Where the Wild Wednesdays Grow
Jun. 20th, 2018 10:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
evelyn_bWhat I've Finished Reading
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It's been another mass-market paperback week for the most part. I finished I is for Innocent and am out of Sue Graftons again. It's become a sad existential certainty that poor Kinsey can't get through a book without putting herself in mortal danger, even when the case is four years old and she's only looking into it for a friend. If this keeps up she'll have more bullet holes than skin by the time we get to Y. And then she'll probably say something tough about how it suits her lifestyle to be an impervious mass of metal and scar tissue (as long as it doesn't keep her from eating cereal for dinner) because That's Our Kinsey. Sue Grafton has gotten a lot better at writing suspense since the Yakety Sax days of A is for Alibi, so can I really complain? I can a little, but I mostly don't.
What I'm Reading Now
My father-in-law, whose taste in detectives only occasionally intersects with mine (I introduced him to The Most Comfortable Man in London; he gave me the gift of Sue Grafton) has put Elizabeth George into my hands, so I've started A Great Deliverance, the first book in a series.
There are a lot of characters all at once, mostly CID higher-ups with personal problems. The ostensible hero of the piece is a repellent Balliol bro who is perversely maintaining a valet in 1988. I thought, "This bro is itching to drop a Shakespeare quote into this already tense meeting," and lo, he did. I don't know what a person like that is supposed to do with himself except join the police and hope someone eventually throws a murder his way. His partner on the investigation, for maximum conflict, is a working-class detective with a chip on her shoulder. As the POV drifts around, one character after another reflects on how badly dressed she is, which ensures that she's my favorite but also makes me worry that at some point the narrative is going to foist a makeover on her.
I'm not sure what I think of it so far. The case is grisly and there's another grisly case in the background. All signs point to a Thorny Exploration of Human Evil, which is not really my favorite kind of murder story, and half the front-matter blurbs compare George to both Ruth Rendell and P.D. James. I've loved every Rendell book I've read, thorny as they are, but I haven't had the same luck with James - so we'll see.
ETA I cant' be sure, but it looks as though Elizabeth George may also have written. . . A RICHARD III NOVEL? I'll have to investigate further.
What I Plan to Read Next
It's travel time! I've got a stack of books to help me pass a very long string of airplane and airport hours: Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett, A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin, and The Dollmaker by Hariette Arnow. The latter was famous in my house growing up because my sister had to read it for high school and hated it very volubly and at great length, but I've never read it myself. There is an afterword by Joyce Carol Oates! My sister hates things with afterwords by Joyce Carol Oates, but I don't necessarily. I might swap it out at the last minute for Sylvester by Georgette Heyer, which will probably be more lighthearted fun but isn't nearly as thick. Sadly, Ulysses and Sam Johnson are too large and too non-disposable, and will have to stay at home.
.
It's been another mass-market paperback week for the most part. I finished I is for Innocent and am out of Sue Graftons again. It's become a sad existential certainty that poor Kinsey can't get through a book without putting herself in mortal danger, even when the case is four years old and she's only looking into it for a friend. If this keeps up she'll have more bullet holes than skin by the time we get to Y. And then she'll probably say something tough about how it suits her lifestyle to be an impervious mass of metal and scar tissue (as long as it doesn't keep her from eating cereal for dinner) because That's Our Kinsey. Sue Grafton has gotten a lot better at writing suspense since the Yakety Sax days of A is for Alibi, so can I really complain? I can a little, but I mostly don't.
What I'm Reading Now
My father-in-law, whose taste in detectives only occasionally intersects with mine (I introduced him to The Most Comfortable Man in London; he gave me the gift of Sue Grafton) has put Elizabeth George into my hands, so I've started A Great Deliverance, the first book in a series.
There are a lot of characters all at once, mostly CID higher-ups with personal problems. The ostensible hero of the piece is a repellent Balliol bro who is perversely maintaining a valet in 1988. I thought, "This bro is itching to drop a Shakespeare quote into this already tense meeting," and lo, he did. I don't know what a person like that is supposed to do with himself except join the police and hope someone eventually throws a murder his way. His partner on the investigation, for maximum conflict, is a working-class detective with a chip on her shoulder. As the POV drifts around, one character after another reflects on how badly dressed she is, which ensures that she's my favorite but also makes me worry that at some point the narrative is going to foist a makeover on her.
I'm not sure what I think of it so far. The case is grisly and there's another grisly case in the background. All signs point to a Thorny Exploration of Human Evil, which is not really my favorite kind of murder story, and half the front-matter blurbs compare George to both Ruth Rendell and P.D. James. I've loved every Rendell book I've read, thorny as they are, but I haven't had the same luck with James - so we'll see.
ETA I cant' be sure, but it looks as though Elizabeth George may also have written. . . A RICHARD III NOVEL? I'll have to investigate further.
What I Plan to Read Next
It's travel time! I've got a stack of books to help me pass a very long string of airplane and airport hours: Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett, A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin, and The Dollmaker by Hariette Arnow. The latter was famous in my house growing up because my sister had to read it for high school and hated it very volubly and at great length, but I've never read it myself. There is an afterword by Joyce Carol Oates! My sister hates things with afterwords by Joyce Carol Oates, but I don't necessarily. I might swap it out at the last minute for Sylvester by Georgette Heyer, which will probably be more lighthearted fun but isn't nearly as thick. Sadly, Ulysses and Sam Johnson are too large and too non-disposable, and will have to stay at home.
no subject
Date: 2018-06-20 05:23 pm (UTC)LOL. I have read one (or two?) of those, but I had forgotten the valet. (I have to say I didn't care for them, but it's possible I read the wrong ones, of course.)
Goodreads reviews seem to suggest that I, Richard is a book with 5 short stories in, only one of which is about Richard III, but it is still RIII, if that pleases you. *antagonistically uses Henry icon*
Good luck with your travelling - and your travel reading!
no subject
Date: 2018-06-20 06:14 pm (UTC)A short story is even better than a novel, because it takes less time to read!
no subject
Date: 2018-06-20 07:37 pm (UTC)A short story is even better than a novel, because it takes less time to read!
Well, unless it's so good you want 200,000+ words.
no subject
Date: 2018-06-21 02:15 am (UTC)Sad but true!
no subject
Date: 2018-06-21 12:57 am (UTC)Nonetheless I feel that Josephine Tey should arise from Beyond the Grave just so she and Elizabeth George can discuss their Richard III theories, doubtless over a cup of tea. Have any oversexed people with blue eyes shown up yet in George?
no subject
Date: 2018-06-21 02:07 am (UTC)Tey should arise from Beyond the Grave anyway; she might not be too keen on the shape of the future, but it'd be fun. Inspector Thomas "Earl of Asherton" Lynley has blue eyes, but it's not clear yet if he's actually oversexed or just pretending to be as part of his quest to be the worst in every way.
no subject
Date: 2018-06-21 02:11 pm (UTC)Enjoy your travel reads including your sister's least favourite! I didn't get on with GoT and ditched it after two chapters so I'd def take Sylvester anyway.
no subject
Date: 2018-06-21 11:02 pm (UTC)I have some hopes for GOT. We've been watching the first season of the TV version, and. . . I don't hate it? I'm lukewarm on a lot of the plots, but I love John Snow, the Stark girls, John Snow's dog, the Fellowship of the Wall, and Tyrion. If those things are in it early on, I'll probably get a lot of reading in regardless of how good or bad it is, because my loyalty has already been won; if it's just wall-to-wall Dragon Twins and douchey non-Tyrion Lannisters, it'll depend on the writing.
no subject
Date: 2018-06-22 02:46 pm (UTC)It does help if a book is based on a TV series you like already. I was unwise and read them before they made a TV series to sway me;p I think it starts off somewhere hot.