Bride of the Book God

What can I say? Despite my best intentions to cut down on buying this year, August and September (so far) have been totally booktastic.

Crime-type stuff

• The Sweetness of the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley – recommended by many good reviews, but particularly Carl here;
• Silent in the Sanctuary and Silent on the Moor by Deanna Raybourn – I loved the first one so couldn’t resist stocking up on the sequels;
• Keeping the Dead by Tess Gerritsen – ‘He washed them. He clothed them. But first …. he killed them’ Ooooh… ;
• The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson – everyone tells me how good the first one in this series (which I have but not read yet) is, so I went ahead and got the sequel;
• Death Qualified by Kate Wilhelm – I discovered this author earlier this year as part of the Sci-Fi experience 2009, and though her crime fiction sounded equally interesting.

History-type stuff

• The Cecils by David Loades – the family business of the Cecils was supporting Elizabeth I who said “No prince in Europe hath such a counsellor as I have in mine” Just my kind of 16th century thing;
• Prince Rupert  by Charles Spencer – all about the Last Cavalier, if his portrait is anything to go by he was pretty handsome, had (I believe) a giant poodle called Boy as a hunting dog, pretty cool guy;
• Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel – a novel about Henry VIII’s right-hand man Thomas Cromwell, Man Booker nominated, looks astonishing.

Sci-fi type stuff

• Transition by Iain Banks – I know that this is being marketed in the UK as straight and not sci-fi but at the very least this is a crossover novel as it seems to have lots to do with parallel universes. I don’t care what they call it, it’s going to be good;
• Halfhead by Stuart B MacBride – so I love the Bearded Writist’s gory Aberdonian crime novels and this foray into sort of sci-fi thriller looks very interesting; and there’s a Banks-type differentiating middle initial going on as well.

Miscellaneous

• Muriel Spark by Martin Stannard – the biography – my admiration for Mrs Spark is unbounded, I should really re-start the Muriel Reading Marathon which faltered last year….. ;
• A Book of Silence by Sara Maitland – all about silence, a very enjoyable writer, looking forward to what this will cover;
• Love All by Elizabeth Jane Howard – ‘an unforgettable novel about love and the consequences of its absence’ it says on the cover.

Oh-lord-what-did-I-think-would-happen-if-I-went-to-Forbidden Planet

So having introduced the Silvery Dude to the Night’s Dawn trilogy by encouraging him to take the first volume on holiday with him, I agreed to accompany him to FP to get volume two, despite the whole Twilight/District 9 thing that we’ve been bickering about (he wants me to watch the former and saw the latter before I did much to my annoyance). Anyhoo, I hadn’t planned to do anything other than buy Gary Gibson’s Nova War for the Book God, but of course it didn’t stop there….

• The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart by Mathias Malzieu – translated from the French, this is a fairytale set in Edinburgh in 1874 and I picked it up totally because of the cover;
• Half-Minute Horrors – ‘a collection of instant frights from the world’s most astonishing authors and artists’ – including Neil Gaiman, just a bit of fun;
• Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Death and Dementia, illustrated by the great Gris Grimly, which was the sole reason for buying it as I have a lot of Poe kicking around already (if I can put it like that).