Meanderer-ing through 2023

Books read/listened to in 2023:
1. The Curse of the House of Foskett by MRC Kasasian. Audiobook.
2. The Dark by Emma Haughton.
3. The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope. Audiobook.
4. Death of Empires by Michael Stephen Fuchs and Glynn James. Audiobook
5. Marple: Twelve New Stories by various. Audiobook.
6. Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham. Audiobook.
7. Ghost Stories by by E F Benson. Audiobook.
8. The Crossing by Matt Brolly. Audiobook.
9. Redemption Ark by Alastair Reynolds. Audiobook.
10. The Tales of Beedle the Bard by JK Rowling. Audiobook.
11. The Doomsday Weapon by Malcolm Hulke. Audiobook.
12. Best of British Science Fiction 2020 by various,
13. Hard Road by J B Turner. Audio.
14. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Audiobook.
15. Hard Kill by J B Turner. Audiobook.
16. Redshirts by John Scalzi. Audiobook.
17. Hard Wired by J B Turner. Audiobook.
18. Sea Castle by Andrew Mayne. Audiobook.
19. Murder at Redmire Hall by JR Ellis. Audiobook.
20. Murder in the Dales by JR Ellis. Audiobook.
21. Blind Panic by Graham Masterton. Audiobook.
22. The House at the End of the World by Dean Koontz. Audiobook.
23. Hard Way by JB Turner. Audiobook.
24. The Port of London Murders by Josephine Bell.
25. A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie. Audiobook.
26. Johnson at 10 by Anthony Seldon and Raymon Newell.
27. Ultra Processed People by Chris van Tulleken. Audiobook.
28. Artists in Crime by Ngaio Marsh. Audiobook.
29. Doctor Who and the Daemons by Barry Letts. Audiobook.
30. You Say Potato by Ben Crystal and Dacid Crystal. Audiobook
31. The Stars my Destination by Alfred Bester.
32. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. Audiobook.
33. The Hanging Tree by Ben Aaronovitch. Audiobook.
34. The Sleeping and the Dead by Ann Cleeves.
35. My Man Jeeves by PG Wodehouse. Audiobook.
36. Under Alien Skies by Phil Plait. Audiobook
37. Silenced for Good by Alex Coombs. Audiobook.
38. Mistakes Can Kill You by Louis L'Amour. Audiobook.
39. Barn Owl by Jim Crumley.
40. The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham. Audiobook.
41. Death of a Ghost by Margery Allingham. Audiobook.
42. Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler. Audiobook.
43. Hornblower and the Hotspur by CS Forester. Audiobook.
44. Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne. Audiobook.
45. The Murder Game by Tom Hindle.
46. A Large Measure of Snow. by Denzil Meyrick. Audiobook.
47. A Toast to the Old Stones by Denzil Meyrick. Audiobook.
48. Mindstar Rising by Peter F. Hamilton. Audiobook.
49. A Month in the Country by JL Carr.
50. The Moth Catcher by Ann Cleeves. Audiobook.
51. World of Ptavvs by Larry Niven. Audiobook.
52. The Brain: 10 Things You Should Know by Sophie Scott.
53. Murder on the Lusitania by Edward Marston.
54. The Various Haunts of Men by Susan Hill. Audiobook.
55. Summer Lightning by PG Wodehouse. Audiobook.
56. The Saga of the Volsungs by Jackson Crawford. Audiobook.
57. The Woman in Black by Susan Hill. Audiobook.
58. You Only Live Twice by Ian Flaming, Audiobook.
59. Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes by RL Stevenson. Audiobook.
60. The Nepali Flat by Gordon Alexander. Audiobook.
61. Getting High by Bill Walker. Audiobook.
62. Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds. Audiobook.
63. The Darkness Knows by Arnaldur Indridason.
64. Heavy Weather by PG Wodehouse. Audiobook.

1. The Curse of the House of Foskett by MRC Kasasian. Audiobook. The second of the Mangle Street Detectives series. Nicely quirky though a bit grusome in places. I guessed the villain about two thirds of the way through, but still enjoyed the book.

Welcome back, Tony.
Wishing you a happy reading new year.

Happy new year, Tony!

>3 PaulCranswick:, >4 drneutron: Thank you. Happy New Year to you both and to everyone else.

Happy reading in 2023, Tony!

>6 FAMeulstee: Thank you!

2. The Dark by Emma Haughton. This should have ticked all my boxes. A closed-circle mystery set in an Antarctic research station in the permanent darkness of a polar winter. But it didn't. Mainly, I think, because I found the main character, the base's relief doctor, to be such an unappealing and irritating character.

>8 meanderer: well, that one sounds good. A shame it didn't work out.

3. The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope. Audiobook. Classic adventure.

4. Death of Empires by Michael Stephen Fuchs and Glynn James. Audiobook. Book 7 in the Arisen series. I know what I'm getting with these. If it can go wrong for the good guys then it will (and it mostly did) and the book will end with a cliffhanger (which it did). You also get non-stop adventure and action in the Zombie Apocolypse. The bonus this time is that you get to find out how the pandemic started.

I have been aware for some time now that I am losing track of the Kindle and Audible books that I own and that there are a lot of books which I thought were interesting enough to buy but which I have not looked at since buying them. So I have decided that when I don't have a particular book that I want to read, I am going to use a random number between, currently, 1 and 286 (!) to select a page on my Kindle and I'll pick a book from the six that page (subject to certain rules I have stipulated for myself). For Audio books it will be a number between 1 and 63 (!!) to pick a page from my library on the Audible website and I'll pick a book from the twenty on that page.

5. Marple: Twelve New Stories by various. Audiobook. Twelve new Miss Marple short stories by twelve authors each narrated by a different reader. As is often the case with collections such as this, there was a mix in quality or both story and narrator.

6. Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham. Audiobook. Great story, read by Stephen Fry.

Sorry to just now be checking in, Tony!

>11 meanderer: I had to laugh at that. I have over 700 audiobook titles to choose from, lol. I will never catch up!

7. Ghost Stories by by E F Benson. Audiobook. An accidental relisten. Still a great listen. I've got about nine (!) books on the go at the moment; a mix of kindle, audiobook and dtb. A couple of them are quite long and the others lend themselves to episodic (is the the right word?) reading such as 366 Days and The diary of Samuel Pepys: 1663 v.4: 1663 Vol 4 which I won't finish until the end of the year and others such as The Modern Bestiary: A Curated Collection of Wondrous Creatures by Joanna Bagniewska of which I read an entry or a chapter each day.

8. The Crossing by Matt Brolly. Audiobook. Detective story set in the South-West of England. An OK story; I guessed what was going on fairly early on in the story but not the reason why.

9. Redemption Ark by Alastair Reynolds. Audiobook. The second book in the Revelation Space series. I enjoyed this one more that the first book in the series, because the story seemed to flow better and was easier to follow than the first in audio format. Or maybe I was just paying more attention this time.

10. The Tales of Beedle the Bard by JK Rowling. Audiobook. A quick listen.

11. The Doomsday Weapon by Malcolm Hulke. Audiobook. A quick blast from the past. Simple fun, but a high body count for a Dr Who book.

12. Best of British Science Fiction 2020 by various. As always with this sort of collect, it was a mixed bag.

Just dropping by to wish you a splendid weekend, Tony.

>22 PaulCranswick: I had a great weekend, thanks. I hope you did too.

13. Hard Road by J B Turner. Audio. I got this because it was part of Kindle Unlimited and came with audio (Amazon has foolishly given me yet another "trial" of KU; I didn''t subscribe at £7.99 a month so there's no chance of me subscribing at £9.95 a month). Anyway, I really enjoyed this story which is the same vein as Jack Reacher or John Milton.

14. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Audiobook. Another one from my trial KU subscription which again came with audio. A short but effective story of a woman's descent into madness.

15. Hard Kill by J B turner. Audiobook. After Hard Road I went straight on to the next in the series. Again, another easy listen (and on my usual listening speed of 1.45 this I can listen to a whole book in just a few hours).

16. Redshirts by John Scalzi. Audiobook. I got this originally because of the Star Trek reference and I though it was going to be a parody of that series. It turned into more than that when the characters realised what was going on.

17. Hard Wired by J B Turner. Audiobook. Another in the John Reznick series. I think that three of these is enough for the time being, but I will listen to a couple more before my Kindile Unlimited trial runs out in mid-May.

18. Sea Castle by Andrew Mayne. Audiobook. Part of the Underwater Inverstigation Unit series, although this story took place almost entirely on dry land. An engaging story.

19. Murder at Redmire Hall by JR Ellis. Audiobook. A locked room mystery set in a country house in the Yorkshire Dales; what's not to like? A bit melodramatic, but a good listen.

20. Murder in the Dales by JR Ellis. Audiobook. The first in the series. An interesting enough plot. although how the author writes the female characters is a tad 1950s.

21. Blind Panic by Graham Masterton. Audiobook. I had not realised that this was the 5th in a series. However, that did not really matter because, although the story is in some ways a continuation of the previous books, enough is explained to make this feel like a standalone.

22. The House at the End of the World by Dean Koontz. Audiobook. An OK listen, but not one of Koontz's better books.

23. Hard Way by JB Turner. Audiobook. Another action packed adventure for Jon Reznick.

24. The Port of London Murders by Josephine Bell. A murder mystery and a commentary on the lives of pre-WW2 working class people. Not your usual Golden Age mystery.

25. A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie. Audiobook. One of those Miss Marples that doesn't really involved a lot of Miss Marple. An interesting mystery nevertheless.

26. Johnson at 10 by Anthony Seldon and Raymon Newell. I'm not a fan of Boris Johnson and have long thought that the bumbling "persona" that he projects is, in fact, the real Johnson. This book pretty much confirmed all my beliefs about him. It's an entertaining listen, but I would have preferred it if it had not been my country that had suffered from his incompetence and self-centeredness.

27. Ultra Processed People by Chris van Tulleken. Audiobook. An investigation into how our food is manipulated to increase profits for the food manufacturers at the expence of public health and the environment. After reading this, I'll be talking a more careful note of what I eat.

28. Artists in Crime by Ngaio Marsh. Audiobook. More Golden Age crime.

29. Doctor Who and the Daemons by Barry Letts. Audiobook. A novelisation of a classic Doctor Who adventure.

30. You Say Potato by Ben Crystal and Dacid Crystal. Audiobook. A look at (mainly) British accents, although the authors do look at English accents around the world as well. Better as an audiobook since you can acutually hear the accents.

31. The Stars my Destination by Alfred Bester. Audiobook. It starts out as a revenge tale, but turns into much more. Full of huge ideas.

32. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. Audiobook. Military space opera.

33. The Hanging Tree by Ben Aaronovitch. Audiobook. More supernatural fun with the rivers of London.

34. The Sleeping and the Dead by Ann Cleeves. Ann Cleeves is known for her crime series Vera, Shetland and Two Rivers. This standalone had me interested right up until the end which seemed somewhat rushed and a bit disappointing.

35. My Man Jeeves by PG Wodehouse. Audiobook. Some very early Jeeves and Wooster short stories. Half the stories in this collection feature Reggie Pepper who is pretty indestinguisable from Bertie Wooster and those stories were rewritten later on to feature Bertie and Jeeves.

36. Under Alien Skies by Phil Plait. Audiobook. A tour around the universe in an imaginary spaceship. Very informative.

37. Silenced for Good by Alex Coombs. Audiobook. I listened to this because it was one of the books I got through Audible Plus and I noticed it was going to be withdrawn from that programme in early August. It was set on a Jura, a small island off the west coast of Scotland. I realised what was going to happen about half way through but it was an OK listen.

38. Mistakes Can Kill You by Louis L'Amour. Audiobook. A collection of some of L'Amour's earlier stories. Good listening.

39. Barn Owl by Jim Crumley. Part of a series of short books focussed each one focused on a particular species. Jim Crumley describes a series of encounters he has had both as a child and as an adult.

40. The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham. Audiobook. I think that this is my favourite of the Wyndham books I have read so far.

41. Death of a Ghost by Margery Allingham. Audiobook. Part of the Albert Campion series. The murderer is identified about half way through this story and the rest of the book is concerned with how Campion and the police go about proving it. Some interesting and eccentric characters.

42. Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler. Audiobook. I've heard mixed reviews about the Bryant and May series and when this came up on my random picker (see post 11 above) I was a bit dubious. However, it turned about to be an excellent listen with interesting characters and an engaging plot.

43. Hornblower and the Hotspur by CS Forester. Audiobook. Great adventure with Hornblower. Sea battles and land campaigns, with some romance thrown in.

44. Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne. Audiobook. Classic adventure tale.

45. The Murder Game by Tom Hindle. Closed circle mystery set in an old manor house and featuring a lighthouse. Entertaining mystery.

46. A Large Measure of Snow. by Denzil Meyrick. Audiobook. Set in the same geographical location as the author's crime novels featuring DCI Daley, this is part of a series of shorter stories (not crime-related) set in the late 1960s and featuring younger versions of some of the minor characters from the detective books. Very different in tone from the main series, these stories feature a range of charming (and not so charming characters) and some laugh-out-loud moments.

It has been a while since I visited you, Tony! Looks like a lot of good reading is getting done round these parts.

>52 meanderer: I have that one but have yet to read it. Now, I just need to find my copy. . .

>54 meanderer: I am a huge Jules Verne fan. I think 20,000 Leagues under the Sea may be my favorite though.

>55 meanderer: Too bad my local library does not have that one. Sounds like one I would really like.

>56 meanderer: Never read anything by Denzil Meyrick. Is that book a good place to start?

47. A Toast to the Old Stones by Denzil Meyrick. Audiobook. The second of the Tales from Kinloch. Again, an engaging cast of characters and some laugh-out-loud moments.

>57 alcottacre: Hi Stasia. Thanks for dropping by.

>52 meanderer: I've been slowly collecting the Bryant and May audiobooks as they have been appearing in sales or 2-for-1 deals on Audible but I hadn't listening to any of them prior to my random number book picking process (see message 11) landing on one of them. I'd assumed/hoped that they would by my kind of thing and luckily I was right.

>54 meanderer: Yes, I've also listened to and enjoyed 20 000 Leagues Under the Sea. There are a few other Verne stories I would like to get around to.

>55 meanderer: This is a light read. The action flows nicely but the characters are a little shallow. Still, if you are after an untaxing mystery it fits the bill. I got the Kindle version for 99p on Amazon UK, maybe it's going cheap in the US as well.

>56 meanderer: The Tales from Kinloch books are farly short (about 150 pages) and light-hearted and are very different to Meyrick's main crime series. If you are going to read either series it is best to do so in order, especially with the crime series since the first three books have a story arc.

48. Mindstar Rising by Peter F. Hamilton. Audiobook. Set in a near-future England which has been ravaged by an extreme government and climate change. An engaging detective story with fancy technology.

49. A Month in the Country by JL Carr. The story of a young man, a survivor of the WW1 battlefields, who takes a comission at a church in rural Yorkshire to remove whitewash which is covering a medieval wall painting. A gentle story with the wonderfully described background of an idyllic English summer.

50. The Moth Catcher by Ann Cleeves. Audiobook. Another investigation for Vera. Up to the usual standard.

51. World of Ptavvs by Larry Niven. Audiobook. Part of Niven's Known Space series of books. One of his earlier books.

>60 meanderer: That one sounds pretty good. I will have to see if I can locate a copy.

>61 meanderer: Dodging the Carr BB as I have already read that one. I still have not read any of Ann Cleeves's books even though I own several. I really must fix that!

Have a wonderful Wednesday, Tony!

>63 alcottacre: I like the two main Ann Cleeve's series (Vera and Shetland), I have the books from her new series (Two Rivers) but haven't read any of thise yet. The Shetland books should be read in order.

52. The Brain: 10 Things You Should Know by Sophie Scott. Part of a series of short introductions to various topics (so far: Numbers, Time, Dinosaurs, Space). A descent overview of the state of current knowledge.

53. Murder on the Lusitania by Edward Marston. Audiobook. The first of the Ocean Liner series of books. A light, immersive story and murder mystery. It's like a country house mystery translocated to a passenger liner if you can have a closed-circle mystery in a location with over a thousand people (although to be fair, the cast of characters is limited to a small number of first-class passengers and some crew).

54. The Various Haunts of Men by Susan Hill. Audiobook. The first of the Simon Serailler series of crime novels. I mostly engoyed the book and thought that the ending was appropriate. I look forward to listening to other novels in this series.

>64 meanderer: I am pretty sure that the series I own is the Shetland series. Thanks for the heads up, Tony.

>67 meanderer: Another one that I have sitting here to read. Too many books. . .

55. Summer Lightning by PG Wodehouse. Audiobook. A fun romp in the English coutryside.

56. The Saga of the Volsungs by Jackson Crawford. Audiobook. A retelling of two sagas (Volsungs and Ragnar Lothbrok) in modern prose.

57. The Woman in Black by Susan Hill. Audiobook. Very atmospheric ghost story. I listened to the Audible version read by Paapa Essiedu which is best listened to with headphones.

58. You Only Live Twice by Ian Fleming. Audiobook. Another outing for 007. One of the bedt ones in the series.

59. Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes by RL Stevenson. Audiobook. An account of twelve days Stevenson spent travelling with a donley called Modestine. THere are some wonderful descriptions of the French landscape.

60. The Nepali Flat by Gordon Alexander. Audiobook. Another pick by random number. A lively and engaging account of the author's trek in the Himalayas.

61. Getting High by Bill Walker. Audiobook. An "emergency" listen. Lookng through my audio library, I noticed that this was about to expire as an Audible Plus titile and, even though I'd just listened to a book about trekking in the Himalaya, I went with this one for my next listen. It was an OK listen by I preferred The Nepali Flat. This may partly have been because the author narrated his own book and the reading seemed a little flat at times.

62. Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds. Audiobook. It took me a couple of attempts to get into this, but once I did I was drawn in by the excellent world-building and detailed plot.

63. The Darkness Knows by Arnaldur Indridason. A retired detective investigates a cold case after the body of a long-dead murder victim is discovered on a glacier. Icelandic mystery.

64. Heavy Weather by PG Wodehouse. Audiobook. The sequal to Summer Lightning and just as entertaining.