I seem to read it once every winter, maybe because it starts out with such a vivid depiction of mid-winter Britain during World War II.

I bet the books are good.

Stopped at the library for the 2nd, An Advancement of Learning.

Hill's style is different than anyone else's as far as mysteries go.

But now I have 14 books to read, and I shouldn't even be buying green bananas, like ole George said.....

I love the list on top. When there's a new book added, I can see right away as soon as I open the group, and I always feel like posting when it's the top one.

I've never even been pinned before till now and I'm a grandma.

I had avoided this series for years because I read book #2, "Night Vision" first. I only gave it 3 stars out of 5, and it put me off from the series. I decided to give it another shot, though, and started with book #1, "To Speak for the Dead." I gave that one 4 stars, re-read #2 (still gave it 3 stars), and moved on to #3, "False Dawn." I'm only about 1/4 of the way into it, but liking it so far.

I'm glad there are quite a few in the series.

I bought myself the 6th book in the series as a Christmas present, so I've been re-reading the series to get me all primed to crack it open. Probably this week...

This is the first in the Cotton Malone series. I've read them all except for this first one. (And the latest one.)

The series started out well but then I became bored with the formulaic nature of the books. Audible is having a sale on first-in-the-series books so I thought I'd give this one a try.

Actually, I got quite a few new series firsts that I haven't tried yet.

It is a dystopian look at the near future , but certain aspects of it look a lot like the dystopian present, unfortunately. Kim Stanley Robinson wrote the California trilogy in the 1980s and this is the second one I have read , but they can be read in any order. I don't know what I will read next . I am ready for a change. The third book can wait a while--maybe

"Tales of the City"

The author has a recent book, "Mary Ann in Autumn" that I want to read. Mary Ann is a character from his "Tales of the City" series. I vaguely remember seeing an adaptation of "Tales of the City" on television years ago, and since the first book of the series is available on iBooks for 99 cents, I decided to go back and read the series in order. Being of an age to clearly remember the era during which the first book takes place, I am enjoying it. It's like traveling back in time......

The Emperor's Tomb

I just started reading this book last night and I couldn't put it down until my eyes closed and I had to sleep. It's a story about two young girls in nineteenth century China who are paired to be friends and to communicate with a secret "woman's language" called "nu shu". At this point in the book, the two girls have yet to meet and have only sent one message to one another. These girls have both just had their feet bound. (A cruel and very painful process).

I would encourage anyone out there to read it. If you do, please let me know!

I'll get to it eventually. Sounds like it'll be good.

This is the fourth I've read in a series of books set in New Orleans, early 1800's before Civil War, main character being Benjamin January, a free man of color. The culture and history of the time are colorfully and skillfully woven into the stories of crime solving by January, a physician and musician. I was pleasantly surprised after reading the first two, that the author finds fresh characters, scenery, and cultural references for each book.

This is the first book in a series about archeologist Jack Howard and his group of scholars and adventurers. Only about a hundred pages in but it's quite good. Gibbins knows his history. He's doing a good job so far of creating a plausible scenario of the discovery of the lost city of Atlantis (at least I HOPE they discover it and it's not a huge red herring!).

(or rather, in a pile of books to be read on the floor on my side of the bed...)

I look forward to hearing if you like it all the way through.

I recommend it. The descriptions are quite detailed and it is fast paced. With an international cast and also a love story brewing! I've already scored the next book in the series, Crusader Gold.

Larrson's The Girl Who Played with Fire (2nd in Millinium Trilogy) today.

I read six Lethem's novels and a short story collection in last 3 weeks (3 novels were re-reads).

Went to Redding, CA Friday Feb 10 for doctor, Costco, and Cal'sooks. Bought the Lethem novel FOS (2003) plus The Girl Who Played with Fire and the 3rd in Millinium Trilogy novel (title??) plus Ellison's Dangerous Visious and More Dangerous Visions in Book Club editions with damaged dust jackets and oz of so of white sage for burning for about $42 used at Cals's Books in Anderson, CA (on frontage road to old 99 now 273 between Redding and Anerson at Bransetter Lane turnoff -- old 99 now 273 parallels to thew west of Interstate 5 from Redding south to Anderson) -- all books hardbacks.

No connection with Cal's but is a unexpected and rare treasure, a massive and wellstocked and organized used book store off the beaten path. Nice folks there and old business.

I read 7 Lethem books so far in 2012, 6 novels-- 3 previously read -- and short story collection so far in 2012.

Edit: Also 200 pages into Sutin's Aleister Crowley bio, Do What Thou Wilt. The bio seems dry after reading Crowley's Confessions, Regardie's Eye in the Triangle, and Kaz??'s Father Perturbo auto and other bios. Sutin wrote a very good Philip K Dick bio.

is the 3rd in the Millenium Trilogy...

http://www.stopyourekillingme.com/L_Authors/Larsson_Stieg.html

You have a lot of books and information in your post, but I found it difficult to read. You younger people can sort things out in your minds a lot easier and faster....

I usually stick with mysteries, and I can see only 2 mysteries by Jonathan Lethem:

Gun, With Occasional Music(1994) and Motherless Brooklyn(1999). Have your read either of these - were they any good?

http://www.stopyourekillingme.com/L_Authors/Lethem_Jonathan.html

Motherless Brooklyn is a great book with a protagonist every bit as unique as Salander but with a warm heart and Tourette's Syndrome.

Lethem's books with the exception of Motherless Brooklyn and Fortress of Solitude are science fiction or include elements of science fiction (including Guns with Occassional Music).

Started Jim Thompson's The Getaway (basis of the movies) last night and a re-read. I like the classic crime noire like Thompson, Chandler, Dashiel Hammett, Westlake ... Also read most of Ann Rule's true crime as a guilty pleasure.

Back in the 1990s after collecting a full set of Jim Thompson novels, I read them all in order one winter. I discovered Thompson when the Black Lizard re-issues started. Vintage has published in trade paperback many titles so Thompson is much more available now. They tend to be short and fast novels.

There is a very good bio on the less well known Jim Thompson called Savage Art.

PS I qualify as a senior citizen. ;o)

from wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Thompson_(writer)

Thompson wrote more than thirty novels, the majority of which were original paperback publications by pulp fiction houses, from the late-1940s through mid-1950s. Despite some positive critical notice, notably by Anthony Boucher in The New York Times, he was little-recognized in his lifetime. Only after death did Thompson's literary stature grow, when in the late 1980s, several novels were re-published in the Black Lizard series of re-discovered crime fiction.

Thompson's writing culminated in a few of his best-regarded works: The Killer Inside Me, Savage Night, A Hell of a Woman and Pop. 1280. In these works, Thompson turned the derided pulp genre into literature and art, featuring unreliable narrators, odd structure, and surrealism.[citation needed] A number of Thompson's books became popular films, including The Getaway and The Grifters.

The writer R.V. Cassill has suggested that of all pulp fiction, Thompson's was the rawest and most harrowing; that neither Dashiell Hammett nor Raymond Chandler nor even Horace McCoy, author of the bleak They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, ever "wrote a book within miles of Thompson".[1] Similarly, in the introduction to Now and on Earth, Stephen King says he most admires Thompson's work because "The guy was over the top. The guy was absolutely over the top. Big Jim didn't know the meaning of the word stop. There are three brave lets inherent in the forgoing: he let himself see everything, he let himself write it down, then he let himself publish it."[2]

Thompson admired Fyodor Dostoyevsky and was nicknamed "Dimestore Dostoevsky" by writer Geoffrey O'Brien. Film director Stephen Frears, who directed an adaptation of Thompson's The Grifters as 1990's The Grifters, also identified elements of Greek tragedy[3] in his themes.

This is book 12 of the Hamish Macbeth series.....takes place in the Highlands in Scotland. Hamish, among others, is one of my beaus.....


My 14th book of 2012

This is the 13th of the Hamish MacBeth series. I'm a bit disappointed in this one so far, and the last one.

When I started the Hamish books, Beaton always had "herself" or "himself" taking the place of she or he in many instances, as some might speak in the Highlands. For example, one could ask, "Where is Priscilla?", and the reply might be "Herself has gone to town," or "What is herself doing?". In Macho, that I just finished, there was no "herself" or "himself" anywhere in the story. And though I'm only a quarter way through Dentist, havent seen it yet, and I have browsed the whole book to find a usage of them. I miss this quaint and charming local speak and hope that Beaton gets back to it.


My 15th of the year...

and one "yourself." I hope Beaton stays with her original native dialogue ....

The premise of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is that the author, Ransom Riggs, and his friends, collected old and bizarre photographs (up through the 1960s) in which children are seen performing some mysterious feat such as levitating. He wove his novel around a number of the old photographs. Miss Peregrine's Home was published in 2011.
It's about a teenage boy and his father, who travel to an island off the coast of Wales after the boy's grandfather's gruesome death. The grandfather had always told his family about the wonderful children's home he lived in during World War II, and the young man wants to learn if his grandfather's wild tales were true.
This book is about magic and time travel, and, of course, the old photos. Using all the old pictures is a wonderful and unique idea. I couldn't put the book down during the first half. It wasn't a creepy horror story at first, just a little nerve-wracking. But toward the end the book does get violent and does turn into a creepy horror story, and I didn't like the second half as much.
There are some unanswered questions in the book, which leads me to believe that there will probably be a sequel.
I think part of the reason I enjoyed the first half so much is that it was reminiscent of Jane Langton's 1960 children's fantasy novel The Diamond in the Window, one of all-time favorite books. In both stories, contemporary children are chasing after children from the past, trying to find out what happened to them.