Wednesday 7 January 2015

DECEMBER 2014 READING LIST AND PICK OF THE MONTH

A great month of reading to end the year and after failing on all of my other reading challenges, I managed to read 18 books, novellas and short stories etc to hit my year end target of 120 reads.

 Do I care if I manipulated the length of the pieces read to get to the line.......no not really.

I got a bit jaded during the middle of the month and took myself away from  blogging for a fortnight, so for half of these books I haven't yet jotted down any thoughts. The OCD monster inside dictates that I address this, so I think I'll still be blogging on December reads when February come around.

Two 5 star reads among the 18 - Antonin Varenne's Loser's Corner and Lawrence Block's Borderline. I can't choose between them, so they both get one hand on the December pick of the month trophy.



Loser's Corner - Varenne's dark account of France's messy and brutal entanglement in Algeria in the late 50's, something that still haunts to this day.

Borderline - a 50 year-old Lawrence Block pulp-cum-soft porn tale from the master.

All the others were enjoyed and time well spent.

Honourable mentions for Brian Garfield - entertains me every time, Paul D Brazill - shocks and laughs in the same sentence, Christina James - Sausage Hall - one of my titles of the year, but much more than that - an enjoyable and thought provoking mystery, Danny King and John Nelson - for barrels of laughs and some light relief.



Of the 18, 9 authors were new to me, and shockingly but probably not too much of a surprise for me only 1.5 were penned by women authors. I'll see what my stat is for the year at some point, but I don't think I have addressed the gender imbalance in my reading really this year.

Tom Kakonis (aka Adam Barrow) - Flawless (4)

Paul D. Brazill - 13 Shots of Noir (4)

Lawrence Block - One Thousand Dollars a Word (4)

Max Austin  - Duke City Split (4)

Christina James - Sausage Hall (4)

Charles Allen Gramlich - Killing Trail (4)

J.W.Nelson - LA Limo Tales (4)

Danny King - A 4-King Cracker (4)

Lee Thompson - When We Join Jesus in Hell (4)

Lawrence Block - Like a Bone in the Throat (4)

Janet Evanovich/Lee Goldberg - The Heist (4)

Lawrence Block - Borderline (5)

Earl Javorsky - Down Solo (4)

Brian Garfield - What of Terry Conniston? (4)

Nigel Bird - Smoke (4)

Antonin Varenne - Loser's Corner (5)

Mark Sennen - The Boat House (4)

Scott McKenzie - A Gitmo Nation Christmas Carol (3)





Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise hosts a meme, collating together other crime fiction bloggers monthly book choices. Well worth heading over there to add recommendations to your TBR pile!

14 comments:

  1. Both go right to my wish list Col, Antonin Varenne's Loser's Corner and Lawrence Block's Borderline

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    1. Jose, I hope you enjoy them as and when you get around to reading. I'll keep an eye out for your reviews.

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  2. Col - You did have a good year. And thanks for the reminder about Borderline. I like Block's Matthew Scudder novels, but this is Block novel I've not (yet) read.

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    1. Margot thank you. I think some of LB's work is quite diverse in nature, maybe more so when he was starting out. It's quite unlike any Scudder book I have read and may not appeal to everyone. I think Tracy has been put off by the amount of "sex" - I'd love to see what you and others think though.

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  3. Col, you've had a cracker of a reading month in December. That's a fine cross-section of authors and books.

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    1. Cheers Prashant. I do feel as if I ended the year on a high.

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  4. Sausage Hall is a great title! Will await your thoughts on 13 Shots of Noir as I like a good short story collection so might give it a try.
    Happy New Year!

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    1. Sausage Hall - agreed - great title, great book. 13 Shots is recommended as long as you aren't too sensitive a soul...... http://col2910.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/paul-d-brazill-13-shots-of-noir.html

      I hope your 2015 is happy and prosperous as well, Stephanie. Cheers!

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  5. Well done for making your target - and it is in the spirit of noir books to not be too fussed about how you made it. There are no rules!

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    1. Thanks, I could have pushed myself and gone one above, but held back!

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  6. Interesting list and I will keep your top picks in mind. I do hope you do a post on all of the ones not reviewed so far. I am still far behind on reviews and other posts I want to do from 2014.

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    1. Thanks, I do intend to post about everything, it's just going to take a while to get there. Should be done with December by the last week of January. Then I'll spend most of February catching up on this month!

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