So What Are you Reading?: Generations
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Thanks! Hope you enjoy them!
Down to the last 60-odd pages of The Notebook.
And I'll be taking a detour from the queue of unread books on the 2-drawer file cabinet that serves me as a nightstand, in order to re-read one of the two music appreciation textbooks I have (Inside Music, by Karl Haas, which I find superior to the "industry standard" The Enjoyment of Music), and also to re-read my 35-odd-year-old MLA Handbook: I realized that I need to do some copy-editing on my novel, to get a consistent convention on italics vs. quotes vs. nothing, when referring to musical compositions. Whether the MLA Handbook has anything to say or not, certainly Dr. Haas referenced enough pieces by title that I should find plenty of diverse examples.
(And if any of the writers here have anything to say on the subject, I'm not stopping you, except to say that a friend has already PM'd me some relevant excerpts from the CMoS, over on Fountain Pen Network.)
And I'll be taking a detour from the queue of unread books on the 2-drawer file cabinet that serves me as a nightstand, in order to re-read one of the two music appreciation textbooks I have (Inside Music, by Karl Haas, which I find superior to the "industry standard" The Enjoyment of Music), and also to re-read my 35-odd-year-old MLA Handbook: I realized that I need to do some copy-editing on my novel, to get a consistent convention on italics vs. quotes vs. nothing, when referring to musical compositions. Whether the MLA Handbook has anything to say or not, certainly Dr. Haas referenced enough pieces by title that I should find plenty of diverse examples.
(And if any of the writers here have anything to say on the subject, I'm not stopping you, except to say that a friend has already PM'd me some relevant excerpts from the CMoS, over on Fountain Pen Network.)
Just started with "The mercy of gods" by James S.A Corey. I hope the this book is as good as the Expanse books
Finished Remains of the Day. I recommend it. It's a fast read with a lot of good ideas that make more sense now that I'm approaching 50. I've added Buried Giant and An Artist of the Floating World to my TBR for next year. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to enjoy his writing as much as I do Fredrik Backman or Amor Towles.
Since I finished this book faster than expected, I decided to read 11/22/1963. I watched the miniseries when it came out, so it's been long enough that I can approach this book fresh. I've been wanting to read a Stephen King book this year. I read the Shining last year, so I thought I'd read Dr. Sleep. But I really liked the 11/22/1963 miniseries and have been meaning to read the book for a while now.
For series writers, I have already read a Joe Pickett and Longmire book this year, so that would leave me to pick up a Dresden File book at some point and a Lincoln Lawyer one. Those are the series that I'm reading at the moment. On my TBR is still the Rook series and the Magicians series. At some point I'll read the Expanse. I've only read the short stories.
I also need to knock out a Star Trek book this year. I'm thinking about reading Second Self. I've read Firewall and The Last Best Hope. I enjoyed both and didn't DNF either of them. I do own The High Country, so I'm thinking about that one too.
Since I finished this book faster than expected, I decided to read 11/22/1963. I watched the miniseries when it came out, so it's been long enough that I can approach this book fresh. I've been wanting to read a Stephen King book this year. I read the Shining last year, so I thought I'd read Dr. Sleep. But I really liked the 11/22/1963 miniseries and have been meaning to read the book for a while now.
For series writers, I have already read a Joe Pickett and Longmire book this year, so that would leave me to pick up a Dresden File book at some point and a Lincoln Lawyer one. Those are the series that I'm reading at the moment. On my TBR is still the Rook series and the Magicians series. At some point I'll read the Expanse. I've only read the short stories.
I also need to knock out a Star Trek book this year. I'm thinking about reading Second Self. I've read Firewall and The Last Best Hope. I enjoyed both and didn't DNF either of them. I do own The High Country, so I'm thinking about that one too.
Finished The Notebook, and I'm now a chapter into Inside Music., taking notes anytime I see the title of a musical work (or a movement or other subdivision thereof) cited in a way that isn't covered in the Chicago Manual of Style excerpts I've seen. Definitely more nuanced.
And I still say that Inside Music (which, thankfully, is still in print, according to B&N) is a far better music appreciation textbook than the industry standard The Enjoyment of Music.
And I still say that Inside Music (which, thankfully, is still in print, according to B&N) is a far better music appreciation textbook than the industry standard The Enjoyment of Music.
Hmm.
1. Hmm Grits hitting a fan. Sounds messy and wasteful.
2. Why does detective fiction have to be murder whodunits? Out of the Holmes canon, surprisingly little, by opus-count, involves murder, and even by page-count, I'm pretty sure murder whodunits are in the minority (and there's even one short story that looks like a torture-murder, that turns out to have been a fatal encounter with a wild animal).
Now 158 pages into re-reading Inside Music, by Karl Haas. In spite of passages that look like they should have had some attention from a musically literate copy-editor, it is still, for my money, a far better music appreciation textbook tha the "industry standard," The Enjoyment of Music. Which could be used for drying out martinis.
You'd have to go into the Agatha Christie stuff for more murder.
The good news is that her stuff is starting to hit public domain. The other good news is that a lot of her stuff is on sale today, so I'm going to grab some of her older works that will be a decade off from hitting public domain.
You seem to be missing my point. By several kiloparsecs, I'd wager. My point is that murder is hardly the only crime suitable for detective fiction, and the whodunit format is hardly the only format available.
One of my favorite television detective series (one for which I have the entire series run on DVD) is Banacek. The title character is a very intelligent, and very wealthy (and proudly, FIERCELY Polish) insurance investigator who specializes in seemingly impossible disappearances. A rocket engine from the main arena of a trade show. A small fortune in cash from a locked display case in a Las Vegas casino full of people. A room-filling mainframe computer from a hospital outbuilding. An automobile on a flatcar, from a moving train.
And while Columbo (of which I've probably seen every episode) always involved murder, it was always a "howcatchem" format.
I cited the Homes Canon earlier because I have the complete Holmes Canon, which I've read several times. And I grew up on The Bobbsey Twins, in editions from long after the Stratemeyer Syndicate discovered (from their Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew series) that detective stories sell better than the sorts of stories used in the early editions of the earliest Bobbsey Twins novels. I have the complete series, including both the original and replacement versions of the two that were rewritten top-to-bottom. And being children's novels, it kind of goes without saying that none of them involved murder, very few involved any violence at all, and some (like a handful of Sherlock Holmes short stories) didn't even involve crime at all.
One of my favorite television detective series (one for which I have the entire series run on DVD) is Banacek. The title character is a very intelligent, and very wealthy (and proudly, FIERCELY Polish) insurance investigator who specializes in seemingly impossible disappearances. A rocket engine from the main arena of a trade show. A small fortune in cash from a locked display case in a Las Vegas casino full of people. A room-filling mainframe computer from a hospital outbuilding. An automobile on a flatcar, from a moving train.
And while Columbo (of which I've probably seen every episode) always involved murder, it was always a "howcatchem" format.
I cited the Homes Canon earlier because I have the complete Holmes Canon, which I've read several times. And I grew up on The Bobbsey Twins, in editions from long after the Stratemeyer Syndicate discovered (from their Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew series) that detective stories sell better than the sorts of stories used in the early editions of the earliest Bobbsey Twins novels. I have the complete series, including both the original and replacement versions of the two that were rewritten top-to-bottom. And being children's novels, it kind of goes without saying that none of them involved murder, very few involved any violence at all, and some (like a handful of Sherlock Holmes short stories) didn't even involve crime at all.
Check out the TV series Johnathan Creek. It's a: how did they do it?
Jonathan Creek - Wikipedia
When you brought up non-murder mysteries, Banacek was the first thing that came to mind. Although I believe it did do the occasional episode where the impossible theft led to a murder.
There was a fun cartoon some years back called Fillmore, which was a dead-on parody of TV cop dramas, except the school-age characters investigated high school crimes like locker vandalism and stolen test answers with the urgent, deadpan intensity of homicide cops. Not only was it a fun pastiche, but the mysteries were pretty solid detective stories in their own right.
Well, almost always. There was one that started out looking like a conventional episode, but then the person that we and Columbo believed to be the murderer got killed and it became a conventional whodunit in the last act.
Then there were the two revival movies that were adapted from Ed McBain stories and abandoned the usual format altogether, one about the kidnapping of Columbo's niece at her wedding and one where he had to go undercover as a mobster. But neither of those was very good.
I wanted to go to my library to read some star trek books and I asked the librarian why they weren't any of Star trek newer books weren't listed in their online catalog and she told me they got rid of all their star trek books because no one was reading them or checking them out anymore. I find that really really disappointing. Lots of endless Star wars books and no Star trek book it sucks for Star trek fans who like me who want to read physical books.
I've found that my library has a very limited selection of Star Trek books, so I grab the sales, which gives me a good TBR.I wanted to go to my library to read some star trek books and I asked the librarian why they weren't any of Star trek newer books weren't listed in their online catalog and she told me they got rid of all their star trek books because no one was reading them or checking them out anymore. I find that really really disappointing. Lots of endless Star wars books and no Star trek book it sucks for Star trek fans who like me who want to read physical books.
Have you ever watched Without A Trace? It focused on an FBI missing persons unit, and was just focused on figuring out what happened to the persons, and they had a pretty nice mixture of conditions they found them in. It's a little older, it ran from 2002-2009.
There's also the current series Tracker, starring Arrow's Justin Hartley, who is a perfessional tracker, who finds things people are looking for. It just finished up it's second season in May, and I believe it'll be coming back next season.
Season 1 trailer
Season 2 trailer
He's not always looking for people, there are a few were he's after other things.
I wasn't really in the market: if I want to read detective fiction, I can re-read anything from the Holmes Canon, or I can pull out a Bobbsey Twins novel (they hold up surprisingly well for adult readers, and one of them, The Red, White and Blue Mystery, is also a shockingly accurate travelogue of Colonial Williamsburg, so good that you can navigate the Historic Area just based on recollecitons of reading the book).
And if I want to watch a detective TV show, I can pull out a Banacek DVD. Or a Quincy DVD (in spite of Dr. Quincy being a Medical Examiner, and therefore a specialist in forensic pathology, not all of the episodes involved murder). Or if I'm in the mood for science fiction detective TV, there's always that one-season wonder, Search. Really, these days, outside of my DVD library, just about the only TV I pay much attention to is Jeopardy and Fool Us.
No, I was lamenting how murder whodunits seem to get all the attention, and all the shelf space in the "Mystery" section at B&N.
And if I want to watch a detective TV show, I can pull out a Banacek DVD. Or a Quincy DVD (in spite of Dr. Quincy being a Medical Examiner, and therefore a specialist in forensic pathology, not all of the episodes involved murder). Or if I'm in the mood for science fiction detective TV, there's always that one-season wonder, Search. Really, these days, outside of my DVD library, just about the only TV I pay much attention to is Jeopardy and Fool Us.
No, I was lamenting how murder whodunits seem to get all the attention, and all the shelf space in the "Mystery" section at B&N.
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That sounds positively Joycean. Ulysses is an insanely accurate record of Dublin on June 16, 1904. The late writer Frank Delaney said something along the lines that one could rebuild Dublin just from the detail given in Ulysses.
By the 1970s, the Stratemeyer staff writers (no, "Laura Lee Hope," "Carolyn Keene," and "Franklin W. Dixon" aren't real people, and as I recall, GC has taken up the pen of "Victor Appleton" on at least one occasion) were traveling all over the world for research purposes, all for the sake of children's popular fiction.
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