catherinestead's 2018 reads

And here goes another year's reading...

January
1. The Song of the Quarkbeast - Jasper Fforde
2. The Eye of Zoltar - Jasper Fforde
3. Death Makes A Prophet - John Bude

February
4. Bellman and Black - Diane Setterfield
5. Last Ditch - Ngaio Marsh
6. Fortunately the Milk - Neil Gaiman
7. Men at Arms - Terry Pratchett
8. Feet of Clay - Terry Pratchett
9. Dying in the Wool - Frances Brody
10. The Colour of Magic - Terry Practhett

March
11. The Character of Cats - Stephen Budiansky
12. A Death in the Dales - Frances Brody
13. The Light Fantastic - Terry Pratchett
14. Fire in the Thatch - E C R Lorac
15. Equal Rites - Terry Pratchett
16. Somebody at the Door - Raymond Postgate
17. Death at the Seaside - Frances Brody
18. Mort - Terry Pratchett
19. Murder by Matchlight - E C R Lorac
20. A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle

April
21. Sourcery - Terry Pratchett
22. Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race - Reni Eddo-Lodge
23. Blueprint for Murder - Roger Bax
24. Wyrd Sisters - Terry Pratchett

Rest of the year:
25. Pyramids – Terry Pratchett
26. Seven Dead - J Jefferson Farjeon
27. Close Quarters – Angela Thirkell
28. Guards! Guards! – Terry Pratchett
29. The Murder of My Aunt – Richard Hull

30. Conclave – Robert Harris
31. Eric - Terry Pratchett
32. Moving Pictures – Terry Practchett
33. The Nothing Girl – Jodi Taylor
34. Chaos Theory – Merry Farmer
35. Beneath the Mask - Meghan March
36. The Reluctant Widow - Georgette Heyer
37. The Radleys – Matt Haig
38. Reaper Man – Terry Pratchett
39. Witches Abroad – Terry Pratchett

40. Rivers of London – Ben Aaronovich
41. Small Gods – Terry Pratchett
42. Notes on a Nervous Planet – Matt Haig
43. The Arsenal Stadium Mystery – Leonard Gribble
44. Lords and Ladies – Terry Pratchett
45. Moon over Soho – Ben Aaronovich
46. Whispers Underground – Ben Aaronovich
47. Broken Homes – Ben Aaronovich
48. Origin – Dan Brown
49. Men at Arms – Terry Pratchett

50. Foxglove Summer – Ben Aaronovich
51. The Hanging Tree – Ben Aaronovich
52. The Further Station – Ben Aaronovich
53. This Could Change Everything – Jill Mansell
54. Sit, Stay, Beg – Roxanne St Claire
55. Storm Front – Jim Butcher
56. The Division Bell Mystery – Ellen Wilkinson
57. Fool Moon – Jim Bitcher
58. Grave Peril – Jim Butcher
59. August Folly – Angela Thirkell

60. Rivers of London: Body Work – Ben Aaronovich, Andrew Cartmel, Lee Sullivan & Luis Guerrero
61. Lies Sleeping – Ben Aaronovich
62. How to be Champion – Sarah Millican
63. Summer Knight - Jim Butcher
64. The Truth Pixie – Matt Haig

Happy New Year! I wish you to read many good books in 2018.

Welcome back!

Happy reading in 2018, Catherine!

Have a great year of reading!

Happy New Year
Happy New Group here
This place is full of friends
I hope it never ends
It brew of erudition and good cheer.

Welcome back Catherine and happy new year!

Hi, Catherine. Dropping a star.



Looking forward to another year with the group!

Thank you everyone!

I've started this year with two YA fantasy novels by Jasper Fforde - The Song of the Quarkbeast and The Eye of Zoltar. These are 2 and 3 in the Last Dragonslayer series - I read number 1 in October.

They are all pretty good, although I think 1 is the best, and I was a little dissatisfied with the ending of 3. I've likened them to Harry Potter and to Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching books, in the sense that although they are YA novels they have much wider appeal, and they don't feel like they are for a specific age group. Recommended for anyone who has enjoyed any other Jasper Fforde, or Pratchett's Tiffany Aching, or indeed any other light/comic fantasy.

>9 Eat_Read_Knit: Catherine, Fforde is one of my favorite author's and I've had this series on my to read list for years. Thanks for the nudge - I really should read these soon.

>10 rretzler: I hope you enjoy them!

Another one to add: Death Makes a Prophet by John Bude.

This is a mystery from the 1940s centred on the tensions within a religious cult, which has some reluctant members, some keen members, and some members who see their membership only in terms of what they can personally gain.

This was my least favourite among the Bude reissues in the British Library Crime Classics series. I thought it felt rather laboured, and it came as a bit of a disappointment after the five others I had read, which I had really enjoyed. It's still a solid novel, though, and I gave it a 3.5/5. In fact, it's got a good plot and some really well written characters, which makes me wonder if I'm being a bit stingy with my rating.

>12 Eat_Read_Knit: Some of those books hold up better than others. I have read some of the Bude reissues, but not that one.

>12 Eat_Read_Knit: I got that one as an ARC recently and will be reading it soon. I have been enjoying Bude, so I'm a little disappointed too, but I guess I'll keep an open mind.

I haven't come across Bude at all. Are his stand-alone books or are they are series? I haven't spotted any of the BL Crime Classics series in second hand shops, thus have missed out on them so far.

>15 gennyt: Most of them are a sort of loose series, Genny. They have Inspector Meredith as the sleuth, but so far as I can remember he's not really a personality with an ongoing narrative of his own. The Cornish Coast Murder is a standalone, though.

>12 Eat_Read_Knit: I'll be reading that one soon - I got it as an ARC. I have enjoyed a lot of his books too, so I'll be interested to see what I think of this one.

Happy Valentine's Day, Catherine.

>17 rretzler: I hope you enjoy this one, Robin!

So, not I'm not exactly doing a very good job of keeping more to date here this year than I did last year.

Sigh.

Anyway. An update.

4. Bellman and Black - Diane Setterfield
5. Last Ditch - Ngaio Marsh
6. Fortunately the Milk - Neil Gaiman
7. Men at Arms - Terry Pratchett
8. Feet of Clay - Terry Pratchett
9. Dying in the Wool - Frances Brody

10. The Colour of Magic - Terry Practhett
11. The Character of Cats - Stephen Budiansky
12. A Death in the Dales - Frances Brody
13. The Light Fantastic - Terry Pratchett
14. Fire in the Thatch - E C R Lorac
15. Equal Rites - Terry Pratchett

So, this year has turned out to be The Year of Re-Reading Pratchett. After re-reading Men at Arms and Feet of Clay, I decided to have a re-read of the whole Discworld series in order. I haven't decided yet whether I'll re-re-read those two when I get to them!

I've tended to resist re-reading the Discworld books in order, because I do struggle with the first couple. And, as expected, The Colour of Magic was once again a slog to get through. I am once again very thankful that when I started reading Pratchett I took the advice to not start at the beginning, because if that had been my first experience of Pratchett I'd probably never have discovered the later, better-developed books.

I haven't set myself a timescale, but I'm thinking I'll probably be reading a Pratchett for every one or two other books I read. So either I'll get through more books than usual (which I have so far this year!) or it'll be a good couple of years until I get to the end of the project.

As for other books...

Bellman and Black I thought was okay, but no more. The period setting, the subtlety of the is-it-or-isn't-it mystery/ghost tale, the overall story arc - these I thought were good. But I didn't find any of the characters appealing, or engage with them very much.

The Character of Cats was an accidental read - I first picked it up off my boyfriend's shelf when I left whatever I was reading behind at home some time around October, and wanted something to read; I finished it off when I did the same thing again a couple of weeks ago. It was pretty interesting.

The Frances Brody series - A Death in the Dales and Dying in the Wool - is pretty decent historical crime, in a similar vein to Carola Dunn's Daisy Dalrymple series which I loved. I'm enjoying this series enough to keep reading it, but I'm not loving it as much as I did the Daisy Dalrymples. The plots of these can be a bit overly tangled, I'm finding.

And Fire in the Thatch is among the better British Library Crime Classics that I've read. The plot is very good, and the characters are strong, but the great appeal was how the author laid out hints and glimpses of the resolution in a way that meant I could work out where the plot was going but never felt that it was obvious. I'll be keeping an eye out for the other couple of Lorac's books that are in print, and hoping that more will come back.

>19 Eat_Read_Knit: Book bullet hit for Fire in the Thatch

>20 souloftherose: Hope you enjoy it, Heather!

An update is definitely due.

16. Somebody at the Door - Raymond Postgate
17. Death at the Seaside - Frances Brody
18. Mort - Terry Pratchett
19. Murder by Matchlight - E C R Lorac
20. A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle
21. Sourcery - Terry Pratchett
22. Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race - Reni Eddo-Lodge
23. Blueprint for Murder - Roger Bax
24. Wyrd Sisters - Terry Pratchett

So, The Year Of Re-reading Pratchett continues, and with Mort, Sourcery and Wyrd Sisters I'm through the ones that are slog and now into those I really like. Mort and Sourcery are good, but Wyrd Sisters is one of my favourites. It's also one of the books I'd recommend for those who want to try Pratchett for the first time: it doesn't depend on any of the earlier books to make sense, the witches are on top form, and the riffing on Macbeth (plus other Shakespeare themes) makes it feel familiar.

Heavy reading of Golden Age crime also continues. Somebody at the Door is a cracking tale - and an unorthodox one. The book is structured around the history between the victim (a horrible person who managed to make a lot of enemies) and a number of suspects.

Blueprint for Murder also has unorthodox plotting. It's well-titled: the reader follows the murderer through the initial idea, planning and execution of the crime, as well as the aftermath. There's a lot of tension in whether the plan will work and the killer will get away with it, but the ending does drag out somewhat.

Murder by Matchlight is a more traditional whodunnit, first published in 1945 and relying very heavily on the wartime situation for its plot.

Death at the Seaside is historical crime fiction that I wasn't overly impressed by. I've read better ones in the series, and the plotting felt rather forced. But Frances Brody's characters are always well-written, and it's solid enough. I also wasn't overly impressed by A Wrinkle in Time, and I wonder whether that's because I've only just read it for the first time now, as an adult, rather than having read it as a child. I didn't think it was bad, I just felt that too much was unexplained.

And finally, Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race is excellent. I think Reni Eddo-Lodge did a really good job of talking about race in the specific British context - British history, the preoccupation with class, specifically British institutions. There was a lot for me to absorb and ponder. Highly recommended.

So, an update for, erm, about 3/4 of the year. Oops.

Numbers are reading order, but the books are best grouped.

There was more Pratchett in the Discworld re-read. I eventually ground to a halt for now in the middle of Soul Music, so I'll be picking up again there in the not-too-distant future. All of these are re-reads.

25. Pyramids – Terry Pratchett
28. Guards! Guards! – Terry Pratchett
31. Eric - Terry Pratchett
32. Moving Pictures – Terry Pratchett
38. Reaper Man – Terry Pratchett
39. Witches Abroad – Terry Pratchett
41. Small Gods – Terry Pratchett
44. Lords and Ladies – Terry Pratchett
49. Men at Arms – Terry Pratchett

British Library Crime Classics. Some of these were better than others, but they were all at least good, and the best were very good indeed.

26. Seven Dead - J Jefferson Farjeon
29. The Murder of My Aunt – Richard Hull
43. The Arsenal Stadium Mystery – Leonard Gribble
56. The Division Bell Mystery – Ellen Wilkinson

Angela Thirkell's Barsetshire series

27. Close Quarters – Angela Thirkell
59. August Folly – Angela Thirkell

Matt Haig. Some fiction, some non-fiction, and one book for kids. Matt Haig is one of my more recent discoveries; I came across him on social media and really liked his outlook and advocacy and general message before I read any of his books. The books turned out to be excellent too. I've read some before now, but added several in these months.

37. The Radleys – Matt Haig
42. Notes on a Nervous Planet – Matt Haig
64. The Truth Pixie – Matt Haig

Rivers of London. I felt like I'd lost the thread of what was happening in the series, so I decided to re-read it from the start ahead of the publication of the latest book.

40. Rivers of London – Ben Aaronovich (re-read)
45. Moon over Soho – Ben Aaronovich (re-read)
46. Whispers Underground – Ben Aaronovich (re-read)
47. Broken Homes – Ben Aaronovich (re-read)
50. Foxglove Summer – Ben Aaronovich (re-read)
51. The Hanging Tree – Ben Aaronovich (re-read)
52. The Furthest Station – Ben Aaronovich
60. Rivers of London: Body Work – Ben Aaronovich, Andrew Cartmel, Lee Sullivan & Luis Guerrero
61. Lies Sleeping – Ben Aaronovich

Harry Dresden. I started this series when the first 5 were cheap on Kindle. I'll probably carry on with it after those are read.

55. Storm Front – Jim Butcher
57. Fool Moon – Jim Butcher
58. Grave Peril – Jim Butcher
63. Summer Knight - Jim Butcher

Miscellaneous fiction

30. Conclave – Robert Harris
33. The Nothing Girl – Jodi Taylor
34. Chaos Theory – Merry Farmer
35. Beneath the Mask - Meghan March
36. The Reluctant Widow - Georgette Heyer
48. Origin – Dan Brown
53. This Could Change Everything – Jill Mansell
54. Sit, Stay, Beg – Roxanne St Claire

Miscellaneous non-fiction
62. How to be Champion – Sarah Millican

It's not looking likely I'll finish any more this year, but you never know. There was some throwaway rubbish in the miscellaneous fiction, the the Robert Harris Way okay (although the end annoyed me) and the Jill Mansell was very good.

Neither of the Angela Thirkells really appealed to me; I definitely didn't think they were among her best.

I wasn't overly impressed with the Gribble and the Wilkinson in the Crime Classics category; they weren't bad, but the others were better.

But everything else scores pretty highly.

Looks like a great list! 64 is a pretty good number. I just started the 2019 group today - come and join us!