What are you reading now?: August 2, 2025.

Wrapping up Artificial Unintelligence. The Martian Contingency and Hitler's Panzer Generals will follow.

Moving on to A Century of Tomorrows.

Spitfires: The American Women Who Flew in the Face of Danger During World War II
Becky Aikman
5/5 stars
I loved this book about the 25 women fliers in World War 2 who risked their lives for their country. If you like women's history you will definitely like this book! Non-Fiction

I took a week away from job hunting as it was really damaging my mental health. Instead, I spent the week reading novels by an Icelandic crime writer, Lilja Sigurdardottir. I have been enjoying them thoroughly.

I haven't been listening much to audiobooks, but I started one yesterday that caught my interest, called The Sixth Extinction.

started this audio via Libby ~

The Library of Lost Dollhouses: Enchanting Fiction with a Historical Twist
by Elise Hooper

I recently finished Four Aunties and a Wedding by Jesse Q. Sutanto which was laugh out loud funny.
Now I'm reading The Last Days of the Dinosaurs: An Asteroid, Extinction and the Beginning of Our World by Riley Black.

I am going to get back to Heir by Sabaa Tabir. Too many other, smaller books got in the way, and I really enjoyed Tabir's book. And also still reading The Lady in the Tower by Alison Weir, which I figured would take several months.

I've just finished a nice baseball memoir, T.J.: My 26 Years in Baseball by Tommy John with Dan Valenti.

Some folks may remember Tommy John mainly as the player who gave his name to the shoulder surgery that he was the first to undergo, but John was in fact a very effective pitcher for a long time, pitching, as the book title lets us know, in 26 Major League seasons. He was particularly successful in the late 1970s, winning 20 games three times over a four-year span. In the end, John won 288 games and lost 231, for a winning percentage of .555, which is considered quite good. He played in three World Series, but was never on the winning side, as he pitched twice for the Dodgers when they lost to the Yankees and once for the Yankees when they lost to the Dodgers.

T.J. is interesting in particular for baseball fans of a certain age who recall the seasons John describes here. We get a full (but, happily) not too long accounting of John's childhood and early career. We get some anecdotes about some of John's teammates over the years, a decent feeling for what it's like to be part of a ball club over a long major league season, and a lot of recollections about the managers and pitching coaches John played for: those that helped him and those that hindered his progress and/or success. John talks a lot about his relationship with George Steinbrenner, which, for John, was mostly positive.

You can find my longer review on my 50-Book Challenge thread.

Next up for me will be an historical novel, Quietly My Captain Waits by Evelyn Eaton. First published in 1940 and apparently very popular at that time, this is a novel about the area around Newfoundland, Labrador and Nova Scotia when those were still French colonies. I'm looking forward to escaping back in time for a while.

From the library: Renewed for Murder by Victoria Gilbert
6th installment in "A Blue Ridge Library Mystery" series. It's set in Virginia so it's great having the regional connection.

A Widow for One Year
John Irving
3/5 stars
This story surrounds Ruth Cole in three parts, as a child, then as an unmarried woman in 1990 and then we finally we see her in 1995. I liked this book, it is a bit too long but is still very interesting!
1998

Give the Boys a Great Big Hand – Ed McBain
Book on CD performed by Dick Hill
3***

First published in 1960, this is book number eleven in the 87th Precinct mystery series. During a downpour, a beat cop notices that a tote bag was left behind at a bus stop. He can’t get to the bus in time to stop it, so he opens the zipper case hoping to find identification. What he finds, though, is a severed hand.

McBain never mentions the city, though it seems to be a stand-in for New York. It’s a classic police procedural mystery that held my interest throughout. The detectives of the 87th precinct have their work cut out for them, but they pound the pavement looking for clues and suspects. McBain populates this unnamed city with a wide variety of colorful characters. There are several red herrings (both for the cops and for the reader), but the boys of the 87th precinct are nothing if not tenacious. They WILL get the guy or gal responsible.

I’ve read one of these books before, and thought I’d try another. I don’t think it’s necessary to read them in order (I certainly haven’t), and it may be difficult to find some of the older ones. The series began in 1956 with Cop Hater, and ended in 2005, when McBain died, with Fiddlers.

Dick Hill does a fine job of narrating the audio. His gruff voice is perfect for several of the precinct cops, and he even does a reasonable job of voicing the women.

Sick Houses: Haunted Homes and the Architecture of Dread
Leila Taylor
This is quite an interesting non-fiction book about sick/haunted houses. Non-Fiction

The new thread is up over here.