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Lily Fairbairn
Gondolin
May 1 2025, 3:16pm
Post #1 of 2
(9167 views)
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It's the occasional reading thread!
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Now for a chorus of "The Lusty Month of May" from Camelot 
In this morning's New York Times crossword puzzle, 46 Down is "Do you remember the ____, Mr. Frodo?" Sam Gamgee.
I'm still listening every day to a bit of Andy Serkis's superb reading of LotR, but haven't yet reached the scene that's referenced in that quote. I'm with Pippin and Beregond sitting on the ramparts of Minas Tirith. This time around, I'm struck by Beregond's speech about how, even though the future looks grim, "Hope and memory shall live still in some hidden valley where the grass is green." And where, I add with my foreknowledge, a sapling of the White Tree waits.
I finished listening to Drop Dead, by Lily Chu, a very pleasant romance set in Toronto. The title is because the woman worked for the obituary section of her newspaper and the plot begins with the death of a famous author. However, I think the title implies mystery, not romance.
I then listened to Brat Farrar, the last of my bundle written by Golden Age author Josephine Tey and superbly read by Karen Cass. I've enjoyed every book, not that I can't pick a nit or two with each one. Coincidence plays a big role in most of them, but, you know, coincidence is a staple of mysteries. Some of the events in the books are thoroughly dated, but then, that's one reason I enjoy these older mysteries with their alternate reality, so to speak. The underlying premise of Brat Farrar, for example, wouldn't hold up today, not with DNA testing.
As with all the other Tey books, this one was beautifully written, if a bit slow by today's standards. I was pleased with the ending but thought it was a bit rushed, with at least one thread left unresolved and the actual denouement not fully explained. However, I was correct from the beginning about one important point—-Conan Doyle uses the same ploy in The Hound of the Baskervilles.
I'm now listening to The Palace: From the Tudors to the Windsors, 500 Years of British History at Hampton Court, by Gareth Russell. So far we're up to the death of Elizabeth I---who was, it seems, not a fan of Hampton Court since that was where she suffered a life-threatening bout of smallpox.
On my ereader, I've given up on the Sage Garden mysteries. Admittedly, with my background as an author and an editor I can be extremely critical about writing, but still, the first book was so poorly done on so many levels I didn't even get to its end, never mind to any other titles in the series. This is one of the multi-book e-bundles I got very cheaply, and, sadly, the second that's turned out to be worth what I paid for it.
I finished reading The Murders at Great Diddling, by Katarina Bivald. This is a contemporary English small-village mystery like an episode of Midsomer Murders. I thought was clever in spots—-I enjoyed all the material about the author, the books, and the book festival—-but frustrating in others. For example, much time/space was devoted to "the woman" who came to town for the festival but then she simply vanished from the story. Say what?
The killer was fairly obvious, but then, I'm on a roll with spotting killers. Not that I search for them so to speak, I just notice them. 
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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Otaku-sempai
Elvenhome
May 1 2025, 5:27pm
Post #2 of 2
(8671 views)
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Realms of the Three Rings (Free League)
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I've been reading through Realms of the Three Rings, the latest expansion book for The One Ring Roleplaying Game (Free League Publishing). The book looks at the regions of Lindon, Rivendell and Lothlórien, where the West-elves still linger in Middle-earth.
“Hell hath no fury like that of the uninvolved.” - Tony Isabella
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