Stacked Shelves

For the Coursera course I'm taking--"Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World" (I do so love typing that)--I'm reading Dracula by Bram Stoker and I am bored to tears. What a tedious book. Someone will have to explain its charms to me one day. So, onward with my mystery lists. 5. Jane Casey I've read all of Jane Casey's three police procedurals ( The Last Girl was published in May) and I think I like them. I wish our heroine DS Maeve Kerrigan was a little stronger and not so odd about relationships, but she's likable. I want to say the series is getting better, but since I though the first one was best, I cannot. (London) 6. Michael Connelly I'm late to the Michael Connelly bandwagon, and still trying to figure out if I want to read these novels. I worry that Harry Bosch is a little too stereotypically hard-boiled. But a friend said to stick with them, and I probably will pick up the series again soon. I've...

So, here it goes... some of my favorite authors and series of mysteries. 1. Jussi Adler-Olsen After the worldwide success of Steig Larsson's Millennium trilogy ( The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo , etc.), nordic noir became a thing and many more books from Norway, Denmark, and Sweden were translated into English. That's a good thing for us. Adler-Olsen's Department Q series is thrilling and funny. Carl Morck, our protagonist, has been pushed into the cold case unit because like so many other detectives, he doesn't always follow the rules. There are only three books in the series so far; definitely start with the first: The Keeper of Lost Causes . (Denmark) 2. Benjamin Black I read Christine Falls by Black (the pen name of John Banville, who's known for his literary fiction, among other works), but I didn't really love it and I'm afraid his books are not currently on my must-read list. (Ireland) 3. Alan Bradley Bradley's Flavia de Luce mysteries a...

I had wanted this blog to be solely about children's books. But I'm taking a short break from reading children's books while I try my hardest to keep up with a Coursera course I'm taking that started today. It's called " Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World ." (I always giggle when I say or read that because it sounds so... so... grandiose.) The course will be over sometime in mid-August and I'll have a stack of children's books waiting for me. (Truth be told, I have a "books to read" list that is more than four pages long. Yes, I keep lists. It's what I do.) I read a lot of fantasy and science fiction as a teen, but, alas, none of those books will be covered in the course. If you're curious about it, click on the link above. It's an 11-week course with an expected workload of 8 to 12 hours a week. (Manic giggling now.) Meantime, I realized that I have placed too many other books on hold (library-s...