Weekly Reading Round-Up
I’ve been rather boring and continuing my re-read of my bookshelf’s greatest hits.
I finished off the Sarah Caudwell mysteries with– sadly– the fourth and last, The Sirens Sang of Murder
Right now, I’m contemplating some Angela Thirkell– gentle social satire from the 1930s– next and then I really do have to get myself some new books. There’s a Pamela Morsi contemporary romance on which I have designs, about a librarian who moves to a small town, but I really need to add in a few other books to justify ordering it. So what else shall I buy?
What have you been reading this week?
I read Omens by Kelley Armstrong and would really like the chance to discuss some of my theories about it, but there’s not much conversation on her forum about it. Then I read an ARC of The Shadow of the Alchemist by Jeri Westerson, the new Crispin Guest medieval noir.
For the last few weeks, I’ve been reading unpublished manuscripts written by friends of mine, but I moved to published books and am currently reading Beyong Heaving Bosoms, the essay on romance written by the two famous Smart Bitches, Sarah Wendell and Tracy Can. I’m enjoying very very much, it’s funny and very very complete… 🙂
I’m about halfway through The Perfume Collector and it’s absolutely fantastic.
It has been a great reading week for me. Finished “Mortal Arts” the second in the Lady Darby series by Anna Lee Huber. A fantastic series and a fantastic book! Then read “Declan’s Cross” by Carla Neggers. Also very good. Joan Wolf has put a few more of her old Regency romances on the Kindle so I bought “The Gamble.” I loved it.
I re-read The Nonesuch this week too! I hadn’t read it for a few years, and now remember just how much I loved it the first time I read it.
I’ve now moved on to re-reading I Capture the Castle – I watched the movie this week (stuck in bed with a cold, so I’ve been re-watching romance movies to make myself feel better). After that I think it might be time to give romances a rest and have a ‘palate cleanser’… maybe some speculative fiction.
Just finished Silhouette in Scarlett (E. Peters) and started on the Poisoned Pilgrim (Oliver Poetsh). Since school just started leisure reading will have to take a back seat for a while.
I read the Fifty Shades books because I was curious as to why they sold so well. Meh..definitely not recommended. I’m also so over reading about sex so I’ll be picking things from my to be read pile that doesn’t have sex in it for awhile. Also read this week The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman. Odd story but well written. I recommend it for people who like fairy tales. I’m anxiously waiting for Miss Gwen’s book to come in for me at the library.
Clouds of Witness was my very first Lord Peter Wimsey and I loved it. Right now I’m savoring (e.g. rationing one chapter a night) Deanna Raybourn’s A Spear of Summer Grass. I promised myself I could have it once I finished teaching the summer term and it is everything I had hoped for and more.
I like the Nonesuch too. Waldo is a wonderful hero. I also like the Toll Gate. Very similar heroes.
A Fault in Our Stars was the high school summer read, so we all read it, even my spouse. Beautiful book.
Read the Grace Valley trilogy by Robyn Carr and also her Runaway Mistress. Good stories.
I have started a great mystery series that is NOT historical but very good just the same! Julie Kaewert is the author and her series is about the book publishing business, set in London just afew years ago. Really good suspense and intrigue1
I can never decide between Gaudy and Busman’s Honeymoon for my favourite Peter Wimsey, but all the Peter and Harriet ones are fabulous. I’ve just introduced my little sister to Peter through the medium of those novels (in the right order obviously) and she’s now working her way through the rest of them!
This week I’ve read Helen Forrester’s Three Women of Liverpool, Mhari McFarlane’s You Had Me at Hello (which had been on the pile for ages) and Cathy Woodman’s latest. I’m now on Mischief of the Mistletoe (finally!) and Tigers in Red Weather
I love the Nonesuch, too. It is a great GH novel, and one of my cats likes it, too (well, sort of …). I listen to most of my books & the lady who read the Nonesuch manages to achieve that high-pitch-teenager-noise when the spoiled brat has a hissy-fit in the street (after Patience rescues the little boy from being run down). Every time that she screeches “I won’t” do this, or “I will” do that, my cat Latte makes the exact same squeeky noise. It seems to worry her, though. I think that she thinks that she is hearing another cat … or maybe a distressed kitten.
Not romance, but I’ve been reading The End of Night by Paul Bogard (nonfiction about the night sky/light pollution) and it’s engaging and brilliant. Perfectly written for someone like me who has somewhat limited scientific knowledge (but great interest) in astronomy.
Also I definitely have to buy that Morsi book you mentioned – it sounds adorable.
Thanks for another Georgette Heyer tip-off. The Nonsuch is another one I’ve not read.
I’m now reading Caroline (The Beauvisage novels #1) and enjoying both the romance and how the Cynthia Wright inserts real historical figures into the story. (ala lauren Willig!)
Based on EVERYONE’s recommendation here, I’m about to begin Nine Coaches Waiting and can hardly wait.
Just finished “The Last Word” which is the latest in Lisa Lutz’s Spellman series. They count as contemporary, not historical, and humor, not romance, but they are outrageously fun.
I have been rereading The Proposal by Mary Balogh to prep for her latest in The Survivors series, The Arrangement, which was released August 27, so will begin that next. Anything by Balogh is wonderful. Just started back to school so my reading time is limited.
Right now I’m reading The Asylum by John Harwood. I’m in the middle of it and it’s really good!