Reading report for March 2013

I had one of my big reading months in March, with a total of 24 books finished. I had a lot of free time in March, having taken a week off from work at the beginning of the month, and then there was Easter. This gave me plenty of time to read.

Romance predominated, but I also read in various other genres, including mysteries (one historical and one historical and supernatural), cultural history, natural history, folk-tales, parapsychology, a travelogue, a classic children‘s book, and a book about pseudoscience and science fraud.

Just like last month, one of the month‘s stand-out reads was a reread: Persuasion is by far my favourite Austen novel. The other stand-outs were Spook, which I thoroughly enjoyed, just like the other two Roach books I have read (Stiff and Bonk) and Where the Wild Things Are, which I would have loved had I read it as a child and still thoroughly enjoyed as an adult.

I also must mention What the Librarian Did by Karina Bliss, which was brought to my attention by the Smart Bitches blog a couple of years ago as an excellent contemporary romance, which it is. Thanks, Smart Bitches, I owe you.

And now I think it is time I came out and said it: I am addicted to Nora Roberts‘s romance novels. I am fine with her standalone novels – I can read one and then go and read something by someone else, but if I start one of her series books, I must finish the rest of the series. I read 2 series – a total of 9 books – in March, plus the first book in a third series. Most of the series books she wrote for Silhouette aren‘t up to the same standard as her longer standalone novels but I find myself drawn to them despite the often recycled characters (and sometimes plot points) and annoying recurrent expressions because these books pack an irresistible and gratifying positive emotional punch into a relatively small number of pages and they never fail to cheer me up.

The Books

Tasha Alexander: And Only to Deceive. Historical mystery.
Jane Austen: Persuasion. Romantic fiction. Reread.
Bjarni E. Guðleifsson: Náttúruskoðarinn I: Úr dýraríkinu and Náttúruskoðarinn II: Úr jurtaríkinu. Natural history.
Karina Bliss: What the Librarian Did. Romance, contemporary.
Colin Cotterill: Thirty-three Teeth. Historical mystery (supernatural).
Jennifer Crusie: Anyone But You. Romance, contemporary. Reread.
Ben Goldacre: Bad Science. Pseudoscience, fraud.
Georgette Heyer: The Reluctant Widow. Historical romance. Reread.
Ewan & Charley Boorman McGregor: Long Way Round. Travelogue.
Ólafur Davíðsson: Íslenzkar þjóðsögur I. Folk-tales.
Mary Roach: Spook: Science tackles the afterlife. Popular science, parapsychology.
Nora Roberts: Calhoun Women series: Courting Catherine, A Man for Amanda, For the Love of Lilah, Suzanna's Surrender, Megan's Mate. Romance, contemporary.
Nora Roberts: MacKade Brothers series: The Return of Rafe MacKade, The Pride of Jared MacKade, The Heart of Devin MacKade, The Fall of Shane MacKade. Romance, contemporary.
Nora Roberts: Night Shift. Romantic suspense.
A. L. Rowse: Heritage of Britain. Cultural history.
Maurice Sendak: Where the Wild Things Are. Fantasy, illustrated children‘s book.

Icelandic folk-tale: The Laughing Merman

Icelanders not only believed in the existence of selkies, but also in mer-people. The mermaids were said to be very beautiful, while the mermen were supposed to be ugly as sin but very wise and able to see things others did not. O nce upon a time a farmer went out fishing and pulled up a merman. He tried to get the merman to talk to him but he would not answer, except to beg him to release him back into the sea, but this the farmer refused to do. The farmer rowed back to land, taking the captive merman with him. When he pulled up the boat on the shore, his wife came to him and greeted him with tenderness and kisses, which he received with pleasure. This made the merman laugh. Then the man’s dog came to him and greeted him tenderly in the way of dogs, by jumping up to him, but the farmer hit the dog. Again the merman laughed. Then the farmer walked up towards his house, but on the way he tripped over a tussock and hurt himself. He got angry and gave the tussock a good kicking. Then...

List love: 10 recommended stories with cross-dressing characters

This trope is almost as old as literature, what with Achilles, Hercules and Athena all cross-dressing in the Greek myths, Thor and Odin disguising themselves as women in the Norse myths, and Arjuna doing the same in the Mahabaratha. In modern times it is most common in romance novels, especially historicals in which a heroine often spends part of the book disguised as a boy, the hero sometimes falling for her while thinking she is a boy. Occasionally a hero will cross-dress, using a female disguise to avoid recognition or to gain access to someplace where he would never be able to go as a man. However, the trope isn’t just found in romances, as may be seen in the list below, in which I recommend stories with a variety of cross-dressing characters. Unfortunately I was only able to dredge up from the depths of my memory two book-length stories I had read in which men cross-dress, so this is mostly a list of women dressed as men. Ghost Riders by Sharyn McCrumb. One of the interwove...

Bibliophile discusses Van Dine’s rules for writing detective stories

Writers have been putting down advice for wannabe writers for centuries, about everything from how to captivate readers to how to build a story and write believable characters to getting published. The mystery genre has had its fair share, and one of the best known advisory essays is mystery writer’s S.S. Van Dine’s 1928 piece “Twenty rules for writing detective stories.” I mentioned in one of my reviews that I might write about these rules. Well, I finally gave myself the time to do it. First comes the rule (condensed), then what I think about it. Here are the Rules as Van Dine wrote them . (Incidentally, check out the rest of this excellent mystery reader’s resource: Gaslight ) The rules are meant to apply to whodunnit amateur detective fiction, but the main ones can be applied to police and P.I. fiction as well. I will discuss them mostly in this context, but will also mention genres where the rules don’t apply and authors who have successfully and unsuccessfully broken the rules. 1...

Reading in Reykjavík

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