Easley Library Bookworms discussion

I'm now taking part in a common read, in another group, of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's second Sherlock Holmes novel, The Sign of Four. This is a reread for me (as of last year, I've read the entire original Holmes canon); but my previous read was as a tween kid back in the 60s, so my recollections of it aren't sharp.

Because she knows I'm a fan of Agatha Christie and of her series sleuth Hercules Poirot, my wife gave me a copy of Mrs. McGinty's Dead for Christmas some years ago. As is usually the case with books in my mountainous TBR piles, it's sat unread for years; so I'm taking advantage of a common read in another group this month to finally read it. (I'm joining in very late in the month; but it's a fairly short book, and I'm expecting it to be a quick read.)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers by Jack Finney was picked as a common read for this month in another one of my groups, and I'm joining in. Although I'm starting a bit late, I expect it to be a fairly quick read. This will be my first experience with the author's long fiction; he hadn't previously been on my radar at all, though I've read one of his short stories years ago in an anthology (I'm not sure which one now, though, since it's been quite a while!).

Last month, an ongoing discussion in another group prompted me to send for a copy of the current edition of a nonfiction book, The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment, Third Edition by Edward Fudge, to refer to. I'd read the first edition in the early 90s (and reviewed it retrospectively here on Goodreads years ago); but I decided that the new edition has enough new content to make a (re?)read desirable, and I got started on it this weekend.

Ever since I read Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake back in 2019, I've wanted to read the sequel, Girl of Nightmares. I've finally gotten hold of a copy and have some time to work it in, so I started on it today!

While I'm waiting to start a common read in another group on Oct. 1, I've started reading the short stories in Black Pulp (2013), an anthology from Pro Se Press, a small publishing house which specializes in New Pulp. (Since I won't finish all of the stories in this particular stint of reading, the collection goes onto my :being read intermittently" shelf, to dip into again the next time I find myself between books.)

This month, I'm taking part in another group's common read of The Castle of Otranto (1764) by British author Horace Walpole, which is a novel I've long considered a must-read. Since it's only 110 pages long, at least in the 1964 Oxford Univ. Press printing that I'm actually reading (the one in the link here has a much more attractive cover!), I'm expecting it to be a pretty quick read.

A review copy of The Flower & The Blackbird by Liane Zane, which I'd been expecting, arrived in the mail a couple of days ago. Liane's a Goodreads friend, and the book is the second installment of her Elioud Legacy trilogy (the series opener, The Harlequin and the Drangue, got four stars from me last year). It came at a fortuitous time; I was just about finished with my previous read, so was able to start on Liane's book this morning! :-)

It's unusual for me to start reading two different books in one day, but due to the vagaries of circumstance, that's what I did yesterday. First, I started Candle in the Darkness by Lynn Austin, which is a common read in another group. I'd meant to begin on that one a couple of days earlier; but the public library was closed on Tuesday for the state election here in Virginia, and I didn't get a chance to read at all on Wednesday.

Then, Barb and I started a new book I'm reading to her, Avenging Angels: The Wine of Violence, by "A. W. Hart." Like "Franklin W. Dixon" or "Carolyn Keene," that's a house pen name for the different authors who contribute to the series. This is the seventh installment, but I suggested reading it as a stand-alone (which should be possible with these books), because the author is my Goodreads friend Charles Gramlich.

On the whole, I don't do a lot of seasonal reading (except, of recent years, around Christmas). But I wanted a short, quick read that I could fit in before I start another common read on Dec. 1; and I really liked Gail Rock's first short novel, The House Without a Christmas Tree. So, although I don't plan to read the whole Addie Mills series, I've embarked on a short seasonal read with the second book, The Thanksgiving Treasure.

As November closes, I'm again filling time before starting another novel (a multi-person buddy read slated to begin on Dec. 1). When in those interludes, I've been reading the short-story collection Black Pulp (which I plan to finish sometime next month); but I have only one unread story there, so it won't fill out the month. So I've started on another anthology, English Country House Murders.

Along with a few members of another group, this month I'm taking part in a multi-person buddy read of the Christy Award-winning historical novel Passing by Samaria (1999), by Sharon Ewell Foster. Set in Mississippi and Chicago in the time just after World War I, it focuses on the early 20th-century Great Migration of American blacks from the South (especially the rural South) to the urban North.

This month, a multi-person buddy read of Dead Man's Folly by Agatha Christie is going on in another of my group's, and I've recently joined in. Even though I'm late to the party, I'm confident I can finish the book well before Dec. 31, since it's only 178 pages long. This is actually a reread for me; but my previous read was as a pre-teen kid, and my memories of the book are only vestigial.

Yesterday, I started reading Fireside Book of Christmas Stories (1945). I won't finish it before January, when I'm planning to start other reads; but it will be an anthology I'll come back to dip into during the Christmas season in future years, too. So for now, it's on my "being read intermittently" shelf.

In keeping with my current goal of completing or keeping up with the various series I'm reading, today I started on Made to Be Broken by Kelley Armstrong. It's the second volume of her Nadia Stafford trilogy.

I'm wrapping up my reading of Kelley Armstrong's original Nadia Stafford trilogy by starting on the third book, Wild Justice.

I've started reading The Trinity by Roger E. Olson and Christopher A. Hall, part of Eerdmans' Guides to Theology series. As a part of the same study, I'm planning to reread the parts of Kenneth Scott Latourette's (which I read nearly 50 years ago) that deal with the development of Christological and Trinitarian doctrines in the early Christian centuries; that should fit in with Olson and Hall's primarily historicist approach.

Back when Barb and I were homeschooling our girls in the 90s, I watched a VHS edition of the 1989 American Playhouse production of Lorraine Hansberry's play A Raisin in the Sun (1959), and made it required viewing for American Literature class. Until now, though, I'd never read the play itself. I started reading it yesterday, and I'm finding that in some ways that's an even more rewarding way to experience it than simply watching it being performed.

One of my other groups started a common read of Charles Dickens' Bleak House yesterday, and I'm joining in. Dickens is one of my favorite authors, but I still haven't read the majority of his novels, including this one (I hope to read them all eventually!); so I'm enthusiastic about this read!

My Goodreads friend (and independent author) Kana Wu's latest novel is A Warm Rainy Day in Tokyo. She kindly sent me a review copy in e-book format, and I started reading it today.

Another author friend, Heather Day Gilbert, also recently gifted me (in print format, a generosity I greatly appreciate!) a review copy, in this case of the fourth and concluding book in her A Murder in the Mountains mystery series, False Pretense. The timing was perfect; Barb (who's also a fan of the series) and I were ready to start a new book to read together, so we began on it this morning!

Although for a long time I've listed Zane Grey's 1918 Western novel The U.P. Trail as read, based on an experience of it as a pre-teen kid, I'm not sure now that I actually finished it back then. Even if I did, my memory of it is too faulty to do it justice in a review without a fresh read. So, I started reading (or rereading) it this morning. As a kid, I definitely recall that I wasn't very impressed with it; so it will be interesting to see if my altered perspective as a adult lets me appreciate it more.

Being a fan of historical fiction who's especially fond of tales set in medieval times, the book I've just started, To Love a Viking, a collaboration between my Goodreads friend Heather Day Gilbert and a new-to-me author, Jen Cudmore, should be right up my alley. :-) This is a trade paperback ARC which I received recently, so I've prioritized it as much as I could. (Heather previously wrote the outstanding duology The Vikings of the New World Saga.)

Barb and I have just started reading a book I got her as a belated (long story!) Christmas present, Claiming Her Legacy by a new-to-us evangelical Christian author, Linda Goodnight. It's a western with a female protagonist, set in Oklahoma Territory in 1890, and comes recommended by Goodnight's fellow genre writer Mary Connealy, who's become a favorite of ours; so I have good hopes for it.

Although I officially count Mark Twain as one of my favorite authors, what I primarily like in his body of work is (most of) his fiction; I've been much less drawn to his nonfiction. Then too, I'm not a big fan of other people's accounts of their travels (I've read exactly two books in that vein during my life). But, a group I'm in is doing a read of his A Tramp Abroad, and I'm taking part in that. So it will be interesting (to me, anyway!) to see whether or not I'll like that one. :-)

Although I started my third reading session with A Tramp Abroad this evening still intending to grit my teeth and finish it, by p.71 I decided there was no point in prolonging the waste of time on a book I simply wasn't enjoying. So, I unexpectedly found myself rummaging in the physical TBR piles here at my house, looking for a new read to suddenly push to the head of the queue. Fortunately, it wasn't hard to pick one!

Peter O'Donnell's iconic character Modesty Blaise is one of my favorite fictional action heroines. Although Last Day in Limbo is out of series order for me, I'd started reading it in a public library in another county back in the early 90s (long story!) and had always really wanted to read the whole thing. I'd hoped to work it in this year, and today was the perfect opportunity; so I've now started on it again (and read past the point where I'd earlier had to stop).

With a common read coming up next month in another group, I was looking for a short(ish) read to help fill up the intervening time. So, I picked a book that's been in my physical TBR piles for some time, Mr. and Mrs. Smith by a new-to-me writer, Cathy East Dubowski. It's the novelization of the movie of the same name, which I saw back in 2015; I'm hoping the book might clarify some plot points that aren't very clear (at least to me) in the film version. :-)

This month, I'm joining in another group's common read of The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes. (Though I'm actually reading a large-print edition, which is the only one the public library in Bluefield, West Virginia has.) This novel won the Man Booker Prize in 2011; so it's the sort of self-consciously "high-brow literature" I normally shun like the plague (I didn't vote for it). But on the plus side, it's quite short (just 150 pages in the normal-sized edition).

On our road trip earlier this week, Barb and I started a new "car book," The Stairway to Forever by Robert Adams, a new-to-us writer. It's a science fiction novel dealing with interdimensional travel through a mysterious portal. Barb had picked it up years ago at a flea market and given it to me for Christmas; I used to get a lot of gift books, so they've tended to sit in my TBR piles for ages. We figured it was high time we rescued this one! :-)

Kate Douglas Wiggin's short novel Polly Oliver's Problem: A Story For Girls (1893) unexpectedly turned out to be included as a bonus in the back of another book by the author that I picked up a few years ago in my favorite used book outlet. I finally got around to starting it today. (Although it has a 16-year-old female protagonist, and Wiggin or her publisher probably titled it as they did on the assumption that teen males wouldn't be interested, I would say the appeal actually isn't all that gender-specific.)

Ever since I was introduced to Willa Cather's work back in high school through her story "Neighbor Rossicky," I've wanted to read more of it. But after going on to read My Ántonia (which got five stars from me) soon after that, the project got pushed to the back burner for a lot of years, despite having my interest freshly whetted in the 90s by watching the wonderful Hallmark Hall of Fame adaptation of her novel O Pioneers!, starring Jessica Lange. Finally, earlier today, I started my read of the latter novel; so I'm pretty excited about that!

Having very recently finished Willa Cather's O Pioneers! (my five-star review will hopefully be posted soon!), I'm following it up with another Cather novel, Shadows on the Rock. (As you can tell, I'm making up for lost time. :-) ) Set in Quebec in the late 1600s, this will be my first experience of Cather's historical fiction (one of my favorite genres), and a relatively new-to-me setting as well.

Recently, I actually started three new reads in a period of just seven days. First, I've begun reading A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin to Barb. We'd already read this together once before, in (I think) the late 80s; but it was so long ago that I guessed correctly it would be like a new read for Barb. I'd forgotten enough of it myself that without this fresh read, I could never have done it justice in a review.

While passing time last week in Harrisonburg, Virginia's public library, I started reading Lord Peter: A Collection of All the Lord Peter Wimsey Stories by Dorothy Sayers. Normally, this would go on my "being read intermittently" shelf, to be carried over until next summer. But the BU library also has a copy, so I plan to finish reading the collection later this month.

Finally, I'm taking part in another group's just-starting group read of Esther (1950) by Nora Lofts, a historical novella retelling and fleshing out the Old Testament book of Esther. I'd suggested it to the group myself, since it's short (with just 141 pages of actual text), and I figured it could easily be squeezed in between other books. (Goodreads will soon delete its official "favorite authors" list feature; but Lofts is also a long-time "unofficial" favorite. :-) )

Since I have the start of a group read coming up on Sept. 1, I wanted my next read to be a relatively quick one; so I've started The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane. (I'm actually reading it in the volume The Red Badge of Courage and Selected Stories, which I own.) This is my third time reading this novella; but I've never reviewed it here, and my most recent previous read was sometime back in the 90s.

Finding myself ready for another read, and being scheduled to start a group read in a few days, as usual I turned to a short story collection to fill the interim. This time, my pick is Shadow of the Lariat: A Treasury of the Frontier. At 556 pages of story text, this is a very thick anthology that will probably come to my rescue on a good many such occasions. :-)

This month, I'm taking part in another group's common read of Quo Vadis (1896) by the Polish Nobel laureate Henryk Sienkiewicz. (That's pronounced as "Shen-kyay-vich.") I'm reading it in the 1955 printing by Dodd, Mead and Co. as part of their "Great Illustrated Classics" imprint, which uses the translation done by Jeremiah Curtin around the time of the novel's first publication. It's historical fiction dealing with early Christianity during the first-century reign of Nero.

Having recently read the first novel in Robert Adams' Stairway to Forever series together, Barb and I have now embarked on a read of the sequel, Monsters and Magicians. Like our previous read, A Wizard of Earthsea, it's fantasy; but it's written for adults and, if it's like the first one, has serious content issues that the Le Guin book doesn't have. Barb enjoyed the first book in Adams' series more than I did --mostly because, since I read it aloud, she was able to experience it in a more expurgated form than I could. :-)

This weekend, I'd intended to write a retrospective review of Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt, which I'd read back around the turn of this century. But in skimming through it again, I realized that I needed to reread it before I could do it justice. With perfect timing, Barb and I were looking for our next "organically-powered audiobook," so we're now reading it together. (It's a kid's book, but one with enough depth that adults can appreciate it.)

This month, I'm taking part in another group's common read of The Woman in Black by Susan Hill; but I was delayed until I could finish my previous book, so only started this morning. There was a 2012 movie adaptation of the book starring Daniel Radcliffe (which I haven't seen), so I had initially assumed this novel about a ghostly haunting was written around that time. Actually, though, it turns out it was published in 1983 (and it's clearly set in the Edwardian era).

As of yesterday, I've gotten started (barely) on Teaching Students with Dyslexia and Dysgraphia: Lessons from Teaching and Science by Virginia W. Berninger and Beverly J. Wolf. This isn't the type of thing I usually read; but one of my grandsons, who's being homeschooled, is dyslexic, and he's appealed to me to help with his reading instruction. Not having any background in special education, I've turned to this book to (hopefully) give me some kind of handle on what I'm doing.

Well, my stab at cover-to-cover reading of the Berninger/Wolf book didn't last long. It has a very dry, ponderous style which tends to leave me glassy-eyed, and much of the material isn't directly relevant to my grandson's specific needs, or relevant to a one-on-one homeschooling situation rather than a classroom. From what I did read, my main take-aways are: a.) there's no magic formula for teaching the dyslexic to read, and b.) any successful approach has to be tailored to the needs of the individual learner. So, while I still do plan to use this book as a resource, I think it will work better as a book to refer to at times.

Since that decision left me needing a different book to read, I pulled one out of my many TBR piles: Precious Bane (1926) by British author Mary Webb. It's something of a now-neglected classic, a historical novel set in Shropshire, on the border between England and Wales, around the turn of the 19th century (one of my favorite eras for historical fiction). It's been on my radar since the early 80s, so I'm really glad for this chance to work it in.

My wife Barb (who's an ardent lover of horses!) and I are reading Justin Morgan Had a Horse by Marguerite Henry, a novel about the origin of the famous breed of Morgan horses (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_... ). Henry was noted for her horse-themed fiction and nonfiction (written for kids, but mostly appreciable by adults as well); Barb and I have previously read and liked three of her other books.

Because I'm expecting the arrival of a pretty thick review book later this month (and have a common read scheduled next month), I wanted my current book to be a short one. At 188 pages, Irene Hunt's 1965 novel of the Civil War home front in southern Illinois, Across Five Aprils, fits that bill. This is a reread for me; but my previous read was as a teen in the late 60s, and I've long felt that I need a refresher before I could do it justice in a review.

Since I've learned that a review book I was expecting this month actually won't arrive until December, I have an unexpected window of opportunity to make some more headway on a series I'm reading, K. W. Jeter's Kim Oh books. So I'm currently reading the next unread installment, Real Dangerous People: A Novel. (It will also count towards a challenge I'm signed up for in another group.)

In another group, I'm taking part in a common read of a Dracula prequel, The Journal of Professor Abraham Van Helsing by Allen C. Kupfer. So far I'm enjoying it; and at 204 pages, I'm expecting it to be a pretty quick read.

Up to now, I haven't read any books of poetry this year. So, having a window of opportunity, I've started on one that I've long had my eye on in the BU library: Stars Through the Clouds: The Collected Poetry of Donald T. Williams (2011). Williams teaches English at Toccoa Falls College, an evangelical liberal arts college in Georgia. This will be my first exposure to his work.

My Goodreads friend Heather Day Gilbert writes both historical fiction and mysteries. Unlike me, my wife Barb isn't into the former genre; but we're both fans of this author's mysteries. So, having read the last book in her A Murder in the Mountains series together earlier this year, we've now embarked on her Barks and Beans Cafe series with the first book, No Filter (2020). Like the other series, it's set in a small town in West Virginia, but features a different protagonist.

Last month, Goodreads independent author Liane Zane (who's also a Goodreads friend of mine) generously gave me a paperback ARC of the concluding book in her Elioud Legacy trilogy, The Draka & The Giant, and I started reading it a few days ago. So, it will be my first read of 2023! So far, it can definitely be described as gripping (it grabbed me by the throat at the outset, and hasn't released me yet :-) ).

Because February is Black History Month, we here at Easley Library want to highlight the contributions of African-American writers at next month's meeting of our book club, the Fellowship of the Book. Long story short, I'll be presenting about Octavia Butler (because I'd read and liked a couple of her short stories); so as part of my preparation, I've started reading Kindred, which has long been on my to-read shelf anyway.

I can't believe that back on Feb. 2, when I started my current read, I totally forgot to mention it here! Mea culpa! I'm reading Pride's Children : Netherworld by my Goodreads friend Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt, the second book in her Pride's Children trilogy. (It's a library check-out rather than a review copy, but she did generously donate the paperback edition to the BU library.) The first book earned five stars from me back in 2018.