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Showing posts from 2021

New James Lee Burke - EVERY CLOAK ROLLED IN BLOOD

There is no ethics in a Blogger post. I am back dating this post to closer to its announcement on Twitter back in October of 2021. Today is April 7, 2022. The latest James Lee Burke is always an event. CLOAK is the continuation of Holland Family saga. The Holland books have not always been my cup of tea, but I liked ANOTHER KIND OF EDEN a great deal. Burke has always dealt in otherworldly specters. Over time those specters have become less metaphorical and more literal deceptions. It is not something I would have though I would be interest in, but the end of ANOTHER KIND OF EDEN was a show stopper. Book drops on May 24th, 2022.   Coming May 17, 2022. More info at https://t.co/vC7MHd0s3C [EM] pic.twitter.com/gabFcX2jIX — James Lee Burke (@JamesLeeBurke) October 26, 2021

A Fogotten Post: A Remembrance

[Editor's Note: Started this missive, never came back to it. Still relevant, I suppose.] I am reading MURDER IN OLD BOMBAY by Nev Marsh. This was... technically still is... on my to buy pile. In the before time... the overwhelming to be read pile time... I would have bought this and thrown it on the shelf to read in the near or more likely distant future. I hope I like it enough to buy the second in the series. Buying a book is fun, buying a book that is good is better. [Editor's Note: Abandoned this book, unfinished.] BLACKTOP WASTELAND - S.A. COSBY So glad I didn't buy this last summer. Good decision to put off buying and reading what would have certainly been one of the best books of the year. New goal for the remaining 2021 calendar. Don't be dumb. Buy Mr. Cosby's follow up and read day one! [Editor's Note: I did buy a signed copy of RAZORBLADE  TEARS, meanwhile B.W. won every award, except the Edgar where it wasn't even nominated!? Also Signed firsts of

The First 90 Days...

Nearing the end of the first quarter of 2021 somehow. I have taken an advantage of a mostly clear shelf to read 'other things' to start the year. Most of which I have found to be very enjoyable. I love the authors I read on a regular bases, but it is always nice to discover new...or new to me... authors to fill up my brain. I'll be sliding back to the shelf after the current read. The S.A. Cosby is next (Yay!) and I'll follow that with the latest Koryta and Mosely. CASE HISTORIES - Kate Atkinson Nobody needs me to write that CASE HISTORIES is extraordinary.  Melancholy books about the soul crashing weight of our past history are 100% my jam. On to ONE GOOD TURN soon. Mick Herron Slough House #1-4 I found these books to be a fair amount peppier than I anticipated. My expectation was that these would be stories of morose failed spies looking for redemption. And I guess the Slough House books are that, just less morose and a bit funnier than anticipated. Power ranking of

The Hungry Detective Plan for 2021

Somethings I'm working on... George Smiley John le Carré, David Cornwell, passed away on December 12, 2019. At that point I had only read one of his books, his last, AGENT RUNNING IN THE FIELD. I have watched the Alec Guinness version of TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER SPY a number of times, and in real terms that series haunts me. It is unceasingly melancholy. There is a something special about a piece entertainment weather a book, a movie, or television show that can reach that deep sense of sadness and still be thrilling and wonderful.  I started the year with CALL OF THE DEAD (1961), his first, and his first George Smiley. I look forward to the rest. Billy Boyle I take great enjoyment in the Progressive - Don't Be Your Parents series of commercials. One of the early ones was Dr. Rick gently asking a young man who is reading a book about submarines about who else reads books about submarines. In a resigned sigh the young man says "My dad..." Now funny enough, but that exch

(Late, I know...) The Best of 2020!

I read 47 books in 2020 which is 17 more than my 2019 mark. If there is a silver lining to being home, there is more time to read since the start of my professional career. The books broke pretty evenly between being published in 2020, 2019 and in the immediate years before 2019.  It was a proud accomplishment to read down the backlog. There are just one offs sitting on the shelf now. Books that I recently explained to a friend that I could not remember why I bought them much less a desire to ever read them. 2021 hopes be a year where I read a few things I have always wanted too, plus a few classics of literature that I missed when I graduated High School 31 years ago. The Inaugural "I Regret Not Reading This Book" Award BLACKTOP WASTELAND - S.A. Crosby   Every year there is a BLACKTOP WASTELAND. Which is to say a highly regraded book that checks all of the boxes of my interest that I never quite get around to buying,. I read about this book back in July/August and I no dou