a couple of good novels and all of Sean Duffy and Ruth Galloway, and others

Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller 2019. An entertaining retelling of the story of Achilles, half god, half man. Interesting. A novel.

Greenwood  by Michael Christie, 2019.  Good novel, long and lots of trees feature in it.  Big time leaps that don't connect that well, but good story.

Mark Billingham's new mystery, Cry Baby, 2020 is good but they used actors to read the parts and Mark to read the rest and found it irritating.  Prefer him to read the whole book.  But the plot was good, characters good.  It's a prequel for his main character.

And finished the 4th books by Abir Mukherjee, Death in the East, 2020 and it was very good.  Good characters, really interesting setting (India in the 20's, as in 1920s) and good plots.  Hope he writes more.

Listened again to all of the Sean Duffy series by Adrian McKinty. Looking forward to a new  one.

The Chain was o.k, got tons of attention, but I like these books better.

https://www.bookseriesinorder.com/sean-duffy/

The Cold, Cold Ground	(2012)
I Hear the Sirens in the Street	(2013)
In the Morning I'll Be Gone	(2014)
Gun Street Girl	(2015)
Rain Dogs	(2016)
Police at the Station and They Don't Look Friendly

 Also listened to all of Elly Griffith's Ruth Galloway series again. Very enjoyable to hear again.

https://www.orderofbooks.com/characters/ruth-galloway/

The Crossing Places	(2009)
The Janus Stone	(2010)
The House at Sea's End	(2011)
A Room Full of Bones	(2012)
A Dying Fall	(2013)
The Outcast Dead	(2014)
The Ghost Fields	(2015)
The Woman in Blue	(2016)
The Chalk Pit	(2017)
The Dark Angel	(2018)
The Stone Circle	(2019)
The Lantern Men	(2020)

good novel, mediocre mystery and a pretty good mystery

The Untouchable by John Banville, 2009. Such a good writer. Not a light book, a bit dark but great character and so perceptive about people. And so well written.

Ian Rankin wrote a book a long time ago, and it was recently published. Westwind, 2020. Characters are forgettable, plot was ok, but writing not very good. Rebus books are much much better.

Bluff by Jane Stanton Hitchcock, 2020. good mystery, main character and older woman who could walk into busy hotel, shoot someone and walk out and no one would notice her. good plot.

good books

The Mirror and the Light, 2020, by Hilary Mantel. Oh my, poor Cromwell! Very long book but it's all conversations and really interesting. Certainly brings those people to life.

Six Months in Sudan, 2009, James Maskalyk. His first book, really good. Interesting writer, dealing with tough stuff.

Down Among the Dead, 2020, Damien Boyd. Good mystery, like the way he always remembers the dog - never left in a hot car, always walked and fed and left with the TV on.

The Driftwood Girls 2020, Mark Douglas-Home
ok mystery, don't remember much about it.

Gone By Midnight, Candice Fox, 2019. Book 3 in her series, starting out at the vets office - like the way she writes about animal care. Like the characters.


Middle England by Jonathan Coe, 2019. Really good novel. Brexit finally made a bit of sense to me, what the issues are, or some of them. Believable characters, well told story.

Soap and Water and Common Sense, Bonnie Henry, 2020 edition, originally writter ten years ago. Very interesting book about the bugs of the world, and how they mostly rule.

non fiction

The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd. She wrote it many years ago during WWII, it was not published for 30 years. Nan Shepherd describes her journeys into the Cairngorm mountains of Scotland. Lovely book, sort of plot less but it does not matter. An ode to her mountains.

The Peregrine by J.A Baker. He takes you along as he follows the birds, a meditation on birds and the land. Another lovely book.

medical book and mysteries

Chasing My Cure: A Doctor's Race to Turn Hope into Action; A Memoir , 2019, by David Fajgenbaum. A doctor in training who almost dies each time his disease reoccurs. Amazing survival, doing his own research to find a cure. Interesting book, a battle for survival. Interesting stats on research too.

The Driftwood Girls (The Sea Detective Book 4) by Mark Douglas-Home, 2020. Really like these sea-research mysteries. Another good one.



Good Girl Bad Girl, Michael Robatham, 2020. Good mystery, not his usual series, so a stand alone most likely.

Crypt Thief by Mark Pryor, second of a series, 2013. Set in Paris in the summer. The Bookseller was the first in the series, this one good as well.

a spinner/knitter

In the Footsteps of Sheep Tales of a Journey Through Scotland, Walking, Spinning, and Knitting Socks 2015 by Debbie Zawinski
Thought this book was going to be a bit flaky, but it is not. She writes well, as she travels and camps around Scotland one summer gathering wool from sheep that live on the land and loose their fleece naturally. A sock pattern for each area she goes to, beautiful photos of landscape. Interesting stories of the sheep.

My Sister the Serial Killer, by Oyinkan Braithwaite, 2019. Odd book, set in Nigeria, but good. Two sisters, one covers up the killings.

good mysteries

Peter Robinson's latest two DCI Banks books are very good. Careless Love, 2018 and Many Rivers to Cross 2019. interesting plots and likeable characters.

Golden Fleece, and a marshy mystery

The Golden Fleece by Esther Rutter, 2019. Non-fiction exploration of the history and social backgrounds of knitting around the UK. Delightful book, interesting to read and well researched. A good read.

Where the Crawdad's Sing, Delia Owens 2018. A novel, but the main plot is not believable - the setting is fascinating, the marsh and the coast and the whole environment. But I don't believe a child could bring herself up with no money living in a shack in the marshland. A good ending to the book, and it was entertaining. But not great.

No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters Ursula K. Le Guin Dec 5 2017
Really enjoyed this book. very thoughtful and interesting. and funny :-)

books

What Comes Next and How to Like It, by Abigail Thomas, 2016. Memoir. Very good book, very honest and flawed person.
It's also very funny. And she likes dogs.

The Body A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson, 2019. Really interesting, easy to follow and informative with good references.
Good book, worth reading.

Your House Will Pay, 2019, by Steph Cha. Listed as a mystery but really a good novel. She write about race and living in LA and she is very perceptive and forgiving of her characters. Good book, good writing.

The Godmother,
by Hannelore Cayre , 2019. Translation. Did not like this book at all - the reader was very irritating. The story not interesting.

Becoming Mrs. Lewis by Patti Callahan, 2019. A novel, but based on fact. Interesting book, interesting woman.

The Ministry of Truth, The biography of George Orwell's 1984 by Dorian Lyndkey, 2019. Very interesting book, about how he wrote it. It took many years, and all the links to things that were happening in his life and in the world. Good book.

We the Survivors, by Tash Aw. Very good novel. 2019. as they say on Amazon "A murderer's confession--devastating, unblinking, poignant, unforgettable--which reveals a story of class, education, and the inescapable workings of destiny." interesting perspectives, good characters.

Agent Running in the Fiels John le Carre 2019. The best mystery writer, it is so much more. my favourite quote from the book "It is my considered opinion that for Britain and Europe, and for liberal democracy across the entire world as a whole, Britain’s departure from the European Union in the time of Donald Trump, and Britain’s consequent unqualified dependence on the United States in an era when the US is heading straight down the road to institutional racism and neo-fascism, is an unmitigated clusterfuck bar none." Very good book

James Oswald Nothing to Hide, 2019. Book two of his new series. Constance Fairchild. pretty good, but think I prefer his Maclean series.