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Book a Week 2022 - BW27: Crime Spree - The Americans


Robin M
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Happy Sunday! July is upon us and our newest crime spree category brought to us by Sandy and Amy is all about American mystery authors.

Not all of us want to venture too far from home, and The American authors have plenty to offer as well. From the start of hard-boiled detection starting in the 1930s (Carroll John Daly) to Navajo mysteries (Tony Hillerman) to mystery writers that spanned several generations (Rex Stout).

 Authors to explore:

 

Challenge: Pour yourself a stiff drink, grab a dame, and spent a weekend contemplating the grittier side of life by reading an American-centric mystery.

And our countdown begins as we go backwards through the alphabet with A to Z and Back Again. Our letter and word of the week are Z and Zeugma. 

 

 

Link to Book Week 26

Visit  52 Books in 52 Weeks where you can find all the information on the annual, mini and perpetual challenges.

Edited by Robin M
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  • Robin M changed the title to Book a Week 2022 - BW27: Crime Spree - The Americans

Currently reading The Cat and The City by Nick Bradley. It's odd and intriguing.

On my nightstand: 

Carlos Ruiz Zafon's second book in the Cemetery of Lost books - The Angel's Game.  I finished Shadow of the Wind and didn't remember any of it, so like reading for the very first time. Plenty of twists and turns and tales within tales. 

Rebecca Zanetti's first book in her Deep Op's series -  Hidden

Brandon Sanderon's third book in the Stormlight Archive - Oathbringer

George Eliot's Middlemarch (not making much progress but hope to soon. 

Edited by Robin M
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Thanks for keeping up with the threads, Robin.

I'm still making my way through the second half of The Heroine's Journey: For Writers, Readers, and Fans of Pop Culture, by Gail Carriger. Strongly recommended reading for any fiction writers (or aspiring fiction writers) in the crowd. 

I am closing in on the conclusion of A Well-Behaved Woman: A Novel of the Vanderbilts, by Therese Anne Fowler. It's doing a lovely job of scratching that waiting-for-the-next-season-of-The-Gilded-Age itch and has sent me to Wikipedia and other online sources repeatedly to find more information about the real facts and events on which the novel is based.

I will probably finish this one today but haven't yet decided on my next pick. I have a couple of holds available with the library, but I'm not as enthusiastic about them today as I was when I placed the holds. 

Also recently finished:

  • The Book of Three, Lloyd Alexander - A revisit for me to a series I loved as a kid. It's always surprising to me when I reread old favorites and begin to pluck out ideas that so clearly contributed to me becoming the adult I am. This book definitely had a few such moments.
  • Counterfeit, Kristin Chen 
  • The Scandalous Lady W., Hallie Rubenhold
  • The Personal Librarian, Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray
  • Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, Barbara Demick 
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Thank you for the new thread, Robin!

I really enjoy American Noir type mysteries.  It’s a relatively new love so I haven’t read most of the books by authors Rex Stout, Raymond Chandler, or Dorothy Hughes.  They are the authors I am either collecting on Kindle or thrilled my library has on their virtual shelves.  Others like Grafton and Hillerman are old friends that I have read and reread over the years.  
 

So for this month my plans are Baynard Kendrick, lots of Kendrick.  His main character, Duncan Maclain reminds me ever so slightly of Nero Wolfe  with the addition of blindness and dogs.  Stalking amazon and collecting the entire series as they each went on sale for $1.99 which has been an ongoing hobby for months now and I now own most so the reading can seriously began!  The Whistling Hangman is next in the stack https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57184753-the-whistling-hangman?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=pJz3EdqTc6&rank=2&ref=bk_bet_out

Charlotte Armstrong is very recently discovered.  I have only read one of her books(The Better to Eat You) which was a great twisty read with a young woman who thinks her friendship kills her friends.  It’s a good creepy!  I have A Little less Than Kind ready to go.https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2761419-a-little-less-than-kind?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=ybiKOWRP1M&rank=24

Now for Norbert Davis and the Doan/Carstairs series.  Davis was a prolific author of 50’s pulp fiction who wrote a bit of everything and this dectective with his Great Dane duo were apparently quite popular.  So dogs......I needed to try these!  I found a bundle of four titles cheap on kindle and will finally be reading one.  Holocaust House is apparently a prequel of sorts and is first up https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8134945-holocaust-house?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=CF9Wkz9lDg&rank=2 

My audio plans center around Stout and Chandler but I find myself stuck in Rockton.  Kelley Armstrong’s series the I happily have ignored for years has me hooked so I will continue listening before I check out more audio books!

 

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I started reading Archer Mayor this summer. He has a mystery series set in Brattleboro Vermont, featuring a police detective, Joe Gunther. They are available on Kindle Unlimited which is handy!

Some lighter (also kindle unlimited) mysteries I've been reading: 

Dewberry Farm Mysteries by Karen McInerney. Killer Jam is the first one in the series. Homesteader in a small town in Texas happens upon a variety of murders and, of course, the local sheriff is a bumbling idiot, so she needs to help find out whodunit.

I pre-ordered Alyssa Maxwell's new mystery too. She has a series that takes place in my hometown in the late 1800s during the Gilded Age. The first book is Murder at the Breakers.

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10 hours ago, Kareni said:

Some bookish posts ~

From the Word Wenches: June What We're Reading

https://wordwenches.typepad.com/word_wenches/2022/06/june-what-were-reading.html

From the blog of author Jenny Crusie: This is a Good Book Thursday, June 30, 2022

Regards,

Kareni

I came away from reading these knowing I really need to pull out/ actually click on my Ashley Gardner books.  I have bought a few over the years which for me is almost a sign I won’t read them as I always always have books that are on a library time limit.  The Gladiator series by Gardner sounds interesting and tempts me.  I also need to give Veronica Speedwell another try!

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Laura Griffin’s latest Midnight Dunes was a good one in case anyone is wondering!  Nothing special beyond the fact that the characters were likable and the pacing good, basically an easy read if you like romantic suspense. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56898241-grave-reservations?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=xznYxCactl&rank=1

Now Grave Reservations started awesome but was so boring at times that I kept trying to find a better alternative for my bookchain.  I couldn’t, so I finished it.  The start of the book has a travel agent frantically trying to call a ticked off client to let him know he doesn’t need to rush to catch his flight because she has rebooked him.  Her reason was she had a feeling……the plane crashes.  The client is a police detective with a cold case.  Yep, a seriously great start to a book by an author I have really enjoyed in the past….https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56898241-grave-reservations?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=xznYxCactl&rank=1

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21 hours ago, Robin M said:

Fantasy and paranormal romance is more my style too!  what have you been reading? 

I have no idea when I last updated, so here goes:

I finished a reread of the Jane Yellowrock in preparation for the end of the series, and found a few shorts I'd been missing along the way.  I also did a reread of The Linesman series because I love Ean and saw it mentioned here in the lists again. I read a bit of the paranormal and urban fantasy with Annabel Chase's Midnight Empire, and Deborah Wilde's The Jezebel Files. I dabbled with Sarah J Maas's Crescent City, which is long at 803 pages, too long for me to be ready to read the next, which is a few pages longer. I read A Sense of Danger, the new Section 47 series by Jennifer Estep, which I enjoyed. I'd put Jennifer Estep's Elemental Assassin books on the back burner a while back, but the second in this series is due out soon and I have pre-ordered it.

Otherwise I've been lost in space. 😀 Science Fiction/Space Opera has been my things this year. Far enough from any reality, and relatively straight forward to read seems to be the draw.  I'm currently reading The Last Hunter Series by J. N. Chaney. I also started listening to Trouble with the Cursed by Kim Harrison. I haven't listened to any of the audibles for The Hollows series, so I'm not sure that I like the way it's going, through no fault of the narrator. I have built up a lot of audible credits I need to use.

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1 hour ago, melmichigan said:

 I also did a reread of The Linesman series because I love Ean and saw it mentioned here in the lists again. ...

I approve!

1 hour ago, melmichigan said:

Otherwise I've been lost in space. 😀 Science Fiction/Space Opera has been my things this year...

Have you tried Stray by Andrea Höst? You might enjoy it.

Regards,

Kareni

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My book group is meeting tonight to discuss The Necessary Beggar by Susan Palwick. This book is categorized as science fiction; however, I'd be more inclined to consider it as fantasy or magical realism. In a very different world, a young man is banished for having murdered a mendicant (a beggar). His family elects to stay with him, and they walk through a portal into...Nevada (specifically a refugee camp). The book was published in 2005 but is set in the future. Funnily enough, a good part of the book takes place in 2022. The story was intriguing, and I look forward to the discussion.

***If you were part of the Book a Week group in 2019, you might already own this book as a document. It was a free book from Tor.com at that time.***

"Lémabantunk, the Glorious City, is a place of peace and plenty, of festivals and flowers, bejeweled streets and glittering waterfalls. But it is also a land of severe justice. Darroti, a young merchant, has been accused of an unforgiveable crime – the brutal murder a highborn woman. Now, in keeping with the customs of their world, his entire family must share in his punishment – exile to the unknown world that lies beyond a mysterious gate.

Passing through that gate, and grieving for the life they leave behind, Darroti and his family find themselves in a harsh and hostile land – America just a few years hence, a country under attack in a world torn by hatred and warfare. Unable to explain their origin, they are rapidly remanded to an internment camp in the Nevada desert, along with thousands of other refugees. There they endeavor to make sense of this ill-fated land where strange gods are worshipped, and living things like flowers and insects are not respected.

After Darroti, unable to bear his disgrace, takes his life, the rest of the family escapes to the outside world. There, each tries to cope in their own way. Timbor, the head of the clan, troubled by the restless spirit of his departed son who comes to him in dreams, does his best to preserve the old ways, and avoid conflict with the outsiders. His eldest son Masofo, who calls himself Max, is lured by the worldly temptations of this new world, while his second son, Erolorit, strives to make a decent life for his family.

But it is Timor's granddaughter, Zamatryna, who is the quickest to adjust to this strange new world. It is she who is the first to learn its language, to adopt its customs, to accept this place as her new home. And, as the strain of adapting themselves to this new life begins to tear the family apart, it is Zama, sustained by the extraordinary love of an ordinary young man, who finds a way to heal their grief and give them new hope."

Regards,

Kareni

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On 7/4/2022 at 12:04 AM, Jenny in Florida said:

I'm still making my way through the second half of The Heroine's Journey: For Writers, Readers, and Fans of Pop Culture, by Gail Carriger. Strongly recommended reading for any fiction writers (or aspiring fiction writers) in the crowd. 

Yes, I really enjoyed that book. 

Read 2 excellent books, "The Philosopher's Flight" and "The Philosopher's War" by Tom Miller, who is an emergency room doctor. You can tell this author did an enormous amount of research. Set during WW1, except with magic. Very exciting read, I hope there's a third book. NB not one for tweens, some detailed sx scenes.

 

4 hours ago, Kareni said:

Have you tried Stray by Andrea Höst? You might enjoy it.

 

Just finished this, enjoyed it. Very Australian! 

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5 hours ago, melmichigan said:

I read A Sense of Danger, the new Section 47 series by Jennifer Estep, which I enjoyed. I'd put Jennifer Estep's Elemental Assassin books on the back burner a while back, but the second in this series is due out soon and I have pre-ordered it.

Oh! I loved Estep's writing. Will have to get a Sense of Danger. 

5 hours ago, melmichigan said:

I dabbled with Sarah J Maas's Crescent City, which is long at 803 pages, too long for me to be ready to read the next, which is a few pages longer

I recently added Maas's A Court of Thorns and Roses to my TBR. 

Speaking of Space Opera's J.S. Dewes Divided Space was excellent as well as S.K. Dunstall's Stars Beyond.  I currently have John Scalzi's Old Man's War in my stacks.

 

 

 

 

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Hi everyone 👋

I'm slowly working my way out of the reading slump, but it's still slow going. I've read four books since I last posted:

  • These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong - Tagged as a Romeo and Juliet retelling during the early 1920's in Shanghai. I was so excited to read this because it sounded so great. I don't know if it was the wrong time to read this, or if it was just the book itself, but ugghhh. It was 450 pages and probably 400 of those was the two gangs searching for a monster that had unleashed a madness into the city. Glacial pace! There was really very little Romeo/Juliet stuff, and the stuff that was there was blah. It ended as a "to be continued..." but I don't think I'll be reading the next one. I also really didn't care for the Juliet character. 3 stars
  • Love, Life, and the List by Kasie West - This is one of my favorite YA contemporary authors. I've read several of her books. I actually read this one in the middle of These Violent Delights because I was bored with that book and needed a little pick-me-up. This was a cute story about an artist named Abby who spends her summer trying to improve her art. Her boss tells her that her pieces lack heart and passion, so she creates a list of "soul-stretching experiences" to help her out. Her best friend, whom she also has had feelings for for quite some time, helps her out with the list. As always, a cute story with a happy ending. These books are always easy, enjoyable, and quick reads. 4 stars
  • Book Lovers by Emily Henry - This has been on hold at the library for a while and it finally became available. It's the third book I've read by this author (the other two were Beach Read 👍 and People We Meet on Vacation 👎). This story was fun because it was about a book agent and a book editor, so we get a peek inside the behind-the-scenes book world. Nora is all about her work and is very cutthroat. Her little sister convinces her to get away for a little while to a small town, which also happens to be the setting in one of her author's books. She has a run-in with a book editor there (she doesn't always get along with him that well), and things take off from there. I really enjoyed the banter in this book. It was the best part. The story was okay, but I didn't care for the ending. I felt like Nora didn't really change and should've. 4 stars
  • The Bees by Laline Paull - I read this book for my book club this month. I don't think I can properly describe this weird book, so here's the description from Goodreads..."Born into the lowest class of her society, Flora 717 is a sanitation bee, only fit to clean her orchard hive. Living to accept, obey and serve, she is prepared to sacrifice everything for her beloved holy mother, the Queen. Yet Flora has talents that are not typical of her kin. And while mutant bees are usually instantly destroyed, Flora is reassigned to feed the newborns, before becoming a forager, collecting pollen on the wing. Then she finds her way into the Queen's inner sanctum, where she discovers secrets both sublime and ominous. Enemies roam everywhere, from the fearsome fertility police to the high priestesses who jealously guard the Hive Mind. But Flora cannot help but break the most sacred law of all, and her instinct to serve is overshadowed by a desire, as overwhelming as it is forbidden." I really don't know whether this book was trying to be a metaphor for society or just really about bees. You can tell the author did a lot of research on bees, but I didn't understand what the message or purpose of the story was. It felt like the author was trying to say something, I'm just not sure what. 2 stars

I've also finally started The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. I've only read about 30 pages, but so far so good! 

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I finished one book in print -- The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman. This book has been extremely popular (and the sequel is out), so it may not be new for most of you. Several senior citizens in a retirement community, who meet regularly to go over old crime cases to see if they can solve them theoretically, are thrilled to do some real-life sleuthing after a contractor for the retirement village is found murdered. They befriend the local police detectives and finagle their way into the investigation. I found it entertaining and clever; sometimes self-consciously clever, in my opinion, but I overlooked it and tried to just remain in the spirit of it. Entertaining enough that I put the second one on by TBR.

I completed several others on audio since I last posted:

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind. This German international bestseller is a book I'd never heard of, but I read it, because it's on my 100 best books scratch-off poster. If not for that I would not have finished it. When a strange boy is born with a keen sense of smell but no scent of his own, he is immediately marginalized in society (and orphaned) and has to make his own way, which he does by apprenticing himself to a perfumer. And by becoming a serial killer, choosing his victims for their scent. While the writing is very descriptive, this is not a book I enjoyed. I love crime fiction but dislike spending a lot of time in the villain's head, so I didn't care for reading this book with the bad guy as the protagonist. Fortunately, on audio, I was able to increase the speed and zip through it, so that I could scratch it off and be done with it.

The Midnight Lock by Jeffrey Deaver, on audio. This is the lasted in the Bone Collector series. I've read them all, even though they are not really my favorite. Now that I've branched out in my reading (until this year, I read crime fiction series almost exclusively), I may stop reading these. Deaver tends to trick the reader with his twists -- he writes scenes from a POV of view that seems to be the bad guy, and then in the next chapter, you find out that it was really someone else, someone completely innocent, and he does this multiple times, which becomes tedious. Not a true twist but a manipulative authorial trick.

Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty. This is the third book I've ready by Moriarty and my favorite so far, though I wouldn't count her as a favorite author of mine. When an older lady disappears, her adult children worry about what happened to her, but their father thinks she will come back on her own and doesn't want to report her missing. The story then weaves back and forth in time from the POV of various characters, to tell the story of what led up to this situation, including the introduction of a mysterious young woman into the parents' lives. Not a mystery, really. Really an exploration of the people in a family, and their secrets.

The Candy House by Jennifer Eagan. This is a follow-up to A Visit from the Goon Squad, a Pulitzer Prize winner that I read a few weeks ago. Although this can be a standalone novel, the characters are related (in various ways) to those in the first book, with many of the original characters making appearances and references to things that happened in the first one. So I'd recommend reading Good Squad first. These are interconnected stories told in inventive forms -- as an instruction manual, as a series of emails, as a woman looking back through her father's memories, using a memory-uploading technology etc. Crazy good. Not exactly my type of fiction for pleasure reading, but I admire it greatly. I also listened to a fun interview with her on The Book Case podcast with Charlie and Kate Gibson.

 

 

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And I also listened to these audiobooks. I'm putting them in a separate post, because I liked them more than the others.

Unlikely Animals by Annie Hartnett. Loved this book! Five stars! Although dealing with some deep issues -- an ill elderly parent, the opioid crisis, floundering with life goals, family crises, death -- this story has a light and accessible tone, despite the complexity of the story. And some unusual narrators, including the voices of deceased town residents speaking from the graveyard. I know, I know, but it works! I encourage any and all to give it a try.

The Boys by Clint and Ron Howard. I really enjoyed listening to Ron and Clint narrate the story of growing up as child actors, and how their parents helped them succeed while drawing clear boundaries between family and studio life. The book has a small section of photos that you miss when choosing the audio version, but I peeked at them in a copy of the book at the library and decided that I wanted to hear the Howards tell the tales themselves, rather than reading the print version, and I'm glad that I did.

The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner (Newbery honor). I remember when I first read this book, when it was first published, and thinking that it was one of my favorites. I decided it was time for a reread and chose the audio version, because I can get through audio books much more quickly than print versions. I think I would have liked the print version better, because the audio reader does not sound like a young male trickster. But I still enjoyed the tale and will continue with the next in the series eventually. Highly recommended for people who like fantasy, though in this story, the world-building is more important, and the only magical touches are when the characters retell their cultures' folk tales.

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2 hours ago, Storygirl said:

The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner (Newbery honor). I remember when I first read this book, when it was first published, and thinking that it was one of my favorites.

Definitely one of my favourite series of all time. I don't know how I'd go with an audiobook version esp if it had a strong American accent - characters never do, in my head!

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2 hours ago, bookbard said:

Definitely one of my favourite series of all time. I don't know how I'd go with an audiobook version esp if it had a strong American accent - characters never do, in my head!

Steve Wise, the narrator, is British. He did a great job reading it, but has a mature baritone voice. I know that some young guys have deep voices, but it doesn't sound like Eugenides to me. It was still good, though!

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I keep forgetting to say that I also finished my A-Z challenge with The Zookeeper's Wife, a week or two ago, which I really enjoyed on audio.

I'm not going to continue and go back Z to A, though. Someday I would like to read alphabetically by author (this time I chose alphabetically by title), but I have other reading priorities currently.

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7 hours ago, Storygirl said:

Unlikely Animals by Annie Hartnett. Loved this book! Five stars! Although dealing with some deep issues -- an ill elderly parent, the opioid crisis, floundering with life goals, family crises, death -- this story has a light and accessible tone, despite the complexity of the story. And some unusual narrators, including the voices of deceased town residents speaking from the graveyard

Have you read Lincoln in the Bardo: A Novel by George Saunders? It also has graveyard residents narrating.

Regards,

Kareni

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