FF: Curling Up
Roary the Ferocious!The day after Thanksgiving is a great time to curl up and enjoy a good book…
For those of you unfamiliar with this column, the Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week. Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazines. The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list. If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.
Once again, this is not a book review column. It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of description or a few opinions tossed in. And it’s also a great place to tell me what you’re reading.
Completed:
River Kings: A New History of the Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads by Cat Jarman. Non-fiction. Curiosity about how a carnelian bead got from (possibly) India to a Viking grave in England sets an archeologist speculating. Very readable.
Tied up in Tinsel by Ngaio Marsh. Audiobook. Marsh kept from going stale by having more quirky characters and situations. In this one, a self-made rich man gets around the servant problem by giving positions to murders who he firmly believes are not likely to opt again for murder.
Light Thickens by Ngaio Marsh. Audiobook. This one is over half devoted to the events before the murder, the rehearsal and staging of a production of Macbeth. A daring choice by the author, but one that worked very well for me.
In Progress:
The Frugal Gourmet Celebrates Christmas by Jeff Smith. About two-thirds anecdotes both about Christmas holiday traditions and Jeff Smith’s family traditions. The other third is, unsurprisingly, recipes.
Into the Vortex by Charles E. Gannon. ARC. Sequel to This Broken World. Part epic fantasy, part mystery. I loved the first book, and am eager to read this sequel.
Last Curtain by Ngaio Marsh. Audiobook. Painter Agatha Troy can’t resist the lure of a commission to paint a larger-than-life actor at his home, surrounded by his family, who seem eager to try and top each other as the most peculiar.
Also:
I have finished the proofs for the mass market paperback edition of Library of the Sapphire Wind. Reading the latest issue of Smithsonian.
