PGMCC explores the Biblioverse in 2024: Fourth instalment

Books completed in 2024

Title; Author; Status; Start/end date; Number of pages

Hogfather by Terry Pratchett Reading 19/12/2023 - 15/01/2024 445 Pages
If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino 05/01/2024 - 27/01/2024 272 Pages
Relight my Fire by C. K. McDonnell 27/1/2024 - 01/02/2024 518 Pages
Berlin Game by Len Deighton 01/02/2024 - 07/02/2024 296 Pages
The Chalk Circle Man by Fred Vargas 08/02/2024 - 12/02/2024 247 Pages
The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth 12/02/2024 - 27/02/2024 369 Pages
Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson 27/02/2024 - 05/03/2024 350 Pages
The Accordionist by Fred Vargas 05/03/2024 - 10/03/2024 249 Pages
Poor Things by Alistair Gray 11/03/2024 - 15/03/2024 336 Pages
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka 16/03/2024 - 27/03/2024 408 Pages
Leadership Magic by Grahame Pitts 28/03/2024 - 01/04/2024 129 Pages
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah 02/04/2024 - 06/04/2024 468 Pages
The Leaky Establishment by David Langford 07 /04/2024 - ? Pages
Seeking Whom He May Devour by Fred Vargas and translated by David Bellos12/04/2014 - 18/04/2024 359 Pages
The Fog Horn (Short Story) by Ray Bradbury BB from jillmwo 14/04/2024 - 14/04/2024 6 Pages
Mexico Set by Len Deighton 19/04/2024 - 03/05/2024 364 Pages
Bunny McGarry Shorts by Caimh McDonnell 04/05/24 - 06/05/2024 288 Pages
Nemesis Games by James S. A. Corey 07/05/2024 - 532 Pages

And not ten minutes after your post about thinking it was time to start on a new thread, I'm sending best wishes for a happy NEW thread! You're gulping down the books at a great rate here.

>2 jillmwo:
Thank you, Jill. I am getting through the books thanks to deliberately taking time to read. I find that the more time I devote to reading the more reading I get done. Have you noticed that?

:-)

I just checked the Worldcon attendees list and Shannon Chakraborty is planning to be there. The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi is on the Hugo shortlist for best novel. It was the only novel I nominated that made it to the shortlist. It would be great if she won it, but there are several very popular authors in the final list and popularity appears to count more in the Hugo voting than quality.

As you will have seen from my posts, I really enjoyed the third Commissaire Adamsberg novel. I am fortunate to have read both The Three Evangelist and Commissaire Adamsberg stories in chronological order so far. Vargas is developing Adamsberg's character nicely as we progress through the stories.

Happy New Thread!

Happy new thread!

What >4 clamairy: and >5 Karlstar: said, Pete!

Happy new thread!

Thank you all for the new thread good wishes.

I have chosen Len Deighton's Mexico Set for my next read. A physical book so no botheration about the battery going flat at the most tense part of a chapter.



This is the second novel in the Game, Set, Match trilogy, the first being Berlin Game and the final one being London Match.

I like to pace my reads in a series or trilogy, that is why I only brought one Len Deighton and one Fred Vargas books with me.

ETA: A new Caimh McDonnell book came out on the 16th April. I almost missed it. It is a collection of short stories involving Bunny McGarry and is entitled, Shorts: A Bunny McGarry Short Fiction Collection and is part of Dublin Trilogy series. That will have to be my next read after Mexico Set

Congratulations Peter! Your posts about Seeking whom he may devour have prompted me to order a copy of Ghost riders of Ordebec, the missing volume which I need in order to proceed with the Adamsberg series. Thank you for your service!

>9 Sakerfalcon:
I am glad my efforts have been of benefit to you.

OK, so I cracked and ordered the third and fourth books in Fred Vargas's Commissaire Adamsberg series. I am weak, but at least I admit it.

>11 pgmcc: Laughing out loud -- so much for "dance with the one that brung ya". That huge stack of books that you packed and carted with you to France and you still went and ordered TWO more.

I'm also quietly giggling with a certain amount of victorious glee. (Now, let me also share with you that you need to go out and get your hands on Mortal Love by Elizabeth Hand. I mean, really. Bookmarque and Marissa_Doyle got me with it and now I'm popping off a BB in your direction.) It's something like Imprimatur in terms of complexity and yet nothing like. Certainly worth your consideration.

>12 jillmwo:
I read your posts about it in the reading thread and, I think, on your own thread. I was going to ask you if you thought I was the right demographic for this book. You have answered my question without my asking it. Given the quality of your BBs in the past, and the fact that you compare this book to Imprimatur* convinces me that I will have to go for Mortal Love. Isn't this the book you were complaining was full of sex?

Chalk it up. I am off to catch the Kindle version.

* I read the first three books by Monaldi & Sorti and was hoping to read the fourth, but the fourth has not been translated into English. I contacted the publisher of the first three and they said they had no plans to translate the fourth. The third one was not as good as the first two, but I wanted to read the fourth to complete the series. Imprimatur was the best of the three I have read.

OOPS!
There appears to be no Kindle version, the hardbacks are starting at €82.00, and the paperback is not directly available from Amazon. Mmmmmm!

There's more!
I ordered it from US Amazon. Including postage it was costing over €40. Then I checked French Amazon and they had it sourced from the UK. Including postage it is costing €28. Cancelled US order and ordered from France/UK.

I hope you are happy with all the trouble I am going to for the wound you inflicted on me.

>13 pgmcc: Did you try bookfinder? I looked up ISBN on Amazon, then ran a search and came up with...

Mortal Love Hardcover, (destination set to 'UK').

You can also try entering the paperback ISBN to see those results. Or do an author/title search, (I prefer ISBN because it limits results to the edition I am seeking). I dunno, it might not work the same from outside the US but could be worth a try...? Consider it a side-mission...

Edit: Ah, I see you already ordered while I was posting. Hope you enjoy the book!

I have just been checking my pre-orders and there are some very interesting books arriving in the next few months.

14th May: Beyond the Light Horizon by Ken MacLeod


26th September: The Wilding by Ian McDonald
No cover image available yet.

24th October: Karla's Choice by Nick Harkaway


26th November: The City and its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami


My favourite authors are being very productive. This will be some great reading.

>15 pgmcc:

Ah hah! So I can finally start reading Beyond the Hallowed Sky?!? I have been waiting for the full trilogy to be published before embarking on book 1.

Do you know if this will be the final book in the series?

>16 ScoLgo:
It is a trilogy, so this is the final book.

>14 ScoLgo: I used to love using Bookfinder back when I was reading paper.

>12 jillmwo: Jill, you really made me cackle with that first sentence. Are you sure Peter can handle that book? He might have an attack of the vapors.

>14 ScoLgo:
I have never used bookfinder. I must have look at it. I did try abebooks but most of the sellers would not post to France.

>17 pgmcc: Thank you. I will move books 1 and 2 up on my TBR in anticipation of purchasing Beyond the Light Horizon when it becomes available. (I also did not miss your mention of the new Nick Harkaway. He is a 'buy on release' author for me ever since I read Angelmaker.)

>18 clamairy: I still buy a fair amount of print books. I figure authors I like can probably use the sales to help them keep going. I also am suspicious of purchasing e-books ever since Amazon's 1984 kerfuffle of 2009. I still buy a few here and there but the vast majority of e-books I read are either freebies, (TOR, Book Gorilla, etc), or borrowed via Overdrive/Libby.

>19 pgmcc: Bookfinder is great because results will include nearly all sellers out there, including Abe Books. Give it a try!

>18 clamairy: Are you kidding? If pgmcc had ever met Elizabeth Hand in real life, I might have thought he was a model for one or two of the male characters appearing in Mortal Love. (Okay, maybe not. But given his fondness for the Gothic...). The thing is that Mortal Love is neither derivative of Possession nor of Imprimatur, but there's that same hovering play with light and darkness. As one character describes one of the properties, think "Manderley on bad acid.". (And yes, there's a certain amount of sex. And you, the reader, thinks it's going to be a male dominated thing, and then you find -- oh, wait, I don't want to spoil it.)

As clamairy so often says, Bwa-ha-hah-ha!

>13 pgmcc: Things are happening back behind the curtain with warehouses and distribution centers, I think. The copy I purchased ("new" from Amazon) has a remainder mark on the bottom of the physical pages. I wasn't upset, because the book fit the industry standard for a book in "new" condition. But what happens to backlist titles these days where the publisher hasn't nailed down electronic rights is anybody's guess.

And I did read research w/in the past 24 months that indicated that 75% of scholarly monographs sold to libraries these days are print-on-demand. Still trying to work out what that actually means in terms of business practices.

>21 jillmwo:
The third person in your discussion has been used as a character in a story; The Bleeding Horse, by Brian J. Showers. The character is the publican who owns and runs The Bleeding Horse pub in Dublin. My father was a publican and Brian thought it would be interesting to put me in as the publican.

On another occasion, I was the MC for a game of Pictionary at Phoenix Convention VI. The subjects for the contestants to sketch were winners of the Hugo Awards. There were two teams made up of the guest authors at the convention. Paul Cornell was the captain of one team and Catie Murphy was the captain of the other team. Paul Cornell had written several episodes of the recently re-introduced Dr Who series.

I was laying down the ground-rules and stated that my word on any dispute was final.

Catie then said, "Peter, I could make you one of the characters in my next book."

Paul's response was, "Peter, you could be the next Doctor."

>20 ScoLgo:
I really enjoyed Angelmaker.

>23 pgmcc: Gee, and all I can counter with (in terms of 15 seconds of fame) is inclusion as a female priest in one of Peter David's comic books for Marvel. I suspect you are the one to take the gold medal in this instance!

>25 jillmwo:
Well, I was never ordained.

>20 ScoLgo:
The 1984 affair has coloured my view of “buying” e-books. However, I often go for them as a quick way to obtain the story. If it is a really good book I will try to get a physical copy too.

>22 jillmwo:
My supply chain background would lead me to believe that the cost accountants working for publishers love PoD. It greatly reduces up-front print costs, warehousing costs, and reduces the working capital requirement. Books are not printed until they are ordered and so there is limited, in fact no, risk in printing before hand. There is no need to handled books sent back on sale-or-return as not books are taken in advance of an actual sale.

PoD is a cost accountants wet dream. Along with forcing authors to do more of the upfront editing, i.e. not putting as much money into proofreading and letting the authors know that any errors in the final product are likely their own, and also putting a heavier load on the author for marketing and promotion, the accountants can show their financial performance to be A1. By emphasising on-line sales of physical books the publishers can weight the trend to PoD while reducing the number of books required to fill any physical store pipeline.

In terms of academic books I can see this being a very popular approach with the cost accountants. These books were traditionally very expensive to buy because of their limited circulation and hence high per copy production costs. While the publisher can now eliminate much of their high per copy production costs by waiting for orders before printing the book and at the same time keeping the price high and, as always, only giving the author a pittance. The academic author is just so happy to have their work in a book they do not look for any serious financial reward. I do not know how it works in the US, but here I have heard of academics being approached by publishers to produce a book on their speciality. The academic is thrilled, puts a lot of effort into writing the book, and is then surprised when the initial flurry of sales to academic libraries, which could be a few hundred books, there are precious few additional sales and hence limited or no royalties.

The publisher's need to make a profit drives them into these practices and the world moves on.

Does any of the above make sense to you?

>18 clamairy:
I am touched by your concern for my wellbeing. I will keep the smelling-salts close by to save me from the suffering of the vapours.

Also, I always have your suggestion of using dolls to understand what is happening in the book, or do you think that could accelerate my succumbing victim of the vapours?

>28 pgmcc: One issue I can see coming with PoD is that sooner or later somebody is going to start asking why they are paying for server space to store thousands of old books. Data storage might be orders of magnitude cheaper than it was 20 years ago but it's still not free. Assuming that somebody does want to keep a copy of a book, the cheapest way might be to keep a physical copy and scan it periodically. Given a few generations of this, with the attendant scan errors, will we need a new generation of textual critics to arrive at a correct text?

And yes, after Amazon's funny business with 1984 I avoid kindle for anything I care to keep long term.

Paper (of decent quality) has the advantage that it lasts. There are paper books 600 years old that are still in excellent condition. But I remember reading that a good deal of the data from early space research is at risk because it's stored on 60s-vintage magnetic tape. The tape drives are no longer made and can't even be maintained. (Only the other day I saw someone refer to a 90s Zip drive as a relic.)

On the economics of publishing: some time back I read Rupert Hart-Davis — Man of Letters. Hart-Davis founded his own publishing firm after the Second World War, and the initial capital came from family members and friends (one of whom was Peter Fleming, Ian's brother). The firm's books were well designed and well printed but RHD refused to publish a book that he didn't think good enough, even if it would make money. OTOH, he published a good few money-losers for their literary quality*. The firm always had a large stock of unsold backlist. It never (I believe) made a profit, was kept afloat by the shareholders, and was eventually bought out by one of the major British publishers of the day. Happy days, and how unlike the present.

*One notable author for whom RHD was the first UK publisher was Pay Bradbury, although RHD probably didn't lose by that.

>23 pgmcc: "Paul's response was, "Peter, you could be the next Doctor."

The pieces are falling into place. Fellow pub denizens, we have not been dealing with a spy, it was all a misdirection. We've been hanging out with The Doctor!

>31 MrsLee:
Hmmmmm! The only one who would want to leak The Doctor's cover like that would be their arch nemesis, The Master!

Duh! Duh! Duh!

>32 pgmcc: taptaptap tap, taptaptap tap, taptaptap tap.

>32 pgmcc: and >33 MrsLee: I'm feeling very concerned here. Have I walked into a duel between two time lords? I mean, are Daleks or Cybermen en route? (I'm seriously creeped out by the Weeping Angels. Also those aliens who you only ever see out of the corner of your eye.)

Scurrying from the room now.

>34 jillmwo:
Don’t blink!

>29 pgmcc: I believe it was puppets I suggested, so I guess it would all depend on the manner of puppets you are using. :o)

>36 clamairy:
Hand puppets or string operated? Each would introduce its own set of complexities and intensity of feelings.

I am really enjoying The Mexico Set by Len Deighton. The plot is twisty and full of crafty machinations by the various espionage players. If you are planning to read this book, which is the second in a set of three referred to as the Game, Set, Match series, I recommend reading them in the correct sequence. Events in the first book, Berlin Game, play a significant part in setting up the second book events. While each book is a standalone novel one would be asking questions reading the second book not having read the first one. I presume the same goes for the third.

Deighton's stories are good, but he is pipped at the post by the works of John Le Carré,

It has just gone 11pm. I am in that danger zone where I only have 50 pages left in my book and the action is heating up. Will I get to sleep tonight? Will I be awake to 3am reading the rest of the book? Will I read 45 pages and fall asleep before reaching the end?

Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of Peter Reads in the Night.

>40 pgmcc: Ha! I tried to finish a book the other night, but my eyeballs wouldn't cooperate. Best of luck with it! I have faith in you.

>40 pgmcc: You got this!

>40 pgmcc: 4 hours later, who was victorious? I believe the odds are in Peter's favor, wonder what Vegas says?

I fell asleep after 12 pages but finished the rest this morning.

A good read.

I have finished Mexico Set by Len Deighton.

Would I read another book by this author?
Definitely.

Would I recommend this book?
Yes.

To whom would I recommend this book?
To anyone who enjoys good, thoughtful espionage novels based on realistic activities of existing intelligence agencies. This is a Cold War related espionage story and hence anyone interested in spying during the Cold War era would be interested.

Did this book inspire me to do anything?
It has inspired me to reaffirm my liking of the books of Len Deighton.

Len Deighton is not John Le Carré, but his books are very good and involve plots that come close to the intricacy of Le Carré's stories. ScoLgo gave a link to The Literature Map in the Science Fiction Fans Group thread, "Our Reads in May 2024", and it is fascinating. Thank you, ScoLgo. The closest author to Le Carré on the Literature Map is Len Deighton and I would have to agree with that.

Mexico Set is the second book in Deighton's Game, Set, Match trilogy and I found it a good second book. It has sufficient story to work as a standalone but to get full value from it one should already have read the first in the series, Berlin Game. I am looking forward to the third, London Match.

I give this story four stars.

I found many comments and conversations in Mexican Set interesting and worth quoting. I present a selection below.

1. The difference between recruiting someone to be an agent and convincing a professional spy from the other side to defect. Apparently the latter is referred to as "enrolling".

"It's very different," said Werner. "When you recruit someone, and start them spying, you paint romantic pictures for them. You show them the glamour and make them feel courageous and important. But the agent you enrol knows all the answers already. Enrolment is tricky. You are telling lies to highly skilled liars. They're cynical and demanding. It's easy to start it off but it usually goes sour some way along the line and everyone ends up mad at everyone else."
"You make it sound like getting a divorce," said Zena.
"It's a bit like that," I said. "But it gets more violent."
"More violent than a divorce?" Zena fluttered her eyelashes.

2. Automation.

"Registry, eh?" It was the most unpopular job in the Department and nearly one-third of all the staff were employed there. The theory was that the computer in the Data Centre would gradually replace the thousands of dusty files, and Registry would eventually disappear. But, true to the rules of all bureaucracy, the staff at the Data Centre grew and grew but the staff in Registry did not decrease.

3. Dicky's first love.
"An affair. How romantic. It wasn't an affair, darling. No one could have an affair with Dicky; he's having an imperishable love affair with himself. What woman could compete with Dicky's first and only love?"

>46 pgmcc: Wonderful quotes, I am very impressed. Spy novels have never been my genre (I was just never interested for some reason), but you make these books sound tempting ;)

>46 pgmcc: Your second quote reminds me that in my experience, every much-trumpeted introduction of the "paperless office" results in a doubling of the paperwork and consumption of dead-tree paper.

>48 hfglen:
I have tales I could tell but I would be in breach of confidentiality agreements. Perhaps I can write a fictional story about them. :-)

Once upon a time there was a company that had a process for recording people's attendance and leave usage. There were two administrative people involved in maintaining this system. The HR Director decided to introduce a time and attendance system for everyone to clock in. He said it would save on administration effort. I informed him, in this hypothetical and fictitious situation, that he would require at least five full-time people to administer the system and that every manager would have to spend on average half-an-hour a day to approve the transactions.

He poo, pooed my comments (which had been based on a carefully researched and carried out analysis) and said the benefits would be tremendous.

When the system was introduced a new department within HR was established to administer the system. It had five full-time people and three reserves.

In this hypothetical situation I think his real objective was to create attendance statistics that would comply with the EU Working Time Directive. This belief was supported when it became clear that people could not report more time at work than they were scheduled to carry out. In other words no effort over and above the contracted hours was recognised by the system. In this imaginary world I knew the HR Director from a previous situation and knew him to be the type of person who would do such a thing.

>49 pgmcc: So all hours of overtime worked went unrecorded, unrecognized and I'm sure unrewarded... Sheesh.

>50 clamairy: Exactly.

In that fictitious world.

One of my objections to it was that salaried people were put on the system. Their pay did not improve with additional hours worked, but they worked a lot of extra hours without financial reward. They just wanted to do a good job and get their work done.

Come review time, as you pointed out, there was no record of their extra effort, so managers could ignore such extra effort when looking at any bonus payment.

This was all fictional of course. It never really happened.

As suggested in >8 pgmcc:, I am reading Caimh McDonnell's Bunny McGarry Shorts, a collection of the short fiction about Bunny McGarry. I have read most of the stories before in earlier books. There are two new stories and I am enjoying them.

>51 pgmcc: That reminds me of the policy of a certain company to require some salaried people to work no less than 10% overtime - but to never mention said policy officially. That company has been sued, twice, over not paying for required hours.

>53 Karlstar:
That company has been sued, twice, over not paying for required hours.

Rightly so!

I have started reading Nemesis Games by James S. A. Corey, the fifth book in The Expanse series. It is rattling along nicely. I am back with Amos, Alex, Naomi and John Holden, the captain and least colourful of all the characters.

Some pictures from a beautiful day we spent in Montlivault.

The twelfth century church, Saint Pierre Église.



The château arch. The arch provided the occupants of the château to cross over the road to access their private fishing pound.



The trees in the car park that my wife thought looked like something from Dr Who.

White wisteria. Included here because they are pretty.

Lovely photos, thank you for sharing.

>56 pgmcc: Thank you for sharing your photos! What a lovely place :)

So beautiful! What glorious weather you are having!

>56 pgmcc: >57 pgmcc: Great pictures, thank you. Are those trees living?

I am glad you all appreciated the pictures. We had a lovely day filled with impromptu activity.

It is time I gave an update on my reading, as this is a reading thread.

As you might imagine, sunny weather and impromptu activities have taken priority over my reading, but I am still making progress with Nemesis Games by James S. A. Corey.

I am really enjoying the book. Despite having watched the screen adaption and having a good idea of what is happening next I am still enjoying the book a lot. Having watched the screen adaptation I am seeing the actors playing the roles of the characters in the book. Having enjoyed the screen version and liked the characters I am finding this book, and all the previous Expanse novels I have read, a great comfort read. I am really relaxing when I read it.

While I am enjoying mixing with the familiar characters and enjoying the story and action, I am also finding some clever ideas and turns of phrase. I quote a couple below:

#1 Situation: Amos is back on Earth and is looking for something to eat. This is set in a time when The Moon and Mars have been colonised, and there are people living an working throughout the solar system.

... A short walk took him to a food cart where he bought what the sign optimistically called a Belgian sausage. Unless the Belgians were famous for their flavoured bean curd products, the optimism seemed misplaced. Not that it mattered. Amos realised that while he knew the orbital period of every Jovian moon by heart, he had no idea where Belgium was. He didn't think it was a North American territory, but that was about the best he could do. He was hardly in a position to criticise assertions about their cuisine.

He walked towards the old rotting docks he played on as a child, not for any reason more profound than needing a destination and knowing which direction the water was. He finished the last of his sausage and then, not seeing a convenient recycling bin, he chewed up and swallowed the wrapper too. It was made of spun corn starch and tasted like stale breakfast cereal.

I found this section a commentary on the future of recycling, plant based food and packaging material, and the meandering of someone visiting their old neighbourhood decades after they had last been there.

#2 Developing leadership qualities.

Even back on the Rokku, Marco had been cultivating himself as a leader. He's been good at it. No matter how bad things got, he'd always managed to make it seem like each new hurdle was something he'd factored in, every solution - even ones he'd logically had nothing to do with - was somehow his brilliance. He'd explained once how he managed it.

The trick, he said, is to have a simple plan that more or less can't go wrong so that you always have something, and then stack your risks on that. Have another alternative that won't work but maybe one time in a hundred, and if it happens, you look like god. And then one that won't work but one time in twenty, and that if it lands you look like you're the smartest one in the room. And then one that's only one time in five, but you look like you knew you could do it. And if everything else fails, you've still got the on that would always win.

I thought this was amusing and an interesting idea for appearing to be brilliant.

Now, back to reading.

DILEMMA!

Beyond the Light Horizon by Ken Macleod arrived on my Kindle on Monday. I am at high-burn, experiencing many Gs, to reach the end of Nemesis Games so that I can get to Beyond the Light Horizon. This is a real dilemma. I have a new Ken MacLeod novel and I am not ready to read it just yet. About 150 pages to go in Nemesis Games.

My usual practice is to starting reading Ken's books the day I get them, usually the day of publication. This is a deviation from the norm.

I am really enjoying Nemesis Games.

>63 pgmcc: I have another day to wait before I can order a print copy of Beyond the Light Horizon from Blackwell's. Hmmm... it is probably time to begin reading book #1 of The Lightspeed Trilogy now.

Your touchstone issue may be due to the title being Nemesis Games, (not 'Gates').

>64 ScoLgo:
I think you might be on to something there. The interesting thing is that the options offered included The Expanse series and two omnibus editions of The Expanse. Curiouser and curiouser.

Now off to fix my posts.

Thank you. You pass the test
:-)

>63 pgmcc: Is that the third book in the Lightspeed trilogy?

>66 Karlstar:
Yes. And as with Book 2, he has included a brief outline of what happened previously to save people having to reread earlier books to remeber the story.

>67 pgmcc: Thanks, time for me to pick up book 2!