feminist Saints, by Julia Pierpont and Manjit Thapp
21. Does it Fart?: The Definitive Field Guide to Animal Flatulence, by Nick Caruso and Dani Rabiotti
22. Christmas with Anne and Other Stories, by L.M. Montgomery
23. Florida, by Lauren Groff
24. The Beatles Yellow Submarine, by Bill Morrison
25. Let's Go Exploring: Calvin and Hobbes, by Michael Hingston
26. True or Poo?: The Definitive Field Guide to Filthy Animal Facts and Falsehoods, by Dani Rabiotti and Nick Caruso
27. The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding and Other Stories, by Agatha Christie

Thin Ice - historical non-fiction



The Doctor and Bill visit the Frost Fair of 1814. Love this one!

1. Curse of the Narrows: The Halifax Explosion 1917, by Laura M. MacDonald
2. Why Spencer Perceval Had to Die: The Assassination of a British Prime Minister, by Andro Linklater
3. The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the World of Grisly Victorian Medicine, by Lindsey Fitzharris
4. The World of Poldark, by Emma Marriott
5. The Infidel and the Professor: David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship that Shaped Modern Thought, by Dennis C. Rasmussen
6. Collecting the World: Hans Sloane and the Origins of the British Museum, by James Delbourgo
7. Bedlam: London and Its Mad, by Catharine Arnold
8. I Was a Spy!: the classic account of behind-the-lines espionage in the First World War, by Marthe McKenna
9. John Knox, by Jane Dawson
10. Elizabeth I and Her Circle, by Susan Doran
11. Conan Doyle for the Defense: The True Story of a Sensational British Murder, a Quest for Justice, and the World's Most Famous Detective Writer, by Margalit Fox
12. Fly Girls: How Five Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History, by Keith O'Brien
13. The Dam Busters, by Paul Brickhill
14. A Bridge Too Far, by Cornelius Ryan
15. 1599: A Year in the Life of Shakespeare, by James Shapiro
16. The Massey Murder: A Maid, Her Master and the Trial That Shocked a Nation, by Charlotte Gray

Knock Knock - Audiobooks and mysteries not being read for the MysteryCAT



This episode features David Suchet (POIROT!) as a mysterious figure called the Landlord. The BBC produced a special binaural soundtrack for this episode to maximize the creepiness factor of the creaky old house that plays a key role in the episode.

Audiobooks
1. The Diary of River Song, Series 1 (Big Finish audio drama)
2. At Home: A Short History of Private Life, by Bill Bryson (read by Bill Bryson)
3. The Diary of River Song, Series 2 (Big Finish audio drama)
4. The End of the Affair, by Graham Greene (read by Colin Firth)
5. Doctor Who: Classic Doctors, New Monsters Vol. 1 (Big Finish audio drama)
6. Doctor Who: The First Doctor Adventures, Volume 1 (Big Finish audio drama)
7. Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself, by Alan Alda (read by Alan Alda)
8. Cyberman 1.1: Scorpius, by Nicholas Briggs (Big Finish audio drama)
9. Cyberman 1.2: Fear, by Nicholas Briggs (Big Finish audio drama)
10. Cyberman 1.3: Conversion, by Nicholas Briggs (Big Finish audio drama)
11. Cyberman 1.4: Telos, by Nicholas Briggs (Big Finish audio drama)
12. Sputnik's Guide to Life on Earth, by Frank Cottrell Boyce (read by Peter Capaldi)
13. American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot, by Craig Ferguson (audio, read by Craig Ferguson)
14. Doctor Who: Blackout & The Art of Death, by Oli Smith and James Goss (read by Stuart Milligan and Raquel Cassidy)

Mysteries not being read for the MysteryCAT

1. The Dead House, by Harry Bingham
2. The Shadow District, by Arnaldur Indridason (translated by Victoria Cribb)
3. Beau Death, by Peter Lovesey
4. Blood on the Tongue, by Stephen Booth
5. Someone to Watch Over Me, by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir (translated by Philip Roughton)
6. The Incredible Crime, by Lois Austen-Leigh
7. Death on the Riviera, by John Bude
8. Somebody at the Door, by Raymond Postgate
9. Dead Lagoon, by Michael Dibdin
10. Nightblind, by Ragnar Jónasson (translated by Quentin Bates)
11. The Killing Bay, by Chris Ould
12. Devil in a Blue Dress, by Walter Mosley
13. The Silence of the Sea, by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir (translated by Victoria Cribb)
14. Into Oblivion, by Arnaldur Indriðason (translated by Victoria Cribb)
15. The Word is Murder, by Anthony Horowitz
16. Bats in the Belfry, by E.C.R. Lorac
17. The Shadow Killer, by Arnaldur Indridason (translated by Victoria Cribb)
18. The Deepest Grave, by Harry Bingham
19. Death-Watch, by John Dickson Carr
20. Glass Houses, by Louise Penny
21. Seventy-Seven Clocks, by Christopher Fowler (Overdrive)
22. Hamlet, Revenge!, by Michael Innes
23. Hope Never Dies, by Andrew Shaffer
24. Fire in the Thatch, by E.C.R. Lorac
25. Murder Over Dorval, by David Montrose

Oxygen - plays



This was the first episode I saw after meeting Peter (it aired that very night)...high stakes, great social commentary, and an emotional depth made even deeper by the fact that I had seen Peter in actual person. So it makes sense as the category where I put my plays (which are often best experienced in a live theatre setting).

1. The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, by Robert Chafe
2. Cause Célèbre, by Terence Rattigan
3. Henry V, by William Shakespeare
4. The Duchess of Malfi, by John Webster

Extremis - livres en français; books about language, translation, writing, and books



This episode features the Pope, somehow speaking Italian without the benefit of the Tardis interpreting for him. I chose this for my French category because of the multiple languages used in the episode and the translation problem that crops up.

Livres en français
1. L'Affaire Saint-Fiacre, by Georges Simenon
2. Du bon usage des étoiles, by Dominique Fortier
3. Pilote de guerre, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Books about language, translation, writing, and books
1. Track Changes: A Literary History of Word Processing, by Matthew G. Kirschenbaum
2. Never Use Futura, by Douglas Thomas
3. The Subversive Copy Editor, by Carol Fisher Saller
4. The Illustrated Dust Jacket, 1920-1970, by Martin Salisbury
5. What Editors Do: The Art, Craft, and Business of Book Editing, ed. Peter Ginna
6. Ghost of the Hardy Boys, by Leslie McFarlane
7. Between You and Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen, by Mary Norris
8. The Word Detective: Searching for the Meaning of It All at the Oxford English Dictionary, by John Simpson
9. Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her, by Melanie Rehak
10. The Story of English in 100 Words, by David Crystal

The Pyramid at the End of the World - historical fiction



There's a 5000-year-old pyramid in the desert. But it wasn't there yesterday. Who put it there, and why?

Hopefully my historical fiction reads in this category will take fewer liberties ;)

1. Girl Waits with Gun, by Amy Stewart
2. The North Water, by Ian McGuire
3. The Miller's Dance, by Winston Graham
4. The Loving Cup, by Winston Graham
5. Kenilworth, by Sir Walter Scott
6. The Heaven Tree, by Edith Pargeter
7. Lady Cop Makes Trouble, by Amy Stewart
8. The Green Man, by Kate Sedley
9. The Twisted Sword, by Winston Graham
10. Bella Poldark, by Winston Graham
11. Miss Kopp's Midnight Confessions, by Amy Stewart
12. 47 Sorrows, by Janet Kellough
13. Miss Kopp Just Won't Quit, by Amy Stewart
14. 1921, by Morgan Llywelyn

The Lie of the Land - general non-fiction



This episode has some excellent commentary on truth and the ability to distinguish fake news from real. Hoping my non-fiction reads will teach me some truths and help me fill gaps in my knowledge that will in turn help me think more critically.

1. Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Music and the Sixties, by Ian MacDonald
2. Have Not Been the Same: The CanRock Renaissance 1985-1995, by Michael Barclay, Ian A.D. Jack, and Jason Schneider (10th anniversary edition)
3. Usque Ad Mare: A History of the Canadian Coast Guard and Marine Services, by Thomas E. Appleton
4. Game Change: The Life and Death of Steve Montador, Brain Injuries, and the Future of the Game, by Ken Dryden
5. The Life of a Scilly Sergeant, by Colin Taylor
6. Timekeepers: How the World Became Obsessed with Time, by Simon Garfield
7. Cringeworthy: A Theory of Awkwardness, by Melissa Dahl
8. The Never-Ending Present: The Story of Gord Downie and The Tragically Hip, by Michael Barclay
9. Islander: A Journey Around Our Archipelago, by Patrick Barkham
10. Oceans: A Very Short Introduction, by Dorrik Stow
11. Original Highways: Travelling the Great Rivers of Canada, by Roy MacGregor
12. The Happy Brain: The Science of Where Happiness Comes From, and Why, by Dean Burnett
13. Meltdown: Why Catastrophic Failure Is All Around Us and What We Can Do about It, by Chris Clearfield and András Tilcsik
14. Unthinkable: An Extraordinary Journey Through the World's Strangest Brains, by Helen Thomson
15. Into the Raging Sea: Thirty-Three Mariners, One Megastorm, and the Sinking of El Faro, by Rachel Slade
16. How to Be Champion, by Sarah Millican
17. Human Errors: Pointless Bones, Runaway Nerves, and Other Human Defects, by Nathan H. Lents
18. The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World, by Simon Winchester
19. A Short History of Drunkenness, by Mark Forsyth
20. The Poison Squad: One Chemist's Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, by Deborah Blum
21. Up Front...: His Strictly Confidential Autobiography, by Victor Spinetti
22. Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong — and the New Research That’s Rewriting the Story, by Angela Saini
23. The Soaring Pilot's Manual, by Ken Stewart
24. Bush Planes and Bush Pilots, by Dan McCaffery
25. My Squirrel Days, by Ellie Kemper

The Empress of Mars - SFF



The perfect SFF title. This episode features the Ice Warriors meeting British soldiers from the age of empire. The soldiers look like the ones in the Michael Caine movie Zulu.

1. The Diary of River Song, Series 1 (Big Finish audio drama)
2. Doctor Who: Sting of the Zygons, by Stephen Cole
3. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
4. Doctor Who: The Resurrection Casket, by Justin Richards
5. The Diary of River Song, Series 2 (Big Finish audio drama)
6. Doctor Who: The Slitheen Excursion, by Simon Guerrier
7. Doctor Who: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe, by George Mann et al.
8. Doctor Who: Classic Doctors, New Monsters, Vol. 1 (Big Finish audio drama)
9. Doctor Who: Death to the Daleks, by Terrance Dicks
10. Doctor Who: The Krillitane Storm, by Christopher Cooper
11. The Hanging Tree, by Ben Aaronovitch
12. Doctor Who: The First Doctor Adventures, Volume 1 (Big Finish audio drama)
13. Doctor Who and the Giant Robot, by Terrance Dicks
14. Who's There: The Life and Career of William Hartnell, by Jessica Carney
15. The Eyeless, by Lance Parkin
16. Castrovalva, by Christopher H. Bidmead
17. Logopolis, by Christopher H. Bidmead
18. Ancillary Sword, by Ann Leckie
19. Cyberman 1.1 Scorpius, by Nicholas Briggs (Big Finish audio drama)
20. Cyberman 1.2 Fear, by Nicholas Briggs (Big Finish audio drama)
21. Cyberman 1.3: Conversion, by Nicholas Briggs (Big Finish audio drama)
22. Cyberman 1.4: Telos, by Nicholas Briggs (Big Finish audio drama)
23. The Silent Stars Go By, by Dan Abnett
24. The Rose and the Ring, by William Makepeace Thackeray
25. A Brief History of Time Lords, by Steve Tribe
26. Ancillary Mercy, by Ann Leckie
27. The Pirate Planet, by James Goss and Douglas Adams
28. Doctor Who: The Vault, by Marcus Hearn
29. Doctor Who and the Image of the Fendahl, by Terrance Dicks
30. Doctor Who: Blackout & The Art of Death, by Oli Smith and James Goss (read by Stuart Milligan and Raquel Cassidy)

The Eaters of Light - Scotland, Wales, Ireland, other Celtic cultures



This episode is set in Scotland at the time of the Ninth Legion and features a Pictish people (either Picts or precursors), making it a good excuse to dig out books related to Scotland...and other areas of Celtic culture.

1. The Last Highlander: Scotland's Most Notorious Clan-Chief, Rebel, and Double Agent, by Sarah Fraser
2. Arthurian Romances, by Chrétien de Troyes (reread)
3. Mortal Causes, by Ian Rankin
4. His Bloody Project, by Graeme Macrae Burnet
5. A History of Ancient Britain, by Neil Oliver
6. Keep the Midnight Out, by Alex Gray
7. Irish Fairy and Folk Tales, ed. W.B. Yeats
8. Bitter Water, by Gordon Ferris
9. Truth Dare Kill, by Gordon Ferris
10. The Diary of a Bookseller, by Shaun Bythell
11. The Prince Who Would be King: The Life and Death of Henry Stuart, by Sarah Fraser
12. The Debatable Land: The Lost World Between Scotland and England, by Graham Robb
13. Witness the Dead, by Craig Robertson
14. White Nights, by Ann Cleeves
15. The Quaker: A Duncan McCormack Novel, by Liam McIlvanney
16. Mary Queen of Scots, by Antonia Fraser
17. Insurrection, by Robyn Young
18. Portrait of the Clyde, by Jack House
19. The Disorderly Knights, by Dorothy Dunnett
20. Red Bones, by Ann Cleeves
21. MacGregor's Gathering, by Nigel Tranter
22. The Springburn Story: The History of the Scottish Railway Metropolis, by John Thomas

Ideas:
✔ The Disorderly Knights, by Dorothy Dunnett
✔ Nigel Tranter - MacGregor's Gathering
✔ A History of Ancient Britain, by Neil Oliver
✔ Ian Rankin
Denise Mina
Christopher Brookmyre
Val McDermid
Alistair MacLean
Walter Scott - Kenilworth - will put this title in general hist-fic because it's more about England than Scotland...
✔ Craig Robertson - Witness the Dead

World Enough and Time - rereads



This is an amazing episode, bringing back a whole bunch of things. And the title works really well for a rereads category. Had I but world enough and time, I'd do a hell of a lot more rereading.

1. Arthurian Romances, by Chrétien de Troyes
2. Emma, by Jane Austen
3. The Complete Father Brown, by G.K. Chesterton
4. The Honourable Schoolboy, by John le Carré
5. Speak Ill of the Dead, by Mary Jane Maffini
6. Mrs. Pollifax Pursued, by Dorothy Gilman
7. McNally's Chance, by Vincent Lardo
8. The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, by John le Carré

The Doctor Falls - Group reads



A group of humans and aliens (including Nardole and the Doctor) band together to fight the Mondasian Cybermen. Also, the Master and Missy band together to mess up the Doctor's plans.

This episode killed me, even more so because I was watching with my parents and couldn't cry in front of them :P

RandomCAT
✔ January (Ack! I've been hit!) Quick Curtain, by Alan Melville (from christina_reads and LittleTaiko)
February (Laissez les bons temps rouler) Ten Days in Summer, by Susan Calder (the Calgary Stampede)
✔ March (Ripped from the Headlines) Spyworld: Inside the Canadian and American Intelligence Establishments, by Mike Frost
✔ April (April Loves Books!) Child's Play, by Reginald Hill (added to my LT library April 2016)
✔ May (Spring is all around) The Heaven Tree, by Edith Pargeter
✔ June (Unusual narrators) Ancillary Sword, by Ann Leckie
✔ July (Getting to know you) A Bridge Too Far, by Cornelius Ryan (understanding the formative years of the Greatest Generation)
✔ August (Let's go to the mountains) Beneath the Mountain, by Luca D'Andrea, translated by Howard Curtis
✔ September (Happy birthday) Tales from Watership Down, by Richard Adams
✔ October (Playing cards) McNally's Chance, by Vincent Lardo / Lawrence Sanders
✔ November (It's all about money) Black Money, by Ross Macdonald
✔ December (Secret Santa) Doctor Who: The Vault, by Marcus Hearn (last of my Christmas 2013 haul)

MysteryCAT
✔ January (Nordic mysteries) Into Oblivion, by Arnaldur Indriðason
✔ February (Female cops/sleuths/detectives) Speak Ill of the Dead, by Mary Jane Maffini
✔ March (Global mysteries) L'Affaire Saint-Fiacre, by Georges Simenon
✔ April (Classic and Golden Age mysteries) Malice Aforethought, by Francis Iles
✔ May (Mysteries involving transit) Mystery in the Channel, by Freeman Wills Crofts
✔ June (True crime) The Massey Murder, by Charlotte Gray
✔ July (Police procedurals) Murder at the Savoy, by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö
✔ August (Historical mysteries) Bertie and the Seven Bodies, by Peter Lovesey
✔ September (Noir and hardboiled) The Getaway, by Jim Thompson
✔ October (Espionage) The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, by John le Carré
✔ November (Cozy mysteries) Mrs. Pollifax Pursued, by Dorothy Gilman
✔ December (Futuristic and fantastical mysteries) The Hanging Tree, by Ben Aaronovitch

ColourCAT
✔ January/Black: The Black Arrow, by Robert Louis Stevenson
✔ February/Brown: The Complete Father Brown, by G.K. Chesterton
✔ March/Green: 1921, by Morgan Llywelyn
✔ April/Yellow: Nemesis, by Agatha Christie
✔ May/Blue: The Disorderly Knights, by Dorothy Dunnett
✔ June/Purple: Murder at the Savoy, by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö
✔ July/Pink: The Hanging Tree, by Ben Aaronovitch
✔ August/Grey: Grey Seas Under, by Farley Mowat
✔ September/Metallic: Doctor Who and the Giant Robot, by Terrance Dicks
✔ October/Orange: Designs on Life, by Elizabeth Ferrars
✔ November/Red: Bloody Scotland (ed. Lin Anderson)
✔ December/White: Cause Célèbre, by Terence Rattigan

Group/Shared Reads
February:
✔ The Grave's a Fine and Private Place, by Alan Bradley (shared with christina_reads)
April:
✔ The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer
September:
✔ The Duchess of Malfi, by John Webster
November:
✔ The Division Bell Mystery, by Ellen Wilkinson (Litsy shared read)
December:
The Murder Mystery Xmas thread

So of course because I start a new thread, I open it with one of the more ridiculously titled books that's crossed my path.

Does it Fart?: The Definitive Field Guide to Animal Flatulence, by Dani Rabaiotti and Nick Caruso
Category: Smile
Source: library
Rating: 4/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/161344619

How could I NOT request this from the library? I found it hilarious and informative.

****

Monthly recap coming soon...

October recap

Two Serial Readers, some little books, and finishing an audiobook that carried over from last month helped greatly toward my total of 19 books.

Tales from Watership Down, by Richard Adams
Dumb: Living Without a Voice: A Graphic Memoir, by Georgia Webber
Portrait of the Clyde, by Jack House
Human Errors: Pointless Bones, Runaway Nerves, and Other Human Defects, by Nathan H. Lents
A Bridge Too Far, by Cornelius Ryan (DNF)
Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading, by Lucy Mangan
Sputnik’s Guide to Life on Earth, by Frank Cottrell Boyce (audio, read by Peter Capaldi)
Seventy-Seven Clocks, by Christopher Fowler (Overdrive)
How Do We Look: The Body, the Divine, and the Question of Civilization, by Mary Beard
1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, by James Shapiro
Jude the Obscure, by Thomas Hardy (Serial Reader)
McNally’s Chance, by Vincent Lardo (reread)
The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World, by Simon Winchester
Miss Kopp Just Won’t Quit, by Amy Stewart
The Rose and the Ring, by William Makepeace Thackeray (Serial Reader)
The Little Book of Feminist Saints, by Julia Pierpont and Manjit Thapp
The Disorderly Knights, by Dorothy Dunnett
Red Bones, by Ann Cleeves
Does it Fart?: The Definitive Field Guide to Animal Flatulence, by Dani Rabaiotti and Nick Caruso

I also gave away a book unread:

Ten Days in Summer, by Susan Calder

My favourite book of the month was Sputnik’s Guide to Life on Earth, by Frank Cottrell Boyce. I read the audio version performed by Peter Capaldi, and it was sheer delight. And then I borrowed the print copy from the library and read it in the space of an hour.

My least favourite book was A Bridge Too Far, by Cornelius Ryan. It was a couple hundred pages too far for me.

Currently reading

Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy (translated by Constance Garnett) — Serial Reader book. Only a few more issues to go! I’ve reached the famous ending.
American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot, by Craig Ferguson (audio, read by Craig Ferguson) — Craig does an excellent job reading his memoir, which I’ve read previously in print. Loved the bits about Dreamboys :D
Bleak House, by Charles Dickens (Serial Reader) — I’m determined to try this one again. Serial Reader might do the trick.
Hamlet, Revenge!, by Michael Innes — one of the Top 100 crime novels. I put this in the on-deck pile after reading 1599, by James Shapiro, last month (it talked about Shakespeare writing Hamlet).
A Short History of Drunkenness, by Mark Forsyth — a very droll book by the author of The Etymologicon, which was life-threateningly funny to me last year. This is still funny, but not life-threatening.

November plans

SO GLAD I got The Disorderly Knights read! I have two more Pool books lined up to read immediately, and three more will have to make their way to the pile soon, including my re-read of The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, which I’d rather read at home to avoid damaging my copy of the book.

On the library shelves:

Blackout, by Ragnar Jónasson (translated by Quentin Bates) — this is due back very very soon, so I shall have to get on it sharpish.
The Poison Squad, by Deborah Blum — all about food safety in NYC at the turn of the 20th century. I enjoyed Blum’s The Poisoner’s Handbook, so this was a no-brainer request.
The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, by Stuart Turton — I did NOT realize this was such a huge book! It might have to be re-requested :-/
A Brief History of Time Lords, by Steve Tribe — best title! I always request Doctor Who books from the library to encourage them to buy more.
Florida, by Lauren Groff — requested this thanks to RidgewayGirl, who highlighted a story that I am in (or rather my LT username is in).
Presumed Dead, by Mason Cross — on the longlist for this year’s McIlvanney Prize.
The Beatles Yellow Submarine, by Bill Morrison — a GN adaptation of the movie? Yes please!
Hope Never Dies, by Andrew Shaffer — the idea of Obama and Biden solving crimes together cracks me up!
Fire in the Thatch, by E.C.R. Lorac — another British Library Crime Classic
The Prodigal Tongue: The Love-Hate Relationship Between American and British English, by Lynne Murphy — I heard about Murphy’s blog from Editing Twitter, I think, and then this book showed up in the catalogue.
Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World, by Meredith Broussard — According to my stats, I heard about this from CBC.
Let’s Go Exploring: Calvin and Hobbes, by Michael Hingston — Part of the ECW Press “Pop Classics” series, which consists of small, short books about items of pop culture. They’re like long essays or novellas.
Isabella of Castile: Europe’s First Great Queen, by Giles Tremlett — holy smokes this is another big book.

Happy new thread!

Happy new thread, Princess!

Happy new thread from me too!

Happy new thread, RP. So I know dogs fart and look appropriately guilty and cats fart and alway make it look like some else did it - do all animals fart?

Happy new thread! I love reviewing all the categories and related reading.

Hope never dies by Shaffer, sounds like a lot of fun! I'll watch for your review.

>16 MissWatson: Thanks, Birgit! :)

>17 mstrust: Thanks, Jennifer! I hope you had a very happy Halloween!

>18 Jackie_K: Thanks, Jackie! Probably last thread of the year ;)

>19 DeltaQueen50: Thanks, Judy! Not all animals do. Birds are the most notable non-farters; food doesn't stay in their digestive systems long enough for their bodies to produce fart gases. And sloths don't, because their digestive systems take so long to process food that there's nothing left to fart. That said, lots of animals fart, and I was surprised to learn about some of them.

>20 VivienneR: Thanks, Vivienne! It does look like a lot of fun. After I picked it up from the library I dug through some old Obama/Biden memes. Hee hee!

Oooh, what a classy new thread!

>22 RidgewayGirl: Thanks! It will get even classier when I read True or Poo? ;)

Happy new thread, RP!

>24 lkernagh: Thanks, Lori! :)

Happy new thread. I'm always amazed at the plans you make for the coming month and the number of books.

>26 dudes22: Thanks, Betty! The library shelves are always ambitious. I had to return Blackout yesterday and will probably return The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, because there's no way I'm getting it done in the time I have left on it (and I can't renew).

****

First book finished of November was finished a bit frantically, the day it was due, and even now I can't actually remember whether I finished it.

A Short History of Drunkenness, by Mark Forsyth
Category: The Lie of the Land
Source: library
Rating: 3/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/161344677

This was a droll read. Funny, but not life-threateningly funny like The Etymologicon was (although that might be a good thing).

Happy new thread!

I just finished watching season 1 of Broadchurch and I couldn't help thinking of you and your love for Doctor Who. Two doctors in the series! They're both incredibly good actors. I've not watched a lot of Doctor Who in the past but I will definitely put David Tennant's and the new series on my to-be-watched list.

>28 mathgirl40: Thanks, Paulina! I'm glad you liked S1 of Broadchurch. It has 3 Doctors, sort of, because David Bradley played the First Doctor in the 2017 Xmas special ;) David Tennant was my "gateway Doctor", so I hope you like him! Although I like all of the Doctors for different reasons :)

>29 rabbitprincess: Thanks for that bit of information about 3 Doctors!

>30 mathgirl40: I'm always happy to blather on about Doctor Who ;) We had a work dinner last month and over the course of the conversation I somehow ended up explaining why the TARDIS always looks like a police box.

****

It's been a productive few days on the reading front. I broke 200 books for the year (the honour went to A Short History of Drunkenness, reviewed in >27 rabbitprincess:), and this afternoon I spent a bit of time going through my to-read list on Goodreads. I deleted a bunch of titles that were never going to make it to my request list, and I flagged some books that I can borrow from my parents (I have a shelf called "to-borrow" that I like to refer to on visits home).

I also spent a bit of time reviewing books...

Hamlet, Revenge!, by Michael Innes
Category: Knock Knock
Source: a church book sale
Rating: 2/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/156469129

Another entry off the Top 100 list of crime novels compiled by the Crime Writers Association. Decidedly meh for me. Heavy narrative and I nearly bailed without finding out whodunnit.

The Poison Squad: One Chemist's Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, by Deborah Blum
Category: The Lie of the Land
Source: library
Rating: 4/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/161520956

If you liked The Poisoner's Handbook, you'll like this one. It's a timely read, too.

Doctor Who: A Brief History of Time Lords, by Steve Tribe
Category: The Empress of Mars
Source: library
Rating: 3/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/161521040

An interesting packaging of Doctor Who lore, specifically that relating to the Time Lords. For some reason I found the pages a bit dark to read comfortably (not enough contrast), but the book itself was an OK diversion.

>31 rabbitprincess: I liked Hamlet, Revenge! a bit more than you did, but mostly because of the ending, which I found very ingenious. But I totally agree with your description of the heavy narration and the fact that there were way too many characters! I read another book by Innes and had the same reaction -- I really liked the ending, but getting there was kind of a slog.

>32 christina_reads: The length of the book made it feel heavier to me, too. "How is this only 200-some pages and taking me the same amount of time a 400-page book would?"

First proper snow of the season today! Good thing the BF put his snow tires on last week ;) After fighting my way home through that (the buses were OK, but everything was just slow), I am staying put with blankets, books and beer.

It's been a reasonably productive reading week...

Christmas with Anne and Other Holiday Stories, by L.M. Montgomery
Category: Smile
Source: library
Rating: 3/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/161521055

I was somehow reminded of this and ended up borrowing it for some pre-Christmas cheer. It's frightfully sentimental and you do have to be in the right mood for it. Also read this a bit at a time; the stories tend to get samey after a while.

The Division Bell Mystery, by Ellen Wilkinson
Category: The Doctor Falls (shared read on Litsy)
Source: Blackwell’s Edinburgh
Rating: 3.5/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/160501902

I read this with someone on Litsy who also collects British Library Crime Classics, and it must be some kind of a record for me because I bought this in mid-September 2018 and read it less than two months after buying it! The author was one of Britain's first female MPs and the book was interesting on several levels.

Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy (translated by Constance Garnett)
Category: The Pilot
Source: Serial Reader, also my BF has a print copy
Rating: 3/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/70473690

Not sure what I can say about this, other than I've been reading it since the end of May and am finally finished! Although the Garnett translation is not the best (I for sure caught at least one unidiomatic phrase), the "feel" of the story was better for me than The Brothers Karamazov, so this gives me hope that I might get on OK with War and Peace (again, on Serial Reader).

Adding a couple more books to my miscellaneous category...

Florida, by Lauren Groff
Category: Smile
Source: library
Rating: 3/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/161592414

I picked this up because RidgewayGirl pointed out my username is mentioned in one of the short stories, "Dogs Go Wolf". Naturally, I liked that story, and the overall feel of the collection was consistently strong. I ran out of time to finish it before handing it back to the library but liked it all the same.

The Beatles Yellow Submarine, by Bill Morrison
Category: Smile
Source: library
Rating: 4.5/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/161676360

This is a beautiful graphic adaptation of the Beatles movie. It doesn't have the songs, sadly, but the rest of the art is gorgeous. I'm thinking of getting my own copy.

I'm glad you liked Florida. And I was so tickled when I came across your name. My only encounter with my own is the very evil guy in The Underground Railroad is named Ridgeway. Your mention is much better.

>36 RidgewayGirl: It brightened my day when you sent me that post! I don't come across my real name very much either (certainly not spelled my way).

Another busy week. Remembrance Day ceremony on Sunday, a day off on Monday, trips to IKEA on Tuesday and Thursday, dinner out with colleagues on Wednesday, and a well-deserved crash night on Friday. I haven't been reading as much as I would like, but I have still been reading :)

Hope Never Dies, by Andrew Shaffer
Category: Knock Knock
Source: library
Rating: 3/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/161801127

This is a very silly mystery in which Joe Biden, bored and lonely after leaving the White House, turns detective after an Amtrak conductor he knows has been killed in a train accident. Barack Obama then helps him with the investigation. It's published by Quirk Books, who did all those classic novel parodies involving otherworldly creatures, so if you liked those you might like this too.

Fire in the Thatch, by E.C.R. Lorac
Category: Knock Knock
Source: library
Rating: 3/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/161801150

This was my second E.C.R. Lorac (the other being Bats in the Belfry), and I liked this one better. This is good if you like WW2 mysteries set on the home front (e.g., the Tom Tyler series by Maureen Jennings).

MacGregor’s Gathering, by Nigel Tranter
Category: The Eaters of Light
Source: Abebooks
Rating: 4/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/111181986

I put this book in my Pool because I'm working my way through Tranter's trilogies at a rate of one book per year. This was a delightfully breezy beginning to his trilogy about Rob Roy MacGregor. Lots of humour, surprisingly. The Clansman, the second book in the trilogy, is definitely in my 2019 Pool.

>38 rabbitprincess: I love the sound of the Biden/Obama book. I do like my fiction silly.

>39 Jackie_K: The writing is nothing fancy; it does the job. It makes a good library borrow or a Daily Deal kind of purchase.

>40 rabbitprincess: Haha, I won't go for the gold-plated collectors' edition then :)

>41 Jackie_K: Good call!

I'm building my 2019 Pool based on the BingoDOG categories and for the "book bullet" square I'm planning on reading Cheer Up Love, because according to my TBR spreadsheet I heard about it through you :) (I hope that's right...)

>42 rabbitprincess: Very possibly - it's on my TBR, although I've not actually read it yet. But as I detail my acquisitions on my ROOT thread we could well have had a conversation about it :)

>43 Jackie_K: Ah, that's probably where it was! I'm glad that makes some sort of sense ;)

>38 rabbitprincess: - The Biden/Obama book was definitely silly but in a good I needed something light to read kind of way. Definitely not high literature!

>45 LittleTaiko: Not at all, but we all need those from time to time!

****

Ended up on the bus a lot on Sunday, so I got a lot of reading done. That plus a short book helps boost the totals ;)

Up Front…, by Victor Spinetti
Category: The Lie of the Land
Source: Christmas gift
Rating: 4/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/149406393

This was a gift from my dad, who let a copy get away from him me in Hay-on-Wye but was able to find another on Abebooks. I enjoyed this memoir immensely.

Let’s Go Exploring: Calvin and Hobbes, by Michael Hingston
Category: Smile
Source: library
Rating: 4/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/161948373

This appreciation of Calvin and Hobbes has exactly the right tone and is a good length. It's part of ECW Press's "Pop Classics" series and a good entry it is too. Off to dig through more of my Complete Calvin and Hobbes...

>46 rabbitprincess: - I loved the Calvin and Hobbs comic strip and was sad when our paper no longer carried it. Especially the ones with the snowmen.

>47 dudes22: Today it was very cold, with windchill approaching minus 25, and I thought of the strip where Calvin announces, "Don't you hate it when your boogers freeze?"

>48 rabbitprincess: - HA! HA! I managed to snag a Calvin and Hobbes anthology at a library sale once and every once in a while, I'll grab it and randomly look at a few. The newspaper here is carrying a similar comic called "Red and Rover", a boy and his dog who communicate. It reminds me a lot of Calvin and Hobbes. We're supposed to be getting the coldest Thanksgiving here tomorrow in loads of years. Not quite as cold as you but cold for us.

>49 dudes22: My friends bought me the Complete Calvin and Hobbes for Christmas last year, but we STILL regret not having bought the copy we saw at the Great Glebe Garage Sale when we were in university. Between us we could have afforded it -- it was going for $50, which at that time was a steal -- but we didn't have an easy way to carry it home. Still, it would have been fun to get that way!

I hope you're enjoying a nice cosy Thanksgiving! It seems too early for me to be getting out the biggest sweaters and wearing snowpants, regular pants, and leggings.

****

I'm having a pretty good reading streak, although I'm still working the odd extra hour and am pretty tired when I get home.

Designs on Life, by Elizabeth Ferrars
Category: The Doctor Falls (Orange ColourCAT)
Source: Rockcliffe Park Public School Book Fair
Rating: 4/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/135780556

This was an impulse buy from the book sale because it's a handsome hardcover in the Collins Crime Club imprint. I enjoyed these stories very much -- they were just as long as they needed to be and exactly the right dose of suspenseful. I'll probably see if my friend wants to read it too.

True or Poo?: The Definitive Field Guide to Filthy Animal Facts and Falsehoods, by Dani Rabaiotti and Nick Caruso
Category: Smile
Source: library
Rating: 4.5/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/162023055

This was even better than Does It Fart?. Lots of interesting facts. Although maybe don't read it while you're eating.

True or Poo? - great title. And would made an excellent title if they ever publish all the things Trump says!

>51 DeltaQueen50: Every single one of those entries would be "Poo"!

This year I've had trouble to follow my own reading and all the lovely threads here on LT - but now I'm all caught up with yours. Glad to hear you enjoyed your vacation in Scotland, I'd love to go back, too. And it looks like you're getting a lot of good books read this year, around 20 books per months is not too bad I'd say (with my miserable 16 books total so far...)! As usual, I was also hit by a few BBs on the way.

>53 Chrischi_HH: Scotland is so lovely! The challenge will be deciding where to go next ;)

Good thing there's a "book bullet" month in the TBRCAT next year! I hope you like the books that piqued your interest.

>51 DeltaQueen50: I reprint Trump's Twitter stream daily.

I'm in the middle of a weird week. Went to a concert yesterday, had an appointment and a professional networking event this afternoon/evening, have appointments tomorrow, and two trips to Montreal in the next five days (one for fun, one for work... the stars didn't quite align for them to be done in one trip).

But yes, I've still been reading...

American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot, by Craig Ferguson (audio, read by Craig Ferguson)
Category: Knock Knock
Source: iTunes
Rating: 5/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/147371173

One of the few audiobooks I might re-read. Craig is an excellent reader of his own material (as you might expect) and the bits about Peter Capaldi are even LOVELIER to hear than to read :D

Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong — and the New Research That’s Rewriting the Story, by Angela Saini
Category: The Lie of the Land
Source: library
Rating: 4/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/162133616

An interesting and occasionally infuriating read, particularly when talking about "proof" about gender-based intelligence gaps :-/ Things are better than they used to be, but boy do we have a long way to go.

And another dump of reviews for the end of the month! November recap coming shortly.

Ancillary Mercy, by Ann Leckie
Category: The Empress of Mars
Source: Perfect Books
Rating: 3.5/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/140471811

My favourite character is definitely Translator Zeiat. She seems very Doctory to me :)

The Pirate Planet, by James Goss and Douglas Adams
Category: The Empress of Mars
Source: library
Rating: 3/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/162291627

I wanted to like this more than I did. K-9 was great, but the story as a whole went on rather long.

The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, by John le Carré
Category: World Enough and Time, The Doctor Falls (October MysteryCAT)
Source: library book sale
Rating: 3.5/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/98728652

A re-read of the classic spy novel. Tightly plotted, economically written, but I don't like Liz Gold's role that much.

November recap

Despite feeling like I slowed down this month, or at least in the second half of the month, I managed to finish 21 books.

A Short History of Drunkenness, by Mark Forsyth
Hamlet, Revenge!, by Michael Innes
The Poison Squad: One Chemist's Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, by Deborah Blum
Doctor Who: A Brief History of Time Lords, by Steve Tribe
Christmas with Anne and Other Holiday Stories, by L.M. Montgomery
The Division Bell Mystery, by Ellen Wilkinson
Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy (translated by Constance Garnett) (Serial Reader)
Florida, by Lauren Groff
The Beatles Yellow Submarine, by Bill Morrison
Hope Never Dies, by Andrew Shaffer
Fire in the Thatch, by E.C.R. Lorac
MacGregor’s Gathering, by Nigel Tranter
Up Front…, by Victor Spinetti
Let’s Go Exploring: Calvin and Hobbes, by Michael Hingston
Designs on Life, by Elizabeth Ferrars
True or Poo?: The Definitive Field Guide to Filthy Animal Facts and Falsehoods, by Dani Rabaiotti and Nick Caruso
American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot, by Craig Ferguson (audio, read by Craig Ferguson)
Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong — and the New Research That’s Rewriting the Story, by Angela Saini — 4 stars
Ancillary Mercy, by Ann Leckie
The Pirate Planet, by James Goss and Douglas Adams
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, by John le Carré (reread)

My favourite book of the month was American on Purpose, by Craig Ferguson. This is one of the few audiobooks I can see myself re-reading.

My least favourite book was Hamlet, Revenge!, by Michael Innes. It was a heavy read for such a short book, and I didn't really end up caring whodunnit.

Currently reading

Bleak House, by Charles Dickens (Serial Reader) — Working my way toward the bit where I left off last time. So far, so good. I still want to slap Mr. Skimpole.
Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith — on Serial Reader. After an initially promising start, it's getting boring. I've skimmed the bits about stocks.
Doctor Who: Blackout & The Art of Death, by Oli Smith and James Goss — two audio-exclusive adventures featuring the Eleventh Doctor. I haven't started it yet because my iPod was acting up and refusing to sync :-/
While Still We Live, by Helen MacInnes -- a thriller set in Poland in WW2. I'm hot and cold about it. Not a good book to read in distracting environments.
Murder over Dorval, by David Montrose -- perfect train reading for my Montreal trip :D

December plans

The main one is to read the last two books in my Pool. One is a historical novel, so I should really be reading it at home.

I'll update my library shelves list tomorrow. Or not...

Some good reading there! And 21 books is excellent, especially as it includes the chunkster Anna Karenina.

I'm currently reading The Spy Who Came In From the Cold also. Not as quickly as you did. It was supposed to be my book for the Oct mystery but I couldn't get to it then but wanted to read it. All the holiday stuff will probably slow me down even more.

>59 VivienneR: I'd been reading it on Serial Reader for a few months, so it's perhaps less impressive than it looks ;)

>60 dudes22: I ended up finishing it off yesterday morning on the train and while hanging out in Montreal's central station. It was my October mystery choice too! :) But I almost never read my CAT choices in the assigned month.

>58 rabbitprincess: Congratulations on finishing 21 books in November! Too bad about the Michael Innes book. I'd read some of his short fiction and that one sounded interesting, but maybe there's no real hurry to look for it.

>62 mathgirl40: You might get on better with it than I do. Want me to save my copy for you? I'm sure we'll find a way to meet up sometime ;)

I'm in the middle of a lot of books but not really getting far with many of them. So far this is the only one I've completed in December:

Murder Over Dorval, by David Montrose
Category: Knock Knock
Source: Paragraphe Books, Montreal
Rating: 3/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/126834440

I think my favourite in this series is still The Body on Mount Royal, although I did love the description of the flight on which the murder in the title happened. I was practically giddy with excitement at the description of 1950s commercial air travel, because I am a nerd :P

>63 rabbitprincess: Sure, it'll at least give us motivation to arrange another meet-up! I do have a fondness for mysteries involving theatre productions. I just finished reading Death of a Hollow Man by Caroline Graham about a murder that occurs during a production of Amadeus.

>65 mathgirl40: Excellent! I'll set it aside then :) And you remind me I should grab another Charles Paris book sometime! I really enjoyed What Bloody Man is That?.

Hi rp - thought you might enjoy this little twitter exchange, it made me smile! (hope the link works) https://twitter.com/JackieKirkham/status/1070675762586574848

>67 Jackie_K: *wild applause emoji* :D The link did work, and it was brilliant :)

Haha, yes, it's still making me chuckle a couple of days later!

>69 Jackie_K: :D

****

Hoping for a quiet weekend after a very busy (and in parts supremely annoying) week. Went Christmas shopping this morning. Not quite finished yet, but my strategy is to shop in bursts either early in the morning or late in the evening, and to leave when I get fed up ;)

Reading has been slow for whatever reason. Or I feel like it's slower. I can't believe it's already December 8.

Black Money, by Ross Macdonald
Category: The Doctor Falls (November RandomCAT)
Source: Chaptigo
Rating: 4/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/137805473

A Ross Macdonald novel is usually a pretty good bet, and this one is no exception. I found the writing particularly refreshing after Murder Over Dorval, whose primary appeal lies in the setting and plot, not so much the writing style.

>70 rabbitprincess: I like your shopping strategy - Christmas shopping can be so stressful. I am (so far) breezing through the shopping, it helps when I know exactly what I am getting everyone. I can't really relax and enjoy the season until the shopping is complete.

>71 DeltaQueen50: Yes, knowing what you're looking for is crucial! And if I have only a general idea ("I'm getting Mum a cardigan," for example), if I don't see what I'm looking for in the first two or maybe three stores, I give up on it and try again another time. But it does help to have seen what's out there, so that I know to adjust my requirements or even look for something else instead.

Normally I'd do some online shopping as well, but with the Canada Post rotating strikes I didn't want to chance having things arrive late (and also they have enough backlog to get through without my adding to it).

>70 rabbitprincess: and >71 DeltaQueen50: - Joining Judy in liking your shopping strategy. The Canada Post rotating strikes have made shopping this year a more thought out process. I managed to get a little creative with the gift deliveries. Good news for online Bay shoppers (and probably other large retailers), I learned that I can purchase items on-line, request pickup at store (provided the location chosen has the item "in stock") and I can designate a third party to pick up the purchases at the store location. That really de-stressed things for some of the gifts. My dad doesn't like to receive gifts unless they are consumables (my siblings who live locally usually give him wine, etc). I order chocolates from Bernard Callebaut, which is headquartered in Calgary, and they use a local courier to deliver to his door.

>73 lkernagh: Ooh, that's a good idea too! And I like your dad's attitude toward gift-receiving; these days I am very much in favour of things to eat as well. Or gift cards, which I can use later in the year as needed, especially for clothes.

Today my friends and I went to the Christmas-themed tea at Billings Estate, a local historic home. The Dickens carollers were back again, and they really made it feel like Christmas! Now I am going to drive my other half nuts by constantly humming "The Holly and the Ivy".

Man! This week was annoying too, like last week. Lots of things going wrong. But we had our team Christmas party on Wednesday, and on Thursday I reunited with the team from the big project I was working on over the summer -- I'll be getting back into it in the next couple of months :D And now it is Friday!

All of the annoying stuff happening has meant that my reading mojo has been on the fritz. I'm declaring a few books finished.

While Still We Live, by Helen MacInnes
Category: The Pilot
Source: library, via Overdrive
Rating: 2/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/162099407

I borrowed this from my parents' library system and found the ebook distractingly laden with typos. And when Sheila wasn't in the scene, I wasn't interested. I also think that I'm burned out on WW2 books.

The Soaring Pilot’s Manual, by Ken Stewart
Category: The Lie of the Land
Source: library
Rating: 4/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/162798113

A friend of mine flies a glider, so I wanted to know how they work. There is SO MUCH to think about when you're gliding! I definitely could not do it. But I MIGHT be convinced to go up with him one day...

1921, by Morgan Llywelyn
Category: The Pyramid at the End of the World
Source: Xmas gift
Rating: 2/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/137167329

I found this more annoying than interesting, much to my disappointment. The dialogue felt lifted out of history textbooks, the endnotes were distracting, and the occasional sex scenes were totally unnecessary. Not sure I'll continue with the series.

Trying to get my reading mojo back with a short book.

Bush Planes and Bush Pilots, by Dan McCaffery
Category: The Lie of the Land
Source: library
Rating: 4/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/162798126

If you like planes and Canada and wilderness adventures, this is a quick, interesting read. It was written in 2002, so some of the information about the museums that house these planes may be out of date, but the history itself should still be reasonably correct.

Short books and Doctor Who (and short Doctor Who books) also help restore my reading mojo. Going home for Christmas today, too, so that should also help.

Doctor Who: The Vault, by Marcus Hearn
Category: The Empress of Mars, The Doctor Falls (December RandomCAT)
Source: Xmas gift (2013)
Rating: 4.5/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/104608031

I read this for the December RandomCAT; it was the only book tagged "Christmas 2013" that I hadn't read yet. Now I have read it, and it was great. Lots to see and read and learn.

Doctor Who and the Image of the Fendahl, by Terrance Dicks
Category: The Empress of Mars
Source: church book sale
Rating: 3.5/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/141824391

Ahhh, this is exactly what I needed for a bus book. The story itself is not my favourite Doctor Who novel, but the pacing and writing and characters and plot got me out of my reading funk.

I am now in full-on lazy holiday mode. Or as lazy as one can get in a household where my parents are hosting Christmas dinner and have a lot to do to prepare in the meantime. I did find time for a festive read:

The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, by Agatha Christie
Category: Smile
Source: borrowed from parents
Rating: 4/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/163462203

This story collection was a good choice for the holidays. The title story sets the tone, and the other stories, while not Christmas-related, have familiar characters and a cozy atmosphere. I enjoyed comparing them to the TV adaptations, especially "The Mystery of the Spanish Chest", which is one of my favourite Suchet Poirots.

Hope you have a Merry Christmas. Looking forward to sharing your reading again next year.

>78 rabbitprincess: I hope you enjoy your holidays! I am almost able to go into lazy holiday mode ... maybe in a few hours.

I enjoyed that short-story collection too!

>79 VivienneR: Thanks, Vivienne! Hope you have a cosy Christmas and that you have lots of good books to read over the holidays.

>80 mathgirl40: Thanks, Paulina! Enjoy that lazy holiday mode! And yes that was a good short-story collection, made even better by reading it in my mum's Fontana paperback edition. She's been collecting all of the Agathas in that vintage edition and has only three left to obtain.

Continuing to raid my parents' shelves while I'm home for Christmas. Finally read this book, which has been on my to-read list for five years now...

The Massey Murder: A Maid, Her Master and the Trial that Shocked a Nation, by Charlotte Gray
Category: Thin Ice, The Doctor Falls (June MysteryCAT - true crime)
Source: borrowed from parents
Rating: 4/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/163462234

This book was so interesting that I read 10 chapters in a single sitting. I couldn't put it down. It focuses on the trial of a woman who shot her employer, a member of the Massey family, and how the social and political circumstances of the time (the first half of 1915) influenced the trial. It's always a pleasure to read Charlotte Gray and I will have to read more of her work soon.

Have a great holiday, RP!

>83 DeltaQueen50: Thanks, Judy! Enjoy your time with your family :)

Some Christmas reading and hauling to report.

I got three books from my family:

The Book: A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time, by Keith Houston
Now We Are Six Hundred: A Collection of Time Lord Verse, by James Goss (illustrated by Russell T. Davies)
The Inconvenient Indian, by Thomas King

And I've been focusing on books that I can borrow from my parents while I'm visiting. This one I borrowed from my grandma and can now return to her:

The Springburn Story: The History of the Scottish Railway Metropolis, by John Thomas
Category: The Eaters of Light
Source: borrowed from Grandma
Rating: 3/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/160906004

This pretty much met my expectations. It's a bit heavy going if you don't have much background knowledge about steam locomotives or trains, but most of that can probably be looked up online if necessary. An interesting curiosity.

>82 rabbitprincess: I've heard about that one! Good to know that I should definitely pick it up if I come across a copy.

Enjoy your holiday days!

>86 RidgewayGirl: Yes, Charlotte Gray's work is always interesting, and this story in particular was really interesting. Hope you had a good Christmas!

Catching up. I hope you had a good Christmas! I'll be following you (on LT, not in person) in 2019!

>88 mstrust: I did indeed! Ate way too many cookies but that is par for the course.

Ahhhh it is so nice to be home and using my own computer again!

Doctor Who: Blackout & The Art of Death, by Oli Smith and James Goss (audio, read by Stuart Milligan and Raquel Cassidy)
Category: Knock Knock, The Empress of Mars
Source: ripped from library CDs
Rating: 1.5/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/100241299

I didn't enjoy these audio-exclusive adventures much. I preferred The Art of Death over Blackout, but in both cases I found the single narrators had to do too much to create a range of different voices. I must prefer the full-cast dramas put on by Big Finish.

I came home to a big pile of library books -- five holds had come in while I was at my parents' place, and then EIGHT more came in yesterday. So I'm reading some of the backlog and trying to cram in a couple more books before the end of the year.

My Squirrel Days, by Ellie Kemper
Category: The Lie of the Land
Source: library
Rating: 3.5/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/163315052

I haven't seen anything that Ellie Kemper is in, but that title and the cover meant I had to pick this book up. I laughed out loud and related to Ellie more than I was perhaps expecting. 3 stars for the writing, and an extra half-star for those laughs.

>91 rabbitprincess: Good luck getting through all the holds before their return dates.

Wishing you a Happy New Year filled with good health and good reading.

>92 thornton37814: Thanks! What an adorable space kitty :)

>93 VivienneR: Thanks, I'll need the luck! Six of the books are Doctor Who novels, so they should make fairly easy reading. Hope you have a great new year as well!

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I don't think I'll finish any more books today, because I'll be too busy writing up my year-end stats and watching movies to ring in the new year. Monthly recap and year-end overview coming soon.

Happy New Year and goodness that's a lot of library books! How long can you told them if no one else wants to borrow them?

>95 lsh63: They changed the rules last year, and I think you can keep them almost indefinitely until someone puts a hold on them. It used to be a three-renewal limit. I still adhere to that for myself, though, especially for books that I haven't even opened yet.

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Recap of December 2018 is up.

December recap

This month I *definitely* slowed down. Only (“only”) 13 books.

Murder Over Dorval, by David Montrose
Black Money, by Ross Macdonald
While Still We Live, by Helen MacInnes (Overdrive) (abandoned)
The Soaring Pilot’s Manual, by Ken Stewart
1921, by Morgan Llywelyn (abandoned)
Bush Planes and Bush Pilots, by Dan McCaffrey
Doctor Who: The Vault, by Marcus Hearn
Doctor Who and the Image of the Fendahl, by Terrance Dicks
The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, by Agatha Christie
The Massey Murder: A Maid, Her Master and the Trial that Shocked a Nation, by Charlotte Gray
The Springburn Story: The History of the Scottish Railway Metropolis, by John Thomas
Doctor Who: Blackout & The Art of Death, by Oli Smith and James Goss (audio, read by Stuart Milligan and Raquel Cassidy)
My Squirrel Days, by Ellie Kemper

My favourite book of the month was Doctor Who: The Vault, by Marcus Hearn. So much geekiness packed into a single book.

My least favourite book was Doctor Who: Blackout & The Art of Death, by Oli Smith and James Goss. These audio-exclusive adventures really didn’t work for me. I prefer Big Finish and the full-cast dramas, I think.

Currently reading

Bleak House, by Charles Dickens (Serial Reader) — I might be past where I left off last time! Can’t remember. But it’s going surprisingly well. I may upgrade this to a 3-star rating ;)
Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith (Serial Reader) — Very nearly bailed this month, but then Smith came out with some amazingly relevant-to-modern-times warnings about letting profiteers hoodwink the public into thinking the profiteers’ interests are the public’s interest.
The King’s Agent, by J. Kent Clark — historical fiction set during the era of James VII/II of Scotland/England. One of my great-aunts owned it and I’m impressed by how readable it is.
The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors, by Dan Jones — Got a bit of a head start on my February TBRCAT: a book I borrowed and haven’t got to yet. This book I borrowed from the library, ran out of time to read, and then ended up borrowing from my parents because they bought it in the meantime.
Doctor Who: Classic Doctors, New Monsters, Volume 2 — another Big Finish audio drama box set. Never mind that I have three audiobooks (two of which are Doctor Who) in my Pool. I wanted to listen to THIS one.

January plans

I’ve already put a Pool book in my bus book rotation: The Clansman, by Nigel Tranter. I’m determined to get a good start with the historical novels right off the bat this year.

From the library, I have seven Doctor Who novels to read, and six of these came in one go. I also have a book about the early days of aviation, a mystery whose author did a reading at Bloody Scotland (All the Hidden Truths, by Claire Askew), a book I had to re-request (With the End in Mind, by Kathryn Mannix), and a book about poison (The Royal Art of Poison, by Eleanor Herman).

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Year-end stats coming later...

2018 in stats:

Total books read: 233 (what the…?)

Category totals (these may add up to more than 233 because I posted a few in multiple categories)

The Pilot - general fiction - 19
Smile - graphic novels, short stories, essays, other little weird books - 27
Thin Ice - history non-fiction - 16
Knock Knock - audiobooks and mysteries that I was not reading for the MysteryCAT – 39 (14 audiobooks + 25 non-MysteryCAT mysteries)
Oxygen – plays - 4
Extremis – français, books about books/writing/language/translation – 13 (3 livres en français + 10 books about books)
The Pyramid at the End of the World - history fiction – 14
The Lie of the Land - other non-fiction – 25
Empress of Mars – SFF – 30
The Eaters of Light - Scotland, Ireland, Wales (Celtic cultures) – 22
World Enough and Time – rereads – 8
The Doctor Falls - group reads and CATs – 39 (11 Random + 12 Mystery + 12 Colour + 4 group reads)

The category that saw the biggest increase was SFF, with 30 books read! The vast majority of those were Doctor Who :D I also read more audiobooks than last year, which is pretty good considering I thought last year's total of 10 was huge. I'm proud of myself for exceeding my French goal (of 2, so only just exceeded) and my plays goal (4). My CAT participation was also up from last year, although I almost never read the books in the assigned month.

Making a smaller pool of potential reads (33 books rather than 40) ensured that I actually read all of the books in it!

Top books of the year (five from each quarter):

Picks of Q1 (Jan/Feb/Mar)
Revolution in the Head: The Beatles’ Music and the Sixties, by Ian MacDonald
The Subversive Copy Editor (2nd edition), by Carol Fisher Saller
Rabbit Cake, by Annie Hartnett
The Diary of River Song, Series 1 (Big Finish audio drama)
The Birds and Other Stories, by Daphne du Maurier

Picks of Q2 (Apr/May/Jun)
The Infidel and the Professor: David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship That Shaped Modern Thought, by Dennis C. Rasmussen
The Silence of the Sea, by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir (translated by Victoria Cribb)
Daughters of the Winter Queen: Four Remarkable Sisters, the Crown of Bohemia, and the Enduring Legacy of Mary, Queen of Scots, by Nancy Goldstone
The Diary of a Bookseller, by Shaun Bythell
Ask a Manager: How to Navigate Clueless Colleagues, Lunch-Stealing Bosses, and the Rest of Your Life at Work, by Alison Green

Picks of Q3 (Jul/Aug/Sep)
Unthinkable: An Extraordinary Journey Through the World's Strangest Brains, by Helen Thomson
Into the Raging Sea: Thirty-Three Mariners, One Megastorm, and the Sinking of El Faro, by Rachel Slade
Mary Queen of Scots, by Antonia Fraser
Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History, by Keith O’Brien
Glass Houses, by Louise Penny

Picks of Q4 (Oct/Nov/Dec)
Sputnik’s Guide to Life on Earth, by Frank Cottrell Boyce (audio, read by Peter Capaldi)
American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot, by Craig Ferguson (audio, read by Craig Ferguson)
Doctor Who: The Vault, by Marcus Hearn
Miss Kopp Just Won’t Quit, by Amy Stewart
The Beatles Yellow Submarine, by Bill Morrison (graphic novel)

Also, the year-end book meme!

Describe yourself: The Perfectionists (or rather, the perfectionist...)
How do you feel? Cringeworthy
Describe where you currently live: The North Water
If you could go anywhere...? Bloody Scotland
Favorite form of transportation: You're All Just Jealous of My Jetpack
Your best friend is: The Subversive Copy Editor
You and your friends are: Fly Girls
What's the weather like? The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
Your favourite time of day is: White Nights
What is life for you? The Never-Ending Present
You fear: Places in the Darkness
Best advice: Hope Never Dies
Thought for the day: Does it Fart?
How you would like to die: A Kiss Before Dying
Your soul’s present condition: Unthinkable

Favorite time of day wasn't on the version I've used. I'll have to try to come up with something for it!

Stupendous stats! Congratulations.

I enjoyed your year-end meme!

>99 thornton37814: I can't remember where I got this version from! There seem to be several floating around.

>100 VivienneR: Thanks! I always enjoy pulling out the titles from my reading list to answer the questions. Sometimes it's surprising, because I've forgotten about some books.

Wow, congratulations on 233 books! And I also loved the year-end meme...I might steal it for my 2019 thread. ;)

>102 christina_reads: It is certainly the biggest number of books I've read since starting to track my reading... still not quite sure how it happened. Have fun with the meme!