Updated reading plan

An attempt to keep myself honest so I don't just start buying new books as if I don't currently have 14 books on my Kindle. Books here are listed as OK (on kindle), NW (Nero Wolfe books), and GGK (by Guy Gavriel Kay for the favorite book exchange). 

1. Coming in from the cold (Gravity book 1) (on kindle)
2. Ruthless: Scientology, My Son David Miscavige, and Me
3. Star Dust (on kindle)
4. Earth Bound (for podcast)
5. Murder by the Book (Nero Wolfe)
6. Prisoner's Base (NW)
7. Outlaw Cowboy (ok)
8. Checkmate (Dunnett re-read)
9. How to Catch a Wild Viscount (OK)
10. Beguiled (on kindle)
11. Capturing the Silken Thief (on kindle)
12. Hot in Hellcat Canyon (pre-order)
13. Triple Jeopardy (NW)
14. Danubia (giant non-fiction book on my bookshelf taking up space)
15. The Corrupt Comte (ok)
16. The Girl Next Door (ok)
17. The Other Side of Midnight (podcast)
18. Be Not Afraid (OK)
19. The Hanging Tree: A Rivers of London Novel (pre-order)
20. Courtiers (non-fiction paperback)
21. The Golden Spiders (NW)
22. Rise of a Queen (ok)
23. The Black Mountain (NW)
24. The Bohemian and the Banker (ok)
25. Three Men Out (NW)
26. Scrap Metal (ok)
27. Vermeer's Hat (ok non-fiction)
28. Before Midnight (nw)
29. Under Heaven (GGK)
30. Might As Well Be Dead (NW)
31. The Slipstream Con (ok)
32. The Closer You Get (ok)
33. Three Witnesses (NW)
34. Spice and Smoke (ok)
35. Heat Trap: The Plumber's Mate (ok)
36. If Death Ever Slept (NW)
37. Driving Her Crazy (ok)
38. The Scandalous Lady W (paperback non-fiction)
39. Three for the Chair (NW)
40. Dirty Thoughts (ok)
41. And Four to Go (NW)
42. River of Stars (GGK)
43. Champagne for One (NW)
44. The Simpsons and their Mathematical Secrets (ok)
45. Plot it Yourself (NW)
46. Trade Me (WHY HAVEN'T I READ THIS YET)
47. Three at Wolfe's Door (NW)
48. Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years (non-fiction ok)
49. Too Many Clients (NW)

The Ringed Castle, Dorothy Dunnett

A reread, of course, and I have a lot to say but I'm not sure how to talk about it without spoiling everything.

Ten years ago I got halfway through part two of this book and put it down for six months. My memories of this book are misery, Lymond being really mean, and endless scenes of description of Russia. I knew it set up important things for Checkmate, though, so I wasn't going to skip it in my reread.

Me from the past, I have good news and bad news.

The bad news: you could BASICALLY skip all of part two, Lymond's Adventures in Russia, and not miss that much plot. Or any plot. I'm genuinely not sure any forward story momentum would be lost if you just read part one (In Which Philippa Is The Best) and then skipped straight to part three (Back In England). Well, you'd miss a pretty great fight scene, you'd miss a pretty great sex scene, and you'd miss Diccon Chancellor, who I like a lot. (Don't google him, he's a real guy, you'll spoil yourself for good stuff.)

The good news, though, is that I got through this book in four days, so no, it's not an unreadable slog. Part one is a delight, as it's 90% narrated by Philippa, who is my favorite character in the series. (Petition to rename books four, five, and six The Legendary Philippa Chronicles.) Part three has a lot of stuff I can't talk about without spoiling really important plot that readers shouldn't be spoiled for. Francis is, indeed, a total jerk for a lot of the book, but he's not the icy monster I thought I remembered. He's sad, and he's struggling, and he has perfectly good reasons for everything he does, if you look at it from his point of view. There is some brutally emotional stuff where everyone is furious with everyone else, and it makes sense no matter who you sympathize with.

Very mild spoiler, I guess: Francis gets the punch in the mouth he's been basically begging for the whole book, and it's delivered by someone who richly deserves a chance to punch Francis in the mouth.

The REALLY good news: Dunnett hits nearly all the swashbuckling tropes in these books. There are sudden rescues, noble self sacrifice, near-death experiences, sudden reveals, sudden reversals, chess games and card games fraught with tension, prophecy, disguise... I mean, it's all here. But it's not until The Ringed Castle that you get romance, with all its over the top tropes, including fainting, pining, and sudden revelations of "oh no, I fucked up; I love her."

(DID I MENTION PINING? THERE IS PINING.)

And at the end there is some unbearable -- no, you know what, even to name the trope would be to spoil it, mildly, so I won't. I'll just sit here shouting at my Kindle and highlighting virtually every sentence to reread, possibly while crying, later.

Grade: .......this is as close as I'm coming to giving any of these books a B, because you really can skip the middle, but damn the end is SO GOOD. A.

#40 in 2016

Curtains for Three, Rex Stout

I told you. Rough weekend = all the Nero Wolfe books. This is another set of three novellas, so even though I finished it last night I have only the vaguest recollection. Let me check. Goodreads says: "Three clever murderers challenge Nero Wolfe in cases involving lovers who want to make sure neither is a killer, a stable full of suspects in the search for a killer on horseback, and a murderer stalking Wolfe's brownstone."

Okay, yes, I do remember this. In the first one there's a dead guy but the gun wasn't there and then it was; Wolfe is hired by two lovers who want to get married but both kind of believe the other one murdered her ex-husband so they can be together. That one's good. The second one is actually, for a Nero Wolfe mystery, pretty simplistic, and as soon as the guy had an iron-clad alibi I was like, "Well, he probably did it and set up that alibi somehow."

The third story I think I remember reading as a kid, because it involves Archie letting himself be tied up and beaten by bad guys briefly, and man. If there's a scene guaranteed to get a reread from teenage me, tie up your cocky protagonist and have someone slap him around a little. (The only other scene I've vividly remembered in 18 books is one where Archie was drugged and passed out. I am very predictable.)

Grade: B
#39 in 2016

Three Doors to Death, Rex Stout

I had a terribly stressful weekend, so I retreated into reading formulaic murder mysteries. It's so comforting. And for whatever reason there are volumes and volumes of Nero Wolfe mystery novellas. They're all collections of threes -- Three Doors to Death, Trouble in Triplicate, Curtains for Three.

Luckily Stout can write a great novella. Short mysteries are great, and they make for very relaxing reading. I know exactly when all the problems will be solved.

...of course, if you asked me which three stories, specifically, were in THIS volume, I'd have to admit I have no idea. Goodreads says: "a man unsuccessfully attempts suicide just before he is killed, a murder victim's family hides the identity of the killer, and a horticulturist discovers his girlfriend's body."

I have no idea what that first one is talking about, that second one could be literally ANY BOOK in this series, and the third one I do remember, and it was great. Thumbs up! I think!

Grade: B

#38 in 2016

In the Best Families, Rex Stout

THIS IS THE BEST NERO WOLFE BOOK YET.

It's the payoff of the vague ~big bad guy that was set up in a couple of books before this one. Nero Wolfe accepts a job that brings him into direct confrontation with that bad guy, and so while Archie is out investigating  a murder, Wolfe vanishes. Seriously; he finds new jobs for Theodore the orchids guy and Fritz his cook, and puts the brownstone on 35th street up for sale. (GIVE IT TO MEEEEE.) Archie kind of thinks he's bluffing, until weeks and then months go by. After a while Archie quits and starts his own private detective company.

It's such a delight seeing the books break out of the normal formula. No one sits around in Wolfe's office while he considers who's lying. Archie doesn't wine and dine any pretty young ladies. It's like a season finale; everyone is on their own, everything is terrible, and Archie is just barely coping. (His sarcasm is delightfully monstrous by the end.)

And just when I thought it couldn't get better, Lily Rowan shows up. She's the best. Don't try and tell me she and Archie aren't madly in love. He plans a vacation and then later in the book grudgingly admits he was MAYBE, KINDA, SORTA gonna take her. She's also the woman he always turns to when he needs one for a set-up to catch a criminal. She's smart and he trusts her. (He loooooves her.)

This book was such a delight. I'm still not sure the conceit of having an arch nemesis for Wolfe works, nor did I ever think Mr. X was ever bad or smart enough to really match wits with Wolfe. But this book was so much fun because it was different from start to finish, and the twists are really great, and Archie is SO grumpy. I loved this.

Grade: A
#37 in 2016

Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay

This is the kind of book that's so obviously good that most of what I want to talk about is poking holes and asking questions. I don't know if this happens to anyone else, but when I watch or read something that's GREAT, I want to deconstruct it and look at all the insides.

This is a classic fairytale; evil wizards have taken over the land, and there's a missing prince who has to figure out how to get rid of them, unite his people, and reclaim his country. This is difficult because the evil wizard has cast a spell so no one except people born there can even remember the name of his country. But Kay goes in for all the nitty-gritty. It isn't easy and it isn't particularly romantic.  It has a lot of classic tropes -- the young singer who gets swept up in the adventure, the prince and his best friend from childhood, the fiery young redheaded girl who's part of the team... these are people I've run into in lots of books, which probably borrowed them in part from this one. I wish I'd read this one when I was a teenager, when they would have been fresher for me. It's like when I finally watched Annie Hall in my late 20s. None of the jokes landed especially well, because I've seen them ripped off and redone (not always as well) so many times.

Anyway, there is adventuring and singing and traveling and romance and wizards and a couple of BIG surprise twists and some very sad backstory, and evil badguys, and romance. Sort of. Kay is kiiiind of part of the school of romance mixed hand-in-hand with tragedy. Which can be beautiful, and one of my clearest book memories is bawling my eyes out over the Lions of Al-Rassan. (Oh man, the end of that book.) I liked the mix of romance and tragedy here, and all the musings about how we'll be remembered, and what it means to make choices. Just a really lovely, thoughtful story. A fairytale with meditation.

Before I go into the other thing here, I want to make it clear -- I liked this book a lot. I enjoyed reading it. I love these tropes and I got VERY misty-eyed at the end. The epilogue is LOVELY and all I want is a thousand stories about after the epilogue. I'd read all of them.

Okay, but: if I had one noticing about this book (that's what we do at work, we "notice," we don't judge) it's that there is a very odd undercurrent with regards to women. None of it on its own would be much to talk about, but taken all together there's a pattern. Mild spoilers follow.

So many of the female characters are defined by their sexual availability. Our firey red-headed heroine, whom I like a lot, fucks Devin in a closet in a very early scene to stop him overhearing plans. Then in flashback we see that she's made a big deal of how she isn't going to sleep with anyone. One of our main characters, in order to get revenge on the evil wizard, has become a member of his harem, and one of his most favored ladies. She likes him (specifically sex with him) so much that she hasn't been able to bring herself to murder him (maybe). We meet a queen (kind of) who has clearly slept with everyone involved in our hero's group; she comes to Devin's door in the middle of the night and has crazy sex with him all night, including tying him to the bed when he's not sure he wants to continue. It's a real learning moment for him, we're told. There's a woman fighting midnight evil monsters, who brings one of our main characters into her fight, and then sleeps with him after they triumph. Oh, and there's a country that had a matriarchy, which is uniformly presented as a negative thing that has destroyed trade, but now a guy has murdered the high priestess and taken over, and everything is going to be better.

None of these female characters would bother me on their own, but as a group it seems like this book has a very specific view of women and power, and how women get and wield power. (In fairness, there is an elderly mother who isn't presented in terms of who she slept with, and there is a romantic interest, whom I liked a lot, who doesn't sleep with anyone. She is kind of a classic Good Girl, though, contrasted with all these sexy, powerful women, including her little sister who is desperate for sex and marriage.) Just... taken together, it all felt like a lot. This is one of those things that isn't going to bother or even ping most people. For me, it felt like a pattern that I'd like to talk about more. I haven't read enough Kay as an adult to know if it's pervasive or specific to this book.

So there are all my thoughts! This was a long, lovely book that honestly felt like it could have been even longer, and I would have enjoyed it. A three-book series, maybe, with a set of sequels that went on and on and on, and I'd read all of them.

Grade: .......value is undefined. Can't do it. Either a B or an A, depending on how you're looking at it.

#36 in 2016

Trouble in Triplicate, Rex Stout

When I get stressed about too many book choices, I end up reading Nero Wolfe. For a while I was stressed about what to do when I run out of Nero Wolfe, but I think I'll just move on to Amelia Peabody books. Anyway.

This is a collection of three novellas; in each, someone wants to hire Wolfe to stop him from being murdered. In each, Wolfe is basically like "No, if someone wants to kill you it's super easy to do, go away," and then the person is murdered, and Wolfe figures out who did it and why. You can tell that these are republished from earlier publication because Archie is in the Army again in two of them, which I always enjoy.

I one of these, a well-known gangster wants to hire Wolfe to protect his daughter. There's a great twist. In the second, Wolfe hires someone to impersonate himself so no one can murder him. That one has a pretty okay twist, but does require Wolfe to temporarily not be a genius. The third one has a man who makes fake cigars come to Wolfe and announce that his business partner is trying to kill him (and then he's killed by an exploding cigar). This one has a GREAT twist.

In all of them, Archie is a sarcastic monster. He hits on a lot of ladies and yells at Nero Wolfe. Each of these novellas is long enough to be satisfying and short enough to read in a single sitting. I don't normally like short stories but I do like these mini mysteries.

Grade: A

#35 in 2016

A Gentleman's Position, KJ Charles

The third book in the Society of Gentlemen series! I love this series, but guys, let me be clear: I want a full-length novel about Ash and Francis. Most of my thoughts at the end of this book were "BUT WHERE IS ASH?? HE IS SO SAD, IS FRANCIS MAKING HIM FEEL BETTER? DOES FRANCIS THREATEN HIS BROTHER A LOT???? IS THERE A LOT OF H/C SEX GOING ON???"

But that's not the book that KJ Charles wrote, so: This is the last book, and it wraps up a bunch of plots from previous books. I do love how intertwined they are. Often in a romance series, once a couple is happily in love, they vanish from the series except to tease the new protagonist about being in love. But Julius and Harry, and Silas and Dom, and Ash and Francis, are all really important in this book, too, which is finally about Richard and his valet, David Cyprian. I loved checking in with everyone, and seeing how they're doing, and seeing the consequences of Harry and Silas being involved in revolutionary activities. I love how grounded in real history these parts are.

As for Richard and David... Well, Richard means well, I think, but he hasn't been my favorite character up to now. David I have enjoyed, and he has a lot of interesting history, but feelings-wise there isn't a lot of THERE there for me. Richard is a bit of a pompous stick in the mud in this. I understand the motivations behind it, and I understand that it's so he can loosen up, but I rolled my eyes so many times.

Essentially: Richard is in love with his valet, David, who is also in love with him. Richard has some very understandable reservations about dating a servant who has no real recourse to say no, but this is a romance novel, so David is mostly offended that Richard doesn't think he can decide things for himself, or say no if he wants to. Richard handles everything as badly as possible, so David, very understandably leaves. Richard follows, they have great sex, and then Richard screws it up again. He comes home to sulk, and that's when the bad guy set up in book one finally goes off, and the plot starts -- and the only one who can save Richard and his buddies from books 1 and 2 from being hanged or exposed is David.

David is great. His plan is great. The Big Confrontation Scene is so great. But I wanted to know what Harry and Julius thought about it, and I REALLY wanted to know what was going on with Ash and Francis, since the bad guy is Ash's brother and Francis's nemesis. I wanted this to be a big sprawling novel like War and Peace where we see each couple and their romances and tragedies (except, ending entirely happily, unlike War and Peace.) I liked this book, but as soon as I got to the end I went back to the Big Confrontation Scene again and read that two more times, because it's hilarious and wonderful. (I did the same thing at the end of book 2, because Ash is so delightfully Ash-ish.)

This book is fine, and I love the (barely a) novella about Ash and Francis THAT EXISTS, but man, I just really want their take on these events.

Grade: B
#34 in 2016

Her Every Wish, Courtney Milan

Man, I just always wish novellas were novels. This is a very cute story about how Daisy (Judith's best friend from the first book in this series) dreams of opening her own shop, and the rascally, arrogant man she slept with, who broke her heart. They used to know each other; they work together to win a competition, they fall back in love. It's adorable. But it's so SHORT, there's barely any there there. I like Daisy, and once Crash realized he was being a dick and apologized I liked him to, but I felt like the ending was a litttttle obvious, and the metaphors were a liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittle heavy-handed.

Grade: C
#33 in 2016

Veronica Mars: Mr. Kiss and Tell, Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham

I love the first season of Veronica Mars like I have loved almost no other television show, ever (Friday Night Lights, I guess, Farscape, Band of Brothers, NewsRadio). The second season has episodes worth watching and I don't talk about the third season, but the MOVIE WAS EVERYTHING, and so I've been delighted to read the post-movie books, where we explore Veronica's life as a P.I. and her relationship with Logan.

First things first: WHY ISN'T LOGAN IN THESE BOOKS MORE. I get that he's navy now, and it's great, and the scene at the end where he explains why he has to go back to the navy, yes, sure, was lovely and I love him. But he's BARELY IN these books, except when Veronica is panicking that their relationship won't work out.

Logan is great because he is Veronica's partner. In life, in crime, in love, whatever. He can keep up with her, he's as bad as she is, he's as twisted as she is, he's as soft inside as she is. LET LOGAN HELP VERONICA SOLVE MYSTERIES FFS, ROB THOMAS (whom, it must be said, I don't believe really wrote this book beyond the outline).

Yeah, I'm that kind of Veronica Mars fan.

Anyway, the mystery is typically Veronica Mars horrifying (a woman is nearly beaten to death and raped). It's hilarious how everyone in Neptune in these books is someone Veronica has met before, and hates. (Hey, Madison Sinclair.) It's not a book that is going to live forever as a classic mystery that will blow! your! mind! but it's a fun beach read, and I was at the beach. (Yes, the beach in April, where we sat inside and made a fire and watched TV. It was great.)

Grade: C
#32 in 2016

And Be A Villain, Rex Stout

I went away for the weekend and read and read and read (three books and 3/4 of a non-fiction book). One, because I needed a break, was the next Nero Wolfe. They are always easy and delightful.

On the other hand, two days later it's a little hard to remember which book was which, so let me try... Right, a lady works for a radio station, her guest gets poisoned. This one's a little weird, because Wolfe basically gives up and just tells the cops what he's figured out and Archie waits around impatiently. So there isn't a ton of detecting, although Archie does get to be great in one scene. There are barely even any ladies for him to hit on. The villain kind of comes out of nowhere, and it's the introduction of Wolfe's Moriarty (whom I don't care about) so.... ehhhhhhh. Nothing's wrong in this book, but it's not a must-read.

Grade: C
#31 in 2016