Teaser Tuesdays: The Nursing Home Murder

This week, I'm taking my teaser lines from The Nursing Home Murder, one of Ngaio Marsh's Inspector Alleyn mysteries. However, the Inspector isn't present in this scene. Instead, we have his faithful sidekick, Detective Sergeant Fox, meeting with the victim's wife:

"I asked you to come and see me," she began very quietly, "because I believe my husband to have been murdered."
Fox did not speak for a moment. He sat stockily, very still, looking gravely before him.
"I'm sorry to hear that, Lady O'Callaghan," he said at last. "It sounds rather serious."
Apparently she had met her match in understatement. (p.48)

Ah, but obviously no one can match her in the use of the passive voice!

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by mizB at Should Be Reading. If you'd like to read more teasers, or take part yourself, just head on over to her blog.

And please feel free to leave me a link to your Teaser Tuesday post in your comment here.

Teaser Tuesdays: Read Something Wilde!

Oscar Wilde was born October 16th, 1854.

Oscar Wilde
1854-1900
(Image from Wikipedia)

So this week, I'm taking my teaser lines from his classic novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray.

James Vane stood on the pavement in horror. He was trembling from head to foot. After a little while a black shadow that had been creeping along the dripping wall, moved out into the light and came close to him with stealthy footsteps. He felt a hand laid on his arm and looked round with a start. (p.212)

I hadn't really intended to re-read this one, but now that I'm looking through it, I'm not sure I can resist it. And it's perfect for this time of year.

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by mizB at Should Be Reading. If you'd like to read more teasers, or take part yourself, just head on over to her blog.

And please feel free to leave me a link to your Teaser Tuesday post in your comment here.

Teaser Tuesdays: The Haunted Looking Glass

This week, I'm taking my teaser lines from one of my all-time favorites: The Haunted Looking Glass, from 1959.  It's a book of horror stories written by various authors, gathered and illustrated by Edward Gorey.  I read it for the first time when I was about eleven or twelve, and it's still a book I go back to over and over again for wonderful, scary reads.  This snippet comes from the first story in the book -- Algernon Blackwood's classic tale, "The Empty House":

There was manifestly nothing in the external appearance of this particular house to bear out the tales of the horror that was said to reign within. It was neither lonely nor unkempt. It stood, crowded into a corner of the square, and looked exactly like the houses on either side of it....
And yet this house in the square, that seemed precisely similar to its fifty ugly neighbors, was as a matter of fact entirely different -- horribly different. (p.6)

I do love me some haunted house stories around this time of year!

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by mizB at Should Be Reading. If you'd like to read more teasers, or take part yourself, just head on over to her blog.

And please feel free to leave me a link to your Teaser Tuesday post in your comment here.

Teaser Tuesdays: Mrs. Malory and No Cure For Death

This week my teaser lines come from one of Hazel Holt's Mrs. Malory mysteries, No Cure For Death. I really love this series of cozies, and I'm trying to finish it up this year.  Don't know what I'll do with no more Mrs. Malories to read -- start over from the beginning, I guess!

Anyway, this snippet is from page 109 of the American paperback edition:

Was John Morrison a good man? I wondered as I made myself a cup of tea when I got home. He was brilliant -- everyone agreed about that -- but good?... I wished I'd known him, properly as a person, not just casually as a doctor, so that I could know what he was really like and understand why someone hated him enough to kill him.

I know that sounds like a bit of a spoiler, but (as in all the Mrs. Malory tales) we know pretty much from the beginning who the victim is going to be. And all the violence happens off-stage in these books, which is one of the things I love about them.

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by mizB at Should Be Reading. If you'd like to read more teasers, or take part yourself, just head on over to her blog.

And please feel free to leave me a link to your Teaser Tuesday post in your comment here.

Mount TBR Challenge: Checkpoint No. 3

Well, even though I'm definitely not ready for the beginning of fall and the Holiday Season and all that, it looks like summer really is OVER.  How did that happen? Was I not paying attention, or what?

But I digress.  Already.

So, anyway -- it's time for another checkpoint in the Mount TBR Challenge, hosted by Bev @ My Reader's Block.  Number Three.  Don't think I actually posted anything for Numbers One and Two, even though I intended to.  Yeah, it's been that kinda year. 

But I'm happy (and somewhat amazed) to be able to say that I have now completed the Challenge! I originally signed up at the Pike's Peak Level, planning to read twelve books from my TBR pile; and I find that I've actually done that (see the list of books I've read, here on my Challenge Blog).

Of course, I have many more books (like, hundreds) left on my must-read-someday stack, so I'll continue to climb that mountain and see just how many miles I can knock off by year's end.

Bev included some intriguing questions in her post for Checkpoint No. 3. But I'm pretty satisfied with the challenge levels just the way they are, and I don't seem to be getting any inspiration for poetry from the titles of the books I've read this year.  So I'll just go with question no. 3: "Have any of the books you read surprised you--if so, in what way." Interesting question, because a couple of the books really did surprise me. After having enjoyed several other books by Garrison Keillor, I was expecting great things from Liberty, but it turned out to be sadly disappointing. On the other hand, I was pleasantly surprised by a new author I discovered this year (well, new to me, anyway) -- Alice Thomas Ellis. Her novel, The Other Side of the Fire, was a great read -- even better than I'd expected from reviews I'd read. Fortunately, most of the books I've read this year have been winners. Hope the streak continues.

Teaser Tuesdays: The House of Velvet and Glass

Hate to admit this, but I'm still reading the same couple of books I've been reading for several weeks now. For some reason, September has been a really slow reading month for me (even slower than usual!). So, in order to keep from repeating myself, this week I'm taking my teaser lines from one of the books I'm hoping to read in the near future -- The House of Velvet and Glass, by Katherine Howe. This snippet is from Chapter Ten, p.132:

Sibyl shuffled into the lavatory that she used to share with Eulah, bent over the claw-footed bathtub that Helen had chosen, and twisted the hot water tap. How had Helen been so certain that she would have daughters, who would need a claw-footed bathtub? It was as though their mother had willed Sibyl and Eulah into being, because the existence of such a fine lavatory required it.

Well, I'm not sure anybody really needs a claw-footed tub. But that's probably because I prefer showers and never take baths.

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by mizB at Should Be Reading. If you'd like to read more teasers, or take part yourself, just head on over to her blog.

And please feel free to leave me a link to your Teaser Tuesday post in your comment here.

Fall Into Reading 2012

Yes, it's that time again! Hard to believe, but Autumn is right around the corner. And even though it's not my favorite season, it does bring along one of my favorite reading events of the year: Fall Into Reading. The annual reading challenge, hosted by Katrina at Callapidder Days, runs from September 22 to December 21, and it always provides a wonderful bookish nudge just when I need it. And this year I need it more than ever, if I'm going to make my goal of fifty books for the year. (I know that sounds like a paltry number to a lot of you rapid readers, but fifty is definitely a stretch for me.)

I love Fall Into Reading because there aren't too many rules to follow.  The only real requirement is a list of books you think you might like to read this fall -- great, since I love making lists just about as much as I love reading the books!

So here goes. Some of these are ARCs I've been intending to read for months now.  Some are books from my long-time TBR pile.  And a couple are books I started earlier this year, but never got around to finishing. There's a heavy emphasis on mysteries, thrillers, and spooky stuff -- my favorite genres, at all times of year but especially in the fall.  The list:

1. The Bartenders' Tale. Ivan Doig (This was an Early Reviewer book from Library Thing, so I really do need to get it read and reviewed.)
2. Darwin's Ghosts. Rebecca Stott (Ditto. I'm way behind on my Early Reviewer obligations.)
3. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Stieg Larsson (One of the books I started a month or so ago and need to finish.)
4. The House of Velvet and Glass. Katherine Howe (Received an ARC of this one earlier this year and still haven't gotten around to starting it. Looks interesting.)
5. Istanbul Passage. Joseph Kanon (Another ARC -- I loved Kanon's Stardust, so I'm looking forward to this one.)
6. The Little Stranger. Sarah Waters (My current read; a lovely, spooky page-turner, but looooong.)
7. The Nursing Home Murder. Ngaio Marsh (I'm slowly working my way through all the Inspector Alleyn novels that I haven't read.)
8. The Pale Horse. Agatha Christie (Same here -- trying to get through all of Christie's work and loving it.)
9. The Secret Keeper. Kate Morton (Just received an ARC of this one. I think I've read all of Morton's other novels now and enjoyed all of them.)
10. The Yard. Alex Grecian (One more ARC, and another book I'm really looking forward to reading.)

Of course, I'm expecting the list to change along the way, but that's allowed (another thing I love about this challenge).  And I'll be tracking my progress on my Challenge Blog, here. So I'm all set -- just need to wait for the sign-up linky thing to show up, and I'll be falling into reading again.