What are we reading now-Dec 2018?

I stumbled across a new to me historical crime fiction series, set in Victorian London, but written by an American. The one I read was The Black Hand by Will Thomas, but since I liked it so much, I've now requested the first book in the series from our library.

I'm reading a pulpy 1950s mystery set in Montréal: Murder Over Dorval, by David Montrose. (And bonus, I was actually *in* Dorval today!)

I had a challenge list for myself that was to read one book a month, with at least half coming from my 'bought but haven't read yet" list. I managed about 15 books (yay!) but only 2 (well, 1 and a half) from my existing list. December will be finishing the dumb books that I've started this year but haven't finished!

Next year it will be ONLY stuff from my bookshelf that's allowed to count towards the 12.

So right now that's Tomasula's Vas: an opera in flatland,
Sapkowski's The Last Wish,
and Fisher's The Princess Diarist

and extra points if I manage to finish Mrs. Dalloway and Out of Africa which I've been in the middle of since University. I may need to pick up some notes to catch up.

I'm reading Maximum Canada: Why 35 Million Canadians Are Not Enough by Doug Saunders.

Preparing to start Black Money, by Ross Macdonald. What can I say, I'm on a roll with mysteries featuring private detectives as their lead characters.

Perfect read for a couple of days off sick from work: The Clockmaker's Daughter by Kate Morton. Historical fiction, a ghost, an old estate country home-couldn't ask for more!

>7 frahealee:, sounds like you're forcing yourself to read him? That's too bad.

I'm reading Bleak House right now using Serial Reader, and I find reading it in daily "issues" helps me chip away at it. Also, the app gives me little encouraging messages every time I finish an issue!

One of my co workers recommended this book: Five Days Left by Julie Lawson Timmer and I thought, based on rave reviews, that I would enjoy it more than I did. Though it dealt with serious topics and I am in solidarity with the Death with Dignity movement, I just couldn't become emotionally involved at all with the characters in this book. I didn't even find the writing very effective, particularly the attempt to inter-mingle 2 different storylines. Not a winner for me!

>9 frahealee: Which Dickens would you put Gothic in? (Besides maybe, a Christmas Carol). I read a little of Hard Times in college but really wasn't all that fond of it. Easy enough to read ("he squarely pointed a square finger...") but the story didn't really grab me much.

I'm hoping to get more into CanLit this year. I have Nostalgia and Fifteen Dogs on my shelf, as well as The Stone Diaries left over from my actual CanLit college course. I'm also thinking of picking up another Atwood but I'm not sure which one. I've read Surfacing, which was alright. I liked Oryx and Crake but I'm not sure if I'll continue the trilogy. I'm not going anywhere NEAR A Handmaid's Tale. I've heard The Blind Assassin is good. On my shelf that I fished out of my mom's books are Cat's Eye and Lady Oracle.

>12 WeeTurtle:, I've not read the Diaries, but I recently finished Carol Shields' Unless which was really good. I'd like to return to Atwood myself, but I can't decide between The Blind Assassin, The Robber Bride, or Alias Grace.

More crime fiction for me: A Painted Doom by Kate Ellis

I will be reading Bleak House next year for a book club.

I declared (to myself) 2018 would be my YOBB -- Year of Big Books -- because I found I was avoiding them, leaving them to languish on my TBR shelves. Of note, I read Ulysses!

As far as Margaret Atwood goes, my favourites are The Edible Woman, Alias Grace and The Blind Assassin.

Yesterday, I finished my LTER book We Are Here to Stay: Voices of Undocumented Young Adults by Susan Kuklin. I'm now reading Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don't Matter, which is Scott Adams' take on Donald Trump as a Master Persuader -- Mr. Adams is the person who brought us Dilbert.

I got 2 books finished on this wet and chilly weekend, both written by Canadians (well, one is Yorkshire born and bred but has lived in Canada for a long time too) and both good reads. The Grave's a Fine And Private Place by Alan Bradley and Careless Love by Peter Robinson. These crime fiction series are very different from one another but I love them both.

I guess I can claim I've been reading some Canadian fantasy as Steven Erikson is Canadian. I love the books but they keep getting bigger!

New Years plan is to read the books that I already own and wrapped for the occasion. There are at least 5 Canadians in there off the top of my head.

I agree....2019 has to be a year of BOTS (books off the shelf) or ROOTs (read our own toombs) for me!

>22 frahealee:, I'd recommend a new topic for that subject. This group could use one, and that's not a bad idea for it.

>25 frahealee: Mmmm perpetual Alan Rickman narration :D

Speaking of Alan, I keep picturing him as Eamon de Valera in the book I'm reading: 1921, by Morgan Llywelyn. I might have to borrow Michael Collins from the library again...

>25 frahealee:

I can imagine that! Rickman sings a little in Sweeny Todd if you've seen that. I first saw him in Sense and Sensibility so he's always sort of been "Colonel Brandon" in the way that Colin Firth will never not be "Mr. Darcy."

I'm about to start The Red Word by Sarah Henstra.

Here's the CBC recommended list of the best fiction of 2018.
https://www.cbc.ca/books/the-best-canadian-fiction-of-2018-1.4930639?cid=CBC+Boo...

I've found another crime fiction series that appears promising: 1st book is Deadly Virtues by Jo Bannister

I'm reading The History of Bees by Maja Lunde.

I'm on an aviation kick again. Sped through Bush Planes and Bush Pilots, by Dan McCaffery, and am now preparing to read Principles of Helicopter Flight, by W. J. Wagtendonk.

I liked The Whirlpool and also Changing Heaven -- they are Jane Urquhart's first two books, I believe.

I'm starting This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper

My brain is starting to get fried because of impending Christmas vacation, and also because of being on the go basically since mid-November. So I treated myself to a Doctor Who novel: Doctor Who and the Image of the Fendahl, by Terrance Dicks.

I'm hoping that will have cleansed the palate somewhat for me to try The King's Agent, by J. Kent Clark.

>37 rabbitprincess:

Cool! I think I totally forgot that Dr. Who had novels. I actually bought a little short story set about the Battle of Trenzalore but the book is in my survival kit that I leave at a friends house in case I have to crash for the night. I am by no means a Whovian, but I did't happen to catch that particular moment and was then after glued to it for the episodes I was able to catch.

Finished another book in a Canadian mystery series I discovered this past year: Cecilian Vespers by Anne Emery. I didn't care for this one at all-way too much information re: Catholicism and Vatican history, etc. for me.

>38 WeeTurtle: Doctor Who novels and stories would be excellent additions to a survival kit! :)

Raiding my parents' bookshelves while I'm home for Christmas and will read The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, by Agatha Christie.

I'm reading Shadow of Doubt: The Trial of Dennis Oland by CBC Journalist Bobbi-Jean MacKinnon.

Continuing to raid my parents' bookshelves and picking up The Massey Murder, by Charlotte Gray.

Stones on a Grave / Kathy Kacer
3.5 stars

This is part of a series where each book focuses on a different girl. The seven girls that are the focus were all orphans in the early 1960s when the orphanage they lived in burnt down. They are old enough that they are sent away with just a bit of information about who they are.

In this one, 18-year old Sara is given enough information to discover that she came from Germany, and her mother was Jewish. She has a bit more information including a couple of place names and the name of a doctor who helped her get to Canada. With some money she’s made working a part-time job, and a little bit given to her from the headmistress of the orphanage, Sara heads to Germany to try to find out more about her past and, hopefully, her parents.

I liked this. I’ve enjoyed all the books I’ve read in the series so far. This one spent more time in Ontario before Sara leaves for Germany than the other books did before the other girls left. I particularly liked a couple of the secondary characters who helped Sara in Germany. The info about the Holocaust is kept fairly simple, though. I would have liked a little bit more there, but it is meant for a younger audience.

rabbitprincess, I really enjoyed The Massey Murder. Charlotte Gray is one of my favourite authors.

Reaching the end of a year-long reread of Michael Moorcock's huge Eternal Champion fantasy series. Just "The Quest for Tanelorn" to go and it's done.

One of the top sword and sorcery creations ever.

>44 LynnB: She writes wonderfully! I started this yesterday and read the first 10 chapters in pretty much one go, so it's safe to say I am enjoying it too :)

>47 frahealee: I read Alias Grace before I started seriously tracking my reading, so it's almost like I never read it!

That survival kit sounds like an excellent idea. Have to keep it in mind for next year ;)

Now that I've finished The Massey Murder, I'm continuing the non-fiction trend with The Springburn Story, a history of the part of Glasgow known as the Scottish railway metropolis. Also both of these titles are alliterative!

I read Alias Grace both before and after reading The Massey Murder! Several years apart.

>47 frahealee: >50 LynnB: Did either of you watch the miniseries of Alias Grace?

>52 frahealee: I borrowed the DVD from the library, but to my dismay it didn't have captions or subtitles! I like having them on so that I can watch the TV more quietly or knit while watching.

I keep hoarding Scotts but not reading them. This year I read Kenilworth and quite liked it.

i was glued to the set watching Alias Grace. I thought it was wonderful! (I had read the book years ago)

I also really enjoyed the recent tv version of alias grace.

Moving back a few centuries now to The Wars of the Roses, as chronicled by Dan Jones. This is yet another book from my parents' bookshelves :)

I didn't watch the mini series....not much of a TV fan except for Jeopardy! which my son and I watch every night.

I had a few days off work before Christmas and wasn't feeling well, so sneaked in some late year reading. I finished The Good Pilot Peter Woodhouse by Alexander McCall Smith which I had high hopes for. It was a nice little read, but somehow disappointing-esp. as the dog in the story only gets mentioned once I passedthe middle of the book. I then read The Knowledge by Martha Grimes-one of her Richard Jury mysteries. It's been a while since I read one from this series, so it was lovely to be back with all those characters I am familiar with.

>54 frahealee: I tried to read Ivanhoe after seeing it on Wishbone but my littler self found it hard to keep going after all the natter about the linguistics of word to denote a pig.

I'm in poor health generally, so I leave little kits here and there for when I need them. Usually, it's just things like a change of clothes and maybe a day or two of pills if it's somewhere I wouldn't normally have them, but I always put in a book. At my friend's place I also have big socks and a jigsaw puzzle, and at my sister's I have a mug for my tea since their supply can't ordinarily keep up. I keep a book in my car's emergency kit as well. Parked on the highway shoulder reading The Princess Bride for a while when my car unexpectedly overheated.

>60 WeeTurtle: Hey, that's how I was introduced to Ivanhoe too! :) I read the original text as well in university, maybe, but don't remember the pig linguistics. Now I have to read it again to see that! And then likely skip over that bit ;)

I'm reading Quiet Until the Thaw, a novel by Alexandra Fuller

>62 rabbitprincess: Pretty sure it was in the opening paragraphs. A couple peasants are walking through the woods, I think with a pig, and one guy is talking about how pigs when they are alive and being icky are referred to with Saxon words. Once they are cooked and tasty and "of use to people" they get fancy Norman words like 'pork.' Apparently Sir Scott has some social commentary to add.

I have piles of Wishbone episodes recorded on vhs. Not too many on DVD. They should really make it again or make something like it.

I'm about to start one of my Christmas gift books, American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst by Jeffrey Toobin.

>64 WeeTurtle: I so agree that Wishbone should be resurrected (or that the old episodes should be made more widely available).

A re-read for me this week-I didn't recall reading this novel before but when I added it to my list of books, it turned out I did several years ago and loved it then as well as now! (just not enough to remember it!) The Evening Chorus by Helen Humphreys. Beautiful little novel-so lyrical writing.