Category: Potpourri

Four Proposed Reads Will Take Me to Three States and Iceland

  By
My four proposed reads for the end of January and the first half of February

I mentioned yesterday I have finished three books so far in 2021. The latest being The Boy from the Woods. Books 1 and 2 were Where the Forest Meets the Stars and The Wives respectively.

Typically, I don’t usually read books like either Where the Forest Meets the Stars or The Wives. However, last year I did read several books that were not crime based mysteries or thrillers and enjoyed all of them!

 In the next few days I’ll post a list of the books I read in 2020 and also try to write about the two books that started 2021.

The picture at the top of this post are my proposed reads for the next four weeks. Two of the books are from authors who are among my favorites, James Grippando and Ragnar Jonasson. While one is from an author I read in the later part of 2020 John McMahon. The final book was written by an author who is new to me, Alice Henderson.

Hmm, I often like to think of the books I read in relationship to their setting. So let’s see where I’ll be traveling to via my proposed reads…


The Evil Men Do – John McMahon – Mason Falls, Georgia

My first proposed read will take me to Mason Falls, Georgia. The hometown of fictional detective P.T. Marsh. I met P.T. In the book The Good Detective. It was the first book to chronicle a case he and his partner Remy worked. From Goodreads…

The author of The Good Detective delivers a gripping and atmospheric new novel in which a cop takes on a harrowing new case and confronts old personal demons. What if the one good thing you did in your life doomed you to die?

Read More


A Solitude of Wolverines – Alice Henderson – Northwestern Montana

The action in this thriller will take me to northwestern Montana. This one of my proposed reads is the first in a series featuring Alex Carter….from Goodreads

“Both a mystery and a survival story, here is a novel written with a naturalist’s eye for detail and an unrelenting pace. It reminded me of the best of Nevada Barr.” —James Rollins, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Last Odyssey  

The first book in a thrilling series featuring an intrepid wildlife biologist who’s dedicated to saving endangered species…and relies on her superior survival skills to thwart those who aim to stop her. Read More


The Mist – Ragnar Jonasson – Iceland

In The Mist I will be transported to Iceland. I don’t think I would like living in Iceland but I do like visiting.

The Mist is actually Book 3 in Jonasson’s Hidden Iceland series. So I have decided to try and read Books 1 and 2 in the series before tackling The Mist. As such, I have started book 1 in the series The Darkness and have checked out The Island book 2 in the series.

Twenty – James Grippando – Florida

Finally, Florida is the home of lawyer Jack Swyteck in the proposed read Twenty. It’s book   17 in Grippando’s Swyteck series. From Goodreads….

Jack Swyteck and his family are caught in the crossfire after a deadly school shooting claims twenty casualties—Florida’s fifth mass shooting in as many years—in this provocative and timely thriller from Harper Lee Prize–winner James Grippando that touches on some of the most contentious issues roiling America today. Read More

So now I’m off to Iceland to see what’s happening  in the world of Hulda Hermannsdóttir in The Darkness .Wish me luck!

Dick Gregory – The World Says “Thank-You and We’ll Miss You!”

  By

 R.I.P. – Dick Gregory (October 12, 1932 – August 19, 2017) 

 

Today we are celebrating the birthdays of Ginger Baker and Robert Plant. But  we are also mourning the loss of comedian and Civil Rights Activist Dick Gregory.

from the Associated Press – COMEDIAN, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST DICK GREGORY DIES AT 84 – DAISY NGUYEN

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Dick Gregory, the comedian and activist and who broke racial barriers in the 1960s and used his humor to spread messages of social justice and nutritional health, has died. He was 84.

Gregory died late Saturday in Washington, D.C. after being hospitalized for about a week, his son Christian Gregory told The Associated Press. He had suffered a severe bacterial infection.

As one of the first black standup comedians to find success with white audiences, in the early 1960s, Gregory rose from an impoverished childhood in St. Louis to win a college track scholarship and become a celebrated satirist who deftly commented upon racial divisions at the dawn of the civil rights movement.

“Where else in the world but America,” he joked, “could I have lived in the worst neighborhoods, attended the worst schools, rode in the back of the bus, and get paid $5,000 a week just for talking about it?” Read More

 

Dick Gregory’s Humor

Like many I loved Dick Gregory’s humor. But I respected him more for his work as an advocate for Civil  Rights and Justice. I read his autobiography Nigger when I was in college and it certainly had an impact on the development of my political philosophy The one story that I love and remember from Nigger is the following…

 

Last time I was down South, I walked into this restaurant, and this white waitress came up to me and said, ‘We don’t serve colored people here.’
“I said, ‘That’s all right, I don’t eat colored people. Bring me a whole fried chicken.’

“About then these three cousins come in, you know the ones I mean, Klu, Klucks, and Klan, and they say ‘Boy, we’re giving you fair warning. Anything you do to that chicken, we’re going to do to you.’

So I put down my knife and fork, and I picked up that chicken and I kissed it.

Here a two more classic examples  of his humor….

Sometime early in the first Playboy show a heckler in the back yelled, “Nigger!” Greg said, “Say that again, please. My contract calls for fifty dollars every time that word is used.”

Once we decided on the title, Nigger, he held his ground against the publishing house. I loved his dedication: “Dear Momma — Wherever you are, if you ever hear the word ‘nigger’ again, remember they are advertising my book.”

The world will miss his wit and his compassion. Certainly, he should be remembered in these troubling times! So if you are not familiar with Dick Gregory take some time today to explore the life and work of this amazing humanitarian!

Links for the Further Exploration of the Life and Times of Dick Gregory

Dick Gregory Website
Twitter
Wikipedia
Facebook
Amazon

 

Related articles

Five Books for the End of February…..

  By

 

And the Beginning of March..….

Since there are only six days left in February, I will probably not finish any more books. That means I will end the month having read five books.And I will have read thirteen books in 2017. But maybe just maybe one I will be able to finish one of the following five books. Even if I don’t finish any of the books I will a good start on March;s reads!

[powr-image-slider id=bf1215e0_1487817599]

Five Proposed Reads for the End of February and March

Books I am Currently Reading….

I have already started two of the five books I currently have checked out from the library. Here are the two that I have started

Long Days of Night – Graham Moore

From Goodreads….

A thrilling novel based on actual events, about the nature of genius, the cost of ambition, and the battle to electrify America—from the Oscar-winning screenwriter of The Imitation Game and New York Times bestselling author of The Sherlockian

New York, 1888. Gas lamps still flicker in the city streets, but the miracle of electric light is in its infancy. The person who controls the means to turn night into day will make history—and a vast fortune. A young untested lawyer named Paul Cravath, fresh out of Columbia Law School, takes a case that seems impossible to win. Paul’s client, George Westinghouse, has been sued by Thomas Edison over a billion-dollar question: Who invented the light bulb and holds the right to power the country? Read More

I am about 80 pages into this book and have found it really interesting.I must confess I didn’t know a lot about the competition between Edison and Westinghouse, so hopefully I’ll learn a little from this read. It also may encourage me to read The Age of Edison:Invention of Modern America that has been sitting on my TBR shelves for a while now!

Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution – Nathaniel Philbrick

This is the first book that I have read from the popular author Nathaniel Philbrick. I love those shady characters from those early days of our nation, i.e Aaron Burr, James Wilkinson and of course Benedict Arnold.  Like The Last Days of Night I have already started this book and I’ve already learned a lot about the American Revolution! From Goodreads:

From the New York Times bestselling author of In The Heart of the Sea, comes a surprising account of the middle years of the American Revolution, and the tragic relationship between George Washington and Benedict Arnold.

In September 1776, the vulnerable Continental Army under an unsure George Washington (who had never commanded a large force in battle) evacuates New York after a devastating defeat by the British Army. Three weeks later, near the Canadian border, one of his favorite generals, Benedict Arnold, miraculously succeeds in postponing the British naval advance down Lake Champlain that might have ended the war. Four years later, as the book ends, Washington has vanquished his demons and Arnold has fled to the enemy after a foiled attempt to surrender the American fortress at West Point to the British. After four years of war, America is forced to realize that the real threat to its liberties might not come from without but from within. Read more

So maybe next up is Philbrick’s The Last Stand: Custer,Sitting Bull and the Battle of the Little Big Horn another book on my To Be Read shelves! And another book about an intriguing and infamous American!

The other three books…

….that I have checked out from the library are all from authors that are relatively new to me. They are:

The Crucifix Killer (Robert Hunter #1) – Chris Carter

Carter’s An Evil Mind – Robert Hunter #6 was one of the best books that I read in 2016. So I am really looking forward to starting at the beginning of this series!

When the body of a young woman is discovered in a derelict cottage in the middle of Los Angeles National Forest, Homicide Detective Robert Hunter finds himself entering a horrific and recurring nightmare. Naked, strung from two parallel wooden posts, the victim was sadistically tortured before meeting an excruciatingly painful death.

All the skin has been ripped from her face – while she was still alive. On the nape of her neck has been carved a strange double-cross: the signature of a psychopath known as the Crucifix Killer. But that’s impossible. Because two years ago, the Crucifix Killer was caught and executed. Could this therefore be a copycat killer? Or could the unthinkable be true? Read More

Red Right Hand (Michael Hendricks #2) – Chris Holm

I read the first Michael Kendricks novel The Killing Kind in January of 2017. I discovered the book and Chris Holm via the Mystery Scene magazine that my son Andrew and his wife Meaghan gave to me for Christmas. It included in an article about award-winning books. It won an Anthony Award for Best Novel. From Goodreads….

If the good guys can’t save you, call a bad guy.
When viral video of an explosive terrorist attack on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge reveals that a Federal witness long thought dead is still alive, the organization he’d agreed to testify against will stop at nothing to put him in the ground.
FBI Special Agent Charlie Thompson is determined to protect him, but her hands are tied; the FBI’s sole priority is catching the terrorists before they strike again. So Charlie calls the only person on the planet who can keep her witness safe: Michael Hendricks. Read More

Assassin’s Silence – Ward Larsen  (David Slaton #3)

Hot on the heels Assassin’s Game by Ward Larsen comes Assassin’s Silence and it may be hard for me not to start this book right away!! Hmm, I actually am on page 60! That’s where I stopped when I decided that I should read Assassin’s Game first!! So I guess this book actually belongs with the first set of books!! Oh, well!!

From Goodreads:

When it comes to disappearing, David Slaton has few equals. Police in three countries have written off trying to find him. His old employer, Mossad, keeps no forwarding address. Even his wife and son are convinced he is dead. So when an assault team strikes, Slaton is taken by surprise. He kills one man and manages to escape.

Half a world away, in the baleful heat of the Amazon, an obscure air cargo company purchases a derelict airliner. Teams of mechanics work feverishly to make the craft airworthy. On the first flight, the jet plunges toward the ocean. Read More

Ok so now it’s time to turn on some Jazz and do a little reading!

 

February Reads Take Me All Over Europe!

  By

 February Reads – Books 12 to 9…..

 

So far this month I have finished four books. Those books have taken me to a variety of counties where I met a lot of interesting characters. I am writing about the books in the reverse order of when I read them…

Book Number 12 The Hermit by Thomas Rydahl took me to the Canary Islands.There I met a 65-year-old taxi driver from Denmark, Erhard Jorgenson. Erhard lives alone in a shack near the resort of Fuerteventura. Erhard’s life is changed forever,after a car is found washed up on the beach. A dead 3 month old baby is found in a cardboard box on the back seat. The police try to quickly and quietly close the case by having a prostitute  claim she was the mother. Erhard knows that is wrong and for the sake of the baby he wants to prove what really happened!

During the course of his investigation Erhard makes some questionable decisions are in the name of advancing his investigation. At times I thought the story dragged a little and some of  Erhard’s actions bothered me. But In the end I The Hermit was a great read. Others thought so too. As The Hermit won the 2015 Glass Key award as the best Nordic crime novel! Rating: 4 stars

 

Black Widow - Chris Brookmyre a2017 reading challenge book

Book Number 11 – Black Widow  -Christopher Brookmyre.

Black Widow is set in Scotland, Over the last several years, I have visited Scotland many times, via the books of Peter May and others. Black Widow is book 7 in Brookmyre’s Jack Parlabane series. In this book Lucy Elphinstone hires Jack to look into the disappearance of her brother Peter. Peter went missing after his car slid off of a snow-covered road and ended up in the river. Lucy and two police detectives feel that Peter may have met with foul play. And the likely suspect is his wife of six months,successful surgeon Diana Jager aka bitchblade!

It seemed to me that the story took a long tine to develop. I had a little trouble with Brookmyre switching back and forth from the first to the third person in the narrative. I thought it was a little strange that Jack Parlabane didn’t become an important part of the story until the second half of the book! The last half of the book certainly made up for any of the shortcomings of the book in its first half! And the ending was great!

Black Widow won the 2016 McIlvanney Prize for Scottish crime book of the year an honor it rightly deserved. Rating- 4.5 stars

All that Man Is - David Szalay

Book 10 All That Man Is by David Szalay

All That Man Is took me to many places across the European continent. It is a collect of short vignettes of nine different men all at different stages of their lives. With each vignette the man in the story is a little older than the previous one. Typically I don’t read books  like All That Man Is,  And for that reason, I’ll let Goodreads tell you about it……

A magnificent and ambitiously conceived portrait of contemporary life, by a genius of realism.

Nine men. Each of them at a different stage in life, each of them away from home, and each of them striving–in the suburbs of Prague, in an overdeveloped Alpine village, beside a Belgian motorway, in a dingy Cyprus hotel–to understand what it means to be alive, here and now. Tracing a dramatic arc from the spring of youth to the winter of old age, the ostensibly separate narratives of All That Man Is aggregate into a picture of a single shared existence, a picture that interrogates the state of modern manhood while bringing to life, unforgettably, the physical and emotional terrain of an increasingly globalized Europe. And so these nine lives form an ingenious and new kind of novel, in which David Szalay expertly plots a dark predicament for the twenty-first-century man. Read More

All That Man is was a Man Booker Prize Nominee (2016), and a Gordon Burn Prize (2016 )winner and once again deservedly so! Rating: 4 stars.

A Foreign Country - Charles CummingBook 9  A Foreign Country  – Charles Cumming.

A Foreign Country is book one of Cumming’s Thomas Kell series. The settings for A Foreign Country include France, Tunisia and England. Thirty years ago a young au pair walked away from the family she was working for. She left without a word of good-bye. Now the reason that young girl left could rock the world of the first woman director of Britain’s MI6. From  Goodreads..

On the vacation of a lifetime in Egypt, an elderly French couple are brutally murdered. Days later, a meticulously-planned kidnapping takes place on the streets of Paris. Amelia Levene, the first female Chief of MI6, has disappeared without a trace, six weeks before she is due to take over as the most influential spy in Europe. It is the gravest crisis MI6 has faced in more than a decade. Desperate not only to find her, but to keep her disappearance a secret, Britain’s top intelligence agents turn to one of their own: disgraced MI6 officer Thomas Kell. Tossed out of the Service only months before, Kell is given one final chance to redeem himself – find Amelia Levene at any cost. Read More

I really enjoyed this book. The book moved at a brisk pace and I like the character of Thomas Kell and others around him.There was a fair amount of suspense particularly at the end. I believe I will be visiting with Thomas Kell again and again. I already have  checked out from my library the Kindle edition of A Colder War (Thomas Kell # 2). While  A Divided Spy (Thomas Kell #3), was just released on Valentine’s Day! So maybe when I finish A Colder War,  A Divided Spy will be available at the library,

Final Thoughts

Summarizing I have read twelve books so far in 2017. That puts me ahead of  schedule to reach my goal of 60 books for the year. I had never read any books written by any of the authors I have read  so far in February. Additionally, Black Widow and A Foreign Country are both part of a series, that I will definitely be reading more of!

I noticed after writing this post that none of the books I read this month are set in the USA. I guess I needed a vacation from all he turbulence in our country since January 20th……..

 

 

2017 Reading Challenges Mini-Update (Feb 6, 2017)

  By

 

An Amazing Start on My 2017 Reading Challenges

 

Ok so I do believe that I would be hard pressed to find two months in the last 15 years where I have read more books than January and February of 2017. In January I read  books and so far in February I have read three more! Bringing 2017’s total of books read to 11! In order to achieve my 2017 Reading Challenge goal of 60 books, I need to average 5 books per month.  I am already above that average in the first week of February!! Goodreads says that right now I am 5 books ahead of schedule! Woo Hoo!

Now the one bad thing about this is that I have been reading more than writing. Consequently, I am  seven books behind in writing reviews. The table below lists that books that I have read so far this year. (The links are to my review of the book)

No Title Author
11 Black Widow Chris Brookmyre
10 All That Man Is David Szalay
9 A Foreign Country Charles Cumming
8 Livia Lone Barry Eisler
7 Ruler of the Night David Morrell
6 A Puzzle in a Pear Tree Parnell Hall
5 How to Run the World Parag Khanna
4 The Lazarus War – Artefact Jamie Sawyer
3 The Killing Kind Chris Holm
2 In the Midst of Death Lawrence Block
1 The Critic Peter May

 

I am going to group the books according to the Reading Challenge that they fit into. So the future posts will look like this:

2017 Mystery/Thriller Reading Challenge

 Series that are new to me

Jack Parlabane – Chris Brookmyre – Black Widow
Thomas Kell – Charles Cumming – A Foreign Country
Livia Lone – Barry Eisler – Livia Lone

Series that I am Behind on/ Series that I am Current with

Puzzle Lady – Parnell Hall  – A Puzzle in a Pear Tree – 
Thomas De Quncey -David Morrell –  Ruler of the Night –

2017 Literature Reading Challenge/ Nonfiction Reading Challenge

General Fiction

All that Man is – David Szalay

Nonfiction

How to Run the World – Parag Khanna

So now I’m off to pick out my next few books and start to read!!! Be back later with the first of the above posts!!

Twelve of My Favorite Mystery Reads of 2016!

  By

 

Twelve Great Mystery Reads of 2016

So now that the Holidays are over and I wait to see if Clemson can somehow upset mighty Alabama, Hey I attended both the University of Florida and the University of Georgia, so while I am not a big fan of Clemson, I certainly would prefer that they win the National Title!

Anyway, after seeing this list of the Best of 2016 from the Mysterious Bookshop . I decided to put together a list of my favorite mystery reads of 2016. I love books that are part of a mystery series. Therefore, the vast majority of the books I read are part of a series Here are in my 2016 favorites.The books are listed,  for the most part, in the reverse chronological order in which they were read!

 

Reckless Creed - Alex Kava

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Reckless Creed – (Ryder Creed #3)- Alex Kava

This is the third of Kava;s Ryder Creed novels. Kava again features both Ryder and Maggie O’Dell in this novel. Maggie and Ryder are on the trail of a rogue scientist, who is attempting to make a new strain of bird flu that is airborne. And she is using people to test spreading the disease. Can Maggie and Ryder and his dogs stop her before there is a new pandemic!

 

Blind Sight - Carol O'Conne0ll

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Blind Sight – (Mallory # 12) – Carol O’Connell

I still need to read a few books in the middle of this series, but this last one is pretty good. Mallory and Riker in the middle of a mess. Four bodies have been sent to the Gracie Mansion each with there hearts cut out. One is a former hooker turned nun. Her blind nephew is still missing and my be the next victim. Can Mallory save the nephew and stop the killings?

Home - Harlan Coben

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3, Home – (Myron Bolitar # 11) – Harlan Coben

Myron helps Win try to discover what really happened to his nephew Rhys and his friend Patrick when they wee kidnapped from Patrick’s home ten years earlier. Win gets a tip that Patrick has been spotted in London. Patrick is saved, but Rhys is still missing. Win and Myron return to NJ to discover what really happened!!

 

Coffin Road - Peter May

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. Coffin Road – Peter May

A man washes up on the shore of a Scottish Island with no memory of who he is. He soon discovers that he is a write researching a book on the disappearance of the lighthouse keeper on one of Scotland’s outer  islands. But is that who he truly is? What does he know about the bees out on the Coffin Road? He senses he knows something about them. And also about the man on the island who was murdered? Did he do it??

The Kept Woman - Karin Slaughter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. The Kept Woman – (Will Trent # 8) – Karin Slaughter

Angie Polaski estranged wife of GBI agent Will Trent and thorn in the side of Will’s new love Sara Litton, returns to turn Will and sara’s life upside down. She is the center of a murder investigation.  The investigation involves a bad cop who is found murdered in a blood splattered room in a half finished Atlanta nightclub. Angie’s blood type matches the blood splattered in the room. The nightclub is owned by a star basketball player, who just beat a rape charge, Will had worked the case!  So where’s Angie? Did she kill the man? And will she ever divorce Will so that he and Sara can get on with their lives.

Redemption Road - John Hart

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6. Redemption Road – John Hart

This may be my favorite read for the year! John Hart is flat-out great!  From Goodreads:

Now after five years, John Hart is back with a stunning literary thriller.
Imagine:
A boy with a gun waits for the man who killed his mother.
A troubled detective confronts her past in the aftermath of a brutal shooting.
After thirteen years in prison, a good cop walks free. But for how long?
And deep in the forest, on the altar of an abandoned church, the unthinkable has just happened… Read More

 

Without Mercy - Jefferson Bass

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7. Without Mercy – (The Body Farm # 10) – Jefferson Bass

Forensic anthropologist and director of the Body Farm and the University of Tennessee is called to consult on a murder in a county near Knoxville. Based on the man’s skeletal remains, he  was chained to a tree, then attacked and killed by a bear. What happened? Was this a hate crime and who is the victim? Bill Brockton and his graduate assistant Miranda are out to discover the truth. Miranda is also out to get a job with the FBI and leave the body farm after graduation! Oh, no!!

Manitou Canyon - William Kent Krueger

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8. Manitou Canyon – (Cork O’Conner # 15) – William Kent Krueger

A man’s family hire Cork O’Connor to investigate the man’s sudden disappearance in the boundary waters of northern Minnesota. Cork’s two clients are the granddaughter and grandson of the missing man. Cork sets off on his mission, promising his daughter Jenny, he’ll be back in plenty of time for her wedding, Right! Soon Cork and the granddaughter disappear and Cork’s family and Henry Miloux set out to find Cork!

The Second Life of Nick Mason - Steve Hamilton

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9. The Second Life of Nick Mason – (Nick Mason #1) – Steve Hamilton

I have been a fan of Steve Hamilton’s Alex McKnight series for a long time. This book is the beginning of a new series featuring Nick Mason. From Goodreads:

Nick Mason has already spent five years inside a maximum security prison when an offer comes that will grant his release twenty years early.  He accepts — but the deal comes with a terrible price.

Now, back on the streets, Nick Mason has a new house, a new car, money to burn, and a beautiful roommate.  He’s returned to society, but he’s still a prisoner.  Whenever his cell phone rings, day or night, Nick must answer it and follow whatever order he is given.  It’s the deal he made with Darius Cole, a criminal mastermind serving a double-life term who runs an empire from his prison cell. More

Off the Grid - C.J. Box

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10. Off the Grid – (Joe Pickett # 16) – C.J. Box

One of my favorite characters in the Joe Picket series enigmatic Nate Romanowski. Nate has saved Joe’s butt more than once, but he has a shadow past and a Federal warrant out for his arrest. At the end of Book 15 a wounded Nate escaped into the night. This book opens with Nate off the grid, recuperating from those wounds. A team of elite professional operators suddenly surround Nates But rather than threatening him, the team leader offers Nate a deal. If he helps them destroy a domestic terror cell  in Wyoming’s Red Desert, they’ll make his criminal record disappear. Th offer that may be too good to be true and it may just destroy Nate , Joe and Joe’s daughter Sheridan?

 

The Twenty Three - Linwood Barclay

 

Far From True - Linwood Barclay

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

11. & 12  Far From True & The Twenty Three – (Promise Falls 2 & 3) – Linwood Barclay

Things have been topsy-turvy in Promise Falls. The events in Promise Falls include:: three murders, several attempted rapes,a found baby, 23 dead squirrels, mannequins in car 23 at a closed amusement park.  In The Twenty Three, when the town’s water supply is sabotaged everyone in Promised Falls is threatened!

Both books are great! Start the series though with Broken Promise – Book 1 in the series and work your way through the whole trilogy!!

A Concluding Thought

I thought it was interesting  that seven of the books were released in the fall of 2016. September saw the release of five of the books. While one each was released in  October and November. Since many authors seem to release their books at the same time each year, I better get ready for another pile of books coming next fall!! Just saying!

This Man Reads…. Proposed January Reads

  By

Proposed January Reading Challenge Reads!

 

In order to reach my goal of reading 60 books in 2017, I will need to read an average of five books per month.Here are my proposed reads for January of 2017

[powr-image-slider id=4f09d6de_1483579721]

Reading Challenge: Nonfiction
  1. How to Run the World – Parag Khanna

I read Connectivity by Parag Khanna a few months ago. I was fascinated by his analysis of the way that the supply chain has connected the world. This book was written a few years before Connectivity. I love geography and love to learn about the world around me, and right now Parag Khanna may be the best writing about it today!

Reading Challenge: Science Fiction

2. Lazarus War: Artefact – Jamie Sawyer

I have wanted to read this book and series for a while now. I used my Christmas Gift Card to Barnes and Noble to finally buy it!

“Artefact “is book one of The Lazarus War, an explosive new space adventure series from one of the brightest new stars in science fiction – perfect for fans of “The Edge of Tomorrow,” “Alien” and James S. A. Corey‘s Expanse series. Jack Campbell, author of the Lost Fleet novels calls it “a gripping read that moves at warp speed.” Read More

Reading Challenge: Mystery /Thriller – New to Me Author

3. The Killing Kind – Chris Holm

Ok so earlier I said that I was going to use Mystery Scene Magazine to discover “new to me” authors. Well, Chris Holm is the first new author that I have discovered through the magazine. The Killing Kind won the 2016 Anthony Award for Best Novel back in September.

I have always heard about the Anthony Awards but never really set out to discover what they were until now! From Wikipedia

The Anthony Awards are literary awards for mystery writers presented at the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention since 1986. The awards are named for Anthony Boucher (1911–1968), one of the founders of the Mystery Writers of America.[1] Among the most prestigious awards in the world of mystery writers, the Anthony Awards have helped boost the careers of many recipients Read More

Now back to The Killing Kind: From Goodreads

A hitman who only kills other hitmen winds up a target himself.

Michael Hendricks kills people for money. That aside, he’s not so bad a guy.

Once a covert operative for a false-flag unit of the US military, Hendricks was presumed dead after a mission in Afghanistan went sideways. He left behind his old life–and beloved fiancée–and set out on a path of redemption…or perhaps one of willful self-destruction.

Now Hendricks makes his living as a hitman entrepreneur of sorts–he only hits other hit me Read More

Sounds good to me!

 

Reading Challenge: Literature Reading Challenge: Award Winner

4. All That Man Is – David Szalay – Awards:Man Booker Prize Nominee (2016), Gordon Burn Prize (2016)

I chose this book to take me out of my comfort zone. It meets the Literature challenge as an award winner. From Goodreads:

A magnificent and ambitiously conceived portrait of contemporary life, by a genius of realism.

Nine men. Each of them at a different stage in life, each of them away from home, and each of them striving–in the suburbs of Prague, in an overdeveloped Alpine village, beside a Belgian motorway, in a dingy Cyprus hotel–to understand what it means to be alive, here and now. Tracing a dramatic arc from the spring of youth to the winter of old age, the ostensibly separate narratives of All That Man Is aggregate into a picture of a single shared existence, a picture that interrogates the state of modern manhood while bringing to life, unforgettably, the physical and emotional terrain of an increasingly globalized Europe. And so these nine lives form an ingenious and new kind of novel, in which David Szalay expertly plots a dark predicament for the twenty-first-century man. Read More

Reading Challenge: Mystery/Thrillers – Current Mystery Author

 

5. Ruler of the Night – David Morrell

I have been a fan of the novels of David Morrell since I read The Brotherhood of the Rose and The Fraternity of the Stone back in the 1980s. Ruler of the Night is the last book in the trilogy featuring opium-eating Thomas De Quincey

Like David Morrell’s previous De Quincey novels, Ruler of the Night blends fact and fiction to an exceptional degree, this time focusing on a real-life Victorian murder so startling that it changed the culture-in this case, the first murder on an English train. The brutality of the crime stoked the fears of a generation who believed that the newly invented railway would “annihilate time and space.” Read More

If I am able to finish these five books this month that should get my reading year off to a great start. So wish me well! Anybody want to join me? Wish Me Good Luck! Now it’s back to Lazarus War!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Proposed January 2016 Reads

  By

Proposed January Reading Challenge Reads!

 

In order to reach my goal of reading 60 books in 2017, I will need to read an average of five books per month.Here are my proposed reads for January of 2017

[powr-image-slider id=4f09d6de_1483579721]

Reading Challenge: Nonfiction
  1. How to Run the World – Parag Khanna

I read Connectivity by Parag Khanna a few months ago. I was fascinated by his analysis of the way that the supply chain has connected the world. This book was written a few years before Connectivity. I love geography and love to learn about the world around me, and right now Parag Khanna may be the best writing about it today!

Reading Challenge: Science Fiction

2. Lazarus War: Artefact – Jamie Sawyer

I have wanted to read this book and series for a while now. I used my Christmas Gift Card to Barnes and Noble to finally buy it!

“Artefact “is book one of The Lazarus War, an explosive new space adventure series from one of the brightest new stars in science fiction – perfect for fans of “The Edge of Tomorrow,” “Alien” and James S. A. Corey‘s Expanse series. Jack Campbell, author of the Lost Fleet novels calls it “a gripping read that moves at warp speed.” Read More

Reading Challenge: Mystery /Thriller – New to Me Author

3. The Killing Kind – Chris Holm

Ok so earlier I said that I was going to use Mystery Scene Magazine to discover “new to me” authors. Well, Chris Holm is the first new author that I have discovered through the magazine. The Killing Kind won the 2016 Anthony Award for Best Novel back in September.

I have always heard about the Anthony Awards but never really set out to discover what they were until now! From Wikipedia

The Anthony Awards are literary awards for mystery writers presented at the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention since 1986. The awards are named for Anthony Boucher (1911–1968), one of the founders of the Mystery Writers of America.[1] Among the most prestigious awards in the world of mystery writers, the Anthony Awards have helped boost the careers of many recipients Read More

Now back to The Killing Kind: From Goodreads

A hitman who only kills other hitmen winds up a target himself.

Michael Hendricks kills people for money. That aside, he’s not so bad a guy.

Once a covert operative for a false-flag unit of the US military, Hendricks was presumed dead after a mission in Afghanistan went sideways. He left behind his old life–and beloved fiancée–and set out on a path of redemption…or perhaps one of willful self-destruction.

Now Hendricks makes his living as a hitman entrepreneur of sorts–he only hits other hit me Read More

Sounds good to me!

 

Reading Challenge: Literature Reading Challenge: Award Winner

4. All That Man Is – David Szalay – Awards:Man Booker Prize Nominee (2016), Gordon Burn Prize (2016)

I chose this book to take me out of my comfort zone. It meets the Literature challenge as an award winner. From Goodreads:

A magnificent and ambitiously conceived portrait of contemporary life, by a genius of realism.

Nine men. Each of them at a different stage in life, each of them away from home, and each of them striving–in the suburbs of Prague, in an overdeveloped Alpine village, beside a Belgian motorway, in a dingy Cyprus hotel–to understand what it means to be alive, here and now. Tracing a dramatic arc from the spring of youth to the winter of old age, the ostensibly separate narratives of All That Man Is aggregate into a picture of a single shared existence, a picture that interrogates the state of modern manhood while bringing to life, unforgettably, the physical and emotional terrain of an increasingly globalized Europe. And so these nine lives form an ingenious and new kind of novel, in which David Szalay expertly plots a dark predicament for the twenty-first-century man. Read More

Reading Challenge: Mystery/Thrillers – Current Mystery Author

 

5. Ruler of the Night – David Morrell

I have been a fan of the novels of David Morrell since I read The Brotherhood of the Rose and The Fraternity of the Stone back in the 1980s. Ruler of the Night is the last book in the trilogy featuring opium-eating Thomas De Quincey

Like David Morrell’s previous De Quincey novels, Ruler of the Night blends fact and fiction to an exceptional degree, this time focusing on a real-life Victorian murder so startling that it changed the culture-in this case, the first murder on an English train. The brutality of the crime stoked the fears of a generation who believed that the newly invented railway would “annihilate time and space.” Read More

If I am able to finish these five books this month that should get my reading year off to a great start. So wish me well! Anybody want to join me? Wish Me Good Luck! Now it’s back to Lazarus War!

 

 

 

 

 

 

This Man Read’s 2017 Reading Challenges…

  By

This Man Reads 2017 Reading Challenges…..

Two  years ago I signed up for several Reading Challenges on various websites. The result was that the challenges helped me remain more focused with my reading. So last year I created my own Reading Challenges. They were meant to keep me focused and reading a variety of books. So here is my 2017 version.

I probably should have created these reading challenges back  in December, but I was too busy trying to get past 51 books to do it!   But you know that they always say,”Better Late than Never”. So here are my 2017 Reading Challenges. My overall reading challenge is to read 60 books. I didn’t reach that goal in 2016, but I did read more books in 2016 that 2015 so maybe I can reach the goal this year!!

I have divided my 2017 Reading Challenge into four sub-reading challenges. The first one is the 2017 Literature Reading Challenge. This challenge is meant  to take me out of my reading comfort zone. My comfort zone is composed of mysteries and thrillers. I have set the goal for this Challenge pretty low only 6 books. The books are to be divided as follows.

2017 Literature Reading Challenge

  • Two general fiction books, i.e, books where no one is killed or things are blown up!
  • Two classics that I was supposed to have read in College or High School.
  • Two books that have one an award, like the Pulitzer Prize, the Faulkner award or Man Booker award. Total 6 books

2017 Mystery/Thriller Reading Challenge

The second is my Mystery/Thriller reading challenge. Instead of just saying I am going to read 36 mysteries or thrillers, I have divided this challenge up a  little too….

  • Six books from a series that I have always wanted to read, but have somehow always put off reading.  An example is the Enzo Files series from Peter May. Another example are the Charlie Parker books by John Connolly.
  • Six books from series  that  I need to catch up on for example: Alex Berenson’s John Wells series, Robert Crais’s Elvis Cole series or Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon series!!
  •  Twelve books from authors and series that I currently read, i.e Joe Pickett from C.J. Box,
  • Twelve  books from mystery authors that are new to me! One of the ways that I plan to discover new authors is through Mystery Scene magazine.  Andrew and Meaghan gave me a subscription for Christmas and just browsing through the first issue. I found several new authors! Thanks!!

2017 Science Fiction and Nonfiction Reading Challenges

These challenges are both pretty straight forward….

  •  Six Science Fiction books  I plan to divide these books any way I want. The books can be written by either familiar or new to me authors/
  • Twelve  nonfiction books. Basically, they can be anything that catches my fancy!!

Oh, I’ have also created a Kindle/Bookshelf /TBR Pile Challenge!  I want 40 of the books to come from books that are either on my bookshelves or on my Kindle! I spent a lot of time collecting books on my Kindle and then never getting around to reading them! Anyone else have that problem!!

Here is my spreadsheet table that I use to keep track of how I’m doing on my various challenges!

2017 Reading Challenge Kindle Bookshelves Library Total Goal % of Goal
           
2017 Literature Reading Challenge  
   
General Fiction 0 0 0 2 0.00%
Classics (Books I should have read but didn’t) 0 0 0 2 0.00%
Award-Winners 0 0 0 2 0.00%
Sub-total
2017 Mystery/Thriller Reading Challenge  
New Series that I have meant to read 0 1 1 6 16.67%
Series that I am behind on (i.e. Gabriel Allon) 0 0 0 6 0.00%
Current Mystery Authors (series or non-series) 0 0 0 12
New Mystery Authors 0 0 0 12
Sub-total
2017 Science Fiction /Fantasy Challenge   0 0 0 6 0.00%
   
2017 Nonfiction Reading Challenge   0 0 0 12 0.00%
   
0 0 0
Totals 1 60 1.67%
2016 Kindle/Bookshelf Challenge 20 20 20 60

 

In my next post I’ll outline the books that I plan to read in January of 2017!! Wish Me Luck!!

Related articles

A 2016 Reading Challenges Wrap-Up

  By

So since Christmas I have been very bad about writing anything. Sometimes I find myself in a writing funk and well this is one of those times!  We had a great Christmas and like everyone it went by to quickly. Our whole family spent the morning at.Andrew and Meaghan’s . It’s the one house that has enough room for all of us and all the presents for everyone, particularly the two little ones!

Anyway everyone had a good time and I think all of the kids big and little liked their presents. I know I liked mine! I’ll write more about mine over the weekend.

Over the last week or so I did manage to finish two more books. That brings my total books read in 2016 to 53! Two more than last year, and only 7 from my goal! The two books I finished were: Runaway by Peter May and Reckless Creed  from Alex Kava. Both were really good reads. Runaway is the third book written by Peter May that I read this year. That’s the most by any one author. I guess he is my new favorite.  I will write more about each of these books separately shortly.

Here is the final tabulation of the books that I read for my various Reading Challenges!

Final Tabulation of My Reading Challenges

 

2016 Reading Challenges TBR Library Total Goal % of Goal
         
2016 Literature Reading Challenge
General Fiction 1 3 3 6 50.00%
Classics 0 0 0 6 0.00%
NY Times Bestseller List 0 0 0 6 0.00%
Award-Winners 1 2 3 6 50.00%
2015 Mystery/Thriller Reading Challenge
Rgrandad’s Mysteries 4 26 30 10 300.00%
Women Mystery Book Authors 1 0 5 10 50.00%
2016 Science Fiction /Fantasy Challenge 0 0 1 6 16.67%
2016 Nonfiction Reading Challenge 4 7 11 10 110.00%
 
Totals 0 0 0
53 60 88.33%
2016 TBR Pile Challenge 11 25 44.00%

 

From the table we can see that I did well on both my Mysteries and Nonfiction challenges. That may be just a slight understatement as the books read for those two challenges accounted for  77% of the books I read in 2016! (41 out of 53)  On three of the other challenges I read 50% of my projected total number of books.On the Science Fiction challenge I only read 1 out of 6. I didn’t read any classics!! Now it also says that I didn’t read any books from the New York Times Bestseller Lists. I believe that some of my mystery and thriller reads like books from Harlan Coben, Linwood Barclay, Jefferson Bass and Karin Slaughter probably spent some time on the bestseller lists!

Top Seven New Mysteries Read

I know that over the last few months when I went into Barnes & Noble I would see that I had read seven books that they had in their new release displays. They were:

  1. Without Mercy – Jefferson Bass,
  2. The Kept Woman – Karin Slaughter,
  3. The Twenty Three – Linwood Barclay,
  4. Home – Harlan Coben,
  5. The Second Life of Nick Mason – Steve Hamilton
  6. Blind Sight Carol O’Connor and
  7. Manitou Canyon – William  Kent Krueger

Oh and one I just finished in the last few days Reckless Creed from Alex Kava  Hmm, looking at the above list, I may just put together my top 15 list of 2016!

They were all terrific reads!! Check Them Out!!

So overall it was a great year of reading!! I am still in the process of developing my 2017 Reading Challenges and will possibly reveal them tomorrow! I think some of the Challenges will include reading more books from my own bookshelves and from e-books that are on my Kindle! So I will be back soon with my 2017 Reading Challenges and my proposed January reads!!