looks at very full bookcase, makes despairing noise*

We just bought 3 new bookcases AND have boxed up 11 boxes of books to go.

Thanks all for the recs...other than Discworld these are new to me.

Oh, The Iron Dragon's Daughter has a very Industrial Revolution but based on magic vibe, if I remember right. Magic acting like technology

I've read a bunch of Cherryh -- probably my favorite is the Morgaine sequence, it's science fantasy with swords and horses and world-gates. So good.

That said, it's pretty common to start a Cherryh novel and not have any idea what's going on, because usually the characters don't either. How to know you're in a Cherryh novel: you're exhausted, haven't eaten in at least 12 hours, don't trust the people you're with, and the political situation is very complicated. Often your enemies are more sympathetic than your allies are.

Angel with a Sword is my favorite Cherryh book. [link]

aww ... Carl Hiaasen is retiring ... at least from his column.

My one issue with CJ Cherryh's books is that her backlist is not always available as ebooks and my eyes can no longer read the print on my old DAW paperbacks.

I discovered that someone at the Central Public Library has created a book reading (posting a chapter at a time) and posted it on Facebook. The current book is Rebecca. I was so excited to have it to listen to while I'm working. I feel like an ungrateful wretch, but the reader is Not Good, verging on Painful. So while I appreciate that she is probably the one who created the program and am grateful to her for her efforts, it is not without cringing that I am listening.

Allingham update: I read Sweet Danger and enjoyed it enough more than the first one that I am now reading #2 Mystery Mile. I think my unhappiness with the first one was a combination of it being a first novel (maybe not her first ever novel, but pretty unpolished and generally undecided as to what it wanted to be) and me expecting a whodunnit, which the Campion series is not. They are more thrillers, which I am not against but was not what I was expecting from the Golden Age for some reason.

I'm still not sure if I like the character Campion, or even if I am supposed to (I think so?) but I've come to the realization that he is a pop culture spouting adrenaline junkie somewhat like Jake Peralta just in the 30s so I don't know the pop culture he is referencing, which makes it a little more academically interesting in theory if still just nonsense for my reading.

A librarian friend of mine just sent me this, so sharing here on the slim chance that some Buffista doesn't know about it.

Awful Library Books

ooh ... and here's a page of bad covers for books after their copyrights expired ... with commentary