BS: Read any good books lately?

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: keberoxu
Date: 07 Oct 16 - 03:37 PM

For some years now, Susan Hill has been publishing a detective/mystery series in a fictional cathedral town, with protagonist Simon Serrailler. She took him on a really long built-up multi-story arc at the climax of which, the higher-ups concluded that he was the only man for the near-suicide mission of tackling a ring of wealthy and aristocratic pedophilic fans of juvenile-snuff film footage. Serrailler cracked the ring by story's end, although the beating he got nearly killed him.

Now Ms. Hill, who is genuinely senior-citizen aged, is not going to publish any more full-length Serrailler, although there is some sort of e-book novella with a promise of other novellas and short stories to come.

Maybe Ms. Hill is being shrewd and quitting while she is ahead, with this series. Character development over the books of the series has been done with loving attention to detail and consistency, and there is a world of possible futures ahead for the detective and his loved ones. So she leaves us wanting more. Oh, that last novel is called "The Soul of Discretion."

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 07 Oct 16 - 09:58 PM

I've read two good books lately, one for each of my book clubs. One was Still Life with Bread Crumbs; the other was The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry. Both novels are about people whose generally good lives have been on a downhill slide when their circumstances change for the better. A few months before that, both clubs chose interesting nonfiction books about maritime disasters--Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania and In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the US Jeannette.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: mrdux
Date: 08 Oct 16 - 12:07 AM

i just finished the best thing i've read in a long time: The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov, wherein the Devil and his entourage wreak some serious -- and some not-so-serious -- havoc in Stalinist Moscow over a few days in the 1930s. And interwoven into it is a story of Pontius Pilate and his relationship with one Yeshua Ha-Nozri. Quite an amazing book, unpublished until 1965, 25 years after Bulgakov died. the Pevear and the Burgin translations seem to be preferred.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: ranger1
Date: 08 Oct 16 - 01:04 PM

In the middle of Trespasser, the second book in the Mike Bowditch series by Paul Doiron. It's a mystery series with a young Maine Game Warden as the protagonist. I'm enjoying them a lot.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: mkebenn
Date: 09 Oct 16 - 01:11 PM

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, fantasy by G R R Martin while waiting soooo long for his next book in his extra ordinary series " A Song of Ice And Fire" Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: keberoxu
Date: 06 Jan 19 - 06:41 PM

Update on author Susan Hill and her
crime-fiction protagonist, Simon Serrailler:

Ms. Hill, after a hiatus of a few years, is busy again, and so is her detective inspector in a cathedral town.

Two novellas, shorter works on Serrailler, are being promoted.
One has been out for a little while: it is titled "Hero."
The other has yet to be released, but promotion is online already;
it is titled "Old Haunts."

Both revisit memories Serrailler has of his youth early in his career.

Very recently, Ms. Hill let it be known
that two more full-length Serrailler books could be expected,
and one has just been published.

The one just released is called "The Comforts of Home."
Reviews are decidedly mixed. This is one of those books
which has a great deal happening all at once,
and readers have complained of the lack of resolution.
Not the first time this has happened in the Serrailler series.

There was a mystery much earlier for Serrailler, in which the perpetrator of murders of small children was apprehended and locked away for life. It took two books to play it all out, and the first book got criticized; all build-up, much unpleasant detail, and an ending frustrating for many readers. That was because the earlier book set everything in place, and the book that followed, brought about the conclusion.

I am optimistic -- having yet to read these -- that Susan Hill is doing the same thing this time. After all, "The Comforts Of Home" is due to be followed, by the end of 2019 (we hope), by a Serrailler full-length mystery called
"The Benefit of Hindsight." We shall see.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: KarenH
Date: 06 Jan 19 - 10:55 PM

"The 7 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle". Sort of Groundhog Day meets Agatha Christie. Gripping.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 Jan 19 - 04:46 AM

Just finished Conn Iggulden's War of the Roses series of 'faction' books. Very enjoyable and, since I knew very little of that period, very informative too.

mkebenn, I'm a Martin fan too. If you look at the War of the Roses you can see where some of his ideas were born!

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 07 Jan 19 - 04:47 AM

Gerard Russell: "Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms: Journeys into the Disappearing Religions of the Middle East". Looks at first sight as if it's going to be a simple travelogue, but he builds up a surprising and systematic picture of hidden relationships between the belief systems of that part of the world for the last 3000 years or so, with groups that are now utterly marginal given far greater historical importance than you'd think. (One limitation is that he didn't know about the much older Göbekli Tepe site, which has to change the way we think about all these religions; but that's rather speculative as yet).

I would love to have seen an Essene community on the Sabbath. They had to go the whole day without taking a shit.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Jan 19 - 01:20 PM

Got Jonathon Bardon's 'A Narrow Sea' The Irish-Scottish Connection in 120 episodes, for Christmas
A fascinating series of small chapters, making it possible to read, leave and return to whenever the mood takes you
Learn and enjoy
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Neil D
Date: 10 Jan 19 - 01:20 AM

I've been enjoying the Nordic Noir mysteries of Jo Nesbo. If you're a fan of Rankin, Bruen, Conelly, you'll probably enjoy these.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Senoufou
Date: 10 Jan 19 - 04:36 AM

I very much liked Susan Maushart's 'Wifework'. She's a sociologist and the book examines very fairly the lives of working wives in comparison to that of their menfolk. (feminist, obviously)

I recently bought a copy of her sequel, 'What Women Want Next' which is thoughtful and balanced. It examines where Women's Rights has brought women now, and whether we are actually happier.
She refers at all times to recognised research studies and her conclusions are most interesting.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: rich-joy
Date: 10 Jan 19 - 11:42 PM

Due to some issues with LUE (Life, the Universe and Everything), I have recently escaped into the worlds of literary historical fantasy and been working my way through :

anything and everything by NZ writer, JULIET MARILLIER
(IMHO, she writes great characters and stories and many are set in ancient Ireland and Scotland).

However, other favourites where I have devoured most everything they have written are :

CHARLES DE LINT, Canadian fantasy writer
(esp love his Urban settings);
JOANNE HARRIS, English-French writer
(she of Chocolat fame);
DIANA GABALDON, American writer
(she of Outlander fame);
KATHLEEN O'NEAL GEAR & W. MICHAEL GEAR, American writers
(particularly like their 1st Americans prehistory novels);
SHARON KAY PENMAN, American writer
(loved her Welsh mediaeval history series);
PHIL RICKMAN, English supernatural/mystery writer
(he of the Merrily Watkins fame, set in the English-Welsh Border);
STEPHEN BOOTH, English mystery writer
(he of the Cooper & Fry Peak District detective novels.

A few years back, due to being caught up in (the younger!) Sean Bean's SHARPE DVDs, I also read and enjoyed the entire Sharpe series (mostly Napoleonic era) written by English writer, Bernard Cornwell!

Yeah, that's enough for now!
R-J (Down Under)

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Jan 19 - 12:36 AM

Rebecca Solnit's Men Explain Things To Me. Extremely timely and very well considered and written.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: keberoxu
Date: 11 Jan 19 - 12:02 PM

Jo Nesbo rewrote, in prose form, Macbeth, publishing it recently as a crime novel. It's a cracker.

Come to see what he does with Macbeth's Lady
(so that's why she's walking in her sleep);
stay for the updated Witches and Hecate,
who are drug traffickers.

And wait until you see what takes the place
of the moveable forest.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: keberoxu
Date: 12 Jan 19 - 04:17 PM

The public library just got the latest John Rebus/Ian Rankin mystery,
which says to me that
the latest book has been released some time ago already.

I liked it a lot.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Neil D
Date: 14 Jan 19 - 06:50 AM

His "Macbeth" retold was my introduction to Nesbo. I enjoyed it enough to look further and have really enjoyed his series featuring his protagonist, Harry Hole.

Speaking of Bernard Cornwell, I've been enjoying a series on Netflix called "The Last Kingdom" based on his Saxon Series, which I had previously read.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Jan 19 - 07:16 PM

The BBC2/Netflix adaptation of the last kingdom was great. I gave up on the books after number 3 though. Just didn't seem to be Cornwell's usual standard.

Subject: RE: BS: Read any good books lately?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Jan 19 - 07:27 PM

Hutton's Arse by Malcolm Rider. Its claim is, I quote:

"3 billion years of extraordinary geology in Scotland's Northern Highlands. This book takes you through those 3 billion years, shows you the rocks, visits the places, introduces some of the famous researchers and presents the geological theories that have been inspired by the Highlands."

It's an astonishing and riveting book. Despite the title, it's a serious though very approachable read, and poor old James Hutton, despite the title, doesn't get many mentions!