JonRob's 2023 Reads

Here goes again for another year!

Started Not To Be Taken by Anthony Berkeley - I'll probably be reviewing this when I've finished it. Still reading Her Mad Month and Hollywood Talks Turkey.

Listened to an 80s compilation.

Finished Not To Be Taken, which I enjoyed more than I expected. Started, and finished, A Meditation on Murder by Robert Thorogood, a new purchase, but this I didn't like very much - a surprise, as I do like the Death In Paradise TV series.

Listened to a rather miscellaneous rock compilation CD, Nielsen's 2nd symphony and Shostakovich's 15th (plus his 2nd Piano Concerto, of which the composer apparently didn't think very much).

Started To Love and be Wise by Josephine Tey. Finished Hollywood Talks Turkey - despite the title and the introduction, not all the films featured were financial flops (The Bride Came C.O.D. was quite a success in that respect, despite Bette Davis's dislike of it).

Listened to Respighi's Brazilian Impressions, Rubbra's Violin Concerto, and a Haydn disk with the trumpet concerto, a piano piece and two symphonies.

Finished To Love and be Wise - I feel I'd like to know the subsequent history of some of the characters. Started Perfect Murder by Bernard Taylor and Stephen Knight, as well as For The Defence: Dr Thorndyke by R. Austin Freeman.

Finished Perfect Murder and For The Defence: Dr Thorndyke (the latter is notable for the sheer unlikelihood of the events that land the protagonist in a mess that only Thorndyke can untangle). Started, and finished, Accounting for Murder by Emma Lathen.

Listened to a 70s compilation, some short works by Leroy Anderson, and From Me Flows What You Call Time by Toru Takemitsu.

>6 JonRob: How did you like the Lathen? I read Banking on Death for a book club many years ago and was thoroughly unimpressed.

I like most of their work - the ones written under the pseudonym R. B. Dominic are not quite so good, and there is a slight falling-off towards the end of their career, but even those are still worth reading in my view. (Incidentally I wrote a piece about the Dominic series which was printed in CADS issue 88.)

Started A Guilty Thing Surprised by Ruth Rendell and The Lost Continent by Bill Bryson.

Listened to some music by Geoffrey Bush, including his first symphony and overture Yorick (in memory of Tommy Handley). Bush has literary connections - he was the son of the crime write Christopher Bush, and co-wrote with Edmund Crispin a short story called "Who Killed Baker?" which is regarded by many people as a classic.

Finished The Lost Continent which is entertaining, though I find his sniping at the NHS rather annoying. Started History and Philosophy of Science by L. W. H. Hull - there's a personal connection here, as the author was my tutor during my PGCE year.

Listened to the Symphony by Cesar Franck, and also his Le Chasseur Maudit.

Finished A Guilty Thing Surprised - again I would like to know the subsequent history of some of the characters (and I wonder if Wexford could have got a conviction without the convenient confession which ends the book). Started Wycliffe and the Scapegoat by W. J. Burley, which I haven't read for some time.

Listened to some music by Respighi and other Italian composers, and some by Hugo Alfven (not including the Midsummer Vigil, his best-known work).

Finished Wycliffe and the Scapegoat - it must have been a really long time since I last read it, as I had absolutely no recollection of the plot. Started Policemen in the Precinct by E. C. R. Lorac.

Listened to two first symphonies by Alfven and Balakirev, plus the album Rosemary Lane by Bert Jansch.

Finished Policemen in the Precinct - I'll do a review of it soon, as there isn't one at present. Started The Penrose Mystery by R. Austin Freeman.

Listened to Tchaikovsky's first symphony.

Finished The Penrose Mystery and started The Blessing Way by Tony Hillerman.

Finished The Blessing Way - like many of Hillerman's books it's more a thriller than a detective story - and started Felo De De by R. Austin Freeman.

Listened to some Vivaldi violin concertos - not the Four Seasons, but all on the same disk - and Below The Salt by Steeleye Span, together with side one of Parcel Of Rogues.

Finished Felo De Se (the criminal must really have had nerves of steel) and also History and Philosophy of Science. Started The Case of the Lucky Loser by Erle Stanley Gardner and The Book of Curious Facts by John May.

Listened to the first five symphonies by Haydn - all on one disk (they are all quite short!)

Finished The Case of the Lucky Loser - I suspect that Gardner had recently read The Davidson Case by John Rhode, as a similar idea is used, though in a very different way. Started Adele and Co. by Dornford Yates, a good example of a comedy-thriller.

Listened to some of the 60s/70s anthology Something In The Air.

Finished Adele and Co.. Read two new purchases: Murder in Vienna by E. C. R. Lorac (which I quite liked but felt the principal twist would be very hard for a reader to guess), and The Domestic Agency by John Rhode, which is not very good (Jimmy Waghorn is incredibly pig-headed about the killer's identity, and as with many of these late Rhode titles Priestley is hardly present at all).

Started Corporate Bodies by Simon Brett.

Listened to the violin concerto by Peter Racine Fricker and the second cello concerto by Saint-Saens.

Finished The Book of Curious Facts and started Seats in All Parts by Leslie Halliwell.

Listened to orchestral music from operas by Wagner - a tick, as it's a new purchase. Also some song-cycles by Lorenzo Paloma, Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals and a folk sampler called All Through The Year.

Finished Seats in All Parts which is a really good read. Also finished Corporate Bodies which I don't think is one of the best Charles Paris mysteries - getting him into a corporate video may have seemed a good idea, but it didn't work well in practice.

Started The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels by Janice Hallett (a library loan), as well as The Matter Myth by Paul Davies and John Gribbin.

Listened to disk one of a new purchase of works by Havergal Brian; also a disk of short works by Albinoni and Vivaldi.

Finished The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels. Hard to know what to say about this one. Also started, and finished, A New Lease of Death by Ruth Rendell, which is not her best - the basic plot twist is not too hard to spot, particularly now as contrasted by 1969 when it was first published.

Listened to several Haydn symphonies, as well as the second disk of the Havergal Brian. Unfortunately the playing of the Hull Youth Symphony Orchestra is rather variable on these recordings - sometimes good, and sometimes downright poor.