Thankfully Reading Wrap U

I think I told you that was participating in the Thankfully Reading Weekend. No Black Friday shopping madness for me. Uh-uh. I grabbed some books and read as much as I could. Of course these things called weekend chores kept getting in the way, so I didn't do quite as well as I wanted. But I did have a good time and knocked out another reading challenge while I was at it. Thanks to Jenn for hosting!. Here's how I did:

1. Corpus Christmas by Margaret Maron (done at 2:50 pm 11/25/11)
2. The High Crusade by Poul Anderson (done at 8:15 pm 11/25/11)
3. Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy L Sayers (done at 1:50 pm 11/27/11)
4. Striding Folly plus two other Wimsey short stories by Dorothy L Sayers (done at 9:30 pm 11/27/11)
5. The Prince Lost to Time by Ann Dukthas (100 pages complete by 11:30 pm on 11/27/11--that's when I decided to call it a night)

The Final Lord Peter Stories

I finished up the remainder of the Lord Peter stories--using the complete Wimsey short stories collected in Lord Peter. Once the book comes in from the library, I'll finish the entire book In the Teeth of Evidence (just so I can finish all the Sayers fiction). Otherwise, I have fulfilled the intention of the As My Whimsy Takes Me Challenge--which challenged us to read all of the Wimsey stories. Here's a run-down of the remaining short stories.

"In the Teeth of Evidence": Lord Peter goes to his dentist for a filling and finds himself involved in a mystery he can really sink his teeth into. His dentist is called in to identify a man who has died in a blazing fire...only his dental records can prove his identity. And it's up to Lord Peter to help prove if it was death by accident or suicide....or even murder.

"Absolutely Elsewhere": In which Lord Peter proves that a murderer just might be able to travel at the speed of light.

"Striding Folly": This one has a bit of the mystic about it. A man has a dream which appears to be strangely prophetic about the murder of his neighbor. Except it didn't predict that he would be accused! Lord Peter comes to the rescue, of course!

"The Haunted Policeman": The story of the poor policeman who saw a house numbered thirteen where no thirteen ought to be and a murdered man where no one has been murdered. Lord Peter helps him prove that he wasn't drunk nor delusional.

"Talboys": In which, Bredon, Lord Peter's eldest, steals peaches, is punished and wrongly accused of stealing peaches a second time. While Lord Peter helps track down the rightful culprits, Miss Quirk, guest of the Wimseys and an errant amateur psychologist, finds that practicing psychology on a family of Wimsey boys may not be the best of ideas.


A delightful collection of short stories to round out the Wimsey canon. Not much mystery, but lots of great characters and insight into life in the Wimsey household after Busman's Honeymoon. Four stars.

Busman's Honeymoon: Review

Just a warning....possible spoilers for anyone who hasn't read the Sayers books that precede this one.


So...Lord Peter finally gets the girl. Well, we knew that at the end of Gaudy Night...what with them kissing madly in the middle of Oxford and all. But this one seals the deal. The book begins with the details of the months leading up to the wedding, the wedding itself, and on to the honeymoon. Not that Sayers is so gauche as to reveal ALL about the wedding night, but it's abundantly obvious that our favorite lord and his new lady have quite a nice time of it.

The mystery fun begins the next day when the body of their neglectful host is found in the basement. It soon becomes clear that the reason the honeymoon house was not prepared was because Mr. Noakes has been dead for almost a week. Harriet rather wishes that Peter need not be bothered with all this murder business while on his honeymoon--if only because it will bring the mobs of reporters descending upon them--but soon realizes that his "job" is something they will need to come to terms with if theirs is to be happy marriage.

What follows is, as Sayers notes in the subtitle, A Love Story with Detective Interruptions. We follow Peter and Harriet as they sort out how their love story will begin and in the intervals they pick up clue after clue that will ultimately lead to the discovery of the culprit. However, the point of the story is not the murder. The point is love and marriage and what Sayers thought was the ideal way for two adults to sort things out.

The mystery isn't a very deep one and it shouldn't be hard for anyone to spot the criminal. But the detective story is not the reason I can read this novel (or any of Sayers' mysteries, for that matter) over and over again. I read them for the language and the characters and their interactions. Rereading Busman's Honeymoon, I was struck once more about how delightful the opening chapter is. It is told entirely in letters and excerpts from the Dowager Duchess's diary and I chuckle over it every single time. The voices of the various characters--from Peter's insufferable sister-in-law to the irrepressible Countess of Severn and Thames--are so distinct and vibrant. And the images they convey are such a hoot--can anyone who has read the stories not snort over the picture of the "hell-hound" reporters trying bribe Bunter? Or Peter and Harriet composing rude rhymes in order to get rid of Helen (the insufferable sister-in-law)?

I love this book. And can only regret that it is the last full-length novel written entirely by Dorothy L Sayers. The books penned by Jill Paton Walsh just aren't the same. Five stars.

The High Crusade: Review

The High Crusade by Poul Anderson is an interesting historical novel meets science fiction mash-up. Medieval knights are preparing to go to war against France when a strange metallic "sailing" ship descends on them from the sky. Little blue men from another world come boldly down the exit ramp with their awesome ray guns...fully prepared to easily subdue the "barbarians" of this backward planet. But the little blue men have not reckoned with the bravery and hand-to-hand combat prowess of the men of England. And soon Sir Roger, Baron of Torneville has led his men to victory over the demons from the air. He takes one of the aliens captive and forces him to help his men learn to fly the strange ship so he can end the war with France more quickly. The alien double-crosses him and sets the ship on auto-pilot for his race's nearest planetary outpost--thinking that on their home ground his people will certainly carry the day. But, again, he has misjudged the tenacity of the English and soon Sir Roger and his men are on a High Crusade among the stars.

Almost sounds like the plot of a 1950s B movie doesn't it? It's a quite remarkable use of an outrageous premise--that men clad in chain-mail and armed only with swords and lances and maces and shields could overpower beings with laser pistols and nuclear-type armory. But Anderson makes it work. There are great space-age long bow battles, nuclear warheads tossed by catapults, parlay and treachery, and all in the name of the King and Country and the Church. It's a fast-paced, quick read that is more about the adventure than the characters. Fun and light--three stars.

This one has been sitting on my TBR shelf since (can it be true?) August 1996. Gathered up back in my hard-core science fiction days, but never read. I put it on the list for Adam's 2012 TBR Challenge (over at Roof Beam Reader) because of that very fact. Thought it about time I got down to business and cleared it off the shelf. Now that I have, I can say that I've officially finished the Challenge. Go me!

Corpus Christmas: Review

In Corpus Christmas, Margaret Maron gives us a little murder for the holiday season. Dr. Roger Shambley, the most recent addition to the board of directors for the Erich Bruel house is found dead the morning after a Christmas-themed party at the small art museum. At first glance, it looks like the snoopy, insinuating scholar had a bit too much egg nog and missed his step on the steep stairs leading to his office in the attic. But the scene has not quite been perfectly set and it it becomes apparent to Lieutenant Sigrid Harald of the NYPD that a bit of musical murder scenes has been played out.

The list of suspects grows as Lt. Harald discovers that Shambley managed to insult and infuriating nearly everyone he come across...from implications that the director is incompetent to murmurings of forgery, he had cast a knowing glance at all and sundry. Some of his insinuations prove to be mere gossip, but did something hit home? Is that why someone hit the scholar upside his rather fragile skull. It's up to Lt. Harald and company to find out.

This is a nice cozy little mystery, set in a grand old relic of a house which has been turned into a shrine to the artistic taste (both good and bad) or Erich Bruel. There are plenty of red herrings and more suspects than you can shake a stick at. The characters are delightful--realistic and humorous and sympathetic in turns. I don't believe I've ever read a story by Maron before, but I can assure you, this won't be my last. Three stars for a nice solid mystery.

Thankfully Reading Weekend Kickoff

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm joining in on the Thankfully Reading Weekend. No Black Friday shopping madness for me. Uh-uh. Hand me my book and I'm gonna snuggle down for a long reading weekend. To start things off, I'm reading Corpus Christmas by Margaret Maron...gotta get ready for the next holiday, you know. For the rest of the weekend, I'll be working my way through as many books from my 2011 Reading Challenges TBR stack as possible. I'll keep adding the books read in a list below.

1. Corpus Christmas by Margaret Maron (done at 2:50 pm 11/25/11)
2. The High Crusade by Poul Anderson (done at 8:15 pm 11/25/11)
3. Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy L Sayers (done at 1:50 pm 11/27/11)
4. Striding Folly plus two other Wimsey short stories by Dorothy L Sayers (done at 9:30 pm 11/27/11)
5. The Prince Lost to Time by Ann Dukthas

Thankfully Reading Weekend 2011

In just two weeks, the third annual Thankfully Reading Weekend will commence!

Two years ago, Jenn at jennsbookshelves with the help of Candace from Beth FishReads and Jen from Devourer of Books , Thankfully Reading was born! An excuse to do an obscene amount of reading over the long Thanksgiving weekend!

Here are the basic details (for more, click on the Thankful Link above):

There are no rules to the weekend, we’re simply hoping to devote a good amount of time to reading, and perhaps meeting some of our reading challenges and goals for 2011. We thought it’d be fun if we cheered each other on a bit. If you think you can join in, grab the button and sign on to their Mr. Linky. If you don’t have a blog, you can sign up the comments!

I'm definitely in. I have major catch up work to do if I'm going to meet all my challenge deadlines by the end of the year. In fact, according to my Goodreads Challenge, I'm five books behind. How did that happen? "Obscene amounts of reading," here I come.