What Fiction are you reading this week, December 26, 2021?
I must have been really good this year because Santa brought me State of Terror by Hilary Clinton & Louise Penny. Also Lee Child's Night School. Heather Graham's Ghost Night. Murder on an Irish Farm by Carlene O'Connor. And The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel.
First, though, I'm reading my library book, Silverview, John Le Carre's final novel.
It's every bit as good as one would expect from the Master Spy storyteller. I'm intermingling this with The Usual Santas, short stories of crime capers.
Listening to A Hiss Before Dying by Rita Mae Brown, a "contemporary mystery involving wild animal poaching, set against a historical narrative that takes place in America's post-revolutionary past." Really interesting, informative, and entertaining.
Did you get anything new to read?
Have a happy and safe New Year's.
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Wow, Santa was good to you! 
I gave this title to a few friends in an effort to fight the War on Christmas. It's actually a cute story about a tow truck and snow plow who save Christmas, but I love the spoof. 
I finally started reading "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss. This is the book my friend said was really good. I haven't read fantasy in a long time. It's over 600 pages & I'm only about 70 into it & it just started to get really good, so I'm happy.
On the non-fiction side, I'm reading "Infinite Powers: How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe" by Steven H. Strogatz. I never took calculus, but I know it's integral to so much in our life. This book is great at explaining how. An interesting read. I'm about 1/3 of the way through.
https://www.amazon.com/Infinite-Powers-Calculus-Reveals-Universe-ebook/dp/B07FKF9DVJ/ref=sr_1_1
From preeminent math personality and author of The Joy of x, a brilliant and endlessly appealing explanation of calculus—how it works and why it makes our lives immeasurably better.
Without calculus, we wouldn’t have cell phones, TV, GPS, or ultrasound. We wouldn’t have unraveled DNA or discovered Neptune or figured out how to put 5,000 songs in your pocket.
Though many of us were scared away from this essential, engrossing subject in high school and college, Steven Strogatz’s brilliantly creative, down-to-earth history shows that calculus is not about complexity; it’s about simplicity. It harnesses an unreal number—infinity—to tackle real-world problems, breaking them down into easier ones and then reassembling the answers into solutions that feel miraculous.
Infinite Powers recounts how calculus tantalized and thrilled its inventors, starting with its first glimmers in ancient Greece and bringing us right up to the discovery of gravitational waves (a phenomenon predicted by calculus). Strogatz reveals how this form of math rose to the challenges of each age: how to determine the area of a circle with only sand and a stick; how to explain why Mars goes “backwards” sometimes; how to make electricity with magnets; how to ensure your rocket doesn’t miss the moon; how to turn the tide in the fight against AIDS.
As Strogatz proves, calculus is truly the language of the universe. By unveiling the principles of that language, Infinite Powers makes us marvel at the world anew.
Happy New Year!
".. a shocking psychological thriller of a woman's act of violence against her husband -- and of the therapist obsessed with uncovering her motive." I'll have to read that one, for sure. 
I was confused there. How could they be the same person? Duh...
A Grief Observed is a collection of C. S. Lewis's reflections on the experience of bereavement following the death of his wife, Joy Davidman, in 1960. The book was first published in 1961 under the pseudonym N.W. Clerk, as Lewis wished to avoid identification as the author. Though republished in 1963, after his death, under his own name, the text still refers to his wife as “H” (her first name, which she rarely used, was Helen).
Tana French wasn't born until 1973. I did read In the Woods and it was good.
He is my other top fav author.
Protagagonist lawyer, Andy Carpenter & his team, including his Golden Retriever, Tara, help a wrongly accused reporter. Exceptional read!
Dymanic quirky characters, interesting story, & lots of laughs.
In real life, the author runs a dog rescue org. Each of his books is are titled in a manner related to dogs & several dogs are characters in each of his books.
I'm always thrilled to see a new one!
I love that santa rewarded you with so many delicious pieces of mind candy!
Do NOT start reading this just before bedtime. 
That said, it is really quite well done. I’m a fan of Louise Penny’s, and ultimately Three Pines makes a cameo (yay!) The description of Trump aka Dunn’s horrible character and outsize charisma is very well executed.
Now, back to the last 50 pages.
