December AuthorCAT: Favorite Authors

Let's relax in the busy month of December and read or reread a work by a favorite author. The work can be in any genre: fiction, nonfiction, drama, poetry, essays, mysteries, etc. If you want, it can celebrate any of the winter traditions/holidays (summer in the Southern Hemisphere).

I'm not going to make any suggestions of specific works because different readers have different favorite authors.

Remember to record your reading on the AuthorCAT wiki: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/2022_AuthorCAT

I am planning on reading a number of books by some of my favorite authors in December, first among them is Ghost Warrior by Lucia St. Clair Robson and American Boy by Larry Watson.

I'm going to read Garry Disher's latest book Day's End, probably before December. It's the third Paul Hirschhausen book, set in outback South Australia.

The two on the top of my list are Notebook by Tom Cox, and Jasper Fforde's The Well of Lost Plots, the third in his Thursday Next series.

I think I will take the opportunity to revisit some old favourites from my younger days and see how they stand up now, though I haven't decided who yet.

I'm hoping to start, if not finish, The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope.

Two favourite authors come to mind (for different genres):
Linwood Barclay (mystery/thriller)
Michelle Moran (historical fiction)

But I think I've read all of Moran's books so far, so Barclay it is (unless I think of someone else).

I have two ebooks by him, so it will likely be one of these:
- Elevator Pitch
- Find You First

I just read Bless the Bride, a Molly Murphy Mystery, by Rhys Bowen. This is one of my favorite mystery series and authors.

>7 LibraryCin: Linwood Barclay is one of my favourite authors too! You'll think twice about getting on an elevator after reading Elevator Pitch. It was great.

>9 VivienneR: I still hadn't decided which of the two I was going to go with, but with your comment, it might have to be "Elevator Pitch"! :-)

One of my new favorite authors is Kim Michele Richardson. She wrote Book Woman of Troublesome Creek and The Bookwoman's Daughter. I read the later this month. I have another of her books, Liar's Bench, on the shelf.

I just finished The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal, a fun SFF mystery with a cute dog.

Gilded by Marissa Meyer, whose series The Lunar Chronicles is one my favorites. I did not enjoy this one as much because it is all about Fae, which I can only handle so much of. It does improve by the end, though.

Lucia St. Clair Robson has long been a favorite author and as expected I really enjoyed Ghost Warrior an epic story about the Apache Indians.

I also have just finished Splinter the Silence by Val McDermid, the 9th book in her Carol Jordan/Tony Hill police procedural series. Val McDermid never fails to keep me absorbed and interested in the story.

I read A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks, one of my favourite contemporary writers. I did not enjoy it as much as Birdsong or The Girl of the Lion D'Or, but it was a good read nonetheless.

I am reading two books by one of my favorite authors, James Patterson, this month. The next Alex Cross novel in my read-in order, Violets Are Blue and Dog Diaries: Happy Howlidays

The Splendid and the Vile / Erik Larson
2.25 stars

This book follows Winston Churchill during the Blitz (WWII) in London during 1940-1941. It not only looks at what is happening, politically and in the war, but also follows his family: his wife, Clementine; his daughter, Mary (17 in 1940, I think), who was sent outside London at this time; his son, Randolph, who married, but continue to cheat on his wife, despite having a new baby, gambled, drank, and just generally behaved badly.

From my description, you can guess that I found the personal/family stuff much more interesting in this book. It’s unfortunate, because Erik Larson is probably one of my favourite nonfiction writers, but this one just did not get my attention (I was NOT listening to the audio, either). I’m sure I missed even much of the personal stuff, but of what I did take in, that was the stuff that did keep my attention, even if briefly. One of the “stories” that I liked was Mary out dancing with friends when a bomb hit the club they were in (there is more to it – I just don’t want to give it away). There were bits and pieces of info from Germany, and from the U.S., as Churchill really wanted the help of the Americans. This one, obviously not for me (unfortunately).

Lois McMaster Bujold has definitely become one of my favorite authors over the course of this year, as I've read my way through the Vorkosigan series! This month I read the final installment (at least for now!), Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen.

Aggie Morton, Mystery Queen: The Dead Man in the Garden by Marthe Jocelyn
Inspired by the real-life Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie, twelve-year-old Aggie Morton and her Belgian friend Hector Perot are formidable sleuths in Torquay. Here they are visiting the Wellspring Hotel, a spa where Aggie's mother is enjoying treatment in the sulphurous waters. Prior to their arrival, a female patient was found dead, setting off some sleuthing ideas, before one of her mother's recent admirers is found dead on a park bench, which requires their full attention. With an intricate plot, wonderful mid-century characters and lifestyle details, as well as an exciting finish, this is a captivating story - and has just as many suspects as any Christie novel.

Finding Christie titles scattered innocently in the text was a treat although I don't believe the intended audience of middle school grades would have enough familiarity with them to notice. As an adult I enjoyed this latest Aggie Morton story but would have adored it when I was young. I look forward to reading more in the series.

This was the October Early Reviewer snag and I'm glad to say I will be receiving the next in the series from the November ER list.

Time was running out on me, because I'm leaving tomorrow for my sister's place, and so I chose a short one: The enchanted wanderer. I've come to the author only recently, but among the 19th century Russians he's my favourite.

Elevator Pitch / Linwood Barclay
4 stars

When there are elevator mishaps in New York City three days in a row – mishaps where people died in each one – the mayor must take drastic steps. Meanwhile, there is a reporter, Barbara Matheson, a single mom to a now-adult daughter (though her parents raised her daughter), who seems to have a grudge against the mayor. The mayor did approach her to write a biography about him, which she rejected.

I wasn’t quite as interested in the political aspects of the book with the mayor, though it was important to the book. I was more interested in Barbara’s and her daughter’s lives. The POV did switch around with each chapter. Through most of the book, I would have rated this 3.5 stars (good), but it really ramped up in the last 20% of the book. It was very suspenseful at that point and I didn’t want to put the book down (and I didn’t) until I finished! That was enough to increase my rating. Overall, although it turned out really good, it is not one of my favourites by Barclay.

This month I read more favorite authors than I realized:

Agatha Christie: Hercule Poirot's Christmas
Miss Read: The World of Thrush Green; nonfiction in which Miss Read explains how she came to write the Thrush Green books, with excerpts from many of them
D. E. Stevenson: Kate Hardy, set in post WWII England
Ken Burns (a favorite filmmaker rather than author): Our America: A Photographic History, his stunning new book of selected American photographs from 1839-present
George Eliot: Middlemarch, my fourth reading (on audiobook)

and before the end of the month I hope to listen again to:
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, read by Jim Dale

The Marylebone Drop (a novella) and Joe Country by Mick Herron both in the brilliant Slough House series.

I finished The Well of Lost Plots, the third in the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde. Another solid and very funny, knowing read. It also had, I thought, a very prescient sub-plot (given it was written in 2003) about a new technology system for creating books which very much reminded me of current debates about AI-generated writing.

Thanks to everyone who participated. I hope you enjoyed reading your favorite author(s).