The Bride Looks Back at – November

The month started off fairly slowly on the reading front, but the attraction of several British Library Crime Classics in my virtual collection meant finishing three books in a week, which is pretty good for me these days.

But onto the stats….

• Books read = 5 including one audiobook
• Pages read = 967 plus 15.5hours of listerning
• Goodreads progress = 62 of 65 finished, 95% of my challenge target

Books I read:

• Cthulhu Resurgent by David Conyers – volume 2 of the collected stories of Major Harrison Peel; a very military take on the elder gods but still enjoyable if you like that sort of thing (which I do)
• Death of Jezebel by Christianna Brand – published in 1949, a post-war London murder mystery with the equivalent of a locked room scenario. I thought I had guessed the murderer but talked myself out of it only to be proved right but for all the wrong reasons and with no idea of how it was done. Fiendish.
• These Names Make Clues by ECR Lorac – published in 1937 this isn’t exactly a locked room mystery but does appear to be an almost impossible murder given the situations of the victim and the main suspect (I will say no more). A literary treasure hunt at a publisher’s London home with a real life detective as one of the guests, this was heaps of fun and is definitely my book of the month
• A Surfeit of Suspects by George Bellairs – published in 1964 so only a couple of years younger than me, this is very much of its time – financial shenanigans, loose morals, potential corruption, shifty bank managers and a joinery company that explodes. Dated but still fun to read.

I also listened to an unabridged version of Dracula with Alan Cumming and Tim Curry. I will have a review of that soon, as I definitely had Thoughts.

Currently reading:

I started several books and set them aside as not quite what I was looking for at present, though I’m sure I will go back to them all at some point. I’m currently absorbed in two:

• The Explorer by James Smythe – the final book in his Anomaly Quartet came out this year and I am planning to read all four volumes this December. This is the third time I’ve read this, the first book in the series, and at about a quarter of the way through its just as excellent as I remember!
• American Sherlock by Kate Winkler Dawson – an audiobook read by the author who is one of my favourite podcasters, though I’ve sometimes taken issue with her books. Very interesting, but I’m always slow when listening to non-fiction.

Looking forward to in December, the start of a year-and-one-month low buy challenge for books, but lots of gifts to come (fingers crossed)!