November 2024 archive

A Season of Knives by P.F. Chisholm

A Season of Knives by P.F. Chisholm

Sir Robert Carey is the very model of an Elizabethan courtier; he has skills equestrian, pedestrian and deductional. He’s met the Queen of England and he’s won the fights he chronicles, in England and in Scotland, and some in Lands Debatable. He’s well acquainted, too, with matters barely ethical; he understands corruption, both the venal …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/16/a-season-of-knives-by-p-f-chisholm/

Tantalizing Tales — November 2024 — Part Two

It has been one of those fortnights where time ceases to have meaning, dear readers. I can scarcely believe that it’s the middle of November already. And even at the rate of covering one book almost every work day, I’m still working my way through October, woof. It’s actually an October title that leads this …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/15/tantalizing-tales-november-2024-part-two/

Vintage Birds: A Guidebook And Matching Game by Roger J. Lederer

For someone who’s not terribly outdoorsy, I really enjoy birds. I love bird art and have somehow, over the years, amassed a shocking amount of knowledge for someone who’s never really studied birds outside of appreciating their artistic depictions. I mean, I recently made it to the Championships of the latest Birds Mini League on …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/14/vintage-birds-a-guidebook-and-matching-game-by-roger-j-lederer/

Detective Beans & The Case of the Missing Hat by Li Chen

I am all about the comfort reads this week, and I’ll be blessed if I read anything as charming as this graphic novel is anytime soon! Detective Beans is a young cat obsessed with being a detective, even if that usually just takes the form of acting out his favorite movies for his mom and …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/13/detective-beans-the-case-of-the-missing-hat-by-li-chen/

Sticky Notes by Matthew Eicheldinger

subtitled Memorable Lessons from Ordinary Moments. I’ve been kind of a mess these past few weeks, even before the dismal US election results and definitely after, so this book was a wonderful antidote for despair. It isn’t entirely perfect — the vignette about Hiking Boots made me go “yeah, sure, he wound up going back …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/12/sticky-notes-by-matthew-eicheldinger/

A Christmas Ghost Story by Kim Newman

I don’t know if this is the perfect complement or counterprogramming to my eldest child and I watching and really enjoying Agatha All Along together. Probably a little of both — tho my kid will likely have little interest in this book, alas. That might be for the best tho, as it’s A Chilling Tale …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/08/a-christmas-ghost-story-by-kim-newman/

The Department of Truth: Wild Fictions by James Tynion IV & Martin Simmonds

with a host of incredibly talented guest artists! So I went into this book assuming it was a graphic novel, like the rest of the series. Readers, it is not! While it is 100% based on The Department Of Truth comic book series — and there are two issues from the main series at the …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/07/the-department-of-truth-wild-fictions-by-james-tynion-iv-martin-simmonds/

Esma Farouk, Lost in the Souk by Lisa Boersen, Hasna Elbaamrani & Annelies Vandenbosch

As a third culture kid, this book really hit home, perfectly depicting not only fairly commonplace events (travelling to see family, getting separated from a parent while shopping) but also the existential angst of feeling lost and disoriented in a place of wonders that, one feels at one’s core, should feel more intimately familiar. Plenty …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/05/esma-farouk-lost-in-the-souk-by-lisa-boersen-hasna-elbaamrani-annelies-vandenbosch/

Afterlife: The Boy Next Realm by Gina Chew & Nadhir Nor

If you enjoyed Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus, then you will probably also be swept away by the romance of this sepia-toned graphic novel, as a teenage girl fights Death itself to bring her little brother back to life. If, however, you found TNC as wildly mid as I did, then you’ll probably feel the …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/04/afterlife-the-boy-next-realm-by-gina-chew-nadhir-nor/

A Famine of Horses by P.F. Chisholm

A Famine of Horses by P.F. Chisholm

The same friend who, ages ago, recommended I read Dorothy Dunnett suggested I picks up books by P.F. Chisholm, and this is how bookish friendships are sustained over decades. We don’t always like the same things — Little, Big left her cold — but she seldom goes astray when she says she thinks I will like …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/03/a-famine-of-horses-by-p-f-chisholm/