Weekly Reading Round-Up

July 17, 2015 |

Summer to me doesn’t mean beach reads. It means old school Gothics, particularly the mysteries of Barbara Michaels/Elizabeth Peters. I don’t know if it’s because so many of the books are set during sultry Southern summers (like Houses of Stone, Be Buried in the Rain, and Shattered Silk); if it’s because the books must have been on a summer release schedule when I was in my teens (I can remember, on muggy hot summer days, coming home from the library with the new Barbara Michaels clasped triumphantly in my arms); or if it’s because they made such good summer vacation reading.

Either way, when the thermometer goes way up and the weather is sizzling hot (to borrow a phrase from Mr. Cole Porter), it’s time for Barbara Michaels/Elizabeth Peters. This week? Shattered Silk and Devil May Care, both favorite summer reads.

I’ve also started Erik Larson’s Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania and am absolutely thrilled by the minute detail and dry humor.

What have you been reading this week?

Posted in Weekly Reading Round-Up

8 Comments

  1. Christina on July 17, 2015 at 1:02 pm

    It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War by Lynsay Addario. Lynsey’s a photojournalist and has covered conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia etc. Very interesting read.

    Go Set a Watchman Harper Lee – It’s wonderful and I loved it. It’s fascinating to see where Mockingbird came from.

    I’m about a 1/3 of the book into The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt and I love it so far. I also just started listening to The Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters when I am walking the dog.

    Reply
    • Kristen Allen-Vogel on July 17, 2015 at 6:58 pm

      I’m reading Go Set a Watchman now. Everything else I’ve been reading is either to judge for the Notable Books Council or to consider as a possible book for our community read.

      Reply
  2. Laura on July 17, 2015 at 3:19 pm

    Almost, almost done with Judy Blume’s In the Unlikely Event (my lunch break wasn’t quite long enough today). First of her adult books I’ve read and it is pretty good.

    Looking for something that will only take me about 3-4 days since there is a new book I want to read coming out next week! 🙂

    Reply
  3. Miss Eliza on July 17, 2015 at 4:38 pm

    I finished The Lure of the Moonflower and didn’t want it to ever end. Why did I finish it, why!?!

    I’m now reading Mad World about Evelyn Waugh and the Lygon family, interesting, but too much time spent on Evelyn and not enough on the Lygons.

    Reply
  4. Sheila on July 17, 2015 at 9:13 pm

    It has been a good week for mysteries. I read Carola Dunn’s 22nd Daisy Dalrymple, the Superfluous Women, Nancy Atherton’s Aunt Dimity and the Summer King, and Karin Slaughter’s Kisscut, a big contrast to the first two, but I enjoyed them all. Also I loved Hazel Gaynor’s A Memory of Violets, an excellent historical about London’s flower sellers, and E Lockhart’s YA We Were Liars.

    Reply
  5. Lauren H. on July 17, 2015 at 9:30 pm

    I’ve been reading The Hippopotamus Pool from Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody series.

    Also, Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War by Karen Abbott.

    Listening to All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.

    And just starting American Gods by Neil Gaiman.

    I’ve been having trouble finding my groove so far this summer…

    Reply
  6. Angie on July 18, 2015 at 12:36 pm

    Jackaby by William Rutter. Next best thing to new Sherlock episodes.

    Reply
  7. Carly on July 18, 2015 at 1:21 pm

    My turn finally came for my library’s copy of Murder with Peacocks by Donna Andrews, which was in a reading roundup a while ago. So funny! Before that I read Caveat Emptor by Ruth Downie which took me a while.

    Reply

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