August Random KIT: Titles

Read a book whose title immediately made you want to read it. Sometimes they are just brilliant!



I think most of Terry Pratchett also fits. So many more...

Anyway, find a title that makes you smile, or frown or ponder.

Oh! Great idea.

This looks like the perfect opportunity for me to read I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison. I love this creepy title and hope this short story collection lives up to my expectations.

Ha! This looks fun!

Anything with bookshop or bookstore in the title gets me every time. I have two waiting to be read:
The Last Bookshop in London by Madeline Martin and
Mr Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan.

>5 kac522: yeah, they grab me too.

I plan to pick at least one of these:

A Death in Diamonds by S.J. Bennet
Murder on Safari by Hillary Waugh
The Summer Country by Lauren Willig

Love conspiracies, so I think I will attempt: Hit List: An In-Depth Investigation into the Mysterious Deaths of Witnesses to the JFK Assassination which is by Richard Belzer actor/Munch Law & Order SVU.

That's inventive. Now what have I got that's grabbed the attention recently..

I will probably read something in the Great Witches Baking Show series. The titles are such fun! I am currently reading #4 in the series. Up next will be Blood, Sweat, and Tiers and Crumbs and Misdemeanors.

I might go with this one:
The Collector of Dying Breaths / M. J. Rose

If it's easily available at my library.

Too bad I just read You'd Look Better As A Ghost. I picked this up at the library simply because of the title. I will head to the library later this week and see what catches my eye.

I completed my read of the horror short story collection by Harlan Ellison, I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream. As with all short story collections, this was a mixed bag, but mostly I enjoyed the stories.

I finished Crumbs and Misdemeanors from the Great Witches Baking show series.

I'm reading The Pearl Thief by Elizabeth Wein.

I have finished Fräulein Schläpples fabelhafte Steuererklärung which drew my attention at the bookstore yesterday. RomCom is not my usual genre, but this is set in Swabia, where I spent some of the best years of my childhood, and how could I resist a story set in Sindelfingen? Plus, a tax inspector as hero?
"Schläpple" is the Swabian diminutive for Schlappen, which are the down-at-heel slippers you wear in the bathroom or when taking out the garbage. The title translates as "Miss Slipper's fabulous tax return".

I read The Minuscule Mansion of Myra Malone by Audrey Burges. The title caught my attention as a recommendation for my sister because she's into miniatures and has been working on a doll house. We decided to do a buddy read of it.

I read To Shape a Dragon's Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose.

A Chef on Ice / Sebastien J.M. Kuhn
3.5 stars

Sebastien was living in Australia and his dream was to get to Antarctica, so he jumped at the chance to apply for a job as a chef on the icy continent. He actually goes back and forth a few times via cooking jobs (except for the first time, the rest were all with the same tourism company), and a portion of the book is back in Australia (where he brought back an idea of something he cooked during his for Antarctic job, and started a booth at various farmers’ markets in between Antarctic seasons). The tourism company he later worked for was based out of South Africa, so he headed there a few times, as well.

This was good. There was more off-Antarctica than I’d expected, but it did tie in somewhat (though I was initially disappointed in this). I feel like this might be of more appeal to foodies. I am not one, but in addition to his travel adventures, the author does describe a lot of the food he cooked, as well; not only that, there are recipes at the end of the book. There were pictures included, but I was reading an ebook on a black & white Kobo; would have loved to see those pictures in colour!

I bought Tod vor dem Steffl because the title tells me it's set in Vienna. Not your usual mystery, but a weird tale of oddball police officers and genetically manipulated pigeons. The humour is very black.

September's thread is posted:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/362652

I read another book this month where the title was what originally caught my attention, The Old Woman With the Knife by Gu Byeong-mo.

I just finished Emergent Properties, which catched my eye when looking for an Augusts SFFKIT book.

I read a book I picked up at a library sale strictly for the title. I didn't even read the back of the book until after I got home. I read Death of A Country Fried Redneck by Lee Hollis.

The Collector of Dying Breaths / M. J. Rose
3 stars

In the 16th century, Rene is a perfumer for Catherine de Medici. But even before that (and he continues on with his experimenting), he collected the dying breaths of people; the idea was that the person’s soul was in that last breath, and he hoped to find a way to reanimate that soul. Rene was continuing on the work of his mentor/father-figure. In addition, Catherine managed to convince Rene to also produce some poisons.

In the current day, Jac’s younger brother has also been continuing on this tradition of dying breaths, and Jac follows a trail to continue on after her brother dies. This bring her into contact with some… interesting people as she tries to find some of the ingredients that Rene might have used hundreds of years earlier. Jac also thinks she has been continually reincarnated and has been responsible for her love dying in more than one life, so she has pushed her current love away.

This was ok. It got more interesting at the end as things heated up particularly for Jac, but I found much of it unbelievable and slow-moving. It was interesting to read the author’s note at the end that indicated that Rene was Catherine’s perfumer; the dying breath theory was possible, but it’s not known if people thought that at the time.

I finished 2 books with interesting titles.

The Last Bookshop in London by Madeline Martin (2021) grabbed my attention immediately. It sounded interesting as it's set during the London Blitz. For some reason, the book didn't grab me the way the title did. It was OK, but not that memorable for me.

When I saw the title Towards Zero by Agatha Christie (1944), I was intrigued because it sounded more like sci-fi than mystery. No "Death" or "Murder" or some other typical mystery word in the title! In fact it is a Superintendent Battle mystery that had lots of characters, but also lots of clues along the way. Battle has to go back months before the murder to determine the killer and motive, and how the murderer planned the "zero" point. An enjoyable read with a twist.

Three Bedrooms, One Corpse / Charlaine Harris
3 stars

Aurora (Roe) has left her library job and is trying out real estate with her mother. As she fills in while her mom is running late, she shows a brother (Martin) and sister from out of town a large house… and they find the dead body of another realtor in one of the bedrooms! Meanwhile, Roe is very attracted to this older man Martin, and they start dating while the real estate agents in town are a bit nervous.

This was ok. I listened to the audio, and it started off well, but my mind did tend to wander, as it sometimes (often?) does with audios, so I definitely missed more than I would have liked to. I do think Roe did a really stupid thing at the end (but they often do in cozy mysteries – rather than going to the police with what they’ve discovered, they do something dangerous instead). I’m undecided if I should continue the series or not. I might try one more.

A Is For Bee by Ellen Heck.

My review:
Fun alphabet book attractively illustrated with animals who appear in a different place in a foreign language alphabet book than they would in an English book.

I just finished Love, Lies, and Cherry Pie by Jackie Lau.

I read Life Begins On Friday by Ioana Pârvulescu. When I was looking for Romanian novels, this title immediately caught my eye when I came across it in a blog post.