Another enjoyable adventure tagging along with Peter and the Folly crew. I love how the magical and the mundane interact (esp. when Nightingale is using modern tech 😍), and as a process nerd I am ridiculously intrigued by the little glimpses of how they're documenting Folly processes and procedures.

This is a light, popcorn-y thriller that rattles along comfortably enough but that I am not likely to remember for long. Nevertheless, it would make a good palate cleanser between heavier reads, and there is no gore or scary stuff, so I can recommend it if you like light thrillers.

Hugh Laurie is the perfect reader for an audio edition of this book...but I think that edition might have been abridged 😕 Nevertheless, I thought this was light and fun, and I chuckled aloud a fair bit. Would read again in print.

One last #BookHaul of our trip, and my first chance to use the new "tag a bookstore" feature! Bay Used Books is AMAZING. Two levels and a quarter of a million books ? I bought four books, shown here, and one for my mum.

Belated #BookHaul post from Parry Sound's Bearly Used Books. An excellent store; you must visit if you end up in Ontario cottage country. Not pictured are three mysteries I bought for my mum 😁

If your book is called Corporal Cameron of the North West Mounted Police, Cameron should at least be IN the police by the halfway mark, if not at the beginning of the story 😐 I've been trying to get through this for over a month. Time to move on.

This is one of my favourite Mrs. Pollifax novels. The story moves at a breakneck pace and has some funny moments.

A jaunt through the Hamilton/Burlington area today took us to Pickwick Books in Waterdown. Three of the four were on my to-read list. I'd been waiting for the pb of The Witch Elm but I won't say no to a cheaper secondhand hc!

I was up before 7 (on a Sunday, ON VACATION 😑), so I decided to grab the opportunity for a re-read of a book I still have at my parents' place.

I enjoyed this second installment of the first series of Dalek Empire. But then I do love me some Dalek voices, especially the really deep-voiced Dalek Emperor 😂 Good cliffhanger. On to the next installment.

Another great book in the Lady Astronaut series! Much higher stakes now that they're headed for Mars. I love the atmosphere of the early space program and the character development as the series has progressed. Looking forward to more!

There's a new audiobook of Watership Down read by PETER CAPALDI 😍😍😍😍😍

To quote the bowl of petunias in Hitchhiker's Guide: “Oh no, not again.“

More rain Thursday and Friday! More possibility of flooding!

Time to start evolving gills...

I read this book in an afternoon. Could not put it down. This may be at least partly because I am a huge aviation nerd, but I did find it interesting to follow the survivors and see how they rebuilt their lives after narrowly escaping death.

A well-structured mystery with some great airplane bits at the beginning! I quite like Crofts' work and will have to continue reading it.

#BookAndLunch: poutine from the local poutine festival. YUM! Perfect festival weather too: blue skies and sunshine, and high of 16 C.

I've read this twice and loved it both times. Eli makes a strangely charming narrator, and there is a good deal of wry humour. I'd recommend it if you liked the Coen brothers' version of True Grit or that kind of humour.
Content warning: animal with an eye injury 😖

April 2019 recap: 15 books read.
Favourite: The Calculating Stars (with No Hard Feelings, by Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy, a close second)
Least fave: Across the Plains, by Robert Louis Stevenson

Mary's story is truly remarkable. I am impressed at the variety and volume of aircraft she ferried under such challenging conditions. It's a chatty memoir, sounding very much like she's right there talking to you. Good bibliography too.

"Romantic encounters weren't my reason for living. Flying was my real soulmate....I wondered if any mere human being could ever successfully provide me with those pleasures in life."

Mary Ellis's experiences as an Air Transport Auxiliary pilot during WW2 make fascinating reading!

Doing a bit of bookshelf reorganizing. My mum is going to take my Arnaldur Indridasons, so that's opened up a bunch of space on my shelves! The left corner on the second shelf hasn't seen the light of day in ages 😂

I'll call this a Pick because that's what I would probably give it if I weren't feeling so dreary and blah today. It's a low Pick though because I found some of the dialogue a bit repetitive, and I had a hard time understanding the Dalek Supreme sometimes (good thing his minions always read back his orders 😂). But I do like a Dalek story.

I don't know whether I found this particular story "meh" or whether I find the overall Key to Time story arc "meh". I felt restless in a similar way to my experience with The Pirate Planet, which is about the second segment. But I did like K9 and Romana.

3.5⭐️ -- 3 for the play itself, which was good but not a replacement for an Ian Rankin novel, and an extra 0.5 for the bonus material about the process of bringing the play to the stage. I also liked the photos from the original stage production.

@squirrelbrain look what I found at the grocery store this morning! I hadn't intended to buy any post-Easter chocolate but couldn't resist this 😂🐿

I wanted to like this, but I lost focus and ended up abandoning it. Others may have better luck than I did.

I loved this book and need my own copy. I especially liked the chapters on spreading the emotional culture out from yourself, and on the difference between task conflicts and relationship conflicts. I liked the cartoons and the links to other resources as well.

Actual footage of me in high school 😂

I LOVED this book! It felt plausible as an alternate history and has a Hidden Figures vibe that I enjoyed. Also loved that Elma was a pilot, because that meant some great flying scenes 😄 I have already requested the next book in the series.

A Pick for the story, because I love planes and the structure was interesting once I figured it out. But the main character has the worst nickname ever 😖 so it's a So-so rating in the end.

I like the setting of this series and find it light and undemanding. This book takes place near Balquhidder, with detours to Dunblane and Perth. Especially fun to read about St. John's Kirk after having been there myself recently 😄

April 14 2019: Happy birthday, Peter Capaldi: a brilliant actor, a wonderful man, and a talented artist. He designed this cover of The Metamorphosis for an auction back in 2017.
(On a related note, he directed an Oscar-winning short film called Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life.)

@shanaqui Here are the British Library Crime Classics I own and haven't read yet, listed in order of acquisition. Let me know if you have any of these TBR as well.

And now I'm on the British Library website coveting even MORE of them...😁😏

I ended up liking this well enough, but it took a while to get into. I think the cat was my favourite character 😆 But I did like the message of deeds speaking louder than words.

Well written and illuminating. I've already started applying the concept of the habit loop, with some success 😊 Would pick up my own copy if I came across it.

Ehh. Like much early sci-fi, it is unintentionally hilarious based on our knowledge today. It is also disheartening because the author's imagination doesn't extend to making a society where women actually have autonomy 🙄

YES Peatzeria!

The Round Church in Bowmore was "built in circular form to ensure that the devil had no corners to hide in. He was last seen in one of [Islay's] distilleries."

This is a play that probably works better for me on stage or adapted in some way than just as text. I found it hard to keep the character relationships organized in my head, and with most of the violence happening offstage I found myself losing interest (a bit like with Julius Caesar). Just going to have to watch Benedict again 😍

This was very silly, although it did keep me reading. Planes and boats and Iceland are always a plus for me in books. I don't regret reading this, but I don't regret not owning it.

I enjoyed this memoir, particularly the photos, the stories of his friendships with George Harrison and Robin Williams, and the glimpses into screenwriting, playwriting and composing (namely the composition of "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life").

I've been binge-listening to Benny Goodman's instrumental version of "Sing, Sing, Sing", and HOO BOY does it ever make a great cardio workout ???

Also looked up some swing-dance steps on YouTube. I used to know them better (we did swing dance in high school gym class), but I've lost some of the technique.

March 2019 stats: 18 books read. Fave book: The Blue Castle 💙 Binged on public-domain ebooks (4) and audiobooks (2...for me that's a binge 😂).

Also, after watching The Ribos Operation this weekend, I think Valancy on the cover of The Blue Castle looks a bit like Romana (Mary Tamm).

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend it if you're interested in aviation from the perspective of a pilot. He gives realistic answers to common questions about planes and flying, and he does it with humour.

Reading while waiting for the BF to clear off the car -- a highly appropriate topic given the weather. 🌨

Ehh, I didn't like this book nearly as much as the first two. It took me a while to get into the story, and then it took a creepy, sensationalist path. Ended up skipping to the end to find out whodunnit but still read too much 😐

This was a lot of fun. I enjoyed Peter and Parker's relationship and their ability to work together. I also liked how Sayers crafted dialogue to evoke French while still writing in English.

Using this Eleven Doctors, Eleven Stories book as a placeholder for Destiny of the Doctor 3: Vengeance of the Stones, by Andrew Smith (read by Richard Franklin and Trevor Littledale). I loved the setting (Scotland) and the inclusion of fighter planes. It was a very quick listen. 4⭐️ Now I'll have to read the other Destiny of the Doctor stories sharpish!

"These," said Parker, "belong to nobody--to nobody I've ever seen or heard of, I mean."
"Hurray!" said Peter.

I don't know why that "Hurray!" cracks me up so much, but it does ?

For me this was a 3⭐️ so-so. I kept forgetting it was supposed to be a mystery, although it was indeed a nicely executed historical novel. I think I just had too-high expectations for it. If Raven and Sarah have more adventures, I'll read them...