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Reading report for November 2007

As may be seen from the list I have been on a Ngaio Marsh reading binge, making her the author of half the books I read in November.

It looks like I am not going to finish the 52 mystery authors challenge before the end of the year as I had planned. In fact, I will probably not be reading much until February, as I have just received a big translation job equivalent in length to a short novel (but not nearly as much fun to translate) that will take up most of the time I have allotted to daily reading. (As of December, I have only finished three books, two of which were quickie rereads. If I was reading at my normal pace, I would have finished 7 or 8 books by now).

I have been trying to work up some momentum before I tackle Terry Pratchett’s latest offering, Making Money, by rereading Night Watch to get me in the mood, and I will probably read the previous Moist von Lipwig book, Going Postal, before I start on the new book. Pratchett is one of my favourite authors, but in the last four years or so I have found it increasingly difficult to start reading his newest books. I think it’s because I have read the previous ones so often that they have stopped surprising me (I still enjoy the jokes but now I start chuckling a couple of paragraphs before they actually happen) and deep down I dread not having a new Pratchett book to look forward to. Now that he has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, it looks like that dreaded moment is not as far off as I had imagined (or hoped).

The list:
Edward Abbey: Desert Solitaire
Viktor Arnar Ingólfsson: Engin Spor ("No Trace")
Ngaio Marsh: Artists in Crime, Death at the Bar, Death in a White Tie, Overture to Death
J.D. Robb: Witness in Death
Amy Sutherland: Cookoff: Recipe Fever in America
Mark Twain: The Innocents Abroad

The reread:
Terry Pratchett: Night Watch
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