The new Sherlock Holmes

I just have to write about the new BBC series Sherlock.  I recently came across this series, and instantly fell in love with it.  Benedict Cumberbatch is perfect as a young Sherlock Holmes, and Martin Freeman is perfect as Dr Watson, updated as a war vet returned from Afghanistan.  This isn't a Victorian setting, it's been updated to the 21st century, complete with computers, internet, jerky camera movements (thankfully not too jerky), as well as clever dialogue, twisted plotting and fabulous supporting cast.  There is a much better review of the tv series over at Mystery Scene blog, a new to me mystery review site.  I can't rate this series highly enough.


It is penned by one of the writers of the New Dr Who, Stephen Moffat, so that should tell you  about the depth of characterization and darkness and emotional vulnerabilities all the characters reveal.  He is the writer of one of my all-time Dr Who episodes, "Blink" from Season 3.  But this is Sherlock Holmes, mystery icon and beloved around the world.  How does he do it?  Well, he revisions Sherlock as a younger man, much younger, just setting out, and still genius and incapable of being comfortable around most people. Arrogant, aware of his brilliance, and terribly attractive at the same time.  Sherlock was always a draw for me, along the same lines as Spock from Star Trek,  - intellectually brillliant and focused, but completely unaware or unwilling to give power to emotions and yet, surprisingly, capable of gentleness every once in a while, shockingly. 

I was thrilled to receive the dvd of the first season for Christmas.  There are only three episodes filmed for the first season, but they pack so much in each episode that they hold up extremely well to rewatching over and over.  Which is good, since the new series isn't close to being ready yet.  Now of course, I might have to go and reread some original Sherlock Holmes just to compare with the show. 
Here is a link to an interview with Benedict just before the tv show aired last summer in the UK.
This is the BBC site for Sherlock Holmes.
And, just because it's fun, here is a link the the Blog of Dr John Watson.  Sadly it too isn't very long, but it's funny.  I think the producers should have "Dr Watson" writing to it while they are producing the new series.  Nothing posted for when it will be out, so the BBC once again do a bang-up job of creating fabulous tv shows then making us wait a year for the next series (season). 

Have fun, and let me know if you've seen this and what you thought.  I've been saving the third episode, The Great Game, but I don't think I can hold out much longer. 

I do have to admit that during A Study in Pink, the series opener, I did guess who the villain was, but I didn't guess why.  In fact, I was shouting out at the tv, "the ------ did it!" over and over, to my husband's great amusement, as Sherlock and Watson couldn't see the danger before them. 

A side note to anyone in and around London: my husband and I had great fun picking out streets we recognized, or that my husband thought he had been near when he worked in London many years ago.  That they shot in and around London gave the show an immediate feel of reality, that Sherlock is placed in this time and place firmly, and it works - he's a sociopath for the modern day, a result of our society separating intelligence from emotion and the dangers inherent therein.

The Writing Life and My Book of the Year

One of the ways in which I begin to relax is to cruise around the blog world checking in with whatever moves me.  As I have been away from blogging for the past while, one of the first places I head to is Terri Windling's blog.  Not only does she have art that is inspirational for me, but she takes lovely photos, and somehow her thoughts get me going into my own creativity.  She also lists books she's reading on her sidebar, which every so often I go to see what I need to add to my ongoing, ever-growing list of Books to Watch Out For and Try to Find.  Yesterday I pointed you to the December writer's desk series she had going.  Today, I discovered again through her links Midori Snyder and Delia Sherman's blogs, both of whom are writers that I think are among the best fantasy writers in the world.  Midori is on a writer hiatus write now, but earlier this year she had a link to a most hilarious article on the hurdles writers face in just sitting down to write - 'the voices against our work being of any account' hurdle.  Writers among my Gentle Readers, do you recognize any of these voices?  I did, and now I'm going to print out this article and frame it in my writing room.

I found Delia's blog  through Terri linking to a review about Adrienne Martini's Sweater Quest:  My Year of Knitting Dangerously, which I know some of you have been reading this year.  Well, not only does this book sound interesting - and I can't knit! - but I discovered, even more valuable to me, a post about advice to a young would-be writer, that is perfect, here, on her Nov 27th post..  Down in the comments, Edward Gorey's The Unsung Harp is mentioned, as a perfect gift for writers.  Darn if it isn't out of print, though here is the Amazon.ca write-up anyway so we would-be/promising/waiting to be published writers can start haunting online shops and used bookstores in our cities.  I know I will be.  It sounds perfect.  Both the writer advice and the book are classic for us.  And darn if I am not suddenly beginning to feel like I can face reading my first draft of my novel and see what can be saved.  Thank you to these kind, generous writers who take the time to share their thoughts and inspiration with us. 


Honourable Mentions for Book of the Year:

Each of the following were ones that not only seemed to be the best of their genre in the books that I read, but they did something more:  they surpassed their genre and rewrote my general assumptions about what the genre could contain.  I highly recommend all of these books. 

The Speed of Dark - Elizabeth Moon - I first wrote about this book, here. I still feel myself catching my breath at Lou's decision all these months later.  Breathtaking, brilliant, speculative, heart-breaking.
The Speed of Dark, which is brilliant at capturing the structure that a special mind like someone with autism needs to make sense of the world.  Indeed, reading this book, made me wonder how much all of us who are 'normal', need schedules and rules in order to go about our day, too.  And how much a little flexibility in our acceptance of others' differences could go a long way to make everyone feel comfortable in this world.
The Wrong Kind of Blood - Declan Hughes - I did not write about this book when I first read it in September, as it was a library book and I had a pile I was trying to read before returning.  That's my excuse, but it's a sad one, because from the moment I opened this mystery, I felt a frisson of energy that hasn't left me since.  This is noir, gritty mystery noir at it's best.  Ed Loy returns home to bury his mother, and uncovers secrets from his own past in the process.  It's got a lot of plot and the background of Ed is a bit mysterious, but it all works out in the end.  Mostly though it's Ed's reactions to Dublin then and now, and how crime and payouts and politics are the bedrock of life in the Dublin he knows then and now.  Very well done, and unlike anything I've read for quite some time. I am seeking out the rest of the series now. 

The Court of the Air - Stephen Hunt - This is a complex steampunk fantasy mix that I wasn't sure I liked or understood while I read it, until I got to the final chapters and it all comes together stunningly.  The steam men culture, the chilling court of the air, were all fabulous (in the best fantasy sense of the word) but what made the book have feeling were Molly and Oliver, the two orphans at the heart of this Victorian alternate world setting. Fascinating, a bit overwhelming at times, and once done, it has stayed with me and worked on me and now I find I am desperate to read the next one in the series. I understand steampunk better for having read this novel!  and I really have to know what happens next.

Favourite Authors discovered:  tie.  so I've taken my own idea yesterday and an idea from raidergirl3's book review category for 2010, and decided these two authors deserve once again, a special mention from me:
Jo Nesbo
Martin Edwards
I really can't decide between these two - not because they are similar, not at all! But because since discovering them this year, I have devoured the books in their series.
Jo Nesbo:
You all know about my love affair with Harry Hole, which continues unabated, through despair, alcoholism, devious arch-criminals and Harry's own weaknesses.  I have two sitting to be read for this new year, The Redeemer and The Snowman. Really, it's like Christmas the way it should have been, to have these books next to read!

Martin Edwards
The Lake District series: I enjoy the series of Daniel Kind and Hannah Scarlett so much. I think what I like best is the growing relationship between them, even as they try to continue their ongoing relationships with their current partners.  It is fascinating to have a historian's perspective added to the mystery genre, not because it hasn't been done before, but because Daniel explores history as it affects people so of course the cold cases that Hannah opens fascinate him.  Hannah is not an easy female character to like, yet I do.  She is interesting and complex and intelligent, and through her persistence and luck we see cases resolved.  At the heart of these mysteries are two things:  the Lake District and relationships.  The Lake District is beautiful, even as Wordsworth wrote about it almost two centuries ago, with nature ever present then and now as part of the scene of crimes, part of the witness to passions that explode.  Relationships are what all crimes stem from, and one of the many interesting things about this series is that none of the crimes are similar or fall into a pattern.  I'm reading The Serpent Pool right now (the last one published) - oh look!  Oh joy!  A new one is going to be published in April:  The Hanging Woods.  *happy sigh* now I can finish The Serpent Pool, knowing another one is around the corner.  Thank you, Martin!

My Book of the Year: Jack the Giant-Killer by Charles de Lint

Imagine my surprise when I came across a reference to 'placing a sprig of rowan in a pocket' in a recent fantasy novel, and my thrill that I knew exactly what the writer was referencing because I finally read Jack The Giant Killer over 20 years after it was published!  Sometimes books become classics in their field, and Jack the Giant Killer is one of those books for me and for urban fantasy.  This won Canada's science fiction award in 1988, deservedly so.  Even now, reading it so many years later, it brought a flash of magic to our dull city.  I really wished, as I did when I first read Moonheart  when it was published, that Ottawa could be a little more like how Charles imagines it in his urban fantasy novels.  I enjoyed Jacky Rowan, and her best friend Kate Crackernuts, and the Unseelie Court are very frightening, as they ought to be.  If a faerie tale could be called 'realistic', this would be one, and I love the melding of the real with the unreal.  Here is the link to my original review. I like Jacky Rowan too, and I really wish Charles would write more stories featuring her and Kate too. It's my book of the year not just because it's witty, and clever, and wise in the ways of the heart, and full of love and wisdom too, but because it's fun, and magical, and full of bravery.   It brought me back to a sense of myself when I was starting out on my own, and discovering the world of fantasy for the first time.  Charles de Lint was my first love in contemporary fantasy writing (* note: not him, I've met him, lovely man and gorgeous wife Mary Ann) - it's his writing that I love.  Jack the Giant Killer showed me what I love best in fantasy writing: fairy tales and magic and growing up all mixed up together in a bag of adventure and friendship and love.

The "Where I've Been" Post

Happy 2011 to you all, Gentle Readers!!!  I hope you had a merry holiday season, and time for reading.

Where have I been, you are wondering.  How could I go the past month without posting, where is my year-end book special, and most of all, what happened to me during the Advent Calendar Tour?

It was a season I could never have predicted, my book-loving friends.  It began with a slip on the ice three days after I wrote my last post.  I fell twice, the second time falling backwards and hitting my head.  I ended up with a very minor concussion, and it has been the stress from the fall, the memory of falling, that has been haunting me from the beginning of the holiday season.  I was well looked after, friends and family took care of me and I was back at work a few days later, but the shock of the fall has reverbrated through my holidays.  It threw me off, and I couldn't seem to settle down into thinking again. I was able to read, thankfully.  And then family came.

This is the second year that family has unexpectedly come to stay and turned our holidays upside down.  This turned into a very traumatic visit for me, family secrets and drama, and we are still recovering.  So merry?  Sometimes, when it was just us.  It was a lovely holiday at times, and through it all I've been very happy that I am still here.  I know how serious my fall could have been.

It does mean that I have thought long and hard about my blog, which hasn't been sadly neglected but definitely suffered from lack of regular posting this past year.  I've wondered if I've run out of things to say about books, or if I need to say them publicly any more.  I've come to the understanding with myself that of course, duh Susan!  I love discussing books, reading your ideas about them, Gentle Readers,  as well as talking about what I love (or don't) about what I'm reading.  Books are my main passion in life.  And this blog is nothing if not my own labour of love about my love of books.  So, I do apologize for missing the Advent Blog Tour.  Happy late holiday wishes to all of you (and I really hope you all had a much better holiday season over all!!) It's still the New Year, so I can squeeze in Happy New Year, blessings and happiness to each of you, my Gentle Readers, for this coming year.  I am especially happy because the coming Chinese New Year is the Year of the Rabbit, and that's what I am.

Books of the year - not yet
I am going to do my book of the year in my next post (which Goddess willing will be tomorrow), mostly because I still haven't chosen my book of the year.  I discovered two wonderful mystery series - Martin Edwards' Lake District series featuring Daniel Kind and Hannah Scarlett, and Jo Nesbo's Harry Hole series, which I can't choose among either series for my favourite books because they are all so good.  Maybe I should do mystery series of the year?

Other stand-outs are Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day - I loved this book, and it made me laugh out loud so many times. What a lovely magical whimsical fun book, delightful for the soul and the possibility that today, or any day, could be the day when everything changes.  Persephone Books were reprinting this before the holidays, or I would have been able to give this as my present of the year to several people.  Next year..... 

Book of Lost Tales by John Connolly was not what I expected, a magical fairy tale book that lingers long after it is all over - highly recommended.   

The Darkest Room  by Johan Theorin - a gripping mystery that really could not be put down, filled with echoes from earlier tragedies and people coping as best they can with loss and their own dark family secrets.  Very very good, and one I did give for Christmas.   

The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths was another standout book for me. A mystery featuring archaeologist Ruth Galloway, it bridges time and space in a haunting poetic mystery about loss and death and children.  Another one given for Christmas (and read already by the recipient!).

One of the first books I read last year, Arctic Chill by Arnaldur Indridason, never left me.  It raised questions about immigration and race and crime within the family that set as it was in the midst of children, made this book much larger than its Icelandic setting would suggest.  The best mysteries do this, I find, take the story of a crime or a mystery and cast it into the world so it becomes a comment on today's society, wherever we find ourselves.  This is a writer who gets better and better with each Erlendur mystery.   

The Good Fairies of New York by Martin Millar was so delightful and funny, I laughed out loud so often reading this hilarious account of two runaway Scottish fairies in New York City and the havoc they wreak on everyone and everything.  Also the first book to give a true account of what it is like to have Crohn's Disease (which a friend and a family member suffer from).  I'm beginning to think Martin Millar is one of those undiscovered writers that are like secrets in fantasy or historical communities.  I loved his Lonely Werewolf Girl, and now I thoroughly recommend this book by him. 

To Dream of the Dead by Phil Rickman is another in an ongoing series that I highly recommend.  I love Merrily Watkins, the exorcist  Anglican reverend, her daughter Jane, and the cast of characters in their village Borderlands setting along the edge of Wales.  This is a place of supernatural events, hauntings and old myths and folk tales that have ancient bases in reality, and it's up to Merrily to uncover what is human in origin, and what is other-worldly.  Whether places affect people, or people affect places, is one of those intriguing questions this series deals with in every book.  To Dream of the Dead is about just that, how the dead echo through time and how their legacy of religion can still have meaning, if we let it.  Against this is set the rising of the river running through Ledwardine, the village Merrily lives in, and the fear of nature unleashed. This mystery novel also uncovers some ancient roots of Ledwardine as well as more of the standing stones Jane discovered in earlier books in the series.  This is a mystery series unlike any other out there, about people and place and the senses of mind that we know on some level exists, even if we don't understand why and can't explain it. 

In the Shadow of the Glacier by Vicki Delany is the first in an ongoing Canadian mystery series that I discovered thanks to a book blogger late last year.  It took me a little while to hunt this book down in my library, and I really enjoyed the setting in the Rockies.  I've lived in Vernon in British Columbia twice, and the feel of living amongst the mountains of BC is perfectly captured in this book.  I kept looking for Trafalgar on the map, even though it doesn't exist it feels like a real place!  Molly Smith is the rookie cop who is promoted to the detective squad temporarily.  I enjoyed the mystery and the Canadian context - a memorial to the America draft resistors to Vietnam War.  Very Canadian!  Very enjoyable and I'm off to find the next in the series, The Valley of the Lost.

The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy was a terrific fairy tale retelling of Hansel and Gretel, set in Poland during WW2.  This is the second book I've read using the horrors of war - of what people do, did, have done to one another under the guise of war, and retelling them in fairy tale settings to help understand these horrors.  Briar Rose by Jane Yolen was the first one I read, last year.  They both are true fairy tale retellings, scary and sad, filled with hope when all is lost, and the will to survive.  It isn't pretty, but then true fairy tales, the really nasty ones like Hansel and Gretel, tell it like it really is, too.  And we as children know this, as well as all children anywhere and everywhere.  This may be the best way to begin to heal from this war, the first stirrings of healing tissue.  We have to imagine our way through the horror so we can begin to understand, and then to forgive.  The only way we can prevent this from happening is through forgiveness.  It would be very interesting to know if the Germans or Russians are beginning to write any fairy tales too, to try to explain to themselves also what happened.  In the meantime, both of these are worth seeking out, and when you are ready, to take a trip through the forest to meet the darkness that is part of our civilization.


 Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton round out my books that made a deep impression on me this year. Who can forget a dragon society where the dead parents are eaten by their children, and the rules of courtship and marriage?  And what a dragon blush really means?  An original fantasy novel that brings dragons to life, in a wonderful Victorian society setting.  Funny, too.

Reading Goals
So those are some of the books I read this year that have moved me and marked me.  I will do a final round-up of what I read, tomorrow.  I am too depressed that not only did I not get to 100 books read this year, but I didn't get to my 50 mysteries either as my reading in December fell to 3 books. However this just makes me more determined to succeed this year in both these goals!

Fairy Tales
To honour fairy tales and the place I want them to have in my house, I bought Maria Tatar's latest collection, The Annotated Brothers Grimm.
This volume is translated by Tatar, and includes over 150 illustrations from all kinds of editions over the years, and Tatar's annotations on the texts.

I bought this because I, for one, love fairy tales when they come illustrated and especially, when the text is child-friendly.  I mean, we have one edition bought by a friend that is written in Victorian text, so it's wordy and unfamiliar in meaning to my kids.  The idea of fairy tales isn't that they are old, but that they are accessible immediately to that wordless part of the brain that knows these stories already.  With this book I hope to have my children move into the heart of the fairy tale world and be enriched by it, so the next time Rapunzel comes out as a Disney movie, I don't have to rush to find a copy of Rapunzel for my daughter to hear so she knows what Tangled is really about!  This is our nighttime reading, which I had started in the autumn with the two youngest children,  but had to stop when the Victorian retelling got hard on me just in the telling!

Happy 2011 to all you, my Gentle Readers.  I wish for all of you, as well as myself, time to read during this coming year, as well as joy and beauty and creativity all through the year. 

For those who are looking for inspiration, I can think of no better way than to go to Terri Windling's blog, where for the past month she has been posting some beautiful photos of the winter scenes they have in Doret, as well as - my favourite - photos of creative people's desks, from writers, sculptors, and painters.  Some of my favourite writers, like Terri herself, Charles de Lint and Jane Yolen, are there.

I Dare You - and the Advent Calendar Tour 2010

So by now you all know about my weakness for book lists, and books of the year reviews.  How my TBR mountain grows because of books you love, dear Gentle Readers, as well as the recommendations from Locus, Book Awards, The Guardian, and a whole host of other book information places.  Well, today,  I went to the Guardian to see what was new on the book site, and they have put up a list of books chosen as 'book of the year' by a selection of writers.  *big sigh*  I've added 11 books to my TBR pile.  I should say I sigh happily, but still.....no matter how many books I read, there are so many more to be read out there.  We are spoiled in this age, by having far more books being published than we can ever hope to read.  So I dare you, dare you, Gentle Reader, to go the Books of Year article here and read through it all, and not find at least one book that you would like to read.  Go ahead.  And then if you like, come back here and let me know if you were seduced - and by what, of course.

 Now because you are like me and love book lists, and from my previous posts we ALL want to know what other people are reading/want to read/have read/long to get,  you all are wondering what titles I found, that I picked out as ones I'd love to get my hands on. In the spirit of "if you missed it the first time, maybe you'll find it interesting this time" and "if we are going to be poor because we spend too much money on books, let's be poor together and have a wealth of wonder instead", here is my list:

It's only a small list of books:
-Ghost Light, Joseph O'Connor.  This looked interesting enough that I added it to to my Amazon wish list as well as the book of 'books to get' (yes, it's an actual book!) I carry around with me.  Going to Amazon let me see his other books, to which I then added: 

-Star of The Sea, his earlier prize-winning novel about the 1847 potato famine and the journey in a ship from Ireland to North America that winter.  Since some of my family fled Ireland that same year, arriving here in Canada, I really want to read this novel.  It's out of print now.  So on my growing "books to look for in second-hand bookstores", I've added this title. 
-Heartstone - CJ Sansom.  I have the first two books to read still in this series, but this came with such a high review that I had to add it.  Dissolution is on my immediate to be read pile.  I'm warring between it and Raven Black by Ann Cleeves, which my friend Lee in Texas is waiting impatiently for me to read so we can talk about it.  She really liked Raven Black.  I told her about Martin Edwards and now she's read and enjoyed the first one, The Coffin Trail. I then sent her Louise Penny's Still Life for her birthday.  She has since sent me Janet Neel's Death's Bright Angel because it's set in York and I wanted to find more books set there.  So I told her about this series (by CJ Sansom) and Susanna Gregory's Thomas Chaloner series, plus Ariana Franklin's series which she hadn't heard about.  We're not competitive at all on how many series we can recommend that we like, are we?  
- Freedom - Jonathan Frazen.  I'm of two minds about this book, since I tend to find books everyone likes, usually not as good as I'd like.  I'm not sure if I'm so afraid of being disappointed because of the hype that I'm avoiding it, or afraid that once again my dislike of 'literary' novels is getting the better of me here.  Maybe in the new year.....
-Ghosts of Belfast/alt title The Twelve - Stuart Neville.  Since discovering that some of my ancestors are from Ireland, I've begun seeking out books on Ireland.  This led me to Declan Hughes' wonderful The Wrong Kind of Blood noir mystery earlier this year (which I still have to review), and now I add this book to my growing books about Ireland I want to read.  It's a thriller, and I'm hoping I can find it here.
- Whoops!  Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay - John Lanchester.
- Enough is Enough - Fintan O'Toole
thoughts on both books: I am amazed at how countries that were seemingly doing very well suddenly are facing bankruptcy. I'm even more amazed that the lessons about inflated mortgage schemes and property investments that caused such disasters in the 1980's, and 1990's, are recurring again.  Did no one pay attention to any of the lessons from before?  Apparently not.  I am puzzled and saddened also, and deeply worried, for the people affected - Greece, Spain, England, USA, and now Ireland - where did all the money go?  And why?  I don't like thinking that we aren't secure, and yet, earlier this week, the public service union I belong to held a vote on whether to accept the government's offer for our contract.  On the table?  This, for the largest public union of workers in Canada?  Our severance pay.  Since when does the government decide that paying out the measley severance pay to clerks if they leave service, is responsible for the sudden 'biggest debt carried by the Canadian government ever " - 1 billion dollars?  Something isn't right, something doesn't smell right, and I want to try to understand why, when the world has so much, there doesn't seem to be enough to go around at all now. 
- Human Chain - Seamus Heaney.  Poems about loss, death, which becomes a meditation on life - irresistible, especially as I go through my second year of being diabetic and glimpsing, as my kidneys started to fail this summer, that the second half of my life isn't going to be the way the first half was.
- And The Land Stay Still - James Roberston.  If you can resist what Ian Rankin says about this book, good for you.  Any time my favourite mystery writer says a book shouldn't be ignored and it's about Scotland (where some more of my ancestors are from) and a novel, I'm right there.  I miss my yearly new Rebus - it's really hitting home this year that there will be no more of him - and while I know I have The Complaints in my Christmas box (isn't it surprising how buying books for myself for Christmas is one of my true delights?), and am truly looking forward to reading about Malcolm Fox - I miss Rebus and Siobhan and gritty Scottish noir.  I'm thinking of rereading the entire series next year. In the meantime, a novel about Scotland sounds like it might just do to tide me over.  Oh dear.  I just went to look to see if it's over here in Canada.  It's not.  He does have an earlier book which looks just as interesting: 
- The Testament of Gideon Mack. It's available here. A Scottish Minister who confronts the Devil. This one was nominated for The Booker. His first book is also available,  
- The Fanatic.  Look, it's about witches and witchhunts, ghosts and ghost tours, and historical Scotland, set in Edinburgh. Oh dear dear.  Somehow they just slipped onto my wishlist.  Don't they sound like they'd make excellent Christmas reading?  And I can catch up on this interesting Scottish author while I wait for And The Land Lies Still to make its way across the ocean.
- poetry by Jackie Kay.  Poems that make you laugh and weep?  I'm so there!  
- Of Mutability - Jo Shapcott.  Poems about transformation, and mutability?  I think I am moving into reading more poetry as a way to capture the intensity of my moments and minutes, because somehow time is going by faster without my being aware of it slipping by.  I don't feel old, or  even middle-aged yet, though I am aware that being present in my life is a choice I am conscious I have to make as an adult, when as a child it simply is that way. 

Is it Christmas so soon?
Speaking about time, how is that we are now less than a month away from Christmas?   Reading over my books read for this year, I realize I still have to read over 10 mysteries to make my 50 mysteries read I promised myself this year.  So that's quite a challenge for the upcoming month!  I won't be doing my best books read this year until the end of the year, since I have so many good ones just in the 10 I am waiting to read.  It's kind of fun, really, to know I must spend the next month reading in order to make one of my goals.  The 100 books a year I have sadly laid to rest, but not for long.  Starting Jan 1, I will be back at this personal challenge again!  I do plan on catching up on my book reviews for this year, over the next month, since there are so many good books I read that I haven't let you know how I felt about, this year.  And I do want to tell you about Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day, The Mystery of Edwin Drood (I have a Charles Dickens post planned), and The Good Fairies of New York, plus the afore-mentioned The Wrong Kind of Blood, and so many others.  It has been a wonderful year for finding good books to read.  How about you?

I am joining the Advent Calendar tour again.  I am very excited, and have a couple of ideas already.  I am looking forward to seeing what all you, dear Readers, are doing and celebrating this upcoming holiday season, as we go around the world via our book blogs.  I will be doing my entry on December 24, the last day of the tour.  This starts in three days!  Get ready! 

In my corner of the world we have been getting snow flurries in between some sun.  We have snow on the ground, finally.  It feels like winter. Now to do the impossible:  read 12 mystery books between now and Dec 31.  Hmm, sounds like the Twelve Days of Christmas, doesn't it?  "On the first day of Christmas, I let myself read:  Raven Black, by Ann Cleeves.  On the second day of Christmas, I open up: Dissolution, by CJ Ransom.  On the third day of Christmas......" Only in the life of a book fanatic!!  What are you reading over the holidays? Before?  Do you even try to read during the month of December? 

Happy reading, everyone!

Who says readers don't converse in public?

Remember that post I had a few weeks back, from Chris at Book-a-Rama's post, who spotted the U.S. article about 'people who have their nose stuck in a book are considered anti-social and the stigma attached?'  Well, unexpectedly, I have the perfect answer to that outdated stupid idea:

This morning, yes, this first dark Monday morning after the clocks were moved back one hour,  the sun was just rising as my bus stopped at the major transfer station near our home, and people rushed on to the bus. Morning is not a time I talk very much.  A gentleman took the seat beside me.  He had a book in his hand, Bk 12 of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series.  He noticed me staring at the book (he hadn't opened it yet) so I said, "I'm sorry, I was looking at the book because I read up to book 9 in this series, and I didn't realize Bk 12 was out now."  And for the next ten minutes as our bus raced along the river drive into the heart of Ottawa, we discussed Robert Jordan, Isaac Asimov, Tanya Huff (he's read Enchanted Emporium, which I have sitting on my shelf to be read), Trudi Canavan (very good series he says, I haven't read it yet though I've had it from the library), and I mentioned Robin Hobb and Connie Willis, two of my favourite writers.  My stop came first, and so I said goodbye, and as I jumped off the bus, I thought to myself, "I have no idea who you are, fellow bookworm, but that was a lovely conversation about books."

Now I do have to caution you, my Gentle Readers, that most of the time I don't talk to strangers!  and especially not to strange men!  but sometimes, books break down that wall of silence we all cast around ourselves as we make our way to and from work.  This was a most unlooked for experience, as usually I have my nose in my book and I really am not looking to talk first thing in the morning.    And truly, I was  not looking for any conversation this morning, I just didn't want him to feel awkward with someone staring at the book he was holding.

So thank you, fellow bus-rider and bookreader, for an enjoyable conversation about books.  And as for that stigma about reading books?  What stigma?  I feel so much privilege in being part of a society that welcomes anyone and everyone who delights in the written word. 

It's still dark far too early in the afternoon now!  I want that hour of daylight back!

I know I still have to do my roundup of books read for Carl's RIP 5 challenge.  I did get my 10 books read, including - just finished yesterday - Phil Rickman's To Dream of the Dead, wonderfully atmospheric and moody and perfect for this time of year.  So reviews coming shortly.  We have just finished the annual two-birthdays-family visit-Hallowe'en rush at this time of year, on top of which everyone was sick with the cold virus going around Ottawa, so I am just now catching my breath.  I hope you all had fun with the challenge, I've tried to visit as many of you, my Gentle Readers, as I could lately. 

Wednesday wanderings

Bookslut has an excellent round-up of some worthy horror and ghost novels if you are looking for something to read, here.  I forgot that Martin Millar has a sequel out to Lonely Werewolf Girl, which was my book of the year a couple of years ago.  I saw Curse of the Werewolf Girl in late summer and meant to pick it up for the RIP V challenge.  Bookslut's review of Curse of the Werewolf Girl has reminded me I should do this now!

I also liked Kat Richardson's Greywalker (reviewed in my post before this one) so much that I found myself buying book 2 in the series, Poltergeist, in the bookstore on Monday. Harper Blaine and how she sees into the paranormal world, has really caught my interest. I like Harper, she's a tough PI as well as being vulnerable and disliking the Grey (the world that the ghosts, the supernatural inhabit that shares space with our world, and only a few humans can see into it) and its clammy feeling really makes it real, what it would feel like to see the ghostly among the living all the time.

I also just found this link to an interesting new blog:  the blogger is reading women's fiction for the next 365 days of the year. The blog is called just that, 365 Days of Women Writers.  There is a fun entry on Pride and Prejudice, so I'm going to check in to this blog every so often and see who she's been reading. 

I have been looking for Willem Dafoe quoting The Raven from Lou Reed's album The Raven, which I really enjoy. I thought it would set the mood for the last 11 days before Hallowe'en.   I can't find anything on YouTube yet, but I did find this wonderful piece, that brings together three of my favourite horror things:  Tim Burton, Edgar Allen Poe, and Vincent Price.  I hope you enjoy this!

Book Reviews! New Kittens! I missed the party again.....

I am hanging my head in shame.  *hangs head down*  I cannot believe a whole month has gone by in Carl's challenge and I haven't reviewed a single book, even though I have been very busy reading!  C'mon girl, wake up!  *shakes self*

I am most especially embarrassed because I seem to have missed my third anniversary as a book blogger!  No cake for me!  I could excuse myself, and say we have been extraordinarily busy:  school started, there were two weddings, three colds (two of us are still getting over them), and two new kittens to play with, but really, I am sorry.  I like cake!  And I do love my blog and talking books with all of you, and getting to know you all, and I LOVE reading. 

The New Kitties: 
 Sam

And Rose

The new kittens came into our home in mid-September.  They are wonderful kittens, playing all night, eating everything that falls, knocking things over, and dragging my tasseled bookmarks out of books to chew on.  They also purr and cuddle and are adored already.

 Books I Have Read:

I have been busy reading.  And I see by some of your reviews that some bloggers have been busy reading the same books I am.  So I've linked some reviews already below, and please send me a link if you have reviewed a book I've just read here:

Carl's RIP V Challenge

I have been reading to my heart's content this fall all the ghost, spooky, and downright horror books I could want.  Here is the list, along with a short review - I'm afraid that if I wait to do a long post some other day, it won't get done. 

 The Darkest Room - Johan Theorin -  Amazing mystery/suspense/ghost story.  Set in Oland, the island off Sweden's coast as his first one Echoes From The Dead, the landscape once again plays a role in creating isolation, loneliness, and it plays a real part in the outcome of the mystery.  In The Darkest Room, blizzards, the coming of winter, the loss of light, increase the melancholy that overhangs the recent death of one of the characters in teh beginning of the book.  But this is more than just the story of the Westins, it's also the story of all the people who have lived at the home since it was built in the 1700's.  So many ghosts.....I loved this book.  The characters, the setting, the return to Oland, which was so evocative in Echoes From the Dead, and the languid melancholy, and the presence of unseen from the corner of the eye, plus the menace from real every day threats - this is a very good novel. Highly recommended.


Soulless - Gail Carrigher - This is a fun supernatural novel, mixing Victorian England, manners, with vampires, werewolves, and the Queen of England. it is the first novel in the Alexia Tarabotti series. She is a spinster, almost past marrying age so this gives her a delightful sarcastic edge as she fights to retain some dignity in her role as spinster.  She also happens to be born without a soul, which is very handy when it means that anything supernatural loses its ability around her.  She is also very opinionated, and the dialogue and her observations are hilarious.  This is also a romance, as well as a mystery, charming, and delightful.  The vampires and werewolves are interesting, the idea of having a soul - or not- is believable and what it means makes for a very entertaining read.
Other reviews:
Kailana at The Written World

Greywalker - Kat Richardson.  The first in the Greywalker series featuring Harper Blaine, a PI who dies for three minutes and when she is brought back, discovers she can see into the Grey, an area that spirits can go into after death, before moving on to the light (or Dark).  It's not purgatory, it's a place that overlaps our world, but only the dead and the supernatural can exist there as well as on earth.  Only a Greywalker can see into that world; Harper is even more rare, as she can cross physically into that world after her death experience.  I loved the supernatural aspects, the Grey and how the vampires and ghosts move here and there.  How Harper finds out what is happening to her, and how she begins to attract a different set of clientele, who have special needs that involve the Grey in some way, make for a very good read.  In fact, I enjoyed it so much that at the bookstore tonight, I ended up buying book two in the series, Poltergiest.  Harper herself is also a realistic PI, and I really enjoyed the PI skills put alongside investigating the supernatural. 

The Secret History of Moscow - Ekaterina Sedia.  One day Galina discovers that her sister has turned into a bird, a jackdaw.  Galina goes in search of her and finds a way below Moscow to another world, the secret world of myth, fairytale and legend, Russian style.  Her sister isn't the only one, and in order to stop people from turning into birds, they must discover who is using the old stories - setting them free - on the streets of Moscow.  A beautiful story, with very different fairy tale figures that somehow feel similar at the same time to some characters in the Western fairytale canon. .I enjoyed the unfamiliarity of the fairy tale and myth figures, and what really impressed me was the sense of Moscow that comes through the book.  For the first time, I have a little inkling of how both wonderful historic and horribly scared by this century Moscow is.

Ghost Road Blues - Jonathan Maberry.  Straight up horror, and fun!  I enjoyed the sense of menace, the very visible presence of ghosts, evil, and history in this book.  A tiny town 30 years ago experienced a serial killer, who was brought to justice, but evil is in more than one heart, and another crime is also committed that same night.  It's in the present day, and old evil stirs in the swamp behind the town in Pine Deep, Pennsylvania, and calls out to and draws in greater evil to this little town. The dead will rise, and ghosts walk about the streets of Pine Deep, but no one is prepared for the three killers who make their appearance one night and change the town forever.  Ghost Road Blues is the beginning of a trilogy.  I will most likely seek out the other two books in the series, although I will admit I was disappointed that it was a trilogy, certainly it gives room to explore questions like can evil ever truly die?  what happens when people don't deal with their memories of the past?  There are very likable characters, and the town is fun and it's a very good setting, among the fields of corn, as the murderers strike.  Enjoyable read, some creepy atmosphere, tense killer moments.

More reviews to follow! Have run out of time, will return tomorrow with more.  It's been fun reading all these horror novels.  I have fully immersed myself in the spooky nature of this time of year, as well as the melancholy as the light slowly fades.  I love autumn, and this year, reading horror and ghost stories is adding more to my pleasure!

I hope you are reading some good books for the Challenge. Do you find that reading ghost stories at this time of year comes naturally for you, or are you finding it is too much with the growing darkness outside? 

I made some chocolate chip cookies yesterday, perhaps you'd like to share in some as I celebrate belatedly my blog's birthday?  Happy birthday, book-blog!