RJ - Slayer of Trolls’s Comments

RJ - Slayer of Trolls’s comments from the 2025 Reading Challenge group.

Note: RJ - Slayer of Trolls is not currently a member of this group.

I nominate The Once and Future King by T.H. White, the classic telling of the King Arthur story.

Also, if you enjoyed this book and you'd like to continue reading the Sherlock Holmes books, join us for a buddy read for future books in the series starting in July with The Sign of Four.

Mary Pat wrote: "Randy, Suki, Angela, Ilona - I have added the Sherlock Holmes books starting in July. Are we swapping the Hound and the Return in the reading order?"

Interesting. I gave them in the order from my "complete collection" edition, but I see in Wikipedia that Hound was serialized and published before Return. So, yes, let's go ahead and switch those two so we can read them in publication order. Thanks! And welcome to Angela, Ilona, Scott and anyone else that would like to join Suki and me.

Blagica wrote: "“I have always imagined paradise will be a kind of library.” I hope you find a corner in Paradise with some great books!!"

Thanks Blagica!

Susy wrote: "Would love to read them with you Randy but I’m quite booked up for the rest of the year ...."

That's OK Suzy, I know you have a lot on your plate. :-)

Suki wrote: "I would really like to Buddy Read the Sherlock Holmes series with you."

Great! I bet we'll get a few more people interested over the next few weeks as the group read progresses.

Kristy wrote: "I'm obviously not going to finish this book during May but I am still taking it slow and enjoying it chapter by chapter. I was so excited when Desdemona starting talking to silkworms again and quit..."

Your spoiler was a real surprise to me also.

I'm new to the whole buddy reads thing, but is it OK to nominate something for July already?

If so I'd like to nominate The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle. This is the second book in the Sherlock Holmes series and we are reading the first book in the series (A Study in Scarlet) as a group read this month.

In fact, if anyone would like to continue with the series we could read the rest as follows:

August - The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
September - The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
October - The Return of Sherlock Holmes
November - The Hound of the Baskervilles
December - The Valley of Fear
January - His Last Bow
February - The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

By the way, if you finished this book and you enjoyed it you might like the short story A Study in Emerald by Neil Gaiman which is based on this Sherlock Holmes story and also mixes in some elements of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos.

You can read it in the anthology Shadows Over Baker Street or the author's excellent short story collection Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders.

Or you can just read it for free on the author's website: http://www.neilgaiman.com/mediafiles/...

I'm starting today.

I finished 3 more yesterday which gives me 38 total for the year:


Night's Master by Tanith Lee
Rating: 2 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Goodreads book club: The Sword and the Laser


The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Goodreads book club: SciFi and Heroic Fantasy


Rhialto the Marvellous by Jack Vance
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Goodreads book club: Beyond Reality (as part of Tales of the Dying Earth)

And I am starting these books:


Suspect by Michael Robotham
Goodreads book club: The Mystery, Crime, and Thriller Group


Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann
Goodreads book club: Crime, Mysteries & Thrillers

I'm almost done with this section. I need another week or so to finish the book. Still enjoying it! The writing is terrific and the characters are so well-developed that I feel like I really know them. I understand per Wikipedia that the author used a lot of details from his own life to make the story feel so intimate.

I finished #35 for the year:


The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Goodreads Book Club: Dragons & Jetpacks

Now starting:


The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi
Goodreads Book Club: Dragons & Jetpacks

Susy wrote: "31. All the Light We Cannot See | Anthony Doerr | 544p | F | New | English | ★★★☆☆
"

You're doing great on your reading!

I'm about halfway through All the Light We Cannot See and I'm enjoying it so far.

Good job Catherine!

Well, I'm almost halfway through but I'm not going to finish this one by the end of May. I just have too much other reading going on as well as other unfortunate distractions (work, life, that kind of stuff). But I really like this one so far. The writing is terrific - I'm also reading Middlesex for the group read and this is the first time I've read two Pulitzer Prize winners at the same time. Just impeccable prose in both.

And today I finished #34 for the year:


March Violets by Philip Kerr
Rating: 5 Stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Goodreads Book Club: Crime, Mysteries & Thrillers

Now starting:


Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird Stories by Algernon Blackwood
Goodreads Book Club: Literary Horror


The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Goodreads Book Club: The Mystery, Crime & Thriller Group

I finished #33 for the year:

Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Goodreads Book Club: SciFi and Heroic Fantasy

Now adding to my Currently Reading pile:


A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle
Goodreads Book Club: This one!

I finished this section. I find myself more and more drawn in by this story despite the fact that I really didn't think the subject matter would interest me.

I'm not going to finish this by the end of the month. But I'll probably finish in early to mid-June.

I finished two more which gives me 32 for the year:


Cugel's Saga by Jack Vance
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Goodreads Book Club: Beyond Reality (as part of Tales of the Dying Earth)


The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall
Rating: 2 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Goodreads Book Club: Literary Darkness

And I started reading some other books:


The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi
Goodreads Book Club: Dragons & Jetpacks


Night's Master by Tanith Lee
Goodreads Book Club: Sword and Laser


The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
Goodreads Book Club: SciFi and Heroic Fantasy


Rhialto the Marvellous by Jack Vance
Goodreads Book Club: Beyond Reality (as part of Tales of the Dying Earth)

I'm in! I have a collection of all the Sherlock Holmes stories, of which this is the first, and I have been looking for a reason to get started.

Holmes is one of those characters that most people know from popular media such as movies and TV but many people, including myself, have never read the source material.