Just read:
All the Dell Shannon mysteries have been republished as ebooks by an outfit called The Murder Room, and I read a couple of them that I don't have in print. Also Staynes and Storey's Goodbye Nanny Grey ( Read more... )

Currently reading: One of the Lawrence Block's Bernie Rhodenbarr books- The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian, I think it is. Also a facsimile of the 1931 Joy of Cookery, and the book about the Ignobel Prizes ( Read more... )

Reading: Heavy Ice, by Ankaret Wells. (Has lots of plot and intrigue, and very vivid settings, and societies with incompatible world views, and economics, and religions, and an ambiguous villain who's never met a problem that couldn't be solved by marrying a few more people. Favourite character: Strat, aka Hawkwood Stratagem. I want a xenoraptor ( Read more... )

Just read: I've been on a Mercedes Lackey binge. Just finished Holy Disorders by Edmund Crispin and The Sleeping Partner by Madeleine Robins, too ( Read more... )

Just finished: Digger (the omnibus volume)- happy sigh. (Best bits? The messenger rats, perhaps. Or the shrew troll? Poor sweet Ed? Or Grim Eyes being patronising to the guide? Librarian Vo? Vampire squash? Digger's reaction to being stabbed? All of it is best bits.)

Reading now: Rereading Dave Langford's Critical Mass.

Next: Not sure. Perhaps ( Read more... )

One of those two-worlds-collide things happened yesterday, as I was rereading Elizabeth Barber's book Women's Work (about the history of textiles). Did you know that there's a garment still in use in bits of Europe that has clear antecedents back to the Bronze Age and possibly the Neolithic (see Venus statues)? It's a string skirt/fringed apron/ ( Read more... )

Just finished Second Summoning by Tanya Huff, which is fun but slight, and Ring of Guilt by Judith Cutler, which was pretty good. None of the others in the series seem to be on special offer, though, so I probably won't move on to them yet. In the middle of rereading The Best of Myles again (collected columns of Myles na Gopaleen, aka Flann O'Brian ( Read more... )

Just finished Domestic Manners of the Americans, which has a really interesting mix of justified complaint (like CONSTANT SPITTING OF TOBACCO JUICE, and SLAVERY) and "Eugh, poor people claiming to be my equals! Get some manners, Americans!" (And other things, like good scenery and travel descriptions, and a look at some early camp-fire revivals, ( Read more... )

Just read the Other Half Of The Sky anthology, edited by Athena Andreadis; liked all the stories, although the extract from Joan Slonczewski's novel didn't stand up all that well on its own. My initial favourite was Martha Wells's Raksura story, but Aliette de Bodiard's creepy one about a kidnapped AI has stuck in my head more. Also a couple of ( Read more... )

Just finished a couple of books where I downloaded the next in the series straight away- finally got round to The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland, and also really liked Stray, by Andrea Host ( Read more... )