What I’m Reading Now!

 As usual, I’m reading or rereading several books at a time. Some are books I read years ago and have indulged in buying ebook versions. 

To my astonishment, I discovered that a book I read in my teens, Those About To Die, by Daniel P Mannix, a history of the Roman games, is still around as The Way Of The Gladiator. Interestingly, the intro is written by someone who read it at fourteen, about the same age as I was when I first discovered it. It’s quite charming, for a book about gruesome happenings. The author describes them through the eyes of real people who were there, or at least, chooses those real people, in order to describe the games. So it’s not just “this and this happened” but the possible story of top gladiator Flamma or bestiarius Carpophorus. We know their names, but nothing else. Who knows? I’m halfway through a reread and enjoying it again

I’m reading children’s book Septopus, about a seven tentacled octopus, by Aussie author Rebecca Fung. It will be reviewed here soon, plus I am hoping to interview the author, who has started a publishing company. 

I found the ebook of Drinking Gourd by Barbara Hambly, one of her Benjamin January series about African American musician, teacher, surgeon - and sleuth, sometimes even paid for it - Benjamin January, set in the 1830s and 1840s. I read it years ago, but remembered so little that it was worth a reread. This one involves a murder, as usual, and the Underground Railroad.

The Incompleat Enchanter, by L.Sprague De Camp and Fletcher Pratt, is a book I read years ago when I was first discovering speculative fiction. Someone mentioned it, oddly enough, while commenting on some fan fiction on web site Archive Of Our Own. It made me decide to check it out on Apple Books as I have no idea where my print copy is. I ended up buying all three books in the series. It’s strange to remind myself that this was written in the 1940s. The premise is that a couple of psychologists working at an institute figure out the mathematics of magic. You use a formula and are taken to an alternative universe where a literary world is real. The hero, Harold Shea, first decides to visit the world of Irish myth, but ends up in the world of Norse mythology instead - right before Ragnarok. He does eventually get the hang of it, and the next world is based on Spenser’s Faerie Queen, where he falls in love with warrior girl Belphebe, and takes her home. Other worlds are Orlando Furioso, Coleridge’s Kubla Khan, which, being unfinished, is a repeating world, The Kalevala and, finally, Irish myth. A lot of fun! 

I have finally bought The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman. It’s the first of a series set in a rather lavish retirement village. Four residents, Joyce, Elizabeth, Ron and Ibrahim, have weekly meetings to discuss - and hopefully solve - cold cases. This time someone actually has been murdered and they work on the case, with the reluctant help of police officers Chris and Donna. A nice cosy, though a number of characters die in the course of the novel. Still, nice to see a story centred around older sleuths. I’ve bought the second book.

There are more - I’ve recently bought the audiobook of Joanne Harris’s Gospel Of Loki, for example - but these will do for now. Are you a person who reads several books at a time, like me? Tell us about your current reading!