Classic Trash discussion
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What Else Are You Reading
Kelly,It looks like you read a variety of genres, which is great. We've read Victorian "Sensation Fiction" as group reads before. The String of Pearls would fit that category. I really like Mary Elizabeth Braddon and some Wilkie Collins for that genre.
Currently reading "Depth of Winter" by Craig Johnson, Book #14 in the Sheriff Walt Longmire series.
Currently reading "Bucking the Sun" by Ivan Doig, my newly discovered writer. After reading "The Last Bus to Wisdom" I immediately had to read all of his stories.
I'm currently reading A woman of substance
I've been reading Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (Great American Read) and listening to Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Currently reading "The girl who takes an eye for an eye". Millennium series. Watched trailer for the previous book "girl in the spider web" and added it to my read list. It was a fine read and upon adding it I noticed the next book in the series. Booked it out of the library and have started it. The up coming movie looks interesting. Later.
The Hunger. Alma Katsu. Historical novel that deals with the push of pioneers journey to California in the 1800 hundreds. Throw in a mysteries women that the wagon trains believes to be a witch and mysterious deaths and the struggle to get the wagon train to its' destination. You get a fine novel. I gave it 5 stars and believe if read by the group it will garner the same.
Mod
Ooo. I have that on hold at the library.
Merry Christmas to all in the group. Be Happy.
Merry Christmas! Drive safe and try not to kill your family!
Just finished In Harm's Way by Doug Stanton, about the sinking of the USS Indianapolis in 1945. Definitely recommend this one, but it's a sad, sad true story. Well written, lots of information about the events leading up to, during and after the disaster. But so sad. :( And the events after the disaster just made me so mad! So an excellent book, well written, lots of facts, and made me care about the people and events. So, now going for something lighter with Casino Royale, and will be reading Heads You Win by Jeffrey Archer for a local book club I joined but haven't actually attended yet. :PSpeaking of upcoming books, I've already read Misery recently, so I was thinking of reading one of the past club books in its place. Any suggestions?
And my mom gave me two books for Christmas - One is a John Grisham book and I hate his stuff (so booooooring!), and the other is The Road by (shudder) Cormac McCarthy. Yes, the author of the hideous, albeit well written, Blood Meridian. (sigh) I love my mom, but seriously?? I'm donating the Grisham book to my workplace book exchange. I'm not sure about the McCarthy book. It at least has punctuation, but.... :P
Stormy Daniels( Full Disclosure). Interesting but not a great novel. I do not believe we have heard the last of her.270 pages, so not a deep read. The Trump chapter is one that does not go deep into the man that would be President. The phone call he got from Hilary Clinton that is mentioned is humorous and revealing. Stephine did not want to go to the room with Donald but she did and yes they have ... So why did she have to tell the world when Donald Trump was President? Confusing. Only 3 stars for this reader.
Just wanted to let people know, if any of you get the Audible Daily Deals, they are doing Drew Hayes' The Utterly Uninteresting Unadventure Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant at a reduced price. I love this series. It's fresh and original, with a totally new look at vampires, mages, dragons, etc. Fred himself is an utterly adorable character and the narrator for this is absolutely brilliant, making him come to (un)life. The series is now 6 books long and I've loved every one of them. So if you can do it, please get this (and the ebook).
For those of you who, like me, grew up playing D&D and other role playing games, you might try Drew Hayes' rpg series, which starts with NPC. It answers the question 'what do the characters you meet do when there aren't adventurer's around'. Both series are funny and a lot of fun to read. And I recommend the audio book for that series too.
Ok, hopefully this deal will be good for everyone, but I got a Kindle deal email, and one of the books with a reduced price ($2.99) is Six Of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. I REALLY recommend this one (not for the group reading list, as it's far too new). I got this e-book and was a little dubious about it, having been burned by a few really crappy low price books, but I honestly really liked it, and liked it better as it went on. According to the email, the world this is set it is being developed into a new original series on Netflix, which is cool. But I really enjoyed this one and wanted to let you all know about the lower price. This one apparently made the NYT best seller list. Color me surprised as I've found a lot of a lot of the books on that list to be, ahem, poorly written. So if you feel like trying a really good fantasy book, definitely give this one a chance while it's on sale. :) There's a sequel, which I liked well enough, but this is the best one of the two.
Mod
Have you read Ninth House also by Leigh Bardugo? Very good.
It's in my Kindle library and on my list of hundreds of future 'to reads'. She's a very good author. I honestly was expecting a meh book with Six of Crows. Instead it was one of those 'oh, shoot, I was supposed to stop reading and do (responsible task) an hour (or two) ago!' books.
Mod
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong"Let us know how it goes.
Adelaide wrote: "Kirsten wrote: "I'm on reading On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong"Let us know how it goes."
I'm enjoying it. Beautiful language. Wonderful peek into the immigrant experience. Reads more like a memoir.
So I'm about to start The Descent, by Jeff Long. He's actually the father of my youngest daughter's bff and roommate. She gave me a copy of his book to read and I'm looking forward to it. It looks kind of horror-ish, so hopefully I'll like this as a Halloween read better than Second Child. :POther than that, I'm slowly working my way through the Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews. Too new for this group, but a really great bit of urban fantasy world building by this husband and wife duo.
Let us know how it is! I actually went to college with William Peter Blatty’s daughter Jen (The Exorcist). I told her I was very disappointed that she was so normal.
"Night Bitch" by "Rachel Yoder" is a fun book. Read it and tell me I am wrong.
I'm just about to start nightbitch. I'm currently listening to Fevre Dream by George RR Martin
Jennifer wrote: "I'm just about to start nightbitch. I'm currently listening to Fevre Dream by George RR Martin"Enjoy.
Recently finished A Halo for Nobody, the first in Henry Kane’s classic PI series about Peter Chambers. Very entertaining. Chambers is a snarky uber-confident fellow.
Just finished Hugh Munro’s Who Told Clutha (1958), the first in his series about a Glasgow shipyard detective. From “Glasgow” and “shipyard”, you know it will be flavorful, and it is! I look forward to spending more time with Clutha, who is tough-savvy.Hugh Munro is not to be confused with Hector Hugh Munro (Saki) or Neil Munro (author of the Para Handy tales). More info here: https://bearalley.blogspot.com/2010/1...
I honestly cannot remember any series of detective novels where the PI gets roughed up so much as the Mike Shayne novels. Concussions, sprains, broken bones, swollen eyes, nothing stops the guy. Why fictional private detectives don’t work in duos to protect each other’s asses, I’ll never understand. Working solo leads to so many problems, like getting waylaid and beat up. I mean, it’s a wonder that Shayne survived even one book, he was conked on the head so much…
The bibliography of Davis Dresser (1904-1977), the creator of Mike Shayne, is intensely complicated. Like most pulp writers, he wrote under multiple names (including his own), famously as “Brett Halliday” for the Shayne series. But from at least 1958 on, the Shayne novels and stories were ghostwritten by others (prominently but not exclusively Robert Terrall). Figuring out who actually wrote what can take a little work.
Mod
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Is there one of the books in this series you recommend? We can add to our list of books to read for the club.
Begin at the beginning, I say! with Dividend on Death (1939). The Miami setting adds a lot of flavor to these novels.
Robert W. Krepps’ 1959 Baboon Rock A Novel of Adventure, set in 1872 South Africa, appropriates its basic situation from Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge and then develops it cunningly. Krepps (1919-1980) wrote a number of African adventure novels, as well as Westerns, science fiction, novelizations, even romantic suspense under the pseudonym “Beatrice Brandon”. He is one of those hard-working authors of the period that I would like to know more about, biographically speaking.
Mod
Huh. That all sounds very cool.
^ Like a lot of “popular fiction” of that era, it has literary qualities!
“I don’t arouse passions like that. It’s my intellect women like. I inspire them to read good books, but I doubt if I could inspire even Lizzie Borden to murder.” - Archie GoodwinArchie Goodwin is unquestionably the fictional character I most identify with and would fantasize myself as. Timothy Hutton was peerless in the role, and that wardrobe, be still my beating heart. *
I’m reading the Nero Wolfe corpus in order, currently on The Silent Speaker. A thought that always comes to me is that an actual Archie wouldn’t put up with an actual Wolfe for more than a week. Archie could have a thriving PI business on his own, maybe contracting for Wolfe as the ‘teers do, but Wolfe without Archie would need another Archie. Archie enables Wolfe to be MOBILE by acting as his projection into the real world. Wolfe seldom expresses any appreciation for this essentiality, which is one reason why he frequently annoys me. But hey, it’s fiction.
* Wolfe to Goodwin: “Because you are young and vain you spend too much for your clothes.” Yeah, baby! 🙂
Just noticed that the crime / noir novelist Russell H. Greenan passed away on July 22 at the age of 97. He is something of a cult writer, especially for his first novel, It Happened in Boston? (1968). He published about a dozen novels altogether, including a couple that appeared initially in French translation. He has been on my to-read list forever, so I just ordered a copy of It Happened in Boston?
This was a crime fiction morning at Chez Murtha. I read in the second of Jack O’Connell’s Quinsigamond Quintet, Wireless. These novels, set in a somewhat warped fictional version of Worcester, Massachusetts, are difficult to describe, but have a noir / borderline horror atmosphere and abound in eccentric characters. Although each volume is technically freestanding, I would start with the first, Box Nine.As you can tell by looking by his Goodreads reviews, O’Connell is a love him or hate him kind of author. He hasn’t published in a while, but I hear through the grapevine that he might get back to it, and I hope he does. I sent him word through a mutual acquaintance that he has still has plenty of fans out here.
Then I continued with some chapters in Simenon’s Pietr the Latvian, having decided to start the Maigrets at the beginning. (I had previously read one of the romans durs, Dirty Snow.) Great stuff, of course.
Not all of Jules Verne’s Voyages Extraordinaires are science-fictional in nature; many are straight adventures, such as The Archipelago on Fire aka Islands on Fire, about the Greek War of Independence, which I am reading in the excellent new translation by Chris Amies. As always with Verne, there is a lot of factuality, specifically geography, and I am really brushing up on my Greek islands, let me tell you. Quiz me on the Cyclades versus the Sporades, I’m ready. Recent decades have been good ones for English-reading Verne fans, with many untranslated works appearing for the first time, and new authoritative translations of the more famous works replacing older abridged, expurgated, or inaccurate ones. There are some of the novels, though, that you have to dig up in the old 19th Century versions because that is still all that exists. But Verne was prolific, we are lucky to now have just about everything in English, one way or another.
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea was the first adult novel I ever read, in the summer between second and third grades. I became such a Verne fanatic that my mom special-ordered I.O. Evans’ Jules Verne and His Work for me, since our town library didn’t have it.
When is a Western not a Western? When it’s a Northern! The Wikipedia article on this subject is quite good:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North...
“The Northern or Northwestern is a genre in various arts that tell stories set primarily in the late 19th or early 20th century in the north of North America, primarily in western Canada but also in Alaska. It is similar to the Western genre, but many elements are different, as appropriate to its setting. It is common for the central character to be a Mountie instead of a cowboy or sheriff. Other common characters include fur trappers and traders, lumberjacks, prospectors, First Nations people, settlers, and townsfolk.”
Some authors that are associated with this genre are Jack London, Rex Beach, Robert Service, Ralph Connor, and James Oliver Curwood. I am reading Beach’s The Spoilers at the moment, famously filmed five times (1914, 1923, 1930, 1942, 1955), the highlight always being an epic fist-fight towards the climax. The novel is rousing good fun, based on an actual incident of corruption during the Yukon Gold Rush * , which Beach had witnessed first-hand.
* The key malfeasor was Alexander McKenzie (1851-1922), whom I encountered in my recent reading in North Dakota history. A very nasty guy and machine politician who served prison time for corruption. He conspired, in collaboration with officials he helped place in office, to cheat Alaska gold miners of their winnings by fraudulently claiming title to their mines.
Hi group,I just released a gritty western in the vein of Blood Meridian. Anyone interesting in reading a thriller with heart that's based on real life gunslinger Angel Jimenez, take a look at Soldadera: An Angel Jimenez Tale.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
Kicking off the shoes. Loading a bowl and pulling on a can. Reading some new Lee Childs. On to some S. F. Martha Wells and the "Murder Bots" Later.
Ben Benson (1913-1959) was a police procedural writer of the 1950s who died young but not before completing 19 volumes. (He had spent THREE YEARS in the hospital as the result of a World War II injury, and apparently began his writing as a therapeutic activity.) I have read Beware the Pale Horse in Benson’s Wade Paris series (Massachusetts State Police Inspector), and enjoyed it very much. He also has another series about a Massachusetts State Trooper, Ralph Lindsey.
Crime fiction aficionados and bloggers have done excellent work on researching semi-forgotten writers such as Benson. I often obtain and read books like his because of a blog post that alerts me to or reminds me of a writer.
Stewart Sterling (1895-1976) was “The King of the Specialty Detectives”! - hotel detective, department store detective, fire marshal, harbor policeman. I like this kind of thing (I recently finished the Scottish writer Hugh Munro’s Who Told Clutha, about a shipyard detective). I very much enjoyed Sterling’s Alibi Baby in the Gil Vine hotel detective series, and have got two more titles on my iPad, The Body in the Bed (another Gil Vine) and Where There's Smoke (Fire Marshal Pedley, natch). More info here:
https://mysteryfile.com/Sterling/Dete...
Recently Finished: William Campbell Gault, The Bloody Bokhara (1952). Top-notch hard-boiled / noir stand-alone, whose protagonist is neither a PI nor a cop, but an ordinary guy caught up in some iffy dealings. Set amidst the milieux of the Oriental rug trade and the Armenian-American community in Chicago, so this gets BIG points for novelty and freshness.
Mod
It sounds super interesting!
Classic Trash
Books mentioned in this topic
Borderline (other topics)Borderline (other topics)
The Body in the Bed (other topics)
Where There's Smoke (other topics)
Who Told Clutha (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Lawrence Block (other topics)Lawrence Block (other topics)
Ocean Vuong (other topics)
Ocean Vuong (other topics)
Ocean Vuong (other topics)
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Dawn of the Jedi: Into The Void by Tim Lebbon
The Prophecy Con by Patrick Weekes
Adventures of Pinnochio by Carlo Collodi
Recently finished:
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman - this one proved to me beyond doubt that I'm just not a poetry person. They were good poems, but it took a year to get through this. They just didn't do anything for me. Maybe if I listened to them instead.
The String of Pearls by Thomas Preskett Prest. It's where Sweeney Todd began. And you can tell it was written 'paid by the word'. It wasn't horrible, but I'll stick to Dickens.