The start of the second quarter, and our moving into a full-on lockdown, does seem to have boosted my reading a little: there are 35 titles in this month's list, which means more than one book a day. Again, titles marked with an asterisk (*) are re-reads.
*Right Ho, Jeeves by PG Wodehouse. Not as much fun as Joy in the Morning, but any PG in a storm, says I. (1 Apr.)
Rebel Heiress by Robert Neill. Post-restoration romantic adventure, with a really obnoxious supporting character (Orton). Not as much fun as Black William but an excellent exploration of the moral dilemmas around the Restoration. (1 Apr.)
*The Tank McNamara Chronicles by Jeff Millar & Bill Hinds. Hard to believe this strip is nearly 50 years old (I think it began in 1973). Millar himself is dead, Hinds is 70 years old. Which is about as old as I feel. A fun read, relief from pandemic stress. (2 Apr.)
Crown and Mitre by Robert Neill. Pre-Restoration, but just. Another silly supporting character in Nick Cully, but thankfully he’s off-stage a lot. Quick, easy read. (3 Apr.)
The Golden Years by Robert Neill. Second in the trilogy started above. More physical action, less talk. Interesting. (4 Apr.)
Lillibullero by Robert Neill. Glorious Revolution etc. Final volume in the Barnaby trilogy. (5 Apr.)
The Devil’s Weather by Robert Neill. An amazingly quick read, and a lot of fun. Set during the ‘45 but not really that much about it. (6 Apr.)
*A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman. Reading about plague and govt breakdown is exactly what the times called for. Not. What was I thinking? (10 Apr.)
*Another Day, Another $11,247.63 by Millar and Hinds. The second Tank McNamara collection we own, and a better one (from the first half of the 1980s mostly). Good laughs for bad times. (10 Apr.)
Touchdown! The Picture History of the American Football League by George Sullivan. Weird: a history written in 1966, when the league still had three seasons left to go. (11 Apr.)
Traitor’s Moon by Robert Neill. Sort of a mirrored look at the same events described in The Golden Days, with really evil and wicked Whigs. (12 Apr.)
*Alice, Let’s Eat by Calvin Trillin. More amusing food-writing of the early 1970s. Just the right degree of engagement to accompany exercise biking. (13 Apr.)
Hangman’s Cliff by Robert Neill. Very late-period (set in 1782) tale of smugglers and murder. Unusually active (and violent) for Neill. (13 Apr.)
*The Masqueraders by Georgette Heyer. Read as a contrast with the Neill books. The dialogue seems weird in comparison―but this book was published in 1928. (14 Apr.)
*The Talisman Ring by Georgette Heyer. Ditto, specifically re Hangman’s Cliff (but set in 1790s and not 1780s). (15 Apr.)
Slightly Foxed But Still Desirable by Ronald Searle. Amusing, slightly sexy take on book collecting and its peculiar descriptive language. Will have to look for other Searle books. (15 Apr.)
Ronald Searle by Ronald Searle. Not nearly so amusing. A big collection of his work from the 1970s. Rather more bitter than I need just now, thanks. (16 Apr.)
Mist Over Pendle by Robert Neill. His most famous book. I didn’t like it as much as the others, possibly because the era of James I doesn’t interest me all that much. (16 Apr.)
Witchfire at Lammas by Robert Neill. Lorna says it was his last novel, and not very good. I’m forced to agree: next to nothing happens here, despite the potential. (17 Apr.)
Rocket Ship Galileo by Robert A. Heinlein. First of the juveniles. Nazis in space. Nothing more need be said, I think. (18 Apr.)
Space Cadet by Robert A. Heinlein. If I’m going to read these, I’ll read them in order. Who watches the watchmen indeed. Entertaining and only a bid didactic. (19 Apr.)
Red Planet by Robert A. Heinlein. Hints of libertarianism here. Not sure I like it. But Heinlein treats the libertarian character with a certain amount of scorn, too. (20 Apr.)
The Rake’s Progress by Ronald Searle. Wonderful stuff, even if I don’t always understand the topical references. I much prefer Searle’s 1950s stuff. (20 Apr.)
Farmer in the Sky by Robert A. Heinlein. Why would anyone engage in low-tech farming at the bottom of a very strange gravity well? And his thoughts about population growth are very Malthusian, it seems to me. (21 Apr.)
The Terror of St. Trinian’s by Ronald Searle and “Timothy Shy” (aka D.B. Wyndham-Lewis). Perhaps a bit over-rich now, but I thought I detected hints of R. Firbank in the text. The drawings are superb, of course. (21 Apr.)
The Rolling Stones by Robert A. Heinlein. Loved the flat cat, parent to Star Trek’s tribbles. Nice climax, liked the characterization of the belt-prospectors. (22 Apr.)
Starman Jones by Robert A. Heinlein. Somewhat unbelievable―and so of course it’s based on a real story, albeit from the age of sail. Good characterization, for the most part. And a sneaky bit of moralizing at the end, too. (23 Apr.)
The Starbeast by Robert A. Heinlein. Quite amusing, and not really dependent on tech that didn’t age well. Also interesting for the multi-ethnic nature of the characters; the hero bureaucrat is a black man from Kenya. (24 Apr.)
Tunnel in the Sky by Robert A. Heinlein. Battle Royale but from the mid-fifties? Got better as it went along, and I felt for the protagonist. But … No. (25 Apr.)
*The First of the Few by Denis Winter. Lots of niggling errors but still provides a depth of detail few other books I’ve read have managed. (26 Apr.)
Emett’s Domain by Rowland Emett. Classic Emett cartoons from the early 1950s. Much more gentle than Searle, but still has a bit of a sarcastic punch. (27 Apr.)
Time for the Stars by Robert A. Heinlein. Interesting anticipation of quantum tunneling, it seems to me. Pretty good story. (27 Apr.)
Have Space Suit―Will Travel by Robert A. Heinlein. Last of the juveniles. The politics is beginning to annoy, and I think it’s time to take a break from RAH (28 Apr.)
The Wizard Hunters by Martha Wells. Nice witty dialogue, excellent tension boosting in act 3. Why wasn’t this more successful commercially? (29 Apr.)
*Aircraft of World War 2 by Bill Gunston. Excellent exercise reading (tho the book’s a bit on the heavy side). Haven’t read this in at least a decade. (30 Apr.)
The Ships of Air by Martha Wells. Book 2 of the trilogy, with all the negatives that implies. Still enjoyable (30 Apr.)
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