Reading in June 2023

My deep-dive into The Hobbit continued.

John D Rateliff, The History of The Hobbit

JRR Tolkien; Douglas A Anderson, The Annotated Hobbit

Bryan Perrett, The Hunters and the Hunted: The Elimination of German Surface Warships Around the World, 1914-15

At about 150 pages with no notes or indication of sources, this is something of a whistle-stop tour and lacks context.  This means that some of the chapters raise more questions than they answer (which is fine - a prompt for further reading).  Nevertheless, it's a decent read for sitting out in the garden now the summer's here.

Neil Gaiman & Collen Doran, Troll Bridge

A graphic novel adaption of Gaiman's coming-of-age story that I picked up in a charity shop.

Elmore Leonard, Out of Sight

More summer reading, this from the master of the wise-cracking thriller.  I think I'm right in saying that they made a George Clooney film out of this one.

Even typing this, I'm temped to grab another Leonard off the shelf and go and read it!

Giles Foden, Mimi and Toutou Go Forth: The Bizarre Battle for Lake Tanganyika

Foden's account of the Naval African Expedition - the transportation overland of two motor boats in order to wrest control of Lake Tanganyiki from the Germans in World War I ("It is bother the duty and the tradition of the Royal Navy to engage the enemy wherever there is water to float a ship" as the First Sea Lord put it).  Improbably enought, it was a mostly successful endeavour.  

The book makes much of the antics of the eccentric commander of the expedition, Geoffrey Spicer-Simson.  When it came out, this was something of a sensation and best-seller.  It's a very good read.

V E Tarrant, Battlecruiser Invincible: The History of the First Battlecruiser, 1909-1916

Another short read (how could be be otherwise?), but this is much better than The Hunters and the Hunted.  It starts with a scathing examination of the design criteria that lead to Invincible's destruction contrasting Fisher's misconception that 'speed is the best protection' and 'hitting is the thing' (at a time when the Germans were building faster ships and when Invincible's turrets didn't work properly and she was supplied with dud shells) with von Tirpitz's view that a ship 'must, what ever else, be able to remain afloat and stay in action'.  There follows excellent accounts of the battles of the Falklands and Jutland as well as the rest of Invincible's short carrier, drawing heavily on diaries and eye-witness accounts.  Of particular note are the 14 pages of maps (out of a total of 1558pp), which must be the envy of longer, more 'authorative' works.

Reading in May 2023

Currently Reading

I've continued my deep-dive into Tolkien, moving onto The Hobbit.

John D Rateliff, The History of The Hobbit

JRR Tolkien; Douglas A Anderson, The Annotated Hobbit

Finished Reading

Jodi Taylor, Hard Time

A comic story about Time Police.  It turned out better than I expected in the end, and I may even keep an eye out for more in the same series.

Walter Mosley, Devil in a Blue Dress

One of those books I've been meaning to read for a long time.  Well worth the wait.  I'm interested to see whether, as the Rawlings stories move out of the 1940s and into the 60s, they continue in this Chandleresque vein, or whether Mosley uses a different flavour.

Reading in April 2023

Finished Reading

JRR Tolkien, The Father Christmas Letters

A series of delightful stories (delightfully illustrated) which come from letters written over a 20-year period by Tolkien to his children.

Apparently latter editions (published as Letters from Father Christmas) contain material not included in this one, and I'll certainly seek a copy out.

Paul Gannon, Inside Room 40

In this interesting and well-written book, Gannon looks at British codebreaking in World War I.  In doing so, he dispells some of the myths (deliberately planted he suggests) about the foundation and operation of Room 40.

As well as the Admiralty's Room 40 he looks at what little is known of the War Office's equivilent MI 1(a).  Work between the two wasn't co-ordinated and there was little co-operation before 1916, but broadly Room 40 (or ID 25 as it was properly known later in the war) concentrated on wireless intercepts, whereas MI 1(a) worked on cable intercepts.  As well as providing naval and military intelligence they each worked on political (ie, diplomatic) intelligence, with important results - most famously the interception and publishing of the Zimmermann Telegram.

JRR Tolkien, The Silmarillion

Carrying on from last month, I continued reading The Silmarillion in conjunction with episodes of The Prancing Pony Podcast, which considers a chapter in each episode.  That proved a very profitable was of doing it.  It was something of a time committment though - the podcast spent over 60 hours of audio discussing the book!

Kim Newman, Something More Than Night

Raymond Chandler and Boris Karloff team up to fight horrors in 30s Hollywood, written in Newman's inimical style.  Fun stuff.

Larry Niven, Ringworld

One of those books that I could never remember whether I'd read or not.  I'm nown pretty sure I hadn't.

Reading in March 2023

 

Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front

With all the Oscar hype, I thought I better read this classic, which for some inexplicable reason I hadn't read before (possible because I'd seen at least two of the adaptations on tv).  In my mind it was a big, thick book but in fact it's quite slim.

Its reputation is, of course, justified.

Isaac Asimov, The Gods Themselves

According to the blurb on the front, this is Asimov's finest creation.  It's far from that.  But, as novels about entropy go, it's a decent read.

Fred Hoyle, Ossian's Ride

I surprised myself by quite enjoying the Hoyle book I read back in 2021, so I thought I'd give this one a go.  

The problem I had was that Hoyle isn't known for his sublty, so I went in dreading the kind of shaggy dog story an Englishman writing about Ireland in 1959 would put together.  When it developed into a silly spy plot, I gave up on it.  There might be something clever at the heart of the Industrial Corporation of Eire but, if so, I didn't get to it.

Fred Hoyle and Geoffrey Hoyle, Rockets in Ursa Major

I felt guilty about not finishing Ossian's Ride, so decided to give Hoyle another chance with this book which I picked up at the same time.

Apparently it's based on 'a play what he wrote'.  That might explain why it's terse, but not why every so often we get irrelevant details about lifts or things like air traffic control between London and Cambridge (I would rather have seen more effort given to the characters).  It's just not very good, so I didn't finish this one either.

Arthur C Clarke, Childhood's End

So I thought I'd go back to a classic (even if it's aged rather oddly).  One of Clarke's best.

Kevin Crossley-Holland, Between Worlds: Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland

For reasons, I've decided to read up on folklore of the British Isles.  Crossley-Holland is an excellent story-teller, so seemed a good on to start with.

JRR Tolkien, The Silmarillion

I've started listening to The Prancing Pony Podcast (which I heartily recommend).  Each episode covers a chapter of Tolkien's writings starting with the Silmarillion.

So I've decided to re-read this famously difficult book (I read it 30-old years ago and found it hard going) with their guidance.  That's paying off (or it might be that I've acquired the wisdom of years).  No doubt it will take some time...

Tolkien Reading Day

Aparently, in a series of events organised by the Tolkien Society since 2003, March 25th* has been celebrated as Tolkien Reading Day.  The idea is to encourage fans to celebrate and promote the life and works of JRR Tolkien by reading favourite passages. 

*Which as we all know is the aniversary of the Fall of Barad-dûr.

This year's theme is 'Travel and Adventure'.  Quite a lot of Tolkien's writings are about Travel in one way or another, but for me one that is mainly about Adventure is The Hobbit.  I say this because, for Bilbo at least, this is a journey taken for it's own sake and not because of duty or fulfilment of a quest.

So, this Saturday 25 March I shall be sitting down and reading the opening chapters of The Hobbit, in which - much to his own surprise - Master Bilbo Baggins is swept along into An Adventure.

One needs a good map for effective travel

Reading in February 2023

 

Scott Lynch, The Republic of Thieves

I continued reading the Gentleman Bastards sequence from last month.  In this installment, Locke and Jean are employed by their worse enemies to rig a city election.  To stir things up a little, their opponents' campaign is being run by a long-lost friend.  A side-plot told in flashback is the story of the young Bastards' first forray - blagging their way in the company of actors.

A very enjoyable and fun read.

Richard Osman, The Bullet That Missed

Another outing for the Thursday Murder Club, this time looking into a cold-case involving the disappearance of a reporter.

Neil Gaiman, Stardust

A tale about a young man venturing into Faerie to fulfill a quest for his Lady Love.

Everything a modern fairy story should be.  Quite sublime.

Bayt al Azif, No 4

Another issue of the annual(ish) journal for Cthulhu mythos roleplaying.  It has all the features we've come to expect - high quality production, an over-veiw of publications (in this case for 2020), three scenarios, interviews (here including Mike Mason) and articles.

Brian Lumley, Return of the Deep Ones and Other Mythos Tales

This I'd picked up on a whim because it was heading to the bin.  It was much better than I expected - I thought it was going to be 1980s schlock-horror.  One tale dragged on rather, but the title story was pretty good.

Isaac Asimov, The Foundation Trilogy

I couldn't resist this beautiful hardback edition by Everyman Press collecting the original Foundation books.  It must be over 40 years since I last read them, but I thought they held up rather well.

I dipped into Trillion Year Spree, and Grumpy Old Brian Aldiss tells me not to bother with the very belated sequels, so I won't!

Reading in Jan 2023

 The first two are books left over from December.

CS Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

The book that introduced me to Narnia over 45 years ago.   I wrote about it last month.

Peter Moore, Endeavour: The Ship and the Attitude that Changed the World

I really enjoyed this splendid biography of Capt Cook's ship, covering  1764-1778.  As the author says, these years  “form a mini-epoch in the development of Western society”, and he was able to use the ship to explore that.  

I knew Endeavour ended up in the American War of Independence, but it was news to me that she was instrumental in the early British settlement of the Falkland Islands. 

CS Lewis, The Silver Chair

Things start to get a bit darker in Narnia.  

This and Dawn Treader were always my favorite of the Chronicles.  Quite possibly because Eustace Scrubb is a lot less annoying than his cousins and I always liked Puddleglum.

Bayt al Azif: A Magazine for Cthulhu Mythos Roleplaying, No 3

An interesting read, as always.  I must have had this on my to-read pile for over a year, as I see that No 4 is already out.

The main articles were the round-up of mythos gaming publications in 2019, a look at why Call of Cthulhu is the leader in the Japanese TTRPG scene, and an article on using Sanity loss.  There were three scenarios, which all looked interesting, but you never know until you play them.

Paul StJohn Mackintosh, Casting the Runes: Occult Investigation in the World of M R James

A guide to running RPGs in the world of MR James and other horror writers of the 1900s-1920s.  It's a setting that I'm interested in (I consider myself a fan of James), and I will certainly steal the premise if I ever get around to running a horror game.  The reservation I have is that it's written for games using the GUMSHOE system, which I don't know.  Quite frankly, I don't want to go down the rabbit-hole of a new system, when I haven't really got my head fully around Call of Cthulhu: if I was to run a game it would be using CoC or Pulp Cthulhu.

CS Lewis, The Last Battle

Narnian eschatology.

Everyone's least favourite book in the Chronicles.  Partly because of the subject matter, partly because Lewis allegory (and some would say, racist elements) are the most heavy-handed here.

And I really should mention Neil Gaiman's short story 'The Problem of Susan', which deals with Susan's exclusion from Narnia and paradise for liking nylons and lipstick too much.  It can be read here (but isn't suitable for youngsters).

Various, Murder Under the Christmas Tree

Another from the anthology series I read back in December.

Publishing this sort of thing must be money for old rope when people are desparate for Christmas presents!  But it was a good mix of stories.

Scott Lynch, The Lies of Locke Lamora

This is the first in the 'Gentleman Bastards' series about a group of conmen and theives.  I was re-reading it because, although I've read the first two books in the trilogy (and typically, I see that there is a "second trilogy" planned), I've only just acquired the third.

In this instalment we're introduced to the Locke Lamora and the Gentlemen Bastards, a gang of conmen posing as petty theives.  While secretly doing one of thier Big Jobs, they get entangled in a bloody underworld succession battle.

I'd remembered this as a masterclass in world-building, and the opening pages confirmed this.  It's really an excellent piece of work.  Whether reading three 600-odd page books after another is sustainable remains to be seen.

Scott Lynch, Red Seas Under Red Skies

Locke and Jean flee their home city and plot a casino heist.  But old enemies follow...

And there are pirates!

Reading in Dec 2022

Having been bogged down recently in some turgid anthologies, I decided to aim for lighter fare and had a bit of a December splurge...

Isaac Asimov, Earth is Room Enough

A collection of Asimov's short stories, all based on earth.  It being Asimov, there is a proportion of silliness and a couple of groaners, but on the whole good stuff.

Cecily Gayford (ed), Murder on a Winter's Night: Ten Classic Crime Stories for Christmas

The sub-title says it all, really.

Cecily Gayford (ed), A Very Murderous Christmas: Ten Classic Crime Stories for the Festive Season

More of the same...

Both of these books took me back 30 years to a period in which my future wife was introducing me to the glories of green Penguins.  Some good memories there.

I really must read some Margery Allingham and Dorothy L Sayers soon.

Natalie Haynes,  A Thousand Ships

Haynes is well-known as a stand-up comic and classicist - I strongly recommend that you look online and find some of her work (in the UK, you should be able to listen here).

But there aren't many laughs in this marvellous re-telling of the women (and nymphs and goddesses) entangled in the Trojan War.  Epic tradegy, but highly recommended.

Brian Sibley, The Land of Narnia

A brief look at how the Chronicles of Narnia came to be written.  Aimed at younger readers and a large part is taken up with a summary of the books, but Sibley knows his stuff, of course (I imagine he could have done this in his sleep).

C S Lewis, The Magician's Nephew

It makes me feel very old to say that it's over 45 years since I first read this.  There are images in this book that still colour my approach to fantasy - nevertheless, one can still find new sides to old favorites.

C S Lewis, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

Being a contrary child, I never read this along with the rest of the Chronicles of Narnia.  I'm pretty sure that this is the first time I've read it at all!

Jonathan Tucker, The Troublesome Priest: Harold Davidson, Rector of Stiffkey

Biography of the Rector of Stiffkey - famously defrocked for immoral relations with prostitutes he was 'rescuing' and pestering shopgirls - who later became a sideshow performer and was killed by a circus lion in Skegness.

Tucker's verdict that Davidson was a fool, but not immoral, might have been alright in 1932 or 2004 (when he was writing), but makes unconvincing reading in 2020.  The man was obviously both a fool and a sex-pest.

CS Lewis, The Horse and His Boy

Lewis takes beyond the borders of Narnia into his Arabian analogue for this tale of runaway orphans, princesses and horses.

CS Lewis, Prince Caspian

The Pesvenie children make their second visit to Narnia, and help legitimise a dynasty.

Currently Reading

Peter Moore, Endeavour: The Ship and the Attitude that Changed the World

A splendid biography of Capt Cook's ship.  

For a little while I lived in a house of an age and location to have overlooked the yard in which Endeavour was being built, so the early chapters were of particular interest to me.

CS Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

The book that introduced me to Narnia over 45 years ago.  Reading it now, it makes me long for those island-hoping holidays we had in the Western Isles when I was a boy.

Reading in Nov 2022

 

Robert Harris, Munich

Unusually for Harris, no so much a thriller as a straight historical novel.  Possibly because the events around the Munich Conference and the nascent contacts between the German opposition to Hitler and the British don't need much embellishing.  But probably also because the conference has been a long-term interest of Harris' (he made a documentary about it for the 50th anniversary in 1988), and he feels that he needs it to be written about to rescue it from being a byword for craven capitulation.

Derek Wilson, A Brief History of the Circumnavigators

I enjoyed this overview of circumnavigation from Magellan to the solo yatchsmen.  I wonder why he missed out Darwin/FitzRoy?

It reminded me that I have Dampier's account of his journeys half-read by my bed and shelves of exploration books I haven't touched in years.

Mike Ashley (ed), Born of the Sun: Adventures in Our Solar System

Another in the British Library's series of works of classic science-fiction.  This one is an anthology, providing a story for each significant location in the solar system (excluding the Earth/Moon).

Like others in the series, I found that it dragged, and I couldn't help but wonder if some of the authors were neglected for good reason.  Having read the books in the series that I'd bought, I don't think I'll go back for any more.