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Lily Fairbairn
Half-elven
Jul 9 2022, 2:37pm
Post #1 of 6
(866 views)
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It's the occasional reading thread!
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And I do mean "occasional" this time around, since I've been traveling and recovering from traveling---something that takes longer the older I get. 
What with the above my reading has momentarily dropped off. I took two shabby old (disposable, in other words) paperbacks along with me and read one: The Dead Sea Cipher by Elizabeth Peters. This is one of the classic romantic suspense thrillers she wrote before she started her Amelia Peabody series. For having been published in 1970, it holds up well. The intelligent, self-confident heroine is touring the historical sites in Lebanon, Syria, and Israel when she's caught up in a plot concerning as-yet-undiscovered Dead Sea scrolls. That the ending is a bit abrupt and deus ex machina is my only criticism.
The heroine's references to the music of the Beatles, played on a cassette player by a member of her group, are quite amusing in retrospect.
I'm almost finished with the new, Andy Serkis, audiobook of Fellowship and am looking forward to Towers. Serkis might have done better to simply read the songs as poetry rather than sing them, but the rest of his interpretation is superb. I'm hearing things in the story I've never noticed before, which is saying something!
I'm also listening to Thin Air, a Shetland novel by Anne Cleeves. Several people from England come to a remote community in Shetland to attend the wedding of a friend. One murder ensues, and then another. There's a well-done hint of the supernatural in the story, and as always I enjoy Cleeves's detective, Jimmy Perez, and her descriptions of Shetland.
On paper I'm catching up with the magazines that accumulated in my absence. The AARP magazine has a cover story on country music, the Smithsonian a cover story on the unique plants and animals of Madagascar, Archaeology magazine one on the workmen who built the pyramids, and Trends and Traditions one on the Bray school, a recent discovery at Colonial Williamsburg.
So what have you been reading?
Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the hand on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?
Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow....
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Annael
Elvenhome
Jul 12 2022, 7:58pm
Post #2 of 6
(757 views)
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The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd
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interesting premise, poorly executed. Did not understand what happened at the climax. I was also thrown off by Peng's repeated use of the wrong word for the context. Her heroine "clamored up the stairs" at one point and then, despite being a tiny woman (as we are repeatedly told), "wedged herself through her doorway." The sun "threatens the horizon" at dawn more than once. I understand her first book won lots of awards so I may try that before I give up on her.
I also re-read John Varley's "Titan" trilogy. Love the first two books, not so fond of the last one, which opts for horror rather than scifi most of the time, but there's good stuff too. Varley writes women so well, I was convinced when I first read the books that "John" must be a pseudonym for a woman, but no.
I am a dreamer of words, of written words.
-- Gaston Bachelard
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NARF and member of Deplorable Cultus since 1967
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cats16
Half-elven
Jul 13 2022, 1:34am
Post #3 of 6
(746 views)
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by Låszlo Krasznahorkai. Certainly not an uplifting read, lol, but one that's been on my list for ages. I have nearly all of his books and am now diving in. Bring on the despair! 
Join us every weekend in the Hobbit movie forum for this week's CHOW (Chapter of the Week) discussion!
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ElanorTX
Tol Eressea
Jul 14 2022, 6:59am
Post #4 of 6
(733 views)
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The cartoon strip Breaking Cat News
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had a hilarious arc about a cat version of D&D called V&V (Vaults and Vacuums). It helped soften the news that the real-life cat Tommy had suddenly gone to the Rainbow Bridge.
Otherwise, I don't have time to read anything long or substantial. I do enjoy my subscriptions to Wired magazine and several Catholic publications.
Someday ...
"I shall not wholly fail if anything can still grow fair in days to come."
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dernwyn
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Jul 14 2022, 11:51am
Post #5 of 6
(718 views)
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I don't keep up with the online comments, so I didn't realize that Tommy'd passed over the Bridge! How sad!
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"I desired dragons with a profound desire"
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Annael
Elvenhome
Jul 16 2022, 3:37pm
Post #6 of 6
(689 views)
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Strange Practice by Vivian Shaw, the first in a series about Dr. Greta Helsing (of the van Helsings) who is a doctor to the undead & otherwise inhuman.
I was pulled in quickly and when I hit this bit, I knew I was going to like it:
It was time to replace the handbag, too. The leather on this one was holding up but the lining was beginning to go, and Greta had limited patience regarding the retrieval of items from the mysterious dimension behind the lining itself.
LOL! Anyone who's held on to a cherished bag too long has had to deal with this!
I am a dreamer of words, of written words.
-- Gaston Bachelard
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NARF and member of Deplorable Cultus since 1967
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