ValiantArcher wrote:Arwenel, I realized that most of my loved mysteries were children's books. XD However, in addition to your list, G. K. Chesterton has the Father Brown short stories, which are pretty good.
Also, in my reading, I ran across two mysteries that stood out by authors who are better known for other things:
The Red House Mystery by A. A. Milne and
Darkness at Pemberly by T. H. White (yes,
that Pemberly, but in the mid-20th century); I don't remember tons about either, but I liked the first enough to own it and I remember bits of the second, so it stood out for something.
Also, I've heard good things about Ngaio Marsh and Ellis Peters, though I haven't read either as of yet.
I've tried Father Brown in the past, and have never been able to get into those. I'll have to look into those other authors. I'm pretty sure i've heard of Ellis Peters before, not sure about Ngaio Marsh.
Meltintalle wrote:Arwenel wrote:Can you recommend any mystery authors besides Agatha Christie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, or Dorothy Sayers, Valia? I like mysteries myself, but i'm hesitant about just picking up a book i haven't heard of before.
Not Valia, but if you enjoy that list you might also enjoy Margery Allingham and Patricia Wentworth. They wrote witty British detectives and if I remember correctly, Wentworth wrote a Miss Marple type heroine. I need to go back and find some more by these ladies. (And when I googled their names to check the spelling, Google reminded me that Josephine Tey is another good mystery author!)
Thanks, i'll keep those authors in mind when i next head to the library. I'm sure i've heard the name Josephine Tey before, but nothing comes to mind.
Meltintalle wrote:Valia wrote:[Arwenel,] You'll have to let me know what you think of the Robin Hobb books/series when you finish. I've heard good things about her but never read any.
Ditto this!
I liked it overall, though it didn't quite feel like a complete story -- a lot of plot threads left dangling and many questions unanswered, but it's not only the first of a trilogy, but the first in a whole series made up of several trilogies, so i suppose that's to be expected.
There are some books that only occasionally reference activities like eating and sleeping, and there are some books that lovingly detail every single physical process, even the ones we aren't supposed to talk about in polite company. Judging from this first book, this trilogy is going to come closer to the second type than i like. That's not to say there were graphic depictions of anything in
Assassin's Apprentice, just that from the number of times food was discussed, or the manner in which certain things were talked about, makes me suspect there's going to be content in later books that's more detailed than i usually like. But based on the person who recommended the series to me, and another Facebook friend who liked it, i'm confident it's never going to reach George R. R. Martin levels of detail.
It reminds me a bit of the
Queen's Thief books, with the amount of political intrigue going on in the background, the fact that everyone (or nearly everyone) has their own goals and ambitions that may end up conflicting with those of someone they like or care about, and the potential for more supernatural events happening later. That may change as the books go on. Fitz (the main character) isn't nearly as skilled at court intrigue as Eugenides, but he's also still a teenager and in training, and one of my Facebook friends praised the author's skill for character development very highly, so i'm interested to see how that works out.
ValiantArcher wrote:That's too bad that the library system doesn't have
Eagle of the Ninth!
What other Sutcliffs does it have?
Twenty, including several Wikipedia tells me are connected to
Eagle of the Ninth. If there's one thing more annoying than the library not having a book, it's having books that follow chronologically from that book. What do they expect me to do, read a sequel without having read the first one, like some kind of barbarian?
I finished
All the Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater, and my re-read of
Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher.
The former was good, but a little odd. "Miracles" are mentioned several times on the book flap and in the first two chapters before we actually find out how they work in the book, and it's very different from turning water into wine or feeding five thousand people with five loaves and two fish. Still, as i mentioned in my last post, the prose is lovely -- not something generally important to me, i think, since i can't remember the last time i thought to compliment a book's prose, but an admirable quality all the same. It was a book of themes, more than characters or plot, but the characters were still good and the plot didn't strain my suspension of disbelief. Definitely going to be looking into other books by the author.
Understood Betsy was interesting to re-read. Apparently the author was a big supporter of the Montessori learning method, which doesn't surprise me, even though i don't know much about Montessori. The writing style was a little too old-fashioned for my tastes (the story takes place around 1920), so i don't think i'll be picking it up again, but it wasn't a bad book, and it was nice to get a chance to re-read it.
I've only read a handful of her books, but I would recommend North and South and Cranford at least to start (both of which have recent/good adaptations; the Cranford one actually ties together stories from several of her books, I believe). I've heard good things about Wives & Daughters as well, but it's unfinished so you apparently should have the adaptation on hand to watch immediately after if you want a satisfactory end. 
The prose is weak, but the story had some original flourishes and ended up being a fun twist on 'follow the yellow brick road'. I finally got back around to starting and finishing the third installment, 
