Karl's Reading List

Published by HarperTeen/HarperCollins Publishers: New York, NY, 2021. This is the fourth book I have read in the relatively recent subgenre of 'Jane Austen Murder Mysteries', having previously read Death Comes to Pemberley by PD James, and The Murder of Mr Wickham and The Late Mrs Willoughby by Claudia Gray. Each author has brought a different interpretation to what exactly a 'Jane Austen Murder Mystery' is, and as a result each author's books have a slightly different feel.   PD James wrote her novel as a sequel to Pride and Prejudice , but still keeping Elizabeth and Darcy as the main characters with the same personalities, meaning that they weren't really 'detectives.' Claudia Gray - whose take I have enjoyed the most - also makes her books sequels but includes new, younger characters who are driven to solve the crimes - it makes sense! Tirzah Price does something very different; she semi- retells the original Pride and Prejudice story but changes ...

Published by Arrow Books: London, 2006. First published 1960. This is an incredibly well-known book that I remember reading in high-school - I think it was even our book study. Although the generalisation is that books you have studied at high-school are 'ruined forever' for you, I remember quite enjoying this book, to the point where I offered it as a choice to read to Elise. However, after only a chapter, we weren't feeling it as a co-read, and so put it down.  Recently, I decided to pick it up as a solo book, and have now re-read it for the first time since highschool. A few things strike me about To Kill a Mockingbird after this second read. Firstly: it is a good book. My memory was not faulty on that front. Telling the story of a lawyer in the southern states of America during the 1930s who is defending a black man accused of rape, the book cleverly chooses the perspective of the lawyer's young daughter, 'Scout', as its point-of-view. This means that we get...

Published by Arrow/Random House: London, UK, 1996 (1995). This book surprised me. Usually when I read a John Grisham book I have some idea what to expect, particularly with the more 'famous' of his books, which include a number that have been made into movies. I knew that this was one of those 'famous movie' books, and assumed as a result that it would be a fairly straightforward Grisham novel. Well, in some ways, yes... but it also had a number of features that were a bit out of the norm. In general, Grisham's lawyer novels follow a case from near the beginning of the novel all the way through to the end, with the final verdict providing the climatic moment of the film. The Rainmaker starts off with its protagonist, Rudy Baylor, still finishing law school, and doesn't even focus in on one specific case until quite a long way through the book. Before we get there, we have Rudy working on passing the bar, being fired from an upcoming job before he even gets it, b...

Published by Fontana/Collins: Great Britain, 1973. First published 1948. A classic twisty Poirot investigation, with the murder in this one not taking place until almost halfway through the book.  In air-raids during World War 2, a newly married woman (Rosaleen) is widowed (for the second time), and her new family shut out of the inheritance due to a legal technicality. Knowing that their late brother always 'intended' for them to inherit a share of the estate, these relatives begin pressuring Rosaleen and her irritating brother (David) for money. A wrinkle emerges when a stranger arrives in the village, informing Rosaleen that her first husband may still be alive - a fact that, if true, would nullify her claim to the estate of her second husband and return all the money to his relatives. When the stranger turns up dead, suspicion naturally falls on Rosaleen and David. Poirot, however, is brought into the case, and has his doubts.... I enjoy looking for the clues in books like...

Published as an audiobook by Head of Zeus, 2016. Uploaded to Audible 07-12-2017. Narrated by Scott Brick. First published by Penguin Press: USA, 2004. If you know the musical Hamilton you may also know that creator Lin-Manuel Miranda based it on a biography of Alexander Hamilton he read while on holiday. This is that biography. It is extremely thorough - a few chapters in and Chernow was still filling in details from the opening song. It is also an interesting portrait of a fascinating man, narrated well by Scott Brick in this audiobook version. As a Hamilton fan myself, the element of the book I enjoyed the most was picking out the differences between the stage version and this one, seeing when Miranda had tweaked history a little to fit the themes of the musical or to stream-line things a bit. Aaron Burr, for example, who ends up shooting Hamilton in a duel, is a much more prominent figure in the musical than in the book. We get some mentions of him throughout, but the main interact...

Published by Corgi Books: London, UK, 2003. Originally published 2002. The twenty-seventh Discworld novel (all of which can be read as standalone entries), Night Watch follows Ankh-Morpork watchman Sam Vimes, who has (throughout the numerous Discworld novels he has appeared in) been repeatedly promoted until he has become Commander (a role he sometimes finds tedious). When the book opens, Vimes is helping his colleagues bring the psychopathic Carcer to justice. However, due to a lightning strike on the Library of the Unseen University (home to the wizards of Ankh-Morpork) both Vimes and Carcer are accidentally thrown back in time. Carcer quickly kills the man who taught young Vimes the ropes and who overhauled the Night Watch, leaving Vimes to fill the role himself and become his own role-model. This becomes more difficult as a rebellion against the ruler of the city is brewing, and Vimes knows it won't end well. Discworld is an interesting mix of fantasy and satire, often basing i...

Published as an audiobook by Blackstone Audio Inc., 14-08-2015. Narrated by Lewis Grenville. Originally published 2007. This book, subtitled Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down, is fairly accurately titled! We get a history of piracy in the Caribbean, as well as a look at some of the events and individuals that inspired the Caribbean pirates - learning, as an example, of the pirate stronghold of Madagascar. The 'republic' of the title is the town of Nassau on the island of New Providence, where a pirate society of sorts existed for quite some time. The book is full of fascinating information, and doubles as a biography of the most prominent pirates, including Charles Vane, Henry Avery, and Blackbeard (Edward Thatch). Each pirate's individual personality and goals come across well, with Vane easily the most violent of the main pirates. Some moments surprise, such as when one of the most successful pirates is killed b...

Published by Century Books: London, 1996. I had been interested in reading a John Grisham novel with Elise, and remember enjoying this one a lot when I last read it many years ago. A high-profile case of tobacco industry versus the estate of a smoker is being prepared in Biloxi, Mississippi, and both sides are anxious to have the right jury selected. We are introduced to Nicholas Easter, who is suspiciously non-suspicious, and soon are aware that he is positioning himself intentionally to get on to the jury. Once he succeeds in doing so, this mystery is increased when a woman named Marlee enters the scene and begins to interact with Rankin Fitch - a behind-the-scenes wheeler-dealer who is working to achieve a positive outcome for the big tobacco companies. Marlee begins showing her ability to influence the jury in subtle ways, and is obviously hoping to tempt Fitch into working with her for an undetermined outcome. As the story progresses we see a lot of elements in play, with particul...

Published by Hodder & Stoughton: London, 2020. This novel, like the vast majority of works by John Grisham, follows a lawyer as he attempts to win a difficult case. In this instance the lawyer is Jake Brigance, who also starred in Grisham's first novel, A Time to Kill, published back in 1989. Although this novel is written over 30 years after that one (it is also apparently the third novel to star Brigance) it is set in 1990. Grisham's novel's are always able to be read as stand-alones, and in fact I didn't even realise this was a sequel into quite a long way into the book. I imagine that if you had read A Time to Kill and the first sequel Sycamore Row you would have a better connection with Brigance and his family, but Time for Mercy does a good job of setting up who these characters are and why we should care about them anyway. In this novel Brigance faces two cases, although one of them is far more important to the plot: sixteen year old Drew Gamble has shot and ...

Published by Gollancz/Orion Publishing Group: London, 2011. The first book in the 'Wax and Wayne' series: ' The Alloy of Law '; 'Shadows of Self'; 'The Bands of Mourning'; 'The Lost Metal.' This is the first novel in a series from Brandon Sanderson that is also a sequel series to Mistborn , the trilogy of books I just finished . However, rather than pick up with the same characters, Alloy of Law takes place three hundred years later, with a new cast and a world that has shifted on technologically. Whereas Mistborn was set in the 'classic fantasy' era of swords and horses, this series takes place in a city that has trains, guns, and elevators. It has definite allusions to the era of the Wild West, and feels to be about at the late 19th or early 20th century by our standards - there are one or two motor vehicles but mostly people still use horse-drawn carriages. Within this world we meet our heroes, Waxillium (Wax) Ladrian and his 'dep...

Published by Collector's Library: London, 2013. Originally published 1930. I picked this up to be 'H' in the Alphabet Soup reading challenge, and, as a fan of the 1941 film version starring Humphrey Bogart , was curious to see how similar the screenplay of that film reflected the original novel.  The answer to that question turns out to be: extremely similar. Like, way more similar than any other book-to-movie adaptation I can think of. Even the dialogue of the book seems to have been replicated word-for-word throughout the film (at least from what I could remember), which makes reading the book a strange experience for someone who has come to it as their second exposure to this story. Because, with the book and movie being so similar, I'm put in an interesting position of actually finding myself preferring the film version to the book version.  That's not a common feeling. To unpack my feelings a bit: Sam Spade is a very closed character, by design. We, as the audi...

Published by Penguin English Library: London, England, 2012. First published 1859. This novel is one of the most well-known Dickens titles, and is the one that Dickens himself believed to be his finest work. It is also, ironically, the least "Dickensy" Dickens novel... Most of the Dickens novels have long chapters with grand flowing sentences, humorous descriptions and heavy layers of satire woven throughout. In A Tale of Two Cities, the humour is there but less present, and the chapters are far shorter. It feels as those Dickens was trying something new for this book - a far more 'edited down' style - and it is obvious from his comments that he was happy with the results. The book is well-written (as all Dickens books are), and the more 'minimalistic' style (comparatively) does suit the tale that is being told - involving romance, rescues, redemption, revenge, and revolution, to list some of the Rs. We meet the forgotten and broken prisoner Doctor Manette, hi...

Published by The Banner of Truth Trust: Edinburgh, 1974 (1970). Looking for another commentary after finishing Barclay's one on Hebrews , I found this work by a quite famous preacher, but one I had never read or heard before. As the title suggests, yes, this is a whole book that covers just under one chapter of Scripture, and it is very good. Lloyd-Jones apparently took 12 years to preach his way through Romans, and there are 14 volumes in this series, with this being the first chronologically released. Covering such a short section of Scripture allows Lloyd-Jones to dive quite deeply in, and also to focus strongly on particular themes. So, as the title also gives away, this book is a lot about the concepts of atonement and justification: that Christ's work on the cross is necessary to pay the price for my sins, and that it is entirely the work of God that makes us righteous in His sight, rather than any work or effort on our parts. It is such a good challenge to be reminded of...

With Andrew Quicke. Published by Hodder and Stoughton: Great Britain, 1981 (1980). This is another one of those incredibly challenging faith biographies that Elise and I seem to enjoy. Although not as well structured as some of the books (I would call it more of a 'memoirs' than a traditional 'biography'), the life story of Jackie Pullinger and her work in the Walled City of Hong Kong is both fascinating and immensely challenging. Jackie felt a call to missions from a young age, but after being rejected by a number of mission organisations, had some unexpected but inspiring advice from a friend who was also a minister: "If God is telling to you go - you had better go...If you had a job, a ticket, accommodation, a sick fund and a pension, you wouldn't need to trust Him...Anyone can go that way whether they are Christians or not. If I were you I would go out and buy a ticket for a boat going on the longest journey you can find and pray to know where to get off....

Published by Arrow/Random House: Australia, 1993. I quite like John Grisham novels. I like the fact that I can pick one up and enjoy it without having to think too deeply. Not that John Grisham novels are 'simple' in any way, but there is a reason that so many of his works have been adapted into action/thriller films (this book included): they read like a film. The Client follows the story of Mark Sway, whom, along with his younger brother Ricky, witnesses the suicide of a lawyer whose client was a violent mafia member. The mafia member, Barry 'The Blade' Muldano, has killed a US senator and hidden his body somewhere. The FBI know he did it, but cannot find the body. Mark, however, has learned where the body is hidden, and is now a target both for the FBI (who want him to talk) and the mafia (who want him silenced permanently). Mark is eleven years old, and although he is very mature for his age (he has witnessed a lot in his time that has made him grow up too quickly) ...