Tag: admin1 reading

Book read by Admin1

Pigeon Pie

Back in 2020 we had an unexpected visitor: a sparrowhawk feasting on its prey in our back garden. The picture in the linked post was a still from a rather poor video, which we’ve now improved somewhat:

We thought the prey was a magpie originally, due to the racket being made by a flock mischief of them which attracted our attention. But now it’s looking more like it was a pigeon.
Thanks to the very powerful software ffmpeg, the video has been stabilised, sharpened and colour balanced.
A1 is reading Halcyon Years by Alastair Reynolds — thanks A2! AR likes incorporating both noir and detective elements in his SF (cf the terrific Century Rain and the Prefect Dreyfus novels), and here we’ve got Yuri Gagarin — well, sort of — as a mean-streets PI on a generation starship. There are touches of humour, and some Dickian nods in this tale: the sorrowfully forgetful robot, and the excessively polite one as it chucks our hero overboard. It all hangs together though, and a return to form.
A2 is rereading Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood.

Winter Blooms

18 months or so ago we took pictures of the weathered logs blocking the entrances to Scott Hall Playing Fields. Whether it is the age of the logs or the time of year, they are all now blooming with magnificent structures. Here are a few:A1 is reading Wild Animal* by Joel Dicker, a typically convoluted thriller, with two pretty loathsome intertwined families and a jewellery heist.

Her Smoke Rose Up Forever

Props to A1 for this lovely photo: shadow of the chimney in the fog.
A1 is reading Labyrinth* by Kate Mosse. A1 usually enjoys loopy conspiracy thrillers, full of secret histories, shadowy organisations and ancient artefacts. This is a Grail quest set in the 12th (the Albigensian Crusade) and 21st centuries, and given the novel’s reputation I was expecting writing, if not of David Mitchell quality, at least a step up from Dan Brown. But … oh dear. It’s not a patch on Neville’s The Eight,  Doerr’s Cloud Cuckoo Land, Gentle’s Ash — plotting is all over the place, characterisation non-existent (all are pretty indistinguishable, apart from good/bad), and the writing, while not quite down to Dan Brown level, is at best workmanlike. Very disappointing.
There’s a section about the siege of Carcassonne which was a bit weird. It reminded me very strongly of the Battle of Helm’s Deep as portrayed in The Two Towers film — there are a number of coincidences of events and speech. So much so that A1 is now rewatching The Lord of the Rings films. I’m not alleging plagiarism (both could be based on earlier, similar sources, and there’s only so many ways to lay a siege), but the similarities were striking.
A2’s bathroom read is I Think You’ll Find It’s A Bit More Complicated Than That; Ben Goldacre’s self-described toilet book.

Blackbird

It’s the Big Garden Birdwatch this weekend and our entry, if we submit it (which we didn’t because the website took us round and round in circles till the crows came home), is 2 pigeons, 3 blackbirds, 2 blue tits, a red kite and a million starlings.
A1 is rereading Reconstruction by Mick Herron. A2 is rereading The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood.

Ice

Faye with their pre-birthday cake of ice cream, biscuits and chocolate after a dinner of spag bol and before we managed to score 10 on the GSQ.
A1 is rereading Joe Country by Mick Herron.
After 17 days, A2 has finally reached the end of ICE, an alternate history set in the 1920s, in which the Tunguska impact delivered new materials to the world, bringing new elements and glaciers at absolute zero, setting in motion cryotechnologies and black physics and freezing history so the Russian revolution and World War 1 never happened. Reading it was akin to reading War and Peace as a teenager; an unlikeable protagonist, a mix of historical and fictional figures, long philosophical, theological and mathematical disquisitions and an enormous cast of characters. Like W&P it was a struggle to read but the feeling of genius was strong. A2 is now going to relax with The Burning Grounds by Abir Mukherjee.

6202 emocleW

Fireworks in the far distance, played backwards as 2025 disappears into history.
Our weather station malfunctioned at various points in the year, with the base unit failing in June and the business end packing in in December; consequently none of the statistics are reliable. However the solar panels soldiered bravely on and served up 1,530.932kWh, making 2025 our second best year ever.
A1 is rereading Bad Actors by Mick Herron.

Another Family Meal

The last family gathering of this quarter-century at which we ate chicken bacon broccoli and a tiny banana blueberry white chocolate cake and scored 12 on the last quiz of the year for a fairly neat average of 10.225, a step down from last year’s 10.2268518518519, and another step down from 2023’s 10.2756346153846. Onwards and upwards everyone!
Prompted by watching series 5 of Slow Horses, A1 is rereading London Rules by Mick Herron (on which it’s based), to remind himself how much better the books are.

The Girl (and Boy) with All the Gifts

We each gave each other copies of The Burning Grounds and The Halcyon Years but A2 got 2 unduplicated books. Other goodies: hairy shoes, fluffy socks, a cushion cover, salt and pepper grinders, a yoyo, Shiwa coffee, a turntable and a Raspberry Pi. Lucky us.
We had succulent tender roast pork, roast potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, pigs in blankets, stuffing balls, carrots, sprouts, spring greens and gravy for dinner. Tomorrow we will eat it all again.
We are watching Slow Horses. A1 is reading The Regulators by Stephen King. A2 is reading ICE by Jacek Dukaj. Thank you A1.

Oh Christmas Tree


The Yorkshire puddings, pigs in blankets and stuffing balls are ready and the Christmas presents are all wrapped up and awaiting the grand opening. Tomorrow we feast and the next day we feast again.
A1 is reading Rosy and John* by Pierre Lemaitre. A2 is rereading On the Yankee Station by William Boyd; short stories mostly about young men lusting after random women and generally failing to score.

In the Darkness Shineth

Our Christmas tree is up at last and festooned with coloured lights instead of the normal plain ones.
A1 is reading What the Dark Whispers* by MJ Lee. If I was a publisher’s reader and this was a first novel, I might say “Shows some promise, but needs work. Reject with encouragement.” But MJL has published 30 crime novels in the last ten years and really should have sorted out his plotting. (Example: An apparent suicide pays for self-immolation petrol with his own credit card, and the baffled cops are unable to identify him.) And the book badly needs a proofreader.
A2, inspired by an article by Aditya Chakrabortty, is rereading Kingdom Come by JG Ballard. In an imaginary future, suburban blokes string St George’s flags from lamp-posts, trash Asian shops and try to burn down asylum hostels. Couldn’t happen here.

Roasted

Roast beef, Yorkshire puddings, roast potatoes, sprouts, broccoli, stuffing balls, gravy … but A1 forgot to serve the carrots. But never mind, Gez scoffed the lot anyway. Plus A2’s delicious afters of Squidgy Chocolate Pear Pudding and cream, after which we scored 13 on the GSQ with Bob as quizmaster.
A1 is rereading The Stand by Stephen King. A2 is reading Desolation Road by Ian McDonald.