For example, Sarah Caudwell! The funniest mysteries I've read in ages, recommended to friends and we've chatted about them, I can't believe I read the first one just this last March.
Another gem: John Sladek's The New Apocrypha. I've read most of his fiction, and picked up a used copy just to enjoy his writing. I expected the wry humor in his writings on UFOs, ESP, cryptids or the Voynich manuscript. I wasn't expecting serious consideration before he eviscerated them.
Sadly, still very topical 50 years after it was written.
Not that it didn't have plenty of his humor. Recounting reporting on a child with x-ray vision, he admits to there being an unsolved mystery, but it was not how the child saw through so much, rather how the journalist saw through so little.
It's still January so I think I'm allowed to finish up my 2024 look back thread! Continuing with books:
I liked-not-loved the Thursday Murder Club, enough to pick up Osman's new book We Solve Murders. Which I did love! It's like combining a cozy mystery with an airport thriller.
Favorite novel last year: Spufford's Cahokia Jazz, a top-notch noir set in an alt-history Cahokia (now part of the US with it's own brand of syncretic Catholicism.)
The setting's not a gimmick. The crime weaves in religion, racism, the KKK, land rights, and even an alt-timeline Birth of the Nation.
Favorite non-fiction in 2024 was @dsquareddigest.bsky.social's The Unaccountability Machine.
I've been working for 30 years and I finally understand why, so many times, I've seen companies hire consultants to tell management exactly what they'd here from internal employees 3 levels down.
Comments
Not that it didn't have plenty of his humor. Recounting reporting on a child with x-ray vision, he admits to there being an unsolved mystery, but it was not how the child saw through so much, rather how the journalist saw through so little.
I liked-not-loved the Thursday Murder Club, enough to pick up Osman's new book We Solve Murders. Which I did love! It's like combining a cozy mystery with an airport thriller.
The setting's not a gimmick. The crime weaves in religion, racism, the KKK, land rights, and even an alt-timeline Birth of the Nation.
I've been working for 30 years and I finally understand why, so many times, I've seen companies hire consultants to tell management exactly what they'd here from internal employees 3 levels down.