pedanther

Fiction books
Agatha Christie. The Mysterious Affair at Styles
CS Forester. The African Queen
Kevin Hearne. The Purloined Poodle (e)
Tove Jansson, tr. Elizabeth Portch. Comet in Moominland
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller. Diviner's Bow (e)
Tim Powers. Down and Out in Purgatory: The Collected Stories of Tim Powers (e)
Oscar Wilde. The Canterville Ghost
Oscar Wilde. An Ideal Husband (re-read)
Oscar Wilde. The Importance of Being Earnest (re-read)
Oscar Wilde. Salomé (re-read)
Oscar Wilde. A Woman of No Importance

In progress
Helen Simonson. Major Pettigrew's Last Stand (e)

Abandoned
Flann O'Brien. The Third Policeman

Picture books
Adam Goodes, Ellie Laing, David Hardy. Ceremony
John Hartmann, tr. Edith M Nielsen. A Deer in the Family

Non-fiction books in progress
Isaac Asimov. A Choice of Catastrophes

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Andrei Baltakmens. A Hangman for Ghosts (e)

#8: If the previous book had a person on the cover, read a book without a person on the cover.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles is the first Poirot novel, but I haven’t been reading them in any kind of systematic order, so I’ve read around half a dozen of the later novels already. It’s the second I’ve read that’s narrated by Arthur Hastings, and once again I found him an impediment to my enjoyment. People always unjustly think of Holmes and Watson as the prime example of the great detective and his slightly dim sidekick, but really it’s Poirot and Hastings; Hastings can be relied on to go after every red herring and bark up every wrong tree and ignore every hint from Poirot that he might be on the wrong track. Poirot keeps making little jokes about how slow on the uptake Hastings is, which Hastings is too slow on the uptake to notice. I get the feeling it’s supposed to be funny, but I don’t find it so, and anyway that just makes me annoyed at the author for setting him up to be laughed at. It’s certainly not the case that we’re being invited to laugh with him, because that would require that he be in on the joke.

Also, somebody gets murdered, I guess? The mystery is actually quite clever, I think; I’d almost be tempted to read it again to see how all the pieces fit together, except that would mean spending more time with Hastings.

#9: If the previous book’s title started with a consonant, read a book whose title starts with a vowel.

I picked up The African Queen in a library-discard sale years ago, with a vague idea about seeing how different it was from the movie. It’s broadly similar, though the movie has a significantly different ending (and doesn’t let the characters do any more than exchange suggestive banter and occasionally kiss, while the novel is less restrained). I didn’t quite warm to the main characters, partly because I got the impression that the author didn’t entirely like them; some of his explanations for their behaviour had a feeling of coming from a superior and somewhat cynical remove.

Interesting experience, probably won’t read it again.

#10: Read a book in a different format from the previous book.

I wasn’t entirely sure whether my copy of The African Queen was a native hardback or one of those cases where the library added a protective shell to a paperback, so I figured to be on the safe side I should go with an ebook - which provided a convenient opening to read Diviner’s Bow, the new Liaden Universe novel that came out this month.

I devoured Diviner’s Bow in a single day; after spending the past few months chipping away at the depths of my to-read pile, it was nice to have a reminder of what it can be like to read a book I really enjoy populated with characters I like spending time with.

#11: Read a book where the author’s name is not the same color on the cover as the previous book’s author’s name.

I’ve started reading A Choice of Catastrophes by Isaac Asimov, but I’m not sure yet if I’m going to make it my official pick for the prompt; it’s shaping up to be a read-a-chapter-every-now-and-again sort of book, and I might swap in something that will be done quicker.

. On my second week of leave, I did more weeding, focussing on the plants growing up along the front of the house (and making it possible to walk from the front door to the car without having to dodge or step over any tall weeds). I also fixed a pantry door that had come off one of its hinges, and found a remedy for the sagging seat of the sofa.

. Some while back, I signed up to a literary serial Substack called Wildfell Weekly, which presented Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. (It wasn't a fully chronological presentation like Dracula Daily; the first few posts were co-ordinated with the dates in the narrative, but then the narrative starts skipping weeks and months at a time - the full story takes place over the course of about a decade - so after that the posts settled down to one a week.) I kept up with it pretty well at first, but I got stuck around halfway through, when the Tenant's backstory starts being revealed (having gone in with just enough knowledge of the premise to dread where the story would go from there), and remained stuck while the serial continued on all the way to the end. Faced with the need to keep up my reading streak without resorting to actually starting The Female Man, I began reading individual chapters, and gradually built up steam and got all the way to the end. I'm glad I've read it now - it's secured Anne the position of my favourite Brontë - but I think perhaps the weekly serial wasn't the best way for me to have read it. (On the other hand, perhaps it was, seeing as the only other option appears to have been me never getting around to reading it at all.)

. During August, I got into a situation on Duolingo where I needed to complete all the daily challenges every day for the rest of the month in order to keep my streak of monthly medals. I've been gradually going off Duolingo anyway (which is partly how the situation arose), with a rising feeling that I'm not getting enough out of it to be worth all the ways it annoys me, so I decided that if I failed to get the August medal I would take it as a sign to walk away. At the end of the month, I irretrievably lost one of the daily challenges that I could easily have won, due to Duolingo not being clear about the requirements for completing the challenge; I decided that was definitely enough for me, and uninstalled the app forthwith. And I have not missed it one bit.

. Saw some people online talking about a new game called Tactical Breach Wizards, and thought it sounded interesting enough to try downloading the demo. It's a turn-based tactical combat thing, and one of the wrinkles is that one of the main characters can see a minute or so into the future, which mechanically translates to you being able to preview the effects of your turn before committing to it, and you're encouraged to try out elaborate or showy moves to see if they'll work. Each of the player-controlled characters is a different kind of wizard, with different abilities and weaknesses; one of the starting characters, for instance, is a weather witch, who begins the game with several kinds of wind spell but nothing that does direct damage, so she has to knock opponents out by slamming them against walls or else remove them from the field of battle by pitching them out of windows. (I haven't played any of the developer's earlier games, but I'm given to understand that defenestration is something of a trademark.) By the time I hit the end of the demo I was sufficiently immersed to forget it was just the demo and be surprised to hit the end, and wanted to know what happened next, so I bought the full game. I've been playing it on and off since; if I'm honest, the gameplay isn't quite my jam, but I'm really enjoying the characters and the dialogue is great.

. There is a tournament currently being held on Tumblr where people were invited to submit their favourite character that they didn't think anybody else had heard of, and the characters face off in one-on-one contests where the winner is the one that more of the audience really hasn't heard of. (It's intended as an antidote to all the other character tournaments on Tumblr where the winner is usually the character most people have heard of, regardless of what the nominal criterion of the tournament was.) One of the competitors is a character from the Liaden Universe, and obscure even for that series: it's Jen Sin yos'Phelium, the keeper of Tinsori Light, who until quite recently had only appeared in one short story and none of the novels. He won his first match-up (against a sapient eyeball from a Youtube video I've never heard of) by a comfortable margin, and is through to the second round.

Off the back of my previous post, it's occurred to me that reviewing a week's worth of journal entries at a time is reasonably doable, and maybe once I'm caught up I could make a weekly habit of it. So here are five things from my first week of journalling:

. One thing I have achieved in the past month, though not to as full an extent as I would have liked, is that I've done some yard work and weeded out the plants that have grown up around the sides of the house over winter, which I never quite found the time and energy to deal with when I was working full-time. In the first week, I concentrated on the side of the house where the clothes line is, because some of the plants had grown tall enough to brush against the clothes when they were hung there to dry.

. I've already mentioned that I didn't achieve any progress on reading The Female Man; I loaded it onto my ebook reader at the beginning of the week and then spent the entire week never quite getting around to starting it. Every evening I'd remember that I needed to read something to keep my streak going, then decide that I was too tired to start what would probably be a book requiring concentrated attention, and read the latest Letter from Watson or Wildfell Weekly or a story from He Do the Time Police in Different Voices instead. On the Friday, there was a power outage lasting much of the day, which presented a prime opportunity to get a concentrated bout of reading in - and that's when I decided it was about time I got around to reading the latest Liaden novel.

. I am still really enjoying the D&D actual play series Natural Six. Each new episode premieres with a half-hour live pre-show on Twitch, with many of the more dedicated fans watching it and chatting together as soon as it premieres; due to time zones, that happens in the wee small hours of the morning here, so I'd always missed it. On my first week of leave, I decided to try getting up early and watching, since missing a few hours of sleep wouldn't be a problem when I didn't have to work later in the day. I made it through the pre-show before deciding that I was way too tired to sit up for another three hours watching the actual episode, or to get any enjoyment out of interacting with the other watchers, and went back to bed. I watched the episode on VOD later in the day, and it was a lot of fun and ended in a really dramatic place.

. During the week, I received a phone call which, after a confusing beginning, turned out to be from someone who was calling because they still had me down as the contact person for the brass band. That reminds me that it's been several years since I last talked about the band here, back when it was starting to rebuild after the pandemic hiatus and the loss of several key members, so I should probably at least mention that I haven't been playing with the band for a few years now; I wasn't comfortable with the direction the band was moving, and, to be fair, would have been uncomfortable in any case since the pandemic had left me with a lingering discomfort with the basic idea of getting together in a group to operate devices that spray bodily fluids into the air. I told myself when I stopped that I'd go back if I found that I missed it, but that hasn't happened yet; I miss in a general way being able to regularly make music with other people, but not the brass band in particular. (And partly that's because one of the reasons I stopped going to the brass band is that not very much time was being spent at the rehearsals actually making music.)

. On the Wednesday, I decided to go and have lunch at the café that recently opened a few blocks up from where I live. It's at least the third café that's tried to make a go of that location since I've been paying attention, and we'll see if it lasts any longer than the previous two. There was a good range of food, but the menus showed signs of being hastily assembled and could have done with at least one more round of proof-reading; I particularly remember that the burger I ate purportedly contained "friend onion".

Fiction books
Anne Brontë. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (e)
Edgar Rice Burroughs. A Princess of Mars (re-read)
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller. Ribbon Dance (e)
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller. Trader's Leap (e) (re-read)
Yoon Ha Lee. Hexarchate Stories (e)
Arthur Upfield. An Author Bites the Dust

In progress
Arthur Conan Doyle. The Hound of the Baskervilles (e) (re-read)
David Langford. He Do the Time Police in Different Voices (e)

Non-fiction books in progress
Andrew Ford. Try Whistling This: Writings on Music (e)

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Joanna Russ. The Female Man (e)

Fiction books
Lee Child. Killing Floor
Timothy Zahn. Spinneret

In progress
Anne Brontë. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (e)

Abandoned
(anthology) The Workers' Paradise

Non-fiction books
Gerard Jones. Men of Tomorrow

Non-fiction books in progress
AC Grayling. The Good Book

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller. Ribbon Dance (e)

. Our production of Mamma Mia opened this week. It's been our best-selling show in memory, with every single performance sold out before it even opened - hurrah for name recognition! The rehearsals went pretty well (as the director remarked, it helped that most of the cast already knew most of the songs), and at the traditional milestone three weeks before opening it was actually in good shape for a show with three weeks of rehearsal left. Then we lost a week of rehearsal due to half the cast being struck down by various respiratory illnesses, and one week before opening we were in good shape for a show with two weeks of rehearsal left. We managed to pull it together in the last week, though, and although the performances have had some rough edges they've been nothing to be ashamed of.

. For the April theme reading challenge ("a book about rain, weather, spring, or some kind of new blossoming"), I chose an anthology called Mists and Magic, edited by Dorothy Edwards. It's a collection of short stories and poems about witches, ghosts and other magical creatures, aimed at a young audience, so I'm coming to it rather late. (It hasn't been sitting in my to-read pile quite that long, mind you; it's only been fifteen years or so since I picked it up at an ex-library sale for reasons I don't now recall.) I probably would have enjoyed it a lot at the target age, but coming to it now I found the stories mostly short and slight, and in many cases was already familiar with the element the story was relying on for novelty. There were a few that I thought stood out, in particular "Christmas Crackers" by Marjorie Darke and the editor's own contributions, "Night Walk", "Witch at Home", and "The Girl Who Boxed an Angel". Looking back on them, those are stories where the author put some extra effort into characterisation and didn't settle for writing about A Generic English Child; I concede the possibility that there may have been readers in the target audience who would have preferred the generic protagonists as easier to identify with, but they didn't do it for me. "Night Walk" is apparently an extract from a novel, which I'm now interested in reading the rest of.

. For May, there was a choice between "something old, or a book about something or someone old" and "a book that you think you might bail out on, or a book about emergencies, panics or escapes"; I chose Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee, a book about someone very old, and a lot of emergencies and panics, that I wasn't entirely sure I wasn't going to bail out on. After finishing it, I immediately went and got the sequel from the library, and now have book 3 of the series on hold.

. The random book selection for May was taken from the non-fiction section, and my randomly-selected book was Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class - And What We Can Do About It by Thom Hartmann. The general principles are interesting, though for the most part already familiar to me. It has a couple of things holding me back from engaging with it in depth. One is that it's very much a book by an American, for Americans, about America. The other is that it was already a decade old when I acquired this copy (it came as part of an ebook bundle on the theme of "Hacking Capitalism") and it's been sitting around unread for a good while since then, so the America that it's about is the America of George W. Bush's second term and there's nearly two decades of developments (and lack of developments) that it has nothing to say about. Trump is mentioned once, in a list of American tycoons; Obama is not mentioned at all. (Bernie Sanders gets quoted a couple of times, but the author finds it necessary to explain to the reader of 2006 who he is.)

. The new Liaden novel, Ribbon Dance, is just out, but I haven't had a chance to start reading it yet because my ebook reader went into a coma a couple of weeks ago; it was only about a year and a half old, but fortunately that meant I qualify for a free replacement, but the replacement hasn't arrived yet.

Fiction books
Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice (e) (re-read)
L Frank Baum. The Marvelous Land of Oz (e) (re-read)
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller. Alliance of Equals (e) (re-read)
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller. Neogenesis (e) (re-read)
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller. Salvage Right (e)
Arthur Miller. All My Sons
John Parker. The Village Cricket Match

In progress
CS Lewis. The Screwtape Letters (e) (re-read)
Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Wizard of the Crow
Robert Louis Stevenson. Kidnapped (e)

Non-fiction books in progress
AC Grayling. The Good Book

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
L Frank Baum. Ozma of Oz (e)

. 9 to 5 ended up coming together really well. I've so far managed to avoid being dragged into the orbit of the next production. (I hear they actually had enough people turn up to the first round of auditions to cover all the parts, which I'm not sure I remember the last time that happened.) I did get dragged into helping with set construction on 9 to 5, and have finally failed to avoid learning how to wield a paint roller effectively.

. I've read the new Liaden Universe novel, Salvage Right. I found much to like, and also a few things that weren't to my taste. I'm looking forward to the next one.

. I had a fun time watching Across the Spider-Verse, but I don't like it as much as Into the Spider-Verse. In general, it felt like there was More Of Everything You Liked In The First One, and more isn't necessarily better. A lot of the sections were great in themselves, but I'm not sure it all fits together satisfactorily -- although it is of course difficult to judge that when half the pieces of the jigsaw are still in the box.

. I hadn't intended to do Dracula Daily two years running, but was intrigued by the debut of Re: Dracula, a parallel project releasing a full-cast audio adaptation of Dracula on the same serialised schedule. It's very well done, and having a new way of experiencing the story is helping, but I'm still feeling Dracula fatigue already and I'm not sure I'm going to go the distance.

. The reading challenge for June was "read a book about things/people/places/galaxies being fixed and/or broken", for which I finally got around to reading The Oresteia, which has been on my to-read pile for about a decade on account of an interesting anecdote I read in a Doctor Who novel once. (Salvage Right would also have been a good fit, but it didn't come out until June was already over.) The challenge for July is "a book you got via your local indie bookseller, bought used, or borrowed from the library"; I haven't picked a book yet, but I have plenty of eligible options in my to-read pile. (Not to mention two books on hold at the library which I keep bumping because I'm not sure I'm in a good frame of mind to face either of them.)

Fiction books
Aeschylus, tr. Robert Fagles. The Oresteia
Neil Gaiman, et al. The Absolute Sandman: Volume One (re-read)

In progress
Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice (e) (re-read)
L Frank Baum. The Marvelous Land of Oz (e) (re-read)
CS Lewis. The Screwtape Letters (e) (re-read)
Robert Louis Stevenson. Kidnapped (e)

Abandoned
Richard Flanagan. Gould's Book of Fish (eight deadly words)

Non-fiction books
Benjamin Dreyer. Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style (e)

Non-fiction books in progress
AC Grayling. The Good Book

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller. Salvage Right (e)

Fiction books
Sarah Gailey. River of Teeth (e)
Terry Pratchett. The Fifth Elephant (e) (re-read)
Cat Sebastian. The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes (e)

In progress
Alexandre Dumas. The Count of Monte Cristo (e) (re-read)
Robert Louis Stevenson. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (e) (re-read)
CN & AM Williamson. The Lightning Conductor (e)

Picture books
Kathryn Otoshi. Zero
Lynne Truss, Bonnie Timmons. Twenty-Odd Ducks

Non-fiction books
Simon Bucher-Jones. The Black Archive: Image of the Fendahl (e)

In progress
AC Grayling. The Good Book
Hallie Rubenhold. The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper (e)

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
William Shakespeare, ed. GR Hibbard. The Oxford Shakespeare Hamlet

Fiction books
Vivien Alcock. The Haunting of Cassie Palmer
Sophie Aldred, Mike Tucker, Steve Cole. At Childhood's End
Jane Austen. Persuasion (e) (re-read)
Lois McMaster Bujold. Penric's Labors (e)
Esther M Friesner. Yesterday We Saw Mermaids
Zenna Henderson. Ingathering: The Complete People Stories (e)
Bram Stoker. Dracula (e) (re-read)
Timberlake Wertenbaker. Our Country's Good

In progress
Alexandre Dumas. The Count of Monte Cristo (e) (re-read)
Robert Louis Stevenson. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (e) (re-read)
CN & AM Williamson. The Lightning Conductor (e)

Non-fiction books in progress
AC Grayling. The Good Book

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller. From Every Storm (e)

Fiction books
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller. Fair Trade (e)
Raymond Chandler. The Lady in the Lake (re-read)
Raymond Chandler. The Little Sister (e)
Raymond Chandler. The Long Goodbye (re-read)
Raymond Chandler. Playback

In progress
James A Michener. Tales of the South Pacific
Bram Stoker. Dracula (e) (re-read)

Non-fiction books in progress
Grahame Bond. Jack of All Trades, Mistress of One (e)

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Timberlake Wertenbaker. Our Country's Good

Fiction books
Carolyn Burns, Tim Finn. Ladies in Black

In progress
James A Michener. Tales of the South Pacific
Bram Stoker. Dracula (e) (re-read)

Non-fiction books
Margaret Scott. A Little More (e)

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller. Fair Trade (e)

Fiction books
Christopher D'Arienzo. Rock of Ages
Peter Høeg, tr. F David. Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow
Michael Leunig. A Common Prayer
Jason Pitre. Sig: City of Blades

In progress
Wilkie Collins. The Woman in White (e)

Picture books
Wilson Gage. My Stars, It's Mrs Gaddy! (re-read)
Shirley Hughes. Over the Moon (re-read)
Diane Redfield Massie. Chameleon Was a Spy (re-read)

Non-fiction books
David Attenborough. Zoo Quest for a Dragon, including the Quest for the Paradise Birds
Matt Parker. Humble Pi (e)
Siân Rees. The Floating Brothel

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Raymond Chandler. The High Window

Fiction books
Raymond Chandler. Farewell, My Lovely (re-read)
Charles Dickens. Oliver Twist (e)
Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend (e)

In progress
Peter Høeg, tr. F David. Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow
Jason Pitre. Sig: City of Blades

Non-fiction books in progress
David Attenborough. Zoo Quest for a Dragon

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Raymond Chandler. The High Window

Fiction books
Steve Gooch. Female Transport
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller. Mouse and Dragon (e) (re-read)
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller. Scout's Progress (e) (re-read)
Emily Rodda. Finders Keepers (re-read)
James H Schmitz. The Demon Breed (e) (re-read)

In progress
Charles Dickens. Oliver Twist (e)
Peter Høeg, tr. F David. Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow
Jason Pitre. Sig: City of Blades

Picture books
Philip Bunting. Mopoke

Non-fiction books in progress
David Attenborough. Zoo Quest for a Dragon
Matt Parker. Humble Pi (e)

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Kim Newman. Something More Than Night

Fiction books
(none completed)

In progress
Charles Dickens. Oliver Twist (e)
Peter Høeg, tr. F David. Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow

Non-fiction books
JRR Tolkien, ed. Carl F Hofstetter. The Nature of Middle-Earth (e)

Non-fiction books in progress
David Attenborough. Zoo Quest for a Dragon

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller. Bread Alone

Fiction books in progress
R Austin Freeman. John Thorndyke's Cases (e)

Non-fiction books in progress
David Attenborough. Zoo Quest for a Dragon

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Neil Gaiman, Chris Riddell. The Sleeper and the Spindle

Fiction books
Ben Aaronovitch. What Abigail Did That Summer (e)

Non-fiction books
Andrew Cartmel. Script Doctor: The Inside Story of Doctor Who 1986-1989

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller. Bad Actors

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pedanther

May 2025

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Entries tagged with liad

Fiction log - April 2025

Book Chain, weeks 4 & 5

Week in review: Week to 30 August

Week in review: Week to 23 August

Fiction log - August 2024

Fiction log - June 2024

Five Things Make a Post

Fiction log - July 2023

Five Things Make a Post

Fiction log - June 2023

Fiction log - December 2022

Fiction log - November 2022

Fiction log - June 2022

Fiction log - May 2022

Fiction log - March 2022

Fiction log - February 2022

Fiction log - December 2021

Fiction log - November 2021

Fiction log - August 2021

Fiction log - July 2021