Tag: Nero Wolfe

My Second Book of the Year?

After finishing my first book of the year last week, I now am stuck on what will be my second book of the year…that I finish. I already have abandoned two:

However, because of a telephone conversation with that friend last week, I am refocusing much of my reading on what I know I love: older murder mysteries along the lines of Agatha Christie and the like.

So now I am thinking the second book that I will finish this year might be Over My Dead Body, the seventh in the Nero Wolfe series, by Rex Stout. I restarted reading/rereading the series in 2017 and now am returning to doing that. When I was a teenager, I read many of them, although I’m not sure if I read all of them. That’s why I wanted to restart them especially when I learned that the Free Library of Philadelphia had all 33 of the novels available on ebook.

Beyond Over My Dead Body…

I have several other books on the radar, including those in this stack (that also includes DVDs) I picked up after getting a community patron card at a local state university:

Among the books in the stack are a couple books by Haruki Murakami. When I posted the photo, Monika (lovelybookshelf on Instagram) mentioned a new Murakami Book Club on discord with the first book being Norwegian Wood. Even though I didn’t know what discord is, I decided to join. The group begins discussing the first four chapters tomorrow and all this week on discord, which I know is a free voice and text chat for gamers. Then the group will discuss subsequent chapters through the week of Feb. 16 to Feb. 22. The only thing my book is due back Feb. 12. I guess I hope no one puts a hold on it between now and then. Otherwise, I might have to find it elsewhere…or…GASP! buy it!

Also in the stack are a few collections of poetry, which I thought might count toward a poetry reading challenge for this year that I only recently learned about: Poetry Reading Challenge 2020, hosted by Serena from the blog Savvy Verse & Wit. Then tonight I actually read (imagine that!) the options for the challenge and realized that a couple of options for the challenge is not just reading, but reviewing (gah!) books of poetry and realized I’m not much (er, at all) a reviewer. I think I am going to try another one of the options:

  • Signing up to read a poem-a-day through the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day service, then reading a poem-a-day for a week once per month and writing about which poems were your favorite and why on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or your blog.

Since I’m getting to this party late in the month, that means that I will be reading a poem-a-day for this week and then writing about which ones are my favorite and why on my blog at the end of the week. No pressure or anything. 😉

In other news…

This past week:

Please go congratulate them both and add them to blogs to read, and if you haven’t listened to Chris Wolak and her friend Emily Fine’s podcast Book Cougars, definitely go give it a listen. They just did their 94th show!

Author’s Note: *facepalm* I don’t know why I titled this “My Second Book of the Year?” because at this point I already had read my second book of the year: A Call To Conscience: The Landmark Speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., edited by Clayborne Carson and Kris Shepard. I actually should have titled this “And For My Third Book of the Year?” Duh.

Reading (and wine trip) update

So I didn’t get any reading done last weekend, but Kim and I went on our wine trip, and it was fun:

My reading is going well otherwise, as I now have read five books so far this month:

  1. The Rubber Band, the third Nero Wolfe, by Rex Stout.
  2. The Lost Book of The Grail by Charlie Lovett, which was recommended by Tasha of the blog Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and Books.
  3. The Red Box, the fourth Nero Wolfe, by Rex Stout.
  4. Gallows View, the first Inspector Banks, by Peter Robinson, after seeing Tina of the blog Novel Meals mention the series on Instagram.
  5. The Western Star, the 13th Walt Longmire, by Craig Johnson.

I am in the middle of the fifth Nero Wolfe, Too Many Cooks, by Rex Stout. I also have the second Inspector Banks, A Dedicated Man, by Peter Robinson on my Kindle, ready to go. So I could get seven books finished this month, which would be equal my best month of reading, January, this year, if I do. Here’s hoping.

Other than reading books and drinking wine, I also have been continuing to watch Game of Thrones with Kim. We now are in the middle of Season 5. We have taken a couple of breaks here and there. A few nights ago, we watched Wonder Woman, and tonight we re-watched some Parks and Recreation. We’ll get back to GOT tomorrow, I’m sure.

We also look forward to renting Baby Driver soon, especially based on the opening scene:

So…how is your reading going this month? Let me know…and/or listening to, watching anything good?

My Library Checkout – April 2017

librarycheckout2 Have you been using your library over the past month? What did you read? What didn’t you read? What are you waiting on? The linky goes up the last Monday of every month, and will stay open through the 15th, so click the button at left to go to Charleen’s post for this month to add your Library Checkout post to the Linky there.

Read

  1. Fer-de-lance, the first Nero Wolfe, by Rex Stout
  2. The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World by the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, and Douglas Abrams
  3. Knots and Crosses, the first Inspector Rebus, by Ian Rankin
  4. Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction by Eric Foner

The best of the quartet was The Book of Joy, which was highlighted in my new feature Book of the Month yesterday. I also have started two other new features: Album of the Month and Movie of the Month, with the first Movie of the Month being Lion, and the first Album of the Month still to be decided and written about.

Currently Out/On Hold

I only have one book out: The League of Frightened Men, the second Nero Wolfe, by Rex Stout, and only two on hold: Hide and Seek, the second Inspector Rebus, by Ian Rankin, and Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic by Sam Quinones. I am rereading the Nero Wolfe mysteries, most of which I have read previously, and always wanted to red the Inspector Rebus series, but for one reason or another, I never got around to them. Now I am.

What did you check out from the library this past month, put on hold? Click on the button above to go to Charleen’s post to add your own post, or comment there — and here, if you’d like.

Starting this Wednesday, May 3, and running every Wednesday in May, my wife Kim and I will be doing a series on our favorite Netflix and Amazon Prime TV shows Wednesday, alternating among mine, hers, and ours. Tune in this Wednesday.

Nero Wolfe, the Dalai Lama, and Desmond Tutu

29496453It sounds like the start of a joke, but it’s just what I’ve been reading. As I mentioned last week, I am trying a new course with my reading, that is, reading a fiction and a nonfiction book instead of having several books out of the library at one time and potentially not reading any of them. My first books were, and are, Fer-de-lance, the first mystery featuring detective Nero Wolfe, by Rex Stout and The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World by the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Douglas Abrams.

I should clarify that I plan on alternating between fiction and nonfiction books, so to that end, I started with Fer-de-lance and will be reading The Book of Joy, beginning it later today. I read many of the Nero Wolfe novels years ago and I’m glad I’m delving back into them as I enjoyed this first one.

MV5BMTUwNTM4NzIzNl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMjQ5MTkzMQ@@._V1_UY268_CR2,0,182,268_AL_Earlier this week on the blog:

  1. What we’re watching: The Royle Family 
  2. What I’m listening to: Pure Comedy and Arca

This coming week, I’ll be adding in a new category, What I’m doing otherwise, as I’ll be looking back at how I did on the goals for my Lenten journey.

So far, I don’t have a lot of views on the posts with the categories of what we’re watching and what we’re listening to, but that’s OK. I still want to keep a diary for myself on those topics and maybe someday others will stop in and read those posts. Of course, you’re welcome to stop by today too (and leave a comment if you do).

How was your week? Read anything good? Watch anything interesting? Listen to anything that you couldn’t hear enough of?