March reading list.

[weaselmom]

• J.R.R. Tolkien - Unfinished Tales (for Book Club)


• Richard Conniff - Every Creeping Thing: True Tales of Faintly Repulsive Wildlife


• Various - 100 Hair-Raising Little Horror Stories*


• Ray Bradbury - From The Dust Returned*


• Nancy Atherton - Aunt Dimity's Death*


• Nancy Atherton - Aunt Dimity and the Duke*


• Nancy Atherton - Aunt Dimity's Good Deed*


• Nancy Atherton - Aunt Dimity Digs In*


• Nancy Atherton - Aunt Dimity's Christmas*


• Nancy Atherton - Aunt Dimity Beats the Devil*


• Nancy Atherton - Aunt Dimity: Detective*


• Manuscript X*

This month's choices were heavily influenced by other people in various ways. The only choice that was truly mine--mine, I tell you!--was the wildlife book. The Aunt Dimity books were utterly charming but all too short. It seems like I spent most of the month slogging uphill (barefoot, in the snow) through Unfinished Tales. In the final analysis, alas, I did not technically finish it. Next month we're doing The Worm Ouroboros and you could cut my apathy with a chainsaw.

As always, * marks something I hadn't read before. Lots of new stuff this month, at least! April should bring us a new Amelia Peabody book by Elizabeth Peters, one of the few authors I will buy in hardback.

This month I got S to read Laurell K. Hamilton's Merry Gentry books, as he was at loose ends bookwise. Hot Sidhe-on-Sidhe action. I don't want to wait until 2004 for the next one. (Neither, it turns out, does S.) I'm going to try to work him through Kim Newman's Dracula series next!

Comments

Books

[ex-skarrin.livejournal.com]

I keep Unfinished Tales around because it has more details about the Rings and the Istari in it...and, well, I love the description of the approach to Gondolin.

The rest? Well, I must be a completist, of course. I don't think I've ever given a rat's ass about the Narn i Hin Hurin, though.

*shrug*

I *loved* the Newman Dracula books. :)

Lessee...well, you read lots because of the club. Should I bother with recommendations? :) Or will they get wedged out by "prior commitments"?

Re: Books

[weaselmom.livejournal.com]

Now see? I completely agree with you. The part about the Istari is what made all those countless hours of Turin Angsty McAngsterson bearable. If I had a dollar for every time the book said, "And thus it came to pass..." I could retire now.

I would be honored to hear some recommendations. Sometimes it takes me a while to get to them, but I usually get there eventually. I've been so fortunate with Kij and PMB, because I think I've loved everything they've got me hooked on and have then passed some of it on to S. In turn it has been my pleasure to introduce Kij to the Moomin books and PMB to Jonathan Carroll. So I'd say bring it on!

Re: Books

[ex-skarrin.livejournal.com]

Well then...

I think we've had a CJ Cherryh talk. If we haven't - start with "Downbelow Station" (that's the best intro to the Alliance/Union Space set) and when you're done with THAT we'll figure out which direction to take you. ;)

Or the whole Chanur series - all 4 books; more scifi, about intelligent aliens. :)

Or the "Fortress" books - all 4 (those are fantasy, about a person who was summoned...and doesn't know anything about who he's SUPPOSED to be)

Tad Williams' Otherland series is also fabu.

Oh. And, of course, "Song of Fire and Ice" by George R. R. Martin. I think I've told the story about being SOOOO startled - twice - by events in those books that I had the involuntary "hurl the offending object far from me" response. With the BOOK.

I, of course, scrambled over and picked it up again to keep reading. :)

The second startle, unfortunately, was the cliffhanger at the end of book 3...and book 4 won't be out until this fall.

Hot Sidhe-on-Sidhe action

[jeanineers.livejournal.com]

I enjoy reading Laurell K. Hamilton. Her books are fun, easy, and sexy. She has a couple weird quirks and I find that I'm beginning to look forward to them: she describes everything her main characters are wearing, down to the color of the swoosh on their Nike sneakers. AND she has a passion for black and white as room decor, which she also describes in excruciating detail.

Why have you never mentioned Amelia Peabody to me?

Re: Hot Sidhe-on-Sidhe action

[weaselmom.livejournal.com]

Good heavens, it never occurred to me that you didn't know about Elizabeth Peters! You have sooooooo much reading ahead of you! Not only has she written (insert large number here) books about Amelia Peabody, intrepid Victorian lady Egyptologist and mystery solver, her sexy and irascible husband, and their precocious but ultimately also sexy children, but she also did a number of charming mystery series and standalone books featuring a variety of charming female heroines and their exasperating but ultimately satisfying romantic interests. Why are you just sitting there? Start ordering stuff from the library! Go! Clicky clicky, as PMB would say.