A mixed bag of new Haruhi stories. It took me way longer than I expected to get through the middle one.

Told in the first person by a novelist, with inserts of the novel she is working on as more and more things vanish. Dystopian magic realism, and disconcerting at that. Library loan.

The Litsy summary is wrong! The writer hides her editor inside her house!

Non-fiction exploring the spaces that edge our cities. A bit heavy on “back when we were kids we could play in abandoned fridges” nostalgia but also idea-generating (those page markers need revisiting). Ignores that women are less likely to visit edgelands because they are not seen as safe.

Not to be confused with her kids books as contains graphic violence and sexual assault. The village of women are fine by themselves, until the witchfinder comes.

I enjoyed this, and like the use of the different timeframes but perhaps I‘d been overhyped about it.

I‘ve been a fan for over a decade and this new one had me crying by the end.

Very variable collection of cross-overs. Also, neither Spider-Gwen or Rocket Racoon are in it despite being on the cover. Shoddy. Buy Ms Marvel vol 1 instead.

In present day London a young man comes to terms with his family‘s past and forms of racism. The 1950s-1970s is told through love letters from Sameer‘s grandfather to his dead first wife.

A bookshop‘s most annoying customer won‘t leave, even after she is dead. Set in 2019-2020, this explores the legacy of inherited trauma. Sounds grim, but it really wasn‘t.

Library loan.

The entire crew of a lighthouse vanish into thin air. Told over two times, with equal weight given to the partners of the three men. Hints of the supernatural but mostly focussed on what haunts people. Quick and straightforward read.

An Edinburgh tenement‘s haunting. I loved the concept but felt I needed to be a closer reader than I am to properly appreciate it.

A set of essays on true crimes by the Detection Club (a group of golden era British crime writers). Variable: some essays were fascinating and others were so dry I literally fell asleep.

Carefully researched and useful collection of essays of women in Devon‘s history. I forgot to take a photo of the book before returning it to the library, so here‘s an image of the shell gallery at A La Ronde, designed and created by the Parminter sisters.

I found this a lot more enthralling than I anticipated, though I did tend to slide a little on the scenes of detailed gameplay.

Some many exclamation marks! Rather excitable thriller written in early months of WW2. Racism and xenophobia abound.

What is an interesting story of one of the women who worked in covert ops in occupied France is mostly focussed on her training instead, and heaving with suppositions. Not good, and only stuck with for research purposes.

I always enjoy a Jessie Burton. With this we have unreliable narrators and inherited patterns of behaviour across two generations.

I liked the portmanteau structure with a framing story structure a great deal.

Great historical detection about women detectives during the golden era of crime. Makes you think the Queens were perhaps not as melodramatic as they sometimes seem.

50 books read in 2021, more than hitting my target of 42. But always with a dip in Sept!

I completed the #LitsyAtoZ challenge in 2021! Thanks to @BookishMarginalia - I‘ll do the spreadsheet in a bit, honest!

Given I love Ngaio Marsh and Stella Duffy it‘s not a surprise that I enjoyed this: Duffy finishing off a Marsh draft. Quick and enjoyable with just enough dark swirly undercurrents to be a wartime crime novel by one of the Queens of Crime.

I really struggled with this one. The structure involves switching POVs and timeframes, and the tone was too distanced for me. As ever, I don‘t know if that‘s a translation issue. It would have helped if the crib sheet of relationships was at the front not the back.

Lovely biography setting the quiet radicalism of a landowner in the context of her time. Major diversions into subjects such as fossil-hunting, the railways, etc. Library loan.

“Daughters can be very trying. Especially when they will be so kind to you.”

I meant to skim this: instead I got drawn in and read the lot. It does have some pages summarising the plot s of Norton‘s novels which I did skim. Norton left an abusive husband who, in line with the laws of the time, kept custody their children, and all her earnings from her writing. She campaigned to change the law.

How Cassandra Cain becomes Batgirl. It adds a new mentor for Cass. Lots of nice touches as Cass finds her voice and new mission.

Loved by me and tween.

Library loan.

This is why I try to avoid the local bookcycle shop, or at least carry some fivers. You can buy up to 3 second hand books a day, and you pay what you think you should for them.

Enjoyable pulp but never lives up to the premise. Useful if you need a letter Z for #LitsyAtoZ.

I‘m doing this as a blurb but it‘s actually a read. I‘m not sure how you can fairly judge a collection that includes your own work. ;)

Vote Loki!

The main 4-part story would be more entertaining if Trump hadn‘t then won, and I didn‘t love the supporting stories either. There‘s something. To be said for the Golden Age origin story but the others were either too dry (a Loki and Spidey team up that isn‘t funny? How??) or too mangled story-telling wise.

I‘ve been reading this off and on all year. It contains interviews with a wide range of surviving Bletchley staff as well as neat chapters on the challenges of setting up the park and cracking the codes. A good human-interest version of the history.

I borrowed this to see if would be a good intro to Christie for the 11yo.

It is not. Late Poirot, and nearly every character is disparaging about the idea of people with mental health issues living in the community.

If any Christie fans follow me, I‘d love some suggestions on books to get a tween started on the queen.

Reread after retrieving some of my PTerry books from the store. It‘s as much about the foolish sable-rattling of a tiny country, the dangers of propaganda and the pointlessness of war. All from the point of view of a woman refusing gender norms.

When I clocked the dates in each chapter of the latest DI Karen Pirie the tension instantly ratcheted up. When the forensics lab have people off sick with colds they‘ve picked up on a trip to Northern Italy…

Written once lockdowns started, there‘s a vicarious thrill to seeing Pirie dart about to Paris, England and Ireland, and you‘re wondering if the case will get mired in the first lockdown in the UK. 👍

A gentlewoman gets drawn into court intrigues. Telling the story of the Overbury murder from the point of view of one of the plotters. I liked the main narrator‘s voice.

Some tidbits I didn‘t already know but mostly things I did. Some excellent photo captioning though, such as this one that reads “a rare image of the statue of Richard Hooker without a seagull perched on his head.”

Charity shop find.

I wanted to love this. And it started well, with a certain Love And Rockets / Prozac Nation vibe. And then…it became arid. Great concept that ran out of things to say and then just…stopped.

Photo shows my vegetarian fry-up after a longish walk.

Went to collect my order of Doxology, got side-tracked and this is why I‘m not allowed in bookshops.

I realised part way through that I‘d read it before but I still enjoyed it. Shakespearean nods, and a strong sense of London in 1950. Mostly told from a young woman‘s POV, with Alleyn not appearing until the final third.

Ignore Litsy crediting this to Whedon. It‘s actually written by Bryan Edward Hill, Art by Gleb Melnikov, Gabriel Cassata and Roman Titov. A reimagining of the Angel story as if he didn‘t start as the romantic interest to Buffy. Mildly enjoyable What If…?

Tough read picking through how myths are built and used to ferment increasingly reactionary “discourse”. Focussed primarily on UK and US politics and media.

“The freedom of speech crisis myth‘s purpose is to guilt people into giving up their right of response to attack and to destigmatise racism and prejudice.”

Mildly enjoyable isolated manor murder mystery. There were no twists to it, and I didn‘t have heaps of empathy even for the characters we were supposed to like.

DNF as I was using it for research and soon realised it didn‘t have the key fact I am looking for.

Reread to check how rude the Hedgehog Song is before I let 11yo loose with my box of Pratchett‘s. Read on Libby.

Enjoyable story of how much one person can change the lives of many over the course of just a year. Like so much set in the 1950s, it reminds me of a Pym novel with the juicy bits added in.

I‘m excited to add this to the novelisations shelves after all these years. There are some delightful Adams-y jokes but fundamentally the plot is still the Pirate Planet (ie hokum).

How people make and remake themselves, and come to accept differences, based on the plot conceit of twin Black girls who could pass in the 1960s, and the choices they make, and the family ripples those cause.

I‘d recommend it anyway, but if your need a #LetterV for #LitsyAtoZ, this is a perfect choice.

The introduction is almost as long as the main essay, and significantly harder to read. Le Guin sets out her theory in an accessible way, gently but firmly countering the dominance of Campbell‘s Hero‘s Journey theory of storytelling.