Wednesday 7 May 2014

my TBR mystery pile, in a photo

   I thought you would enjoy seeing what my TBR mystery pile looks like:




 Yes, it's true, I have had these and haven't read them yet, and they are all ones I really want to read, which is why they are pulled into these stacks.

If you look at my blog header, I have added a new one for reading 50 mysteries for this year.  I updated 2013 so you can see I only read 32, far short of my goal.  This year I will!  And I will get these stacks read!

If you want some more good crime writing to read:

Of course, all this was triggered by the announcement of the Theakston's Old Peculiar Crime Writing List:  Theakston's Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year has announced the longlist for 2014.  Look at this list and see if your mouth doesn't water:

 Rubbernecker, by Belinda Bauer (Bantam Press)
 The Shining Girls, by Lauren Beukes (HarperCollins)
 The Dying Hours, by Mark Billingham (Little, Brown)
 Like This, For Ever, by Sharon Bolton (Bantam Press)
 A Wanted Man, by Lee Child (Bantam Press)
 The Honey Guide, by Richard Crompton (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
 The Cry, by Helen Fitzgerald (Faber & Faber)
 Dying Fall, by Elly Griffiths (Quercus)
 Until You’re Mine, by Samantha Hayes (Century)
 The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter, by Malcolm Mackay (Mantle)
 The Chessmen, by Peter May (Quercus)
 I Hear the Sirens in the Street, by Adrian McKinty (Serpent’s Tail)
 The Red Road, by Denise Mina (Orion)
 Ratlines, by Stuart Neville (Harvill Secker)
 Standing in Another Man’s Grave, by Ian Rankin (Orion)
 Children of the Revolution, by Peter Robinson (Hodder & Stoughton)
 Eleven Days, by Stav Sherez (Faber & Faber)
 Weirdo, by Cathi Unsworth (Serpent’s Tail)


I've linked you to the original site, so you can drool like I do over the dream of one day attending this festival.  It honours the best in crime writing published in softcover in the UK and Ireland the year before.  

I am happy to say I have already read three books on the list!  Standing in Another Man's Grave by Ian Rankin, Dying Fall by Elly Griffiths, and The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes.  I see I haven't reveiwed 2 of them yet, my bad.  I will by the weekend, as they are both very good and I should have reviewed them last year when I read them. Certainly they both return in my thoughts frequently, always a sign that books are working away inside me, especially The Shining Girls, and all of Elly Griffith's books.  Rebus I just plain love.....

Although, this means I have many good books to catch up with.  Several are already on my to-get list as soon as we get them in softcover over here:  Ratlines by Stuart Neville, Children of the Revolution by Peter Robinson, and Like This, Forever by Sharon Bolton.  I already own The Chessmen by Peter May, although I'd like to read the one before it, first (you can see it in the photos - The Lewis Man).  I also own the first in the Adrian McKinty books, The Cold Cold Ground, and it's on my TBR pile too...

I really want to read some of the Theakston's list.  And I haven't even got started on wanting to read this year's Edgar Award winner, Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger. I first heard about it earlier this week on Praire Horizons, here.  Now of course I want to read it as soon as possible!  

I do believe that I will always have stacks like that of books to read, it's just the titles that will change as I read one and replace it with another.  I am so very rich, even I am not wealthy with money, with the abundance of books I have to read (and want to read). For this I am very thankful, on this sunny Wednesday afternoon.  I am recovering from visiting the dentist yesterday and having 2 crowns and 6 fillings added.  I think a new book and some reading time is just the thing to heal with, don't you?

What's on your book stacks that you have been wanting to read for a while?

11 comments:

Belle Wong said...

What a great list - thanks for posting it! I'm actually reading Children of the Revolution right now. I'll have to add the rest of the books to my TBR, definitely!

Susan said...

Belle: You're welcome! it's quite a list of really good crime writing, isn't it?

Margaret @ BooksPlease said...

Impressive - you have enough reading to keep you going for quite some time! Maybe I'll collect all my to-be-read crime fiction books together too!

I've read some of the longlisted books - I'm glad I'm not judging as I don't think I could decide which one I liked best - The Chessman, Standing in Another Man's Grave stand out for me. I've been wanting to read Like this, For Ever.

Wow, that must have been a long dental appointment - I hope you've recovered now. I'm having a filling tomorrow, that's bad enough!

Debi said...

*shaking at the thought of your dentist appointment yesterday* :P Hope it went well!

I love your goal of reading 50 mysteries this year! In my pre-blogging days, mysteries and crime fiction and thrillers used to make up 98% of my fiction reading, but now I rarely ever pick one up. I hate that! Because I do so enjoy them; in fact, to me they're comfort reads. I really do love that blogging has so broadened my horizons, but it's definitely made it harder to get to all the books I'd like to read! I hope you meet your goal this year, Susan--I'm sure you will have ever so much fun trying! :D

Kailana said...

Good luck with your goals!!

Literary Feline said...

50 books is about how many I read in a year, so that would be a lofty goal for me--or mean I didn't get to read anything else. LOL

I admit I am already drooling over the list.

Susan said...

Margaret: I look at that pile and think, hmm, that could keep me going for several months. Then I read about all the new books by favourite mystery authors coming out....lol! So much to read! It is so much fun :-)

I want to read Like This, Forever, also, though I have to read Book 2 first (which is on that pile! lol) I really enjoyed Standing In Another Man's Grave and am delighted it was nominated. As with the Elly Griffiths.

That was a very long appointment with the dentist. I hope it's the last for a very long time. Good luck with your filling! Usually those are enough to make me nervous, just one! lol

Debi: The dentist appointment did! I think I'll post about it :-)

I can't believe that you used to read that many mysteries a year, because as you say now you hardly read any! They are my comfort read too. As is a good fantasy. I wish I read more non-fiction and science, which is another goal I have for myself too.

I will have fun aiming to reach that goal for mysteries this year!

Kailana: Thanks! It's good to see you posting (and reading) again too, after your long drought last year. Goals are something to aim for, at least they help to keep me on track somewhat! lol

Literary Feline: I can't believe that 50 books is your total, and I feel so badly for saying this cheers me up so much because I often think I'm the slowest reader out there! The way some bloggers read, I am, and I end up thinking I'm not reading enough, even though I try not to compare, and I've cut back on so much tv watching now. I know that you and I both work full-time and have young children at home. So reading time is precious and sometimes hard to come by!

Here's hoping we both read 10 more books this year than we read in total last year! and still hug and spend time with our family as much :-)

That list - it is quite a list, isn't it? so many good books there :-)

Cath said...

Here to comment at last...

Wow, that's just a wonderful stack of delicious books. lol. I can only see one that I've read, The Chalk Circle Man, but several I own too, the Nevada Bar, The Lewis Man, I have a Jo Nesbo too but I don't think it's that one. Honestly, I'm constantly staggered at how many crime authors and great books there are out there. How I'm ever going to read them all I've no idea. LOL!

Reading 50 this year strikes me as a brilliant idea. Just out of interest I counted up how many I've read this year and the number came to 16. I think 50 would be a bit beyond me somehow.

I've got so many books I want to read at the moment it's not funny. Currently halfway through Fete Worse than Death by Dolores Gordon-Smith (new series recced by a friend), I have Death by Silver by Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold (lent by another friend. In the mail this week I got Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton, Wild Strawberries by Angela Thirkell, Love Lies Bleeding by Edmund Crispin, and two birthday presents, Hawkwell by George Mackay Brown and the new Daisy Dalrymple, Heirs of the Body. I'm not even going to start on the library pile which of course has the new Ruth Galloway and aprox. 8 other 'must read' books. I sometimes wonder if I'm out of control. LOL!!!

Alex said...

One of the things that these award list makes me realise is just how much we ask of our crime writers these days. There are people on that list for books that have already been superseded by something more recent. Much as I like having a book every year from my favourite authors I do sometimes wonder if we wouldn't get even better quality if we were prepared to wait a little longer. I know that Ian Rankin has said he is going to take this year off and it will be interesting to see what he produces as a result.

Emily Barton said...

I have just decided to spend 6 months reading from my shelves, because I don't have mere stacks, I have entire TBR bookcases. During this six month period, I hope to read the second Game of Thrones novel, one of the four Barbara Pym novels I've bought at library sales over the past few years, the biography of Charles Schultz that my husband's been wanting me to read for years now, as well as a few Ian Rankin, Dennis LeHane, and Janet Evanovich novels. We'll see...

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