What have you been reading this August?

[Michelle]

Or nobody gets Monty Python references anymore, which is just sad.

[Robin]

Yes, but no one expects the Spanish Inquisition...

[K.G.]

Just finished the "Shadow and Bone" trilogy by Leigh Bardugo, and I enjoyed it very much. Guess I'm ready for the Netflix series that will be out soon! But I haven't heard any buzz about that.

[Michelle]

K.G. wrote: "Just finished the "Shadow and Bone" trilogy by Leigh Bardugo, and I enjoyed it very much. Guess I'm ready for the Netflix series that will be out soon! But I haven't heard any buzz about that."

I enjoyed that series, too.

I just read Undeath and Taxes, the second book in this hilarious series. Great characters, great humor. Now I'm reading Decimus Fate and the Butcher of Guile, a more traditional fantasy adventure.

[Kivrin]

K.G. wrote: "Just finished the "Shadow and Bone" trilogy by Leigh Bardugo, and I enjoyed it very much. Guess I'm ready for the Netflix series that will be out soon! But I haven't heard any buzz about that."

I liked her "Six of Crows" duology better. They combine parts of it with the trilogy for the Netflix series so I suggest you read those next. The Netflix series already aired here and I enjoyed it although the books are better (of course).

[Kivrin]

Just finished Sagara's Cast in Wisdom after a pretty long break from the series. I swear this woman adds more characters in every book, and my brain can no longer keep track of them all. Still, I enjoyed it even if it did run way too long. I did like that this one centered around a library, books, and accumulated knowledge.

[Barbara]

Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky

In the future, a diabolically destructive alien species called the Architects are threatening to wipe out intelligent life in the universe. A salvage vessel and its crew (of humans and aliens) gets caught up in the fight against these beings.

Good space saga. 4 stars

My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Pierre]

I finished Red Rising and liked it. I wanted to purchase and download the next book in the series (Golden Son), but unfortunately I ran into an identification issue with Amazon Germany, ending with an e-mail asking for help. I have to postpone my reading. Or start re-reading an older book....

[K.G.]

Robin wrote: "Yes, but no one expects the Spanish Inquisition..."

"It's only a flesh wound!"

Seriously, I could go on and on, especially with Flying Circus skits. Absolutely hilarious... if you've got the absurd, nonsensical humor gene, that is!

[Michelle]

K.G. wrote: "Robin wrote: "Yes, but no one expects the Spanish Inquisition..."

"It's only a flesh wound!"

Seriously, I could go on and on, especially with Flying Circus skits. Absolutely hilarious... if you'v..."

I had to educate my son about the Ministry of Silly Walks.

[Robin]

The flying circus is no more... It has rung down the final curtain and gone to sing with the choir invisible. It is an ex circus.☺☺

[Michelle]

At least there are reruns. And that goes for Fawlty Towers, too!

[Jim]

Pierre wrote: "I finished Red Rising and liked it. I wanted to purchase and download the next book in the series (Golden Son), but unfortunately I ran into an identification issue ..."

I really liked it, too. I thought the original trilogy went downhill from there, but the second book wasn't too bad. The third dragged for me & I saw there were more, but never bothered with them. I kind of wish I'd just quit with the first, but that happens to me a lot.

[Faith]

My review of The Noise: A Thriller by James Patterson

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Andrea]

Finished Rapture, which finished up the series really, but there's one more book from the POV of another character. Put in a request to my library, I don't think think I'll be keeping the series (though it wasn't as bad as I'd been led to believe by the reviews).

Next up I'm back to the Trojan War yet again with The Song of Troy by Colleen McCullough. As soon as I saw the author I knew I had to borrow that from the library. In addition to her most famous Thornbirds, she also has an epic series about Ancient Rome so I was pretty sure she'd do a good job with Ancient Greece too.

[Gary]

Finished reading The Burning White by Brent Weeks. I am reading The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin. I plan to read The Wisdom of Crowds by Joe Abercrombie next, when it’s published on September 16, 2021.

[Faith]

My review of The Peculiarities by David Liss

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Andrea]

Bunch of stuff to report.

I finished Wither which was the rivetedlit.com freebie for this month. I thought the premise absurd but I may continue it if the library has them, but not for a while, I've got other library stuff first.

I've been re-reading the Sandman series. Now I'm on the ones I haven't starting read yet with The Sandman: The Dream Hunters first, as I've already read the version illustrated by Yoshitaka Amano (who is a perfect artist for a being like Morpheus). Kind of a re-read but with different artwork.

Finished The Song of Troy, enjoyed that one, since McCullough decided to wipe out all supernatural things and explain plagues, etc through more human means, as well as explaining some of the bits that I always felt were kind of absurd, like Achilles and Agamemnon fighting over a girl. She also wrote from the POV of some lesser characters like Automedon or Diomedes, as well as giving the main Trojans a chance to express their thoughts.

Finished Goddess Boot Camp on OpenLibrary, not as good as the first book in the duology.

I've been reading these Canongate Mythology books, some good, some really weird, some pretty boring. I found The Helmet of Horror: The Myth of Theseus and the Minotaur on OpenLibrary, this one definitely falls under the "weird" category. A bunch of people trapped in separate rooms inside a labyrinth, only able to communicate through an online forum...

As I'm already more than halfway through Helmet, I already picked out another Cannongate called Girl Meets Boy by Meg Cabot to read after it.

Finally, I've been working my way through Lovecraft's works for the past couple months, got through about 15 stories just in August.

[Michelle]

I'm reading the last book in Douglas Jackson's awesome series about ancient Rome. Which is quite the bummer, as I'd hope that there were more books forthcoming. This one is Hammer of Rome: Gaius Valerius Verrens 9; it takes place in 80-ish AD.

[Pierre]

My e-mail to Amazon Germany produced no result, and a second one nothing more. Finally I found a phone number for customer support this morning and got to talk to a specialist who fixed my account, so that I was able to purchase and download Golden Son. Meanwhile I re-read one of the Murderbot books and the beginning of a second one.

I'll see how the Red Rising series develops, and whether I loose interest in the story, as was the case for Jim.

Also, the "you are following this discussion" feature doesn't work for me since a while. I sometimes wonder whether this, the Amazon account issue and a recent problem with my mobile phone are the first signs of what the French essayist Lucien Cerise calls "la grande deglingue" ('deglingue' has the global sense of wreck, failure, screw up, etc, so perhaps "the great screw up"...).

[Andrea]

I didn't have much to do yesterday and was too hot and humid to walk around outside so I ended up finishing Girl Meets Boy...I honestly didn't see how this had anything at all to do with mythology, yes one Greek myth got mentioned and very vaguely applied to the overall story, but it was a huge stretch. This was one of the badly done Cannongate myths...seems about 50/50 really.

Up next I will finish the Fallen series with Unforgiven by Lauren Kate