#M C Beaton

[zippocreed501]

Robert Carlyle as Hamish Macbeth

Hamish Macbeth

[reviews-by-raven]

A Highland Christmas (Hamish MacBeth) by M C Beaton

Rating: ❤️❤️❤️❤❤

[tudorblogger]

Monthly Reading Summary – September 2024

[verityreadsbooks]

Mystery Series: Agatha Raisin

The 35th in Agatha Raisin series came out yesterday in the UK – and the first nine are in Kindle Unlimited at the moment, so it seemed like a good time to write about M C Beaton’s Cotswold-based mystery series. Agatha is a middle-aged public relations agent, who at the start of the series sells her Mayfair firm so she can retire early and move to the Cotswolds. She soon finds herself caught up…

[m-andrade-87]

LECTURAS DEL AGOSTO NEGRO 2024

Hola mis pequeños dragones, hoy os traigo las lecturas que he realizado para esta iniciativa organizada por el canal la pecera de Raquel; en este caso esta entrada sería un poco complemento de la entrada que publiqué a inicios del pasado mes de agosto (enlace aquí) recomendando algunas lecturas para esta iniciativa. Empezamos. LAS MANZANAS (AGATHA CHRISTIE) En este caso, la trama dará comienzo…

[e-b-reads]

End of year book asks: 3, 9, & 17

Thank you!

3. Did consuming any piece of media inspire you to pick up the book? How did it compare?

Short answer is, nope! Mostly the media I consume is books, so it's rare that I would, e.g., see a TV show and only then realize there was a book series that it's based on. I am influenced by tumblr posts about books to read said books (some examples from the year: Ninth House, Summer Sons, Pamela Dean's Tam Lin), so if informal book reviews are a type of media, those might count!

9. What book(s) had the biggest influence over your life this year?

What a fun question! I read a lot, but some books I move on from pretty quickly, and others (usually series) I spend a lot of non-reading time thinking about, so I think those are the ones with a big influence even when I don't post about them or talk about them much. Here are some books that took up large chunks of my brainspace at various points in the year:

The Quinn Colson series by Ace Atkins - these are a little more violent/gritty than the mysteries I usually tend towards, and sometimes more "crime" than "mystery" but something about the characters and the writing had me absorbed

The Benjamin January series by Barbara Hambly - I do post about these some, I go through phases of thinking about them a lot. Started rereading the series (slowly) this year

Also by Barbara Hambly: The Windrose Chronicles - her writing is generally really good, but not all her characters grab me. These ones did, though

The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold - spent a little less time absorbed by this one since it's one book instead of a series, but I did spend some time ~considering~ it

Honorable mention to the Hamish Macbeth mystery series, by M. C. Beaton, because I wouldn't have spent time thinking about it because of the tight plotting or characterization or anything, but there are so many books, and they are so quick and easy to read on my phone via Libby, that I spent the summer just tearing through them around being very busy at work, so they occupied my mind b/c I wasn't reading anything else at the time!

17. A book you reread this year. Did it hold up to how you remembered it?

One of my most recent rereads was The Dark is Rising, by Susan Cooper. It was interesting to think about the differences between reading it now vs. as a kid! I remember being around 11, and pretending that I was buddies with the character Will, who is 11 too, but who discovers that he is also an Old One, gaining knowledge and power beyond his years; I was like "Cool! I want to have powers, too! We will fight the Dark together!" Now I'm like hm, he never really gets to be just a child again, and the fight against the Dark will never truly end, this is maybe a little sad, too. Still a good book, though!

(Ask me end-of-the-year things from this list!)

[ed-recoverry]

List of free audiobooks on YouTube for anyone interested

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Alice in Wonderland

Animal Farm by George Orwell

The Shadow Over Innsmouth by H P Lovecraft

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen

Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

The Village by Caroline Mitchell

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (fuck JKR)

Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

Upside Down by Danielle Steel

The Fiancée by Kate White

The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Theif

Accidentally Married by Victoria E. Lieske

I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

The Collector (book one) by Nora Roberts

The Lies I Told by Mary Burton

Dead Man’s Mirror by Agatha Christie

The Hobbit

The Taken Ones by Jess Lourey

The Good Neighbour by R J Parker

The Island House by Elana Johnson

Desperation by Stephan King

The Healing Summer by Heather B. Moore

The Last Affair by Margot Hunt

To Be Claimed by Willow Winter

Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

The Inn by James Patterson

Wonder by R J Palacio

Faking It With The Billionaire by Willow Fox

The Lost Years by Mary Higgins Clark

Forrest Gump by Winston Groom

The Janson Directive by Robert Ludlum

The Catcher in the Rye

The Lottery Winner by Mary Higgins Clark

Where Eagles Dare by Alistair MacLean

Death of a Nurse by M C Beaton

Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Sonnets by William Shakespeare

Frozen Betrayal by Clive Cussler

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Line of Fire by R J Patterson

Don’t Believe Everything You Think by Joseph Nguyen

The Remnant by Tim LaHaye

The Magic of Reality by Richard Dawkins

The Secret of Chimneys by Agatha Christie

Payment in Kind by J A Jance

The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida

The Game of Life and How to Play It by Florence Scovel Shinn

The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

A Marriage of Anything but Convenience by Victorine E. Lieske

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

The Inheritance Game by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life

Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

The Kama Sutra by Mallanaga Vatsyayana

The Wisdom of Father Brown by G K Chesterton

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Robin Hood by J Walker McSpadden

The Poor Traveller by Charles Dickens

Days on the Road: Crossing the Plains in 1865 by Sarah Raymond Herndon

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Atomic Habits by James Clear

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

Trading in the Zone by Mark Douglas

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Epic of Gilgamesh

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Man After Man

Five on a Treasure Island by Enid Blyton

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

Charlotte’s Web

Midsummer Mysteries by Agatha Christie

Out of Silent Planet by C S Lewis

The Valley of Fear by Arthur Conan Doyle

Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton

The Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harai

Hamlet by Shakespeare

[beegoould]

8,9,11 😄❤️

Hi! 😁

My favorite queer books and historical fiction are actually the same. I love Sarah Waters, and my favorites are Tipping the Velvet and Paying Guests, but they’re all wonderful. My favorite queer book set in modern day is Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo.

I went through a few years where I read mysteries exclusively, from cozy series that involved someone being poisoned with the jam they were judging at the village fete to some really twisted serial killer books. My favorite cozy authors are Agatha Christie and M. C. Beaton, and honestly I can’t remember any authors of the other type 😄 I also love the genre that involves old friends having a reunion in a secluded cabin in the woods or lodge in the mountains, those are irresistible. Also domestic thrillers, which I call lady in trouble books. Sometimes they make me anxious and Jim is like “Is a book character having difficulties?”

[violsva]

I was tagged by @havingbeenbreathedout to post recent, current, and future reading. Unfortunately it is the middle of January, when winter seems eternal and focus nonexistent. However, it occurred to me as I said that that the middle of January is certainly better than the beginning of January, so there's that!

Recent: The last thing I finished at work was a collection of E. F. Benson's ghost stories. I've been reading a lot of Edwardian ghost stories recently and it's just so nice watching terrible things happen to near respectable academics while I wait for the printer to go off. Benson has some interesting interactions with modern technology (his modern) but an annoying tendency to try to explain the metaphysics. I prefer M. R. James.

I also read the most recent installment of the further adventures of Madame C—, which was excellent as usual. In audio there was Dead Man's Ransom by Ellis Peters--I find her work very one-note, but it's a note I really want to hear sometimes.

I have also been reading a bunch of RWRB fanfic. (I skimmed the novel this summer because the gifsets were hot but it really isn't my preferred tropes.) From the outside, it appears to be good in direct proportion to its smuttiness.

Current: At work I am now going through Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner, which I am enjoying as much as one can enjoy anything in January. It is kind of amusing how many of the "rules" of modern fiction writing it flat out has never heard of and doesn't care about. I do find it somewhat stunning that Warner wrote this particular novel when she was only just over 30.

I have just started Time Was by Ian McDonald, which I hoped would be a gay version of This Is How You Lose the Time War, and it looks like it may even live up to that.

I am halfway through the audiobook of The Intrigue by Marion Chesney (aka M. C. Beaton), which is nice enough, but I don't think I'll feel the need to continue the series. Especially as the narrator is just okay.

Future: My hold on Paladin's Faith by T. Kingfisher will hopefully come in by the end of the month. Other than that, I should probably see if I can focus better on nonfiction right now.

But I also have a skip-the-line copy of Gwen and Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher for a week. I don't know if I'm in the best place to appreciate it but maybe it'll be a nice counterweight.

Tagging: The last five mutuals to interact with my posts were @tiltedsyllogism, @edenfalling, @unrealthings, @consultingpiskies (hi sweetheart!), and @oulfis.

[hpldreads]

Cozy mysteries are a perfect choice for a snowy day!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder by Joanne Fluke - "Cookie-baking sleuth Hannah Swenson must protect her reputation when a popular delivery man is found murdered behind her bakery with Hannah's cookies scattered around him."

Books Can Be Deceiving by Jenn McKinlay - "Newly single Lindsey Norris, the director of the Briar Creek Public Library, tries to help her best friend Beth, a children's book author, prove her innocence when she is accused of murdering her boyfriend Rick, a local celebrity."

On What Grounds by Cleo Coyle - "Clare Cosi, the manager of The Village Blend, finds a murder mystery percolating in her very own store when the assistant manager is found dead in the back and the police believe it to be an open-and-shut case of robbery, but certain clues lead Clare to believe otherwise."

The Quiche of Death by M. C. Beaton - "In order to introduce herself to the picturesque English village where she has just retired, Mrs. Agatha Raisin enters a quiche in a local competition and promptly finds herself a murder suspect when the judge dies from her poisonous pie."

[snackerdoodle]

books I read in 2023

I had a huge reading year this year because of my gruelingly long commute. The list below the cut is mostly for my own edification, but I’m a nosy person who supports other nosy people, so if you want to know what I’ve been up to, have at it. Almost everything I read this year was from the library.

1/12 A Charmed Life, Diana Wynne Jones

1/18 The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School, Sonora Reyes

1/24 The Life-Changing Magic of 

Tidying Up, Marie Kondo

1/25 Hotel Magnifique, Emily J. Taylor

1/30 Spark Joy, Marie Kondo 

2/2 The House in the Cerulean Sea, TJ Klune

2/8 The Golden Enclaves, Naomi Novik

2/8 Delilah Green Doesn’t Care, Ashley Herring Blake

2/15 The Nile, Toby Wilkinson

2/23 The Painted Queen, Elizabeth Peters and Joan Hess

2/28 Ella Enchanted, Gail Carson Levine

3/5 Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters

3/12 Lord of the Silent, Elizabeth Peters

3/16 Marie Kondo’s Kurashi at Home, Marie Kondo 

3/20 Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life, Ruth Franklin

3/20 The Art of Simple Living, Shunmyo Masuno

3/26 The Bird’s Nest, Shirley Jackson

4/11 Life Among the Savages, Shirley Jackson

4/12 A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn

4/18 The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories, Charlotte Perkins Gilman

4/21 Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto, Tricia  Hersey

5/1 Last Night at the Telegraph Club, Malinda Lo

5/3 Astrid Parker Doesn’t Fail, Ashley Herring Blake

5/10 Fight Like Hell: The Untold Story of American Labor, Kim Kelly

5/11 Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, Joy Harjo 

5/12 Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race, Reni Eddo-Lodge

5/15 The Lottery and Other Stories, Shirley Jackson

5/18 The Lives of Christopher Chant, Diana Wynne Jones

5/29 A Little Devil in America, Hanif Abdurraqib

6/3 A Marvellous Light, Freya Marske

6/6 Ducks, Kate Beaton 

6/8 Wild and Wicked Things, Francesca May (awful. Every character was an idiot. Why did I finish this)

6/10 Breathing Lessons: A Doctor’s Guide to Lung Health, Meilan K. Han, MD

6/19 The Three Body Problem, Cixin Liu

6/19 A Fortune for Your Disaster, Hanif Abdurraqib (I liked this even more than the last one I read. Maybe because it was an audiobook read by the author.)

6/22 Disjointed, Diana Jovin (ed) (skipped parts that were totally unrelated to me and some things that were also too technical)

6/22 The Lavender Scare, David K. Johnson

6/26 Enquête au collège, Jean-Phillipe Arrou-Vignod 

6/28 The Thief, Megan Whalen Turner

7/3 Last Call, Elon Green

7/12 Cache Cache Petit Fantôme

7/13 Le Petit Prince, Antoine de Saint-

Exupéry

7/13 La fille qui navigua autour de féérie dans un bateau construit de ses propres mains, Catherynne M Valente

7/14 Lost in the Moment and Found, Seanan McGuire

7/14 Ich mag dich gesund sagte der Bär, Janosch

7/25 The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch

7/31 The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi, Shannon Chakraborty

8/10 A Restless Truth, Freya Marske 

8/16 Camp Damascus, Chuck Tingle

9/6 The Body in the Garden, Katherine Schellman

9/11 Silence in the Library, Katherine Schellman

9/13 When Things Get Dark, various 

9/19 Death at the Manor, Katherine Schellman

9/25 Sorcery and Cecelia, Patricia C Wrede and Caroline Stevermer

10/3 The Grand Tour, Patricia C Wrede and Caroline Stevermer 

10/6 Murder at Midnight, Katharine Schellman

10/12 The Mislaid Magician, Patricia C Wrede and Caroline Stevermer

10/18 Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies, Elizabeth Winkler

10/18 Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen, JK Rowling

10/25 Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA search for Mind Control, Stephen Kinzer

11/1 Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date, Ashley Herring Blake

11/3 Nothing But Blackened Teeth, Cassandra Shaw

11/9 Unfuck Your Habitat, Rachel Hoffman

11/11 Safe and Sound, Mercury Stardust 

11/12 Organizing Solutions for People with ADHD (revised and updated), Susan C. Pinskey

11/18 Red Seas under Red Skies, Scott Lynch

11/20 In With the Old: Classic Decor A to Z,  Jennifer Boles 

11/23 Habitat: The Field Guide to Decorating, Lauren Liess

11/24 Vermeer: The Complete Paintings, Norbert Schneider 

11/29 The Conscious Closet, Elizabeth L. Cline

12/4 Leech, Hiron Ennes

12/6 The Star that Always Stays, Anna Rose Johnson 

P12/14 The Republic of Thieves, Scott Lynch

12/15 An American Sunrise, Joy Harjo

12/20 The Wife Upstairs, Rachel Hawkins

12/22 How to Keep House While Drowning, KC Davis

12/30 The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, Margareta Magnusson 

Gave up on: The Woman Who Would Be King, Kara Cooney (too speculative/fictionalized)

A Scatter of Light, Malinda Lo (nothing really wrong, it just wasn’t holding my attention at all)

14 histoires pour avoir peur mais pas trop quand même (turned into full cast audio and the music between stories was really annoying)

Manhunt, Gretchen Felker-Martin (not in the right headspace maybe, maybe just not for me)

American Cozy, Stephanie Pedersen (got annoyed at how much of the information hinged on living in a huge suburban home with 18 closets and a husband and multiple children you can make do your chores for you)

The Curated Closet, Anuschka Rees (not bad just not what I was looking for)

[zippocreed501]

Ashley Jensen as Agatha Raisin

Agatha Raisin

[tudorblogger]

Monthly Reading Summary – July 2024

[gone2soon-rip]

BELATED ENTRY: CATHERINE AIRD (Born Kinn McIntosh 1930-Died December 21st 2024,at 94).English novelist,who wrote under the pen name of Catherine Aird. She was the author of more than twenty crime fiction novels and several collections of short stories. Her witty, literate, and deftly plotted novels straddle the "cozy" (where sex or violent acts,were carried out 'off scene') and "police procedural" genres and are somewhat similar in flavour to those of Martha Grimes, Caroline Graham, M. C. Beaton, Margaret Yorke, and Pauline Bell. Aird was best known for her successful Chronicles of Calleshire, a series of crime novels set in the fictional county of Calleshire, England, and featuring Detective Inspector C.D. Sloan of the Berebury CID, and his assistant, Detective Constable Crosby.Catherine Aird - Wikipedia

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"INQUIRY IS DEMANDED BY HALTON MINISTERS," Toronto Star. September 16, 1933. Page 23. ---- Think Time Has Come for Complete Clean-Up at Kingston Penitentiary ---- Oakville, Sept. 16. Following the lead of Toronto presbyteries of the United church in demanding an investigation into conditions in Kingston penitentiary, Halton presbytery of the United church, meeting in Lowville United church, passed a resolution which will be forwarded to the federal authorities asking that prisons be made more redemptive rather than being used only as a means of punishment. They also asked that a thorough investigation be made. There was much discussion on the subject, with many ministers expressing strong opinions that the time had come when complete clean-up was imperative.

There was a good deal of discussion on the housing of transients in the jails. It was deplored that unemployment was the cause of this condition. A committee was appointed to see if the condition could be remedied.

The following officers were elected for the year: Rev. C. L. Poole of Acton, chairman; Rev. S. L. Carpenter, Trafalgar, treasurer; Rev. S. W. L. Brailey, Millgrove, secretary.

Hear W. S. Savage A feature of the program was the interesting address given by W. S. Savage, Oakville, on his recent trip to the Holy Land. Mr. Savage, who will celebrate his 87th birthday on October 5th, has been an official member of the former Methodist church, now St. John's United church, continuously since he was 21 years of age. At present he is trustee and clerk of the session. Rev. J. Kenneth Beaton. Toronto, representing the home mission board of the United church and Mr. Alexander McLaren, chairman of the missionary and maintenance committee of the Halton presbytery, made an appeal for aid for the destitute settlers in southern Saskatchewan.

Arrange for Anniversary In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the erection of St. Jude's Anglican church, Rev. Canon D. Russell Smith has arranged a program of services when the following prominent clergy of the church will be heard: The Most Reverend C. L. Worrell, M.A., D.C.L., D.D., Archbishop of Nova Scotia and primate of all Canada, will preach on Sept. 24th. On October 1st the Right Rev. L. W. B. Broughall, M.A., D.D.; Oct. 8th, Rev. Canon D. Russell Smith, at the morning service and Rev. Canon T. G. Wallace, M.A., in the evening. On Oct. 15th at 11 a.m., the Very Rev. C. E. Riley. M.A., D.D.; at 7 p.m.. Rev. H. F. D. Woodcock. M.A. The celebration will conclude with a mission conducted by Rev. R. F. Palmer and Rev. C. M. Serson beginning Oct. 22nd and continuing through the week.

Leave for Guernsey Mr. and Mrs. P. Vaudin, Palmer Ave., who have resided in Oakville for some years, sailed yesterday for the Gurnsey Islands, their native place, where they will take up their residence. Their daughter, Mrs. McMillan, and her husband preceded them last spring.

[fnovelso]

☕𝐅𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄𝐃 𝐏𝐎𝐒𝐓☕️

Literature Pot 24 (Meme/Pic Dump)

Amateur Sleuth's Making Us Feel All Cozy Inside: “Agatha Raisin And The Quiche Of Death” ; M. C. Beaton