Werner Lind's reviews > Likes and Comments

Since I'm currently reading a biography of 20th-century German Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I was reminded of an earlier biography of Luther himself, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther by Roland Bainton, which I'd read in the early 70s (in a different edition than the one shown here, of course!), but never reviewed until today. Here's that review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... (which has theological content that might bore some readers :-) ).

Earlier today, I finished reading, and reviewed, the Bonhoeffer biography I mentioned in my previous post,
Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by evangelical Goodreads author Eric Metaxas. That review is here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... . This was a common read in one of my other groups; this discussion thread there, https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... , has more discussion, and links to reviews in several journals.

Earlier this year, someone in one of my other groups proposed doing a Christmas-themed common read in December. Having some vague memories of having watched part of the movie 46 years ago, and knowing that we had a copy of the book in the BC library and that it was apt to be a quick, easy read, I suggested The House Without a Christmas Tree by Gail Rock. As it turned out, I enjoyed it more than I'd expected to! My four-star review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

Although the YA historical novel Pirates! by Celia Rees was a library book (so I can't keep it), I've had my eye on it for some time; so making time to read it this month was a Christmas present of sorts to myself. :-) My five-star review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... . One thing I didn't mention there, though, is that this book has a really cinematic quality; it would make an excellent action movie (probably rated PG-13) if Hollywood ever chooses to adapt it, and if they do I definitely want to see it!

Since I posted here last, I've added several reviews:

Christmas at Red Butte by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery (famed for the Anne of Green Gables series) is a seasonally-appropriate story that I read as a common read in another group. My review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

Goodreads doesn't have a single entry for the three-volume set of The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour: The Frontier Stories; so although I think of this as one long book that I've been intermittently reading for three years (and finally finished a few days ago), I've had to review each volume separately. It turns out that I never linked to my review of Vol. 2 here; so here are the links to that review and the one of Vol. 3: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... and https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

Finally, I did my end-of-the year review of 2018 on Goodreads yesterday. As always, I'm also linking to that one here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

My 2019 reviewing got of to a stellar start (pun intended!) with two five-star reviews, of In Death Survive: Ghostly Tales by Andrew Seddon (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ) and The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ).

Anyone who knows my reading tastes is aware that I'm quite a fan of the fiction of the supernatural, especially fiction with a serious spiritual dimension. So it's probably no surprise that I really liked City of the Shrieking Tomb, which I got from the author, Patrick A. Rogers, as a free e-book for review. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

Because I have such a huge backlog of books I want to read, and a lot less time for reading than I'd like, it can take me quite awhile to follow up on a series, even when I really like the opening novel. A case in point is my Goodreads friend Seeley James' Sabel Security series: although I read the first book about six years ago, I just finished the second one, Bring It (Sabel Security #2) yesterday. Both installments got five stars from me, but I liked the second one better, as I explain in my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

For some time, I'd been intending to do a "retrospective" review today of Irene Hunt's Civil War novel Across Five Aprils, which I read as a kid back in the 60s. But at the last minute, I decided that one will need a reread in order to do it justice. So, instead, here's a review of an enduring 19th-century children's classic, Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates by Mary Mapes Dodge: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

Canadian literature is almost entirely terra incognita to me; but one of only a couple of Canadian authors that I've now read and liked enough books by to actually count him as a favorite is my Goodreads friend Shane Joseph. I've now had the privilege of accepting four review copies of his books, the latest of them being Milltown, set in contemporary Canada and focusing on (among other things) the experience of Sri Lankan immigrants. My five-star review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

My original review of Gwen Bristow's Plantation Trilogy has been linked to before on this thread. That review, though, was based on my memories from reading the trilogy back around 1970. I've just finished a reread of it, and as a result updated my review with some new reflections (as well as upgrading the star rating). The updated review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

A couple of times this year, while I was waiting for an interlibrary loan book, I filled in the intervening time by reading in the 2011 anthology Vampires, Zombies, Werewolves and Ghosts: 25 Classic Stories of the Supernatural, finishing it this morning. (Yes, as one of my library colleagues observed years ago, "Werner's into the weird!" :-) ). My review of that one is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

Although I've reviewed almost every book I've read since joining Goodreads, I joined in my 50s; so obviously I read quite a few books before that. Relatively few of those have been reviewed; but I try to review one every so often, as I have time to, and I wrote one of those reviews just now. This one is of Robin Hood (1912) by British author Henry Gilbert --and it goes back a LONG way, since I read it as a seven-year-old child, back in about 1959. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

Being a fan of short fiction, I usually enjoy the variety and novelty provided by multi-author story anthologies. Lighthouse Horrors is one that I took a chance on last year as a thrift store purchase, and I wasn't disappointed! My four-star review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

Yesterday, I completed another retrospective review, this time of a book Barb and I read together some 30 years ago now. The Earth Lords is a stand-alone novel by award-winning American speculative fiction author Gordon R. Dickson, and is so far the only one of his many books that I've read. My four-star review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

As part of my effort in the last few years to be more intentional about pursuing and finishing series I've started reading, I've just finished (as of yesterday) J. B. Lynn's series opener, Confessions of a Slightly Neurotic Hitwoman. (I'd read a couple of later installments out of order --long story!) My review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

Some recent discussion in another group about Daniel Defoe's classic novel Robinson Crusoe (1719) prompted me to write this three-star retrospective review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... . (I'd read the book about 20 years ago, but until last night had never gotten around to reviewing it here.)

Here's the link to my review (written earlier today) of the latest book I read out loud to my wife, Love Finds You in Calico, California by Elizabeth Ludwig: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... . This review had eight "likes" before I wrote it; but I think what these folks meant to like was just my status update that I'd read the book. (The way the Goodreads program handles that function is counter-intuitive, and not at all user friendly.) Hopefully the completed review won't make anyone "unlike" it! :-)

Though she was created (originally as a comic strip character) back in the 1960s, Peter O'Donnell's heroine Modesty Blaise still has a following among fans of pulp action adventure tales. Here's my review of the author's first collection of Modesty short stories, Pieces of Modesty: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

Seeley James' series protagonist Pia Sabel has become one of my all-time favorite action heroines. The third book in his Sabel Security series, Element 42 wasn't a review copy, strictly speaking, since he made no request for a review when he offered to gift me with the e-book edition of that one (and the other books in the series I hadn't yet read), but I prioritized it as if it were. That review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

In going over my Goodreads bookshelves recently, I tracked down four more reviews of SF anthologies that I wrote before joining this group, and hadn't linked to here until now. This should be all of the short fiction collections in this genre that I've reviewed so far

The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twelfth Annual Collection, ed. by Gardner Dozois. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

Infinite Space, Infinite God II, ed. by Karina and Robert Fabian. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

Men Against the Stars, ed. by Martin Greenberg. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

The Best Science Fiction of Arthur Conan Doyle. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

Since I'm putting on a push this year to read any of the works of Jane Austen that I haven't read yet, I thought this would be a good time to review the only Austen novel, of the ones I'd already read, that I hadn't reviewed. So, here's my review of Persuasion: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

On Friday, I finished what I hope will be the first of several Jane Austen books I finally read this year, Emma. That review is now up, here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

Yesterday, I finally posted a review of a classic I read (multiple times) in my pre-Goodreads days, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

While I don't read many e-books, I'm somewhat more apt to read short stories in electronic format. The links below are to reviews I did of e-stories before joining this group; the first two are recent stories by Goodreads authors, and the third is to an older story originally published in 1954, but now available electronically. These should be the last of the reviews of science fiction short stories and story collections that I hadn't ever linked to here.

Xeria by John Andrew Karr. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

Technopathy by Chantal Boudreau. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

Bedside Manner by William Morrison. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

Continuing my program of Jane Austen reading this year, the latest of her novels that I've finally read was actually the first one she wrote, Northanger Abbey. My five-star review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

Having been a Sherlock Holmes fan from boyhood on, I always enjoy any of Conan Doyle's canonical Holmes writings (as well as some of the modern pastiches). There are still some of these I haven't read (or if I have, it was back in childhood and I don't specifically remember them --I wasn't so careful about keeping track of books read back then as I am now); but I recently finished another of the five book-length collections of Holmes stories that the author himself published, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. That review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

Recently reviewing Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, and the ongoing discussion of that novel in another group right now, made me think of the sequel, Little Men. That was actually the first Alcott book I read, as a very young child; but until today, I'd never reviewed it. I've remedied that now, and my review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... . Unlike Little Women, I've never reread this one (though I might in the future!), so didn't rate it as highly; but I still liked it.

Even though the author is a favorite of mine, C. S. Lewis' relatively little-known 1956 novel Till We Have Faces wasn't a high reading priority of mine until it was recently picked as a common read in one of my other groups. For me, the read turned out to be surprisingly rewarding! My five-star review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

Continuing my program, for this year, of reading any of the works of Jane Austen that I've neglected up until now, I recently finished her early novella Lady Susan. That review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... . I gave it four stars: it might be considered "second-string" Austen, but even Austen writings that are in the second class are very good!

While on a road trip to visit family at the beginning of this month, Barb and I finished our "car book," Doctor in Petticoats, the first novel in Mary Connealy's Sophie's Daughters trilogy. The series focuses on three strong young women making their way in the late 19th-century American West; the author is a new discovery for us, and we believe she's likely to become an enduring favorite! My five-star review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

There are so many potentially wonderful books out there which I haven't read yet that I rarely reread the ones I've already read. But I sometimes make exceptions for books I read decades ago and need a refresher before I can review them fairly. My latest finished read, The Tory Lover (1901) by Sarah Orne Jewett, falls into that group. Here's my three-star review of that one: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

I've recently finished reading and reviewing two very different books, one fiction and one nonfiction. The latter is a travel memoir by early 20th-century traveler H. V. Morton, In Search of Scotland (and a reread from my boyhood); the other is yet another collection of Sherlock Holmes stories, The Return of Sherlock Holmes. Those reviews are here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... and https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

One of my Goodreads friends recently reviewed the autobiography of British mystery grande dame Agatha Christie, and some of the folks in a group I'm in are progressively buddy reading Christie's Poirot novels in the order they were written. All of that helped to put me in a frame of mind to do a "retrospective" review (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ) of one of several Poirot novels I read as a kid, The A.B.C. Murders. (I discovered the author at a pretty young age.)

Louis L'Amour is a favorite writer of mine, and I posted this review -- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... -- of one of his story collections, Yondering: Stories, about seven years ago. I was reminded of it recently when one of my Goodreads friends liked it. Readers who know of L'Amour only as a writer of Westerns will be surprised by this collection!

Since I started reading independently at the age of six, and I'm now 67, I read a LOT of books before Goodreads was ever imagined. Reviewing those is a slow, slow process; some of them aren't worth a review, and others I don't remember well enough to do them justice without a reread. But The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy is eminently worth reviewing, and has stayed with me remarkably well after over 50 years. So here, finally, is that review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

Today, I finished and reviewed (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ) Mansfield Park. It's the culmination of a reading adventure begun in high school, and in a way, it's a bittersweet milestone; I now no longer have any unread Jane Austen novels to look forward to (though I want to reread Sanditon sometime). Fortunately, though, there are still pastiches, spin-offs, and other novels set in the Regency era....

In the past 48 hours, I've finished reading and reviewed two books, very different from each other, but sharing one very real commonality in that they both feature strong female characters. One is the popular 2011 supernatural fiction novel Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake; the other is the second book in Mary Connealy's Sophie's Daughters trilogy, Wrangler in Petticoats. My reviews are here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... and here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

Despite my Australian connection (I have family there, and it's the only foreign country, besides Canada, that I've ever actually visited), I'm spectacularly poorly-read in Australian literature. Stumbling across Best Australian Short Stories in the excellent public library at Harrisonburg, Virginia was an opportunity to sample a wide selection of Aussie writers, and I'm glad that I took advantage of it. My three-star (a positive rating that means I liked it) review is here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

I'm currently reading a Stephen King novel which was picked as a common read this month in another group I'm in; and that reminded me that until now I've never reviewed a couple of King books that I read long before Goodreads existed. So last night, I finally posted a review (here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ) of one of them, The Eyes of the Dragon. That's the only King book my wife Barb and I have ever read together, and it got three stars from me.

The Stephen King book I mentioned, in the post above, that I was reading with another group was 'Salem's Lot. Like many of his works, this is a thick book that took awhile to read, but it didn't have a padded feel. For me, it had its pluses and its minuses, both of which I tried to recognize in my review, which is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ; but overall, I gave it three stars.

Over the weekend, I posted two reviews more or less back-to-back, of Sharpshooter in Petticoats by Mary Connealy (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ) and of Double Play by Kelley Armstrong (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ). They're very different books, set in different centuries and with heroines who are also very dissimilar in many ways; but an underlying commonality between the protagonists is that they're both strong, tough women living in a world that's often a dangerous place in any century.

Recently, I finished the first of two serious theological works by Dietrich Bonhoeffer which I'm reading back-to-back, The Cost of Discipleship. That review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... . For nonfiction books I like, my usual default rating is three stars; but I gave this one four.

In my previous post, I mentioned that I was reading two books by Dietrich Bonhoeffer back to back. I've now completed the second one, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community, and reviewed it here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... . Because this book isn't so well-known as The Cost of Discipleship, going into the read, I didn't expect to rate it as highly; but I wound up getting as much out of it as I did the first one.

Recently, I've completed two "retrospective" reviews of books by Terry Brooks, both of which I read years ago: Running with the Demon and Magic Kingdom for Sale/Sold. My review of the first one (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ) is actually a complete revision of an earlier one I'd posted about 11 years ago; but as I explain in the revision, my assessment of the novel changed over the intervening years. The book I reviewed today (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ) is the opening volume of the author's Magic Kingdom of Landover series. That's actually the Brooks series Barb and I like best, though that's not a majority position among his fans.

Even though I count her as a favorite author, there's still a lot of Agatha Christie's work that I haven't read. So, when I can, I like to take part in the ongoing multi-person buddy read, in another of my groups, of the complete canon of Poirot books. The one for this month, which I finished a couple of days ago, was (suitably for the season) Hercule Poirot's Christmas, which I'd never read, though I had seen the Mystery! adaptation on TV. My four-star review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

This is a nonfiction review I wrote not long after joining Goodreads, of a book I read even more years before that, Farley Mowat's fascinating Never Cry Wolf: The Amazing True Story of Life Among Arctic Wolves: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... . It got five stars from me, a high rating which is quite rare for me where nonfiction books are concerned.

My Goodreads friend Andrew M. Seddon's latest book is Bonds of Affection, subtitled Short Stories and Memories of German Shepherds; and as usual, he was kind enough to gift me with a copy. My five-star review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

Although I'd read it decades ago, I've wanted for a long time to reread Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer-prize winning novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, because although I'd greatly liked it the first time, I felt I didn't recall it well enough to fully do it justice in a review. This morning, I finished that reread, and I was as impressed as I was the first time! Here's the link to my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .

I picked Rites of Autumn by Cliff Schimmels off of the Bluefield College library shelves as a short end-of-the-year read to fill in time before a January common read, not expecting a great deal from it. It dramatically surpassed my expectations! My five-star review is my last one for 2019, and it's at this link: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .