Open Thread for Readers for May 2021
Misc / Need A Rec!book-pimp / Open Thread / Promotion13 Comments
Got a book you want to talk about? Frustrated with a book or series? In love with a new one? Found a buried treasure? An issue that keeps popping up in the books you are reading? Just want to chat about stuff in general?
I just finished Ben Aaronovitch’s 180 page long novella / short novel, What Abigail Did that Summer. It’s written in from the POV of Abigail, Peter’s 14-year-old cousin and sort-of apprentice. And in present tense; I did not expect that from this author.
It’s very different from his other books, more eerie and horror-ish since the mystery is about teens’ disappearances. And we meet the talking foxes, which adds an unusual element too. There’s even a chapter that is a fable/fairy tale/myth about foxes and voices.
Abigail can’t do magic, so she has to use her brains alone when dealing with the supernatural something that is causing the children’s disappearance. Peter is away for the whole book (it takes place concurrently with Foxglove Summer) and Abigail keeps Nightingale on the periphery so she is very much on her own.
Abigail is a clever but not always loved child. A lot of adults including teachers at her school view her as a troublemaker (the fact that she’s biracial is definitely a factor in that) and her parents are understandably focused more around her terminally ill brother, whom Abigail loves and wishes she could save. The latter adds another unusual (and poignant) element to the book. Her heroism, which she downplays or perhaps even does not see, emerges in this story.
I need to write a full-length review but I do recommend this to anyone who wants to read something that is a departure for Ben Aaronovitch.
By limiting my library borrowings, I’ve returned to some wonderful, favorite series with delightful results. How does this happen, that the next books in a series I loved have languished for–sometimes–years? This book acquiring/reading gig is literally a runaway train. So what sparked joy lately, had me feeling as if I’d gone home and met up with old friends?
Adrian McKinty’s Sean Duffy series set in 1980s Belfast, smack in the middle of the Troubles. Duffy is a Catholic serving in a militantly Protestant police force. He is smart, funny and heartbroken over what’s happening in his city. He can’t trust his neighbors not to put a bomb under his car every night or trust that his fellow officers will have his back. Part of the fascination for me is that things have changed in Belfast and yet so little has changed deep down. I’d like to think there are many Duffys doing the right thing today.
Caimh McDonnell’s Dublin Trilogy series and McGarry Stateside series. OMG, so much impossible fun in deadly circumstances and I have loved every book. The setting is mostly contemporary Dublin where a hapless new PI unintentionally joins forces with a disgruntled incredibly smart nurse and a former disgraced Dublin police officer in order to save their lives, possibly the lives of others. There are killer nuns, too, in a special short story collection available if you sign up for the author’s newsletter, and that’s how the disgraced Dublin police officer ends up in New York City. I had to stop reading these in bed at night because of the spontaneous laughter. The first Trilogy book, THE MAN WITH ONE OF THOSE FACES, is frequently available for free at most retailers.
Elliott James’ Pax Arcana series. John Charming is from THAT Charming family; prince, dragon-slayer, eternal warrior, Knight Templar until he became a werewolf and now the Templars want to kill him. He teams up with marvelous characters, including a Valkyrie and vampire, to help others/save his life. Another smart, funny, violent series–definitely seeing a pattern here.
In other news–a gripe this time: Does anyone else have trouble scrolling through their Kindle wishlist on Android? My specific problem is that I simply cannot scroll, it’s like a constant Twitter update without getting anywhere. The solution has been to scroll *so lightly* with my right thumb and hold *so lightly* with my left thumb in order to advance the list at glacial speed WITHOUT accidentally hitting Buy With 1-Click (ask me how I know this) and repeat through the entire list. This is so frustrating that I almost refuse to even look at my wish on anything but a desktop, except I’m so addicted to checking for daily price drops and who am I kidding except me? Am I all alone in this?
@Darlynne, I’ve also been known to inadvertently buy books while scrolling my Amazon wishlist; I’m using a Kindle Fire. My greater frustration of late has been due to the changed ability to sort my wishlist by price as books do not order correctly.
THE MAN WITH ONE OF THOSE FACES sounds intriguing. Thanks for bringing it to my attention!
@Janine, What Abigail Did that Summer does sound very unlike the other Aaronovitch books I’ve read. I’ll look forward to your review.
@Kareni: I’m using a Fire tablet as well as my phone and neither scrolls well. Rarely is a book out of price order, but I did clear my cache, which seems to have fixed things.
@Janine Ballard: I hadn’t heard of this novella and Aaronivitch’s series is definitely in the category of the others I mentioned above. Why did I ever stop? Thanks for the info.
@Darlynne: I have iOS devices and don’t experience that Android kindle app issue; however I was just grousing to my husband about an issue with the iPad kindle app. It’s really hard to select a book from “My Content and Devices” and send it to other devices. The site grinds to a halt at every stage of that process, or you have to wait forever to get from selecting the book to the menu that asks what you want to do, and then when you click on your menu choice nothing happens. A process that takes less than a minute on my computer is monumentally frustrating on the app.
Re checking price drops, are you familiar with ereaderIQ? You can sign up for price drop alerts on any books you’re interested in and they’ll email you when the price drops to what you’re willing to pay.
@Kareni: It may be a while. I have a backlog of ARC reviews to catch up on first.
@Darlynne: At what point in the Rivers of London series did you stop reading? I’m mostly wondering if you reached the Peter/Beverly Brook relationship which is one of my favorite aspects of the books now.
@Janine Ballard: ereaderIQ – wasn’t someone (Amazon?) trying to get rid of this a while ago? I had signed up for some books but have rarely had any of them go down in price.
@Jayne: Yes, they used to rely on Amazon’s affiliate program for revenue and Amazon suspended their affiliate account in 2016. They operate on donations now.
My notifications haven’t been coming lately and I was just on their site and saw why—they’ve changed their tracking tools to bookmarklets, tools you use when you’re on the book’s Amazon’s page to either track the book or view its pricing history. Besides this they also offer a couple of Chrome extensions.
It doesn’t sound like that’s your issue, though. It may be that you haven’t heard from them because the books you’re interested in haven’t gone on sale much, or if you changed the email address you use there. Before the bookmarklets change I used to get notifications from them all the time but I mostly use them to track cookbooks.
@Janine Ballard: I’ll have to check the new bookmarklets on ereaderIQ. I’ve been getting notifications, but I’d like to see what they’re doing differently.
I don’t remember where I left off in Rivers of London, looks like there are more good things in store. Thanks.
@Darlynne: I would love to hear what you think if you get back to the series. I don’t know if you ever listen to audiobooks but the audio narrator, Kobna Holbrook-Smith, is excellent.
@Darlynne: @Janine Ballard: I am also catching up with Rivers of London. Apparently I was quite behind. I just finished book five and went to book six.
@Sirius: Ah, I love book five. It’s my favorite in the series, I think. Book four on the other hand is my least favorite. Someone on Twitter once said that the books that don’t focus on the Faceless Man are stronger than the ones that do. It had never occurred to me but I realized I feel that it’s true.
So glad you are reading (and presumably enjoying) them.