What are you reading in 2025?

[Richards]

Relatedly for gifts, also was gifted the first volume in MC Beaton's Hamish Macbeth series, Death of a Gossip. I have a bunch of the later volumes that I bought for a $1 but my brain needs me to read them "in order".

My wife's a big fan of Beaton's "Hamish Macbeth" series. This year, I picked up the last four in the series (so far) for her for Christmas, as she'd gotten behind in her reading due to some ongoing cataract issues (that have since been resolved).

There was a TV series made a few years back and I watched a few episodes with my wife, but I'm not sure how closely they match up with the books.

Johnathan

 

[Richards]

As for me, I'm currently reading The Beatles by Richard Havers, and it's pretty quick going because the whole 320 pages is mostly photos with captions. It was a Christmas gift from my family, who know I enjoy their music.

Johnathan

 

[pukunui]

My mother managed to find me a decent used copy of Hell Bay for Christmas. It’s the only one of Will Thomas’ excellent Barker and Llewelyn detective series that’s no longer in print* (and was thus the only one aside from the newest book not in my collection).

I’d read it before, having borrowed a copy from the library. Reread it in about a day.


*I asked the author about it once, and he was surprised to hear it was out of print!

 

[Parmandur]

Rereading the Nero Wolfe corpus again (3rd time through for it, this time in in-universe order) after having gotten samples of some more authors in since last time, and a lot of detective TV shows.

Neither "Fer-de-Lance" (1934) nor "The League of Frightened Men" (1935) will come in near the top of my all time favorites list, but they do have parts that show Rex Stout can really write and is a great builder of recurring characters.

In comparison, it wasn't Alleyn that kept me reading Marsh (she is great at setting up the story specific characters before Alleyn gets there), nor Grant his early Tey books (she can really write in general). As far as a "series", Hammett's Continental Op has an interesting protagonist to go with the great writing - but I don't know if I ever really care about the Op as a person. Jones's Pinkerton and Bull had the downside of not being as strong of characters nor having that level of writing, and Sayer and her Wimsey haven't gotten me to pick up book 4 of that yet. I think Archie's narration for the Wolfe cases might have been able to pull me through even if the writing wasn't near as strong as it is.

After those first two in the series, "O Careless Love!" (1935) isn't listed as a Wolfe related book, but it does have an upscale Restaurant in NYC called Rusterman's, so I slotted it in. It's a romantic-comedy, and I think I liked it even more this time through. (I imagine one of the characters having the voice of Gale Gordon from Our Miss Brooks). On the down side it isn't a detective story and it doesn't have Archie, Fritz, or Wolfe. On the plus side it was a very well-written, fast, fun read.

Near the beginning of "The Rubber Band" (1936) now.

Pfui!

 

[overgeeked]

Just finished James M. Cain’s Double Indemnity. Brilliant book that’s a quick read. I can see why it’s a classic. I’m sure I’ve seen the film version before, but it’s been years. More telling than showing, but it’s explained why in the story. Man I love the old hardboiled/noir novels.

 

[gnarlygninja]

I saw the movie for the first time last year at a theater, and my biggest recollection of it was how hard the audience laughed when the protagonist was talking about how expensive the house was because it "must have set someone back thirty thousand dollars".

 

[prabe]

Yeah, my experience is that if a movie (or novel, or whatever) is set long enough in the past that you're better off just taking any amount of money as meaning what the characters say it does. So an expensive house is an expensive house, for instance.

I've head some Hammett and some Chandler recently--I have something by Chandler on my Library To-Read Pile--but I haven't stumbled over any Cain in the libraries, yet, at least not when I was in a headspace to recognize the name and/or novel/s. I might have better luck at one of the large used bookstores around me, now that I think about it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Finished the Other Wind, final volume of Earthsea. My massive volume also has 4 more short stories and an essay from UKlG too that I still have to read

Are these the Tales from Earthsea? I'm reading those now. Currently on the fourth story. All four are great.