Reading list for December

 The best suggestion I've seen for a post-Twitter landscape is that everybody should go back to blogging, and preferably own their own site. I haven't paid for a domain, but I still have a languishing blog...so here we go.

In November my older brother's cancer got to the point that he had to go into hospice care, and he died a couple of weeks later. I went down to see him and help with things like breaking his lease and packing up his apartment, and I read pretty much nothing the whole month. 

December was a little better; I read six books, which is about my normal amount.

The Spare Man, by Mary Robinette Kowal
Can't say how close this hews to The Thin Man; it's been a long time since I saw that movie, and even longer since I read the book. But William Powell and Myrna Loy live in my head rent-free, dog and all, and the boozy banter felt just right. 

The Murder of Mr. Wickham, by Claudia Gray
Wonderful, wonderful book. Jane Austen pastiche is a whole cottage industry and has been for years, and I've read enough of it to know when I've found one of the good ones. Austen's characters who appear here speak and act in accord with the way Austen wrote them, and the new characters introduced fit right in and never feel too modern or out of place, even the one who is clearly presented, in 19th century terms, as what 21st century readers will recognize as neurodivergent. Plus the mystery was clever, and the solution was satisfying. I'm very much looking forward to the sequel coming out later this year.

Our America: A Photographic History, by Ken Burns
Most of the photos were new to me, which was pretty cool. But I have to say that the presentation of the photos with only a title, with notes for context at the back of the book, didn't appeal to me the way it was supposed to; I like to know what I'm looking at.

How Am I Doing? 40 Conversation to Have with Yourself, by Dr. Corey Yeager
I will not be having these conversations with myself or a therapist any time soon; I found it hard to find the applicability to my life.

Nothing Lasts Forever, by Roderick Thorp
So there's a local independent bookstore in my town that has partnered with the art house cinema around the corner to do a monthly book-to-film event: buy the book from the bookshop at the beginning of the month, and it comes with a ticket to see the movie on the last Tuesday of the month. I'd never read this one, so I signed up for a book and a ticket, and was somewhat startled to find that the book is even darker and more violent than the movie, given that the movie they made of it was Die Hard. I'm glad I read it once, probably won't ever read it again, and I won't go one to look up the first book in the series or the movie they made of that with Frank Sinatra.

Legends and Lattes, by Travis Baldree
Every bit as charming as everybody says it is. I love the whole idea of high fantasy with low stakes.

Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen

by James Goss

The Doctor (the fourth incarnation), with Romana (the second) and K-9 (Mark II) in tow, heads for the end of the world again. Romana is somewhat miffed to discover this involves attending a cricket match at Lord's Cricket Ground--one of the more spectacular examples of humanity's collective bad taste, made even more distressing by the fact that the humans have no idea. But when the Doctor attempts to confiscate the trophy for the good of the universe, only to see it stolen by killer robots no one has seen in several millennia, he and Romana have to set out on another quest to collect the pieces of a key, this time one that could be used to release the most murderous xenophobes in all of galactic history to continue their ancient mission to wipe out the rest of the physical universe.

In this quest, the Doctor and Romana fail. But they do start to realize that some of the recorded details of galactic history, and even the memory Matrix of the Time Lords, don't quite add up. Why was the planet Krikkit so very isolated in the first place? Where did the wrecked spaceship that shattered their isolation come from? How did they achieve the capacity to travel in space and wage interstellar war so quickly? Who could be behind it all--and could there be someone behind them?

Sounds familiar, I know. We thought we knew about Krikkit: It was the failed pitch for a Doctor Who story that Douglas Adams, a lifelong inveterate repurposer of his own ideas, reworked into Life, the Universe, and Everything, the third Hitchhikers novel, the first one not based directly on the radio series, and the one that (I now think) holds up best as a coherent novel (for some definitions of coherent, anyway). Little did we know that before that happened, Adams had spent four years working on the idea as a script for a proposed Doctor Who movie, and he left enough material in his papers for James Goss's novelization of that version to hold up pretty well too.

The two novels start and end in more or less the same place (at Lord's, naturally), but they take very different paths to get from one end to the other. As they would have to, considering that Ford Prefect was originally conceived as the Anti-Doctor--the hyper-knowledgeable alien character who, given the choice between saving the universe and sloping off to a party, will choose the party every time--and Arthur Dent, while well-meaning and (as a later Doctor would observe) a nice man, is rarely depicted as competent at much of anything--though in this novel he does at least manage to learn to fly, and figures out exactly how to get rid of an angry Thunder God. The Doctor and Romana are much more active protagonists than Ford and Arthur ever manage to be; indeed, the Doctor's role in Krikkitmen is mostly assigned to Slartibartfast and Trillian in LtU&E, with Arthur and Ford tagging along in varying degrees of reluctance and haplessness--though Arthur does get his moment on the pitch at the end.

So even if you think you've read this story and you know where the plot is going, Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen is still well worth a read. Only a few scenes are essentially the same, the whole central quest narrative is completely different, and even the ending had a surprise in store.

Children of Earth and Sky

by Guy Gavriel Kay.

Danica Gradek lost half her family at a young age, when their village was destroyed by allies of the Osmanli Empire, and now all she wants is to join the famous Senjan raiders to kill Osmanlis, even if that means sometimes raiding the ships of the republic of Seressa instead. Leonora Valeri was her father's favored child until she became pregnant out of wedlock, and now all she wants is to escape from the holy retreat he consigned her to, even if that means becoming a Seressan spy in the rival republic of Dubrava. Pero Villani, son of a famous painter and a struggling artist himself, wants to make a name for himself with his art, even if that means accepting a dangerous commission to travel to the Osmanli capital to paint a Western-style portrait of the khalif. Their lives become entangled with one another's when the ship carrying Pero and Leonora from Seressa to Dubrava is boarded by Senjan pirates, Danica among them. Meanwhile, the younger son of the merchant family that owns the ship is ambivalent about the path laid down for him by his family; and far to the east, a young man taken captive as a child when his village was destroyed by allies of the Osmanli Empire is raised to be a soldier for the Osmanlis, destined to march to war against the people he was stolen from.

A bare plot summary rarely does justice to a novel by Guy Gavriel Kay. His greatest strengths, I feel, are his use of language and his brilliant characterization; I always run across passages that are just so beautifully written I want to read them out loud to somebody, and I care about his characters to the extent that I generally find myself sitting up until two or three in the morning to find out what happens to them. I nearly always hit at least one scene that makes me cry.

It's particularly fascinating to me the way Kay will take a real historical setting and turn it just a little bit sideways; some of his history-based fantasies are almost like straight historical novels, without the weirdness of co-opting real historical figures to serve a fictional plot. Children of Earth and Sky has more mystical elements than some of the others set in this same universe, but the Renaissance intrigue plot doesn't depend on magic. It depends on the characters--their background, their motivations, their personalities, and their individual reactions to their circumstances--and the characters are so beautifully drawn and so true to life that I sat up until two in the morning to find out what happened to them. 

Many thanks to NetGalley and the Berkley Publishing Group for providing an advance copy! The book will be out May 10, 2016.

Deryni Rising

by Katherine Kurtz

When King Brion of Gwynedd is murdered by a sorceress with pretensions to his throne, his young heir Prince Kelson must rely on Duke Alaric Morgan, a member of the same race of sorcerers, to help him access his own kind of hereditary powers in time to face the pretender Charissa's inevitable magical challenge. However, the widowed Queen Jehana devoutly believes that all occult powers are intrinsically evil, and that to save his soul, her son must rule without magic--even if that puts his life at risk. And Jehana is well aware that to save Kelson from the taint of magic, she must first remove General Morgan.

Over at the Tor.com blog that I like so much, Judith Tarr is doing a detailed reread of Katherine Kurtz, and I jumped at the excuse to pick these up again. I first got hold of Deryni Rising when I was fourteen (the same age as Kelson, which did not escape my notice), and I fell hard for Kelson and Morgan, not to mention Morgan's aide Lord Derry. I read the books over and over as a teenager, and I'm so steeped in the history and mythology of them that it was really hard to write a short paragraph of summary without going into the whole saga of the Deryni Interregnum, Haldane Restoration, religious persecution of the Deryni, the family tree of the Festillic Pretenders, and the hagiography of Camber of Culdi, patron saint of Deryni magic.

However, before the current reread began I hadn't picked the books up in at least ten or fifteen years, and reading the first one again after that long is a little odd. I still remember the plot and the characters, and even some of the dialogue, really well, so on one level it has no surprises for me. But maybe because of the length of the hiatus since my last reread, or maybe because I'm now older than nearly all the named characters (and considerably older than the author was when she wrote it), I have been able to read it with a more critical eye.

I can tell, now, that it's clearly the first novel of a fairly young writer. And it's a damn fine first novel, but there are some clunky bits--repetitious sections, a main character who inconsistently acts far younger than his actual age and life experience should warrant, another main character who consistently acts far older than his age. My favorite rookie move is that several times the action stops dead for a detailed physical description of a person or a place when the viewpoint character logically should be too familiar with both the faces and the floor plans to pause for an inventory at that moment. One such passage comes right out and says something like, "Morgan allowed himself to take in the familiar surroundings," just as if Morgan wasn't really stressed, exhausted, and pressed for time just then!

And I can't really argue with LeGuin's point that the prose could just as well have been lifted from a modern political thriller; she's right, it doesn't sound like Elfland. But here's the thing: as Tarr points out in her own remarks, these books aren't aiming for that. The Chronicles of the Deryni are historical fantasy (and have a good claim to be progenitors of that whole genre). We're not in Elfland here! The Eleven Kingdoms, of which Kelson's Gwynedd is one, are human kingdoms populated by thoroughly realistic human beings, even if some of them are quasi-humans with innate magical abilities. Homo sum, as Terence said (and it's a book in this series that introduced me to that quotation): humani nil a me alienum puto. There is nothing alien about the hearts and minds of the Deryni.

So yes, I still love this book. Even knowing the story as well as I do, I fell right into it again (and leaped ahead of the pace of the reread to finish it and go on to the next one). It's still my benchmark for high fantasy taking place in anything like a historical setting.

Over Sea, Under Stone

by Susan Cooper

Simon, Jane, and Barnabas Drew come to Cornwall on a summer holiday with their parents and their great-uncle Merry, a noted historian. While exploring their rented house on a rainy day, they find a hidden door leading to a neglected attic, and under a floorboard in the attic Barney comes across a mysterious manuscript, written partly in faded and obscure Latin, and partly in a language none of them can read. They don't want to tell their parents about it, as that would probably mean it would be taken away from them on the ground that it belongs to the owner of the house and they shouldn't disturb it; Barney in particular, having recognized the names of King Arthur and King Mark amongst the Latin, is adamant not only that the manuscript represents a quest but that the quest is theirs and no one else's. Fortunately Great-Uncle Merry is in a different class of grown-up, and not only supports their right to follow the map, but translates the instructions for them and watches over them when other parties start to show too much interest. Then Merry is decoyed away, and the children are left to follow the clues and avoid the competition on their own.

Of course the one I really wanted to read over the Christmas holiday was the second in the series; the summer vacation described in the first book was thoroughly unseasonable, and it was hard to feel too bad about Barney's sunburn. I seem to remember that this was another series where as a kid I read the second book first, and I don't think it matters much until you get to book three or four, but I'm not sorry to have started with the first in the sequence this time.

It strikes me that although both are thoroughly worthy of their beautiful Folio editions, this is probably a better book than The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. That one is a perfectly good and entertaining children's book, but I was aware the whole time I was reading it that as an adult, I was not the intended audience. I had the same feeling reading The Box of Delights, by John Masefield, a few weeks earlier; I never got hold of that one when I was a kid, and I couldn't help feeling that I'd have liked it a lot better if I had. Now, I have nothing against children's books on principle; I hold that a good story is a good story no matter where in the library it happens to be shelved, but there are books kids love that don't necessarily hold up well for adults.

And there are children's books that don't condescend, that adults can also read again and again and get more out of them every time because you bring more to them.  Over Sea, Under Stone and the rest of its series are like that.

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase

I can already tell that 2016 is going to be a year of rereading. I used to do a lot more of that than I have done recently; when I was a kid I would read favorite books over and over, but somehow in recent years I came around to the idea that I have less time to read now, so any time spent on a book I've already read is just time taken away from all the fabulous new books that I claim I've been looking forward to.

I suspect it's closer to the truth to say that the time I spend on video games is just time taken away from rereading the books that I love, and that reading those books again would make me happier than getting a new campaign high score in Kingdoms of Middle-Earth.

I'm putting it to the test this year. In the first two weeks of January I've already reread four books. Granted, one was because I'd simply forgotten I already read that one, so it might as well have been new to me, but the other three I loved as a kid.

On New Year's Day I reread The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, by Joan Aiken.

I actually stumbled across the second book in that series first, at the library where my mom took me to stock up on books every Saturday. I forget now why I picked up Black Hearts in Battersea; probably something to do with the Edward Gorey cover. Looking back on it I think this may have been my first introduction to the concept of alternative history, though at the time I wasn't familiar enough with the history of England to notice what was different about the Hanoverian pretenders.

When I realized that there was an earlier book in the series, I thought that because the library didn't own that one I would never get to read it. I had never heard of the concept of interlibrary loan back then, and in any case, I was the kind of library patron who makes me really sad now that I work in a library: if I couldn't find something on my own, I gave up instead of asking the librarian for help. I'm not sure what I thought the librarians were there for, but I didn't want to bother them.

Imagine my shock when I subsequently stumbled across a copy of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase on a bookshelf in my own house. Apparently it had belonged to one of my older siblings, and though I had cheerfully read their copies of Winnie the Pooh and Black Beauty and The Adventures of Robin Hood, I had overlooked this book year after year. Probably because it didn't have an Edward Gorey cover.

It's a simple enough story: the orphaned Sylvia comes to stay at Willoughby Chase with her rich cousin Bonnie just as Bonnie's parents, Lord and Lady Willoughby, depart for sunny foreign climes for the sake of Lady Willoughby's health, leaving a distant relation, Miss Slighcarp, as Bonnie and Sylvia's governess. However, Miss Slighcarp has nefarious plans to take over the estate; she promptly dismisses the servants, sells off the furniture, and ships the girls off to the kind of boarding school that makes Jane Eyre's school look like a holiday in the south of France. With the help of Simon, a boy who raises geese at Willoughby Chase, Bonnie and Sylvia run away from their school and make their way to London, where they hope their aunt Jane and Lord Willoughby's lawyer can sort everything out.

I wasn't as thrilled by it all as I remember being as a kid, but it was still a thoroughly enjoyable story, especially Bonnie's frequent displays of temper. There's not much alternative history in this one, aside from the fact that in the early 1800s there's already a Channel Tunnel, and wolves from northern Europe have used it to recolonize the island of Britain. The actual starving wolves are a constant lurking presence in the first half of the novel, but it's the metaphorical wolves that pose the real threat.

What I read this year (December)

I've been keeping a book diary since mid-1998, and in all that time I have never finished a book on December 6. Not this year either.

59. American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare; The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee, by Karen Abbott (finished December 1). In which we follow the development of burlesque as a theatrical form, with special attention to the contributions of the Minsky brothers, and also the life and career of Rose Louise Hovick, better known as Gypsy Rose Lee. I knew the basic outline of the story from the musical Gypsy, based on her memoir--I first saw the TV version with Bette Midler as Mama Rose, who is such a larger than life character that she generally completely overshadows whoever's unfortunate enough to be playing Gypsy. Turns out she was toned down a lot from real life.

60. The Affinity Bridge, by George Mann (December 11). In which Sir Maurice Newbury, investigator for the Crown, and his new assistant, Miss Veronica Hobbes, are assigned by Queen Victoria to look into the crash of an airship on which, it turns out, all the passengers were tied to their seats. Revenants and automata are also involved: great fun.

61. Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans, by Gary Krist (December 15). In which the author pulls together the birth of jazz, the short but colorful existence of the semi-legal vice district of Storyville, and the still-unsolved murders committed by the Axman. Fascinating, especially the parts about jazz.

62. Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas, by Stephanie Barron (December 21). In which Jane Austen, visiting friends at Christmas, gets involved in solving the murder of a naval courier and the theft of the treaty he was carrying. I love these mysteries, and I still think they capture the spirit of Jane Austen's own novels a good deal better than 98% of the unofficial sequels that keep coming out. 

63. The King's Deryni, by Katherine Kurtz (December 29). In which Alaric Morgan manages to avoid all the pitfalls inherent in being publicly known as a member of a feared and oppressed race of sorcerers, and grows up enough to be useful to his king. I've been waiting a long, long time for this one, and there's no way it could ever have been good enough to support the weight of expectation, but I enjoyed it well enough.

64. Astro City: Through Open Doors, by Kurt Busiek (December 30). In which we continue to explore what the existence of superheros might mean for the rest of us. I'm a big fan of Astro City, and glad to see it returning.

And that's it for this year! Shelfari says I read five more books than this, but I think those are probably graphic novels that I skipped over in my book journal, so I'll stop here.

What I read this year (November)

54. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, by Cheryl Strayed (finished November 4). I talked my coffeeshop book club into reading this over the objections of our founder, who doesn't read nonfiction for fun. I really enjoyed it, but I have a feeling the scene where the author and her brother have to put down their late mother's elderly horse is going to be the one where we lost some readers.

55. Closer to Home, by Mercedes Lackey (November 8). I felt distinctly meh about this when I read that Lackey was continuing the story of these particular characters, but my low expectations gave me room to be pleasantly surprised. I really liked the novel's take on the Romeo and Juliet story, and I now find I'm actually looking forward to the next one.

56. Engines of War, by George Mann (November 21). In which the Time Lord formerly known as the Doctor, after countless solitary years fighting the Time War against the Daleks, picks up a stray human again against his better judgment, and finds himself being reminded of some things he thought he had forgotten. I've been wanting to see more of the War Doctor since his appearance in the 50th anniversary special, and enjoyed this book so much I promptly looked up some of the author's other work.

57. Childe Morgan, by Katherine Kurtz (November 23). In which Alaric Morgan starts to grow up, but not fast enough to suit the purposes of King Donal, to whose service he was pledged before his birth. I thought a little better of it than the first time I read it; it seemed less like a crowd of characters rushing back and forth in search of a plot. Still seemed more like setup than actual story, but succeeded in making me cry at the end.

58. The Christmas Cat, by Melody Carlson (November 30). In which Garrison Brown must fulfill the conditions of his grandmother's will by personally and individually rehoming each of her six cats, to which he is violently allergic. My coffeeshop book club wanted to read something light and fluffy for December, so I suggested this one. I didn't realize at the time how short it was! I enjoyed it all the same.

What I read this year (October)

48. The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien (finished October 9). In which the history of the Eldar in Middle Earth is told, from before the formation of the world to the end of the Third Age. Granted, it's like reading the sagas of the Icelanders for fun. Tolkien, of course, translated the sagas from Icelandic for fun...which figures, somehow. I find this book easier to get through with each reread; it was a real slog the first couple of times I tried it, but this time it flowed away quite easily at the gym.

49. The King's Curse, by Philippa Gregory (October 10). In which Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, lives carefully in the shadow of her family name, as merely to be a Plantagenet is unsafe in the age of the Tudors. I wasn't previously much familiar with the life of Lady Pole, who became the oldest person executed by Henry VIII. I always like it when I can learn something from a historical novel.

50. Watership Down, by Richard Adams (October 12). In which a small number of rabbits, prompted by a vision of coming disaster, search for a safe place to establish a new warren. Another old favorite that I just felt like rereading. I remember being intimidated by the size of it when I first read it at age 12, but this time it went really quickly.

51. Tortall and Other Lands, by Tamora Pierce (October 16). In which we visit some old friends, and fill in some background. I'm not usually a fan of short stories, but on the other hand I'm inclined to be a completist when it comes to authors I really like, and I've been a fan of Pierce for a long, long time.

52. Mrs. Robinson's Disgrace, by Kate Summerscale (October 17). In which Isabella Robinson's private diary becomes a court document. Another e-book that I read mostly in half-hour increments at the gym. This one goes to show that tawdry divorce cases playing out in the popular press are nothing new.

53. Meet--the Tiger! by Leslie Charteris (October 27). In which Simon Templar meets Patricia Holm, and the rest is swashbuckling history. And yes, both the em dash and the exclamation point are essential components of the title. This was a triumph of interlibrary loan: they found it for me at a university in Connecticut, when I'd long since come to the conclusion I was never going to get my hands on a copy of the very first book to feature the Saint.

What I read this year (September)

42. I Work at a Public Library, by Gina Sheridan (finished September 10). In which the author demonstrates the universality of cuckoo library patrons and the inevitability of human excrement on the floor. Like a number of other library blogs and memoirs I could name, this just goes to show that librarians everywhere have stories of this kind. (The one I always tell from my library is the Naked Man on the Staircase story.)

43. The Wife, the Maid and the Mistress, by Ariel Lawhon (September 13). In which the disappearance of Judge Crater is elucidated by the three women in his life. I read this for my coffeeshop book club, and though it was a tawdry story I found it absorbing; I also didn't guess the twist at the end. In fact it made me want to reread the thing, just to see if the author had played fair and dropped clues that I might have caught if I'd been paying more attention. I learned my lesson, too, and waited to read this one until much closer to the meeting!

44. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien (September 13). In which small hands venture great deeds because they must, and the world is saved, but not for everyone. I started a reread when I was on vacation in Colorado this summer, and stuck with it when I got home. I have honestly forgotten how many times I've read this brilliant book; it's been a favorite since I was nine or ten years old, and every time I go back to it I get something new out of it, because I bring something different with me.

45. A Dark-Adapted Eye, by Barbara Vine (September 24). In which Faith Severn, spurred by a true crime writer's interest in her family history, goes over the complex reasons that caused one her aunts to murder the other many years before. I read this for my pizza parlor book club. I think I was one of only two who finished it, but I enjoyed it. It seemed old-fashioned, but in a way that I like; I was surprised to check the publication date and realize it was published in the 80s.

46. Enter the Saint, by Leslie Charteris (September 25). In which Simon Templar saunters onto the scene, equally ready for a scrap or a song, and while the Snake and Whiskers come to well-deserved bad ends, a Lawless Lady joins the elect. I can see a whole-series reread coming up; they've all been reissued in paperback, so I can finally get hold of the ones I've never been able to track down at used book stores. Watch for the sign of the Saint, he will be back.

47. Lock In, by John Scalzi (September 27). In which Chris Shane, stricken with Haden's disease in childhood, joins the FBI's Haden-related crimes unit just in time to look into a murder involving an Integrator--a Haden's survivor who can let others borrow his body. Excellent near future police procedural, with some very interesting things to say about identity and gender.

What I read this year (August)

37. Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast (finished August 4). In which cartoonist Chast writes and draws a memoir of dealing with her parents in their declining years. I have really enjoyed a number of memoirs in graphic-novel format, and this was a great one. The story hit close to home too, as I'm sure it would for anybody who has been involved with caring for elderly parents.

38. Vanished Kingdoms, by Norman Davies (August 6). In which the noted historian discusses a number of political entities, mostly in Europe, which once existed and now no longer do, including both those as little known as the kingdom of Alt Clud in Britain and those once as powerful as the Soviet Union. It took me forever to read this, but when I joined a gym this year and figured out I could bring an e-reader and read while I used the elliptical machine I finally felt like I had the perfect opportunity to stick with this book.

39. The Late Scholar, by Jill Paton Walsh (August 8). In which Peter Wimsey, now the Duke of Denver, discovers he has also inherited the position of Visitor to an Oxford college, and is called upon to settle a dispute amongst the fellows. I didn't enjoy this quite as much as the previous installment, but it was still pretty fun.

40. In the King's Service, by Katherine Kurtz (August 20). In which King Donal Haldane plots to raise a Deryni protector for his crown prince even if he has to sire one himself. When I found out that the long-delayed last volume of this trilogy is finally coming out in December, I figured I'd better reread the first two, as I have very little recollection of where we left off!

41. Grave Sight, by Charlaine Harris (August 29). In which Harper Connelly, who can feel the last moments of the dead, has to start getting some answers from the living when more people start dying. My quirkier book club suggested an author rather than a title for this month, so I got to pick one of Harris's non-vampire novels. I liked it a lot, but didn't go on to the other books in the series; and then I missed the book club meeting about it.

What I read this year (July)

34. The Beekeeper's Apprentice, by Laurie R. King (finished July 1). In which Mary Russell stumbles across an eccentric gentleman on the Sussex Downs, and ends up working as the partner of Sherlock Holmes. This is the third time I've read it, I think; I got through most of it on an airplane on the way back from Las Vegas, having picked up an autographed copy at the ALA conference. The author had a stack of Miss Russell's visiting cards, so I asked for one of those as well; I used to be one of her friends on MySpace back when MySpace was a thing, though I was a very peripheral "friend" and I doubt Miss Russell would remember me.

35. Defending Jacob, by William Landay (July 5). In which First Assistant District Attorney Andy Barber, investigating the murder of a student, is completely taken aback when his own son Jacob is arrested for the crime. I read this for my new book club, and we had a good discussion about it.

36. The Husband's Secret, by Liane Moriarty (July 12). In which three women's personal tragedies intersect as Tess deals with her husband's infidelity by having an affair with a coworker of Rachel's, while Cecilia deals with a revelation from her husband's past having to do with Rachel's daughter. I read this for my new book club too, and then had trouble remembering it long enough to have anything to say about it at our August meeting!

What I read this year (June)

29. Fables, vol. 19: Snow White, and 30. Fairest in All the Land, both by Bill Willingham (both finished June 5). In the former of which, Snow White demonstrate who is really the best swordsman in Fabletown, and in the latter Cinderella is a lousy detective but a damn fine spy. I said I wasn't sure I wanted to continue with either of these series, didn't I? And yet, as you see, I'm still following along.

31. Saga, vol. 3, by Brian K. Vaughan (June 7). In which Gwendolyn and The Will finally track down Alana and Marko, to no one's satisfaction. Brilliant work, in spite of (or maybe because of) the fact that I was thoroughly ticked off by some plot points at the end. Lying Cat had better recover, that's all I have to say about that.

32. Skin Game, by Jim Butcher (June 14). In which Queen Mab loans out Harry Dresden's services as Winter Knight to one of his absolute least favorite villains, Nicodemus Archleone. This just demonstrates that sometimes it pays to stick with a series that seems to be going in ways you're not sure you like; I finished two or three of the recent ones with deep misgivings, but this one was very satisfying in a couple of ways ("Mister, where I come from, there is no try!"). That apocalyptic trilogy is getting closer all the time!

33. Blood Red, by Mercedes Lackey (June 20). In which we find out what would have happened had Little Red Riding Hood grown up to be a werewolf hunter. And this one reinforces the lesson. The last few in this series seemed to be getting kind of repetitive, but this went in a different direction and it was a lot of fun.

What I read this year (May)

26. Avatar: The Last Airbender--The Promise, by Gene Luen Yang (finished May 10). In which Aang and Zuko's Harmony Restoration Movement doesn't go as planned, and Zuko extracts a promise from Aang that makes the Avatar very unhappy. I got to meet Gene Luen Yang at ALA this summer, and tell him how much I love his work--after the Avatar stuff I looked up everything else he ever wrote, and Level Up is probably my favorite. He signed an Avatar poster for me and drew a quick sketch of Appa sticking his tongue out; it's a treasured possession, proudly displayed in my office.

27. Orphan Train, by Christina Baker Kline (May 17). In which an Irish orphan is put on a train to look for someone to take her in, and many years later a foster child does community service by helping an elderly lady clean up her attic. I was invited to join the book club a friend of mine was starting, and this was the first selection. I get the impression that this club is likely to read more of what you might consider "book club" books than my other, quirkier book club. I wasn't expecting to like this one, but I enjoyed it, particularly once I caught the parallel being drawn between the early 20th century orphan and the early 21st century foster child.

28. The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton (May 25). In which Lily Bart consistently chooses money over happiness and ends up with neither. And this was the selection for my other book club this month. Unlike some of the classics we've attempted (looking at you, Henry James), this one was compulsively readable, if depressing at the end.

And that was it for May!

What I read this year (April)

21. The Martian, by Andy Weir (finished April 5). In which astronaut Mark Watney is left for dead on Mars when his team is forced to scrub their mission, and then has to figure out how to survive alone long enough to be rescued. I loved this book, and kept reading bits of it out loud to my husband, many of them having to do with disco music and Aquaman. I'm even interested to see the movie they're making of it, though I am not the world's biggest Matt Damon fan.

22. Doctor Who: A History, by Alan Kistler (April 7). More geeky fun, and I even learned some stuff I hadn't known: like the fact that Sean Pertwee was considered for the role and turned it down on the ground that his dad's performance had been so iconic.

23. Avatar: The Last Airbender--The Search, by Gene Luen Yang (April 19). In which Zuko recruits his mad sister Azula to help him search for their long-missing mother. I was late to the party for Avatar, catching up with the whole series on DVD years after it first came out, but I was hooked from the very first episode. I'm really enjoying these official sequel comics, and I've learned to wait for the hardcover deluxe edition with creators' commentary.

24. Time and Again, by Jack Finney (April 20). In which illustrator Si Morley learns to walk back and forth between the 1970s and the 1880s. There's really no need to go into detail about how time travel works in order to have a fascinating time travel story...though I had some issues with the ending, as I said at the time.

25. To the Letter: A Celebration of the Lost Art of Letter Writing, by Simon Garfield (April 26). I also enjoyed the author's book about typefaces, which just goes to illustrate what a huge geek I am. I always had fun writing letters, and I'm told I wrote extremely amusing ones back when I was in college and grad school, before email really took off and I got out of the habit of handwritten correspondence. This year I participated in the Month of Letters challenge, and I fully plan to do so again.

What I read this year (March)

This is the month that I started slowing down.

16. Beautiful Chaos, by Gary Russell (March 8). The Tenth Doctor book in the anniversary set, in which the Doctor brings Donna Noble home to visit her family just in time to help her grandfather Wilf figure out what's really going on with that new star in the sky. I was incredibly tickled when I figured out what the monster was in this one.

17. Doctor Who: The Vault, by Marcus Hearn (March 8). As a confirmed Doctor Who geek of long standing, I also enjoy reading nonfiction works about the show. This had a lot of historical trivia that I wasn't previously aware of, so I had a great time with this.

18. Worthy Brown's Daughter, by Philip Margolin (March 16). In which a lawyer in frontier Oregon helps a former slave sue for the freedom of his daughter. The first book by this author that I'd read. I found it engrossing, as I said at the time.

19. Broken Homes, by Ben Aaronovitch (March 23). Fourth in the uniformly excellent Rivers of London series, in which PCs Grant and May follow the Faceless Man into a dilapidated council estate that may have been designed more for magical than mundane purposes. It was a long wait for this one, as the author changed publishers just in time to introduce a six-month gap between the UK and US publication dates, but definitely worth the wait in spite of the cliffhanger at the end.

20. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, by Mary Roach (March 24). In which the insatiably curious author investigates all the things than can happen to our remains. Another selection for my eclectic literary book club. This author was my suggestion, but I was kind of hoping to go with one of her other books.

What I read this year (February)

Continuing the minor nostalgia parade, here are the books I read in February.

8. The Men Who United the States, by Simon Winchester (finished February 1). I really like this author, and I found his organizing conceit for this book interesting: not chronological, but thematic, and the theme was the Asian five classical elements of wood, earth, water, fire and metal.

9. Earthworld, by Jacqueline Rayner (February 5). The Eighth Doctor book in the anniversary set, in which the Doctor, with Fitz and Anji in tow, finds himself in a far future theme park with some incomplete knowledge of what Earth was really like. This is the Doctor whose only screen appearance to date was the single TV movie back in 1996, which I had seen at the time and hadn't watched again in 17 years. The character went on to have a ton of adventures in original novels and audio dramas, none of which I was familiar with, so it was odd for me to read one of them with no idea where it fit in the larger scheme of things. It was evidently an early work of the author's, and her foreword to this edition made it clear that to her, it's cringe-worthy juvenilia; but I enjoyed it all the same.

10. Only Human, by Gareth Roberts (February 9). The Ninth Doctor book in the anniversary set, in which the Doctor, Rose and Captain Jack discover a Neanderthal man wandering around early 21st-century Bromley. I was familiar with Roberts' work from the lovely novelization of Douglas Adams' Shada, and saw a lot of the same humor (and weirdness) at work in this one.

11. Shadows, by Robin McKinley (February 13). In which the already complicated situation of Maggie's widowed mother getting married again is complicated further by the moving shadows Maggie begins to see around the man. Really interesting world building in this one, with an Oldworld where magic is common and a Newworld where it is very strongly frowned upon, and the very appealing narrator dragged me along until I could start to make sense of it all.

12. To Davy Jones Below, by Carola Dunn (February 16). Ninth in the Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher series, Daisy and her beau Alec having gotten married offscreen, between books.  Alec does some excellent detecting on their trans-Atlantic crossing.

13. Faust Eric, by Terry Pratchett (February 17). In which a teenage demonologist attempts to summon a demon to give him three wishes, and gets Rincewind the Wizzard instead. I have to be in the right mood to read Pratchett; this was just the right book for a doctor's waiting room.

14. The Case of the Murdered Muckraker, by Carola Dunn (February 23). Tenth in the Daisy Fletcher series, in which Daisy actually witnesses the murder of a man she had just overheard arguing with a neighbor at the Chelsea Hotel in New York. You can wait a while for the crime in some of these, but not this time: the unpleasant victim is bumped off within the first thirty pages.

15. Stella Bain, by Anita Shreve (February 26). In which an amnesiac nurse and ambulance driver in World War I searches for her missing memories. Read for my ambitiously literary book club; Shreve tends to be our fallback author when we can't decide on a book. Not my usual taste, but I can usually get through them; our last two selections were both ponderous and unreadable to me, so I was glad this one was fast-moving.

What I read this year (January)

Anybody browsing my blog would think that I only look forward to reading, and never actually read anything; it seems like all I post any more is Waiting on Wednesday, and I've missed that the last couple of weeks on account of my arbitrary cutoff of only posting those about books that are coming out in the same calendar year. (Watch this space: I'm already queuing up January releases.)

Since I've run out of anticipatory posts for this year I thought I might switch to a retrospective. Here's what I read in January 2014:

1. Remembrance of the Daleks, by Ben Aaronovitch (finished January 2). This is, of course, a Doctor Who novel, in which the seventh Doctor and Ace return to 1963 London to find two opposing factions of Daleks fighting over a Time Lord device the Doctor had left there six regenerations ago. In honor of the 50th anniversary last year, the BBC reissued a set of eleven novels, one for each Doctor we knew about at the time, and of course being the geek that I am I bought them all...except for the four my husband gave me as a Valentine's Day present, him being the geek that he is. This is the only novelization of a televised serial included in the anniversary set, adapted and expanded by the original scriptwriter, who I already loved for his other work.

2. Rattle His Bones, by Carola Dunn (January 5). Eighth in the Daisy Dalrymple series of cozy historical mysteries, which I always enjoy when I'm in the mood for some fluff. Daisy manages some excellent deduction in this one, when she is first on the scene for a murder at the Museum of Natural History.

3. Fairest, vol. 2: The Hidden Kingdom (January 10). In which Rapunzel follows up a message about her missing children. I didn't make a note of the actual writer of this one, though of course the series creator is the inimitable Bill Willingham. To be honest, the darkness of this particular storyline made me a little reluctant to carry on with the series.

4. The Tale of Cuckoo Brow Wood, by Susan Wittig Albert (January 12). Third in the Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter series of historical mysteries, in which Miss Potter advertises for cats, helps the local children look for fairies, and uncovers a fraud or two. I was interested that there's no murder in this one; it's always nice when mystery writers remember that there are other crimes.

5. Farthing, by Jo Walton (January 15). In which a Scotland Yard inspector investigates a murder at a house party, and the daughter of the house tries to prevent the blame from being fixed on her innocent--but Jewish--husband. Absolutely fascinating semi-historical murder mystery, with very strong overtones of Sayers and Tey, but set in an alternative England that made peace with Hitler in 1941 and is being overcome by a creeping fascism a decade or so later.

6. Fangirl, by Rainbow Rowell (January 19). In which college is more complicated than Cath expects. Entertaining, authentic and funny, as I said at the time.

7. Astonishing X-Men, by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday (January 20). In which Cyclops puts together a hand-picked team to be the new faces of the X-Men, and to start acting like superheros. I stopped reading X-Men comics a long time ago, but I mean: written by Joss Whedon and drawn by John Cassaday? Not skipping that one. I'd actually read the first of these two volumes a long time ago, but it was fun to catch up with the rest in spite of what they did to Kitty Pryde.

If I'd kept up that pace I'd be a lot closer to reading 100 books in the calendar year again, even though I didn't sign up for my library's challenge this year.

Waiting on Wednesday (72)

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating. So here's a thing I'm very much looking forward to: The King's Deryni, by Katherine Kurtz (Ace Hardcover, 2 December 2014).

Alaric Morgan always knew his purpose in life—to stand alongside the king of Gwynedd. The old king knew that whichever of his sons succeeded to the throne would benefit from having a Deryni at his side. Alaric and the young Prince Brion Haldane were bound together by magic—a magic to be called upon when Brion was most in need.

Now eighteen, Brion has ascended to the throne and seven-year-old Alaric has come to court. Through the coming years, both will grow to manhood and come to realize their destinies. Brion will strive to solidify his power and position, seek out a bride to secure his legacy, and ultimately, when faced with an unbeatable foe, call upon Alaric to fulfill his oath.

Meanwhile, Alaric slowly learns the extent of his powers and how to use them, and will face the prejudice that many have against Deryni in its ugliest form. He will experience bittersweet first love, great personal loss, and the hard lessons one gains from both. And he will be there to unleash the full power of his Deryni magic at Brion's command.

For Alaric is—and always will be—the King's Deryni.

*****

I got an email from Amazon, alerting me to upcoming books I might be interested in based on my purchase and browsing history, and I had to laugh when I saw this one; not a week before, I had been commiserating with my friend the Brit that we would probably never see this series finished in our lifetime.  We've been waiting on it for eight years, and I'm really pleased that we'll finally get hold of it. Of course, now I've got to reread the first two books in the trilogy (published in 2003 and 2006), because I totally don't remember where we left off!

Waiting on Wednesday (71)

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating. So here's a thing I'm looking forward to: Crimson Angel, by Barbara Hambly (Severn House, 1 December 2014).

When Jefferson Vitrack - the white half-brother of Benjamin January's wife - turns up on January's doorstep in the summer of 1838 claiming he has discovered a clue to the whereabouts of the family's lost treasure, January has no hesitation about refusing to help look for it. For the treasure lies in Haiti, the island that was once France's most profitable colony - until the blood-chilling repression practiced there by the whites upon their slaves triggered a savage rebellion. The world's only Black Republic still looks with murderous mistrust upon any strangers who might set foot there, and January is in no hurry to go. But when Vitrack is murdered, and attempts are made on January's wife and himself, he understands that he has no choice. He must seek the treasure himself, to draw the unknown killers into the open, a bloody trail that leads first to Cuba, then to Haiti, and finally to the secret that lies buried with the accursed gold.

*****

Always happy to see a new installment in this consistently excellent series of historical mysteries. A lot of the recent ones have gotten January away from New Orleans; I'm interested to see what he makes of Haiti.