It’s the first Thursday of the month. Time to report!
What’s the best book you read in April 2024 and why did you love it?
It doesn’t have to be a newly published book, or even SFF, or even fiction. We just want to share some great reading material.
Feel free to post a full review of the book here, or a link to the review on your blog, or just write a few sentences about why you thought it was awesome.
And don’t forget that we always have plenty more reading recommendations on our 5-Star SFF page.
One commenter with a U.S. mailing address will choose one of these prizes:
- a FanLit T-shirt (we have sizes M, L, XL)
- a book from our stacks.
- a $5 Amazon gift card (this is the only option for non-USA addresses).
Subscribe to our posts here (you can filter for giveaway posts if you prefer).
I read the first four books in the “Children Of the Lamp” series by P.B. Kerr. The name of the series refers to djinns. Apparently there are good djinns and bad djinns, and the two sides help keep the world’s “good luck” and “bad luck” in balance. I found the books quite entertaining.
Best fiction I read in April was Ian C. Esslemont’s new Malazan book, Forge of the High Mage.
Best non-fiction (and best book) I read was Every Living Thing by Jason Roberts, a dual (and dueling) biography of two 18th-Century naturalists: (Count Buffon and Carl Linnaeus
with honorable mention to Mark Lawrence’s The Book That Broke the World
The only genre book I read last month was The Ghost Book, a 1926 anthology compiled by Lady Cynthia Asquith, mostly good stories by the notable writers of that era (de la Mare, Blackwood, Machen, et al.). Having transitioned fully to the Old Curmudgeon life stage, I was less appreciative of the several satiric/humorous stories.
Most of the month was devoted to nonfiction, all of which was worth reading: Anger and Aggression (James Averill), which includes a general theory of emotion; Heaven and Hell (Bart Ehrman), a look at how two incompatible ideas about life after death got jammed together to form the view most popular in Christianity now; Wall Street’s War on Workers (Les Leopold), which says the Democrats’ abandonment of the working class is losing them gettable votes from people who are more concerned about job insecurity than ballyhooed right-wing social issues (which many of them don’t subscribe to). Also read Hart Crane and re-read Stephen Crane in poetry, and very much preferred Stephen.
Childhood’s End- Arthur C. Clarke
Convergence Problems by Wole Talabi
A brilliant and varied collection of mostly-SF stories, many of which focus on the interactions of the human consciousness with technology. Fascinating read.
But also a long-overdue re-read of To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis. It’s still just as madcap, intelligent, and charming as I remember.
Not entering.
A few fantasies and related books this month.
The Potion Gardener by Arden Powell. An alternative, early 20th century England where there’s some magic. A young person (adult) runs off from a party and ends in a rural gardener’s shed. They’re engaged to young man but also has a girlfriend (they’re all friends and know about this). The gardener grows plants for gardens and the young person finds that they like the work quite a bit.
K.J. Charles’s Death in the Spires has a few low-key romances but the main issue is a murder that occurred just before finals at Oxford about 10 years before (early 20th C). The now group of 6 friends knew that one of the group had done it but they stuck together and it’s unsolved. Now someone’s been sending accusing letters to managers, fiancee’s parents, etc. The main character loses his job over it and decides he’s going to discover the killer no matter what happens.
Solstice and Equinox from the Lake Prophet Mysteries by Eli Easton and RJ Scott. One main character is the local sheriff of a small rural town in Oregon who used to work as an undercover officer in LA. The other had a stalker ex, so now works online as a pet issue consultant. It turns out that this MC can get impressions/visuals from animals and ends up helping the sheriff in his investigations.
Knowing You by EM Lindsey was a much lighter/humorous novel by this author who tends to angst. I couldn’t resist a novel where the opening scene has the young daughter of a single dad show up with a lower leg prosthetic and saying, “Mine! My present!” It turns out she ‘acquired’ it from a relative of a neighbor…
On last month’s post, I accidentally skipped a trilogy in the Avatar: The Last AIrbender graphic novels. The next after “The Rift” is actually “Smoke and Shadow”. Part One sees a trio of ominous legendary spirits called the Kemurikage predict that the Fire Nation will fall unless Fire Lord Zuko is removed from the throne. Naturally, the Gaang finds this suspicious.
I’m still not getting notifications for giveaways despite being signed up, leading to me and my family missing the WWednesday giveaway on the 24th.
In Professor Odd #9, “Star Walkers”, by the talented Goldeen Ogawa, Professor Odd and her companions find themselves under unwanted scrutiny after being caught appearing on a starship carrying giant humanoids who are themselves in the wrong universe altogether. No spoilers.
The last book in Scott Turow’s loosely linked Kindle Country Legal Thriller “series” so far is Suspect, which came out in 2022. Out of twelve books, this is only the second time we have a female main protagonist, after Judge Sonia Klonsky in The Laws of Our Fathers. This time, Highland Isle Chief of Police Lucia Gomez employs private detective Clarice “Pinky” Granum as well as attorney Rik Dudek to clear her name of scurrilous corruption charges instigated by her political enemies. Pinky is the granddaughter of previous protagonist Sandy Stern. As you might imagine, the heroes find a complex web of secrecy and danger that is Turow’s bailiwick.
Kevin S,if you live in the USA, you win a Fan Lit T-shirt (please specify 1st and 2nd preferred sizes) OR a book of your choice from our stacks, OR a $5 Amazon gift card. If your address is outside of the USA, you will get a $5 Amazon gift card.
Please contact me (Marion) with your choice and a US address. Happy reading!