Hello and welcome to issue #1427 of Edi's Weekend Wave.
Dear Readers,
yesterday evening the quarter final of the FIFA 2014 World Cup started with two Games: Germany vs France and Brazil vs Colombia. To my pleasure Germany made it to the semifinal vs Brazil. It has been a bittersweet win for Brazil because they lost their best player - Neymar - due to a brutal foul with the result of a broken bone in his back!!!
The next four weeks will bring more stress because the face of the building we live in will be renovated. So spend the morning with transportation of the stuff from balcony to cellar. We can't use the balcony until the end of renovation.Furthermore all windows have to be closed the whole day except a few hours in the night and we do not have air condition! I really hope that we do not get a hot summer.
Anyway I can't change it and have to cope with.
Now let's have a look at what I put together for you.
ENJOY READING ....
Edi's Guidepost
The Lighthouse
News and information straight from the horse's mouth by Lighthouse keeper ediFanoB
Reading progress
Books
The latest report from our shelf shop net correspondent Bona
New books on my shelf/reader or when one book leads to another
Blogosphere
Messages from the depths of the blogosphere by spheronaut Bona Fide
Something spectacular
Cars with propellers part 2
A plan for a monument from 1890
Blogs to books
Movies
Remote control junkie Fide and his zapping highlights
Support an author with a comment
Quotes
The member of the house of quotes and a quote himself the Keeper of the minutes ( we call him Kotm) fished for you
German proverbs, sayings and idiomsQuote related to imagination
The Lighthouse
I face a certain dilemma when it comes to reading. As you can see I started to read several interesting books. I continue reading based on my mood but there have been some evenings last week where I could not decide which book to continue and ended up either in sleeping on the sofa or reading a few posts. I enjoyed some posts which led to new books on my reader.
It is a question of time when I will reach the crazy number of 1000 books on my reader. I will have a few days off end of September. I really hope that I can finish some of my current reads until then.
And NO, I'm not happy with my reading progress. And YES I do not know how to change situation.
I finished
- no book
I'm
- 151 pages in The Yard (hc and digital 2012, pb 2013 [ hc ISBN-13: 978-0399149542; pb ISBN-13: 978-0718159672;Kindle ASIN: B007Z8ZK8M] by Alex Grecian
A progress of 76 pages. Not much for one week.
No progress
- 347 pages in Lawless And The Devil of Euston Square (pb 2013; first published in 2006 with title The Worms of Euston Square ) [ISBN-13: 978-1909223257] by William Sutton.
177 pages left until the end.
- 222 pages in The City (pb, 2014; first published in 2013) [ISBN: 978-0552168953] by Stella Gemmell
It is not my book of the year but a good epic fantasy. 478 pages left until the end.
- 121 pages in Perdido Street Station (pb, 2003; first published in 2000) [ISBN-13: 978-0345459404] by China Miéville.
The map of the town reminded me of a brain. A book full of ideas. 502 pages until the end.
- 92 pages in Memories of Ice (pb, 2006; first published in 2000) [ISBN-13: 978-0765348807] by Steven Erikson
Again small progress. I slowed down my reading speed in order not to miss important things.
- 241 pages in the Amelia Peabody's Murder Mystery Omnibus (digital, pb, 2012) [Kindle Edition ASIN: B007PRZJAW] by Elizabeth Peters.
- 98 pages in The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime (digital 2011) [ Kindle Edition ASIN: B004FPYX72] by Judith Flanders.
- 172 pages in the Emperor of Thorns (pb, August 2013) [ISBN-13: 978-0007439058] by Mark Lawrence,
Enjoy your weekend ....
Books
Dear readers, I'm the one to tell you about books - only books? What about novellas and other stuff? My name is Bona. I scour shelves, shops and the net for books. If you call me a book whore I would not gainsay you. But be aware I have my own, sometimes elusive taste.
New books on my shelf/reader or when one book leads to another
This week I received one paperback copy which I ordered in advance and bought four digital copies.
With the paperback copy of Sherlock Holmes: Gods of War (June 2014) [Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1781165430] by James Lovegrove I enlarge my Sherlock Holmes novel collection.
"1913. The clouds of war are gathering and Europe is in turmoil. A body is discovered on the shore below Beachy Head, just a mile from Sherlock Holmes's retirement cottage. Suicide, or murder? As Holmes and Watson investigate, they uncover a conspiracy with shocking ramifications: men who welcome the idea of a world war are seeking divine aid to make it a reality." [Source]
As far as we know Sherlock Holmes was born in 1854. He retired late 1903/early 1904. In 1913 he was 59 years old.
[Source for all dates]
It will interesting to read who presents Holmes in his later years.
I enjoyed the previous book - Sherlock Holmes: The Stuff of Nightmares (August 2013) [Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1781165416] - a lot and I'm glad to announce that there will be one more Sherlock Holmes novel by James Lovegrove . Even without reading Sherlock Holmes: Gods of War I look forward to Sherlock Holmes:
to b published in August 2015.
This week I discovered four books which have been offered really cheap in form of digital copies. All our books have three things in common:
- I discovered them on history related blogs
- the digital copies have been cheap
- they all belong to series
Murder by Misrule (digital 2014) [ Kindle Edition ASIN: B00J9TABYS] by Anna Castle.
"Francis Bacon is charged with investigating the murder of a fellow barrister at Gray's Inn. He recruits his unwanted protégé Thomas Clarady to do the tiresome legwork. The son of a privateer, Clarady will do anything to climb the Elizabethan social ladder. Bacon's powerful uncle Lord Burghley suspects Catholic conspirators of the crime, but other motives quickly emerge. Rival barristers contend for the murdered man's legal honors and wealthy clients. Highly-placed courtiers are implicated as the investigation reaches from Whitehall to the London streets. Bacon does the thinking; Clarady does the fencing. Everyone has something up his pinked and padded sleeve. Even the brilliant Francis Bacon is at a loss — and in danger — until he sees through the disguises of the season of Misrule." [Source]
I still love medieval murder mystery. This one is the first book in the new Francis Bacon Murder Mystery Series. It was especially the "brain and muscle team" in person of Francis Bacon and Thomas Clarady which aroused my interest.
I paid just 2,68 EUR ( = 3.65 USD; = 2.12 GBP) for the copy.
Britannia's Wolf (digital 2013) [ Kindle Edition ASIN: B00CLHET9S] by Antoine Vanner.
"1877 and the Russo-Turkish War is reaching its climax.
A Russian victory will pose a threat for Britain’s strategic interests. To protect them an ambitious British naval officer, Nicholas Dawlish, is assigned to the Ottoman Navy to ravage Russian supply-lines in the Black Sea. In the depths of a savage winter, as Turkish forces face defeat on all fronts, Dawlish confronts enemy ironclads, Cossack lances and merciless Kurdish irregulars and finds himself a pawn in the rivalry of the Sultan’s half-brothers for control of the collapsing empire. And in the midst of this chaos, unwillingly and unexpectedly, Dawlish finds himself drawn to a woman whom he believes he should not love.
Not for his own sake, and not for hers…
Britannia’s Wolf introduces a naval hero who is more familiar with steam, breech-loaders and torpedoes than with sails, carronades and broadsides. Dawlish joined as a boy a Royal Navy still commanded by veterans of Trafalgar but will he will help forge the Dreadnought navy of Jutland and the Great War.
Further books will accompany Dawlish further on that voyage into the future…
The Dawlish Chronicles series, which commences with Britannia's Wolf, is in the great tradition of the Napoleonic-era naval fiction of Forester, Kent, O'Brian and Pope, but is set in the late nineteenth-century, as Britain's Empire approached its apogee. In this period old enemies were still a threat, new players were joining the ranks of the Great Powers, and the potential for local conflict to escalate into general war – even world war - was never absent. Britain’s ability to project force rapidly and decisively on a global scale was assured by a Royal Navy that was in transition as new technologies emerged at an unprecedented rate. But force alone was often inappropriate and conflicts had often to be resolved by guile and by proxy. It is in this world of change and uncertainty that Nicholas Dawlish, always resourceful, sometimes ruthless, occasionally self-doubting, must contend for the advancement and happiness he hungers for." [Source]
What shall I add to this description? I hope I will like the style of the auhor.
I paid just 2,68 EUR ( = 3.65 USD; = 2.12 GBP) for the copy.
Britannia's Reach (digital 2014) [ Kindle Edition ASIN: B00I9I8DWC] by Antoine Vanner.
"Britannia's Reach is the second novel in the Dawlish Chronicles series. It continues the story of the ambitious Royal Navy officer Nicholas Dawlish, who was first introduced in Britannia's Wolf. It's November 1879 and on a broad river deep in the heart of South America, a flotilla of paddle steamers thrashes slowly upstream. It is laden with troops, horses and artillery, and intent on conquest and revenge. Ahead lies a commercial empire that was wrested from a British consortium in a bloody revolution. Now the investors are determined to recoup their losses and are funding a vicious war to do so. Nicholas Dawlish, is playing a leading role in the expedition. But as brutal land and river battles mark its progress upriver, and as both sides inflict and endure ever greater suffering, stalemate threatens. And Dawlish finds himself forced to make a terrible ethical choice if he is to return to Britain with some shreds of integrity remaining… The Dawlish Chronicles feature a naval hero who is more familiar with steam, breech-loaders and torpedoes than with sails, carronades and broadsides. The series, which commenced with Britannia's Wolf, is in the great tradition of the Napoleonic-era naval fiction of Forester, Kent, O'Brian and Pope, but is set in the late nineteenth-century, as Britain's Empire approached its apogee. In this period old enemies were still a threat, new players were joining the ranks of the Great Powers, and the potential for local conflict to escalate into general war – even world war - was never absent. Britain’s ability to project force rapidly and decisively on a global scale was assured by a Royal Navy that was in transition as new technologies emerged at an unprecedented rate. But force alone was often inappropriate and conflicts had often to be resolved by guile and by proxy. It is in this world of change and uncertainty that Nicholas Dawlish, always resourceful, sometimes ruthless, occasionally self-doubting, must contend for the advancement and happiness he hungers for." [Source]
It is always a risk to buy a second book in a series while not knowing the first book. But I took the risk. If do not like the book , spent 2,68 EUR ( = 3.65 USD; = 2.12 GBP) for the copy in vain.
His Majesty's Confidential Agent (digital 2014) [ Kindle Edition ASIN: B00JZZS5JY]
by Tom Williams.
"James Burke never set out to be a spy. But with Napoleon rampaging through Europe, the War Office needs agents and Burke isn't given a choice. It's no business for a gentleman, and disguising himself as a Buenos Aires leather merchant is a new low. His mission, though, means fighting alongside men who see the collapse of the old order giving them a chance to break free of Spanish colonial rule. He falls in love with the country – and with the beautiful Ana. Burke wants both to forward British interests and to free Argentina from Spain. But his new found selflessness comes up against the realities of international politics. When the British invade, his attempts to parley between the rebels and their new rulers leave everybody suspicious of him. Despised by the British, imprisoned by the Spanish and with Ana leaving him for the rebel leader, it takes all Burke's resolve and cunning to escape. Only after adventuring through the throne rooms and bedrooms of the Spanish court will he finally come back to Buenos Aires, to see Ana again and avenge himself on the man who betrayed him." [Source]
The description in combination with additional information which I deliver later in this post, made it easy for me to spend 0,89 EUR ( = 1,21 USD; = 0.71 GBP) for the copy.
No more today, see you next week ......
Blogosphere
Hey, I'm Bona Fide. I just came back from my last foray through the blogosphere. What can you expect from me? I tell you: Everything from Art to Fart as long as there is any faint connection to books. And here is some honey from the beehive blogosphere...
Something spectacular
What happens when you combine a tram with30,000 LED lights? If you want to see the result you have to head over to WebUrbanist and have a look at
Time-Traveling Trams: 30,000 LED Lights Vanish Street Trains
Cars with propellers part 2
Dark Roasted Blend continued the post series was many more pictures. Have a look at
Cars with Propellers, Part 2
A plan for a monument from 1890
I do not want to repeat the text of the following post over at The Public Domain Review,
which is not necessary because the post header gives you a first hint about what to expect. Please go and have a look at
Palacio’s Plan for Colossal Monument to Columbus (1890)
Blogs to books
I started to follow blogs before I started my own blogs. First I focused on fantasy and science fiction book blogs. Since then I discovered a lot of different blogs. This week I read three posts on two different blogs which led to four new digital copies on my reader. I presented you the books above and now I want to share with you the blogs and posts which inspired me to buy the books.
Historical Tapestry is blog from several historical fiction book lovers. Last Monday they share a post with the header:
Book Blast: Murder by Misrule by Anna Castle
The presentation of a new medieval murder mystery series aroused my interest. I followed the link to author Anna Castle’s website and 10 minutes later I bought a digital copy of Murder by Misrule (digital 2014) [ Kindle Edition ASIN: B00J9TABYS] by Anna Castle.
In case you follow my blog regularly then you know that I like to share links from English Historical Fiction Authors. On 1st of July 2014 following post popped up:
Nelson's Needle
by Antoine Vanner
The name of the author did not ring a bell. Nelson's Needle? I expected a post about Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square. I did not take long until I understood the column and the needle are two different things. If you want to know more about the needle then read the post please.
For me it was an interesting one.
The post ended with information about the author, his series, and following two links:
You can follow Antoine’s regular blog on www.dawlishchronicles.blogspot.co.uk
He also maintains a very extensive website: www.dawlishchronicles.com
Of course I visited the blog and the website which are both impressive and informative.
To keep the story short, Antoine Vanner is the author of a historical naval fiction series set in the Victorian era and I have a knack for this period of time. Therefore I bought copies of his two available books: Britannia's Wolf (digital 2013) [ Kindle Edition ASIN: B00CLHET9S] and Britannia's Reach (digital 2014) [ Kindle Edition ASIN: B00I9I8DWC] both by Antoine Vanner.
In case you are interested in historical naval fiction then I recommend to visit Antoine's blog and website.
The other day showed following post over at the English Historical Fiction Authors. .
The Industrial Revolution in Scotland
by Tom Williams
For me James Watts, the inventor of the steam engine is intrinsically tied to the header above. But there is more and the post delivers more information.
Beside the good article it was the information about the author and his book - His Majesty's Confidential Agent (digital 2014) [ Kindle Edition ASIN: B00JZZS5JY] - at the end of the post which aroused my interest:
"His Majesty's Confidential Agent is a Napoleonic War spy story. The hero, James Burke, was a real person who lied and spied for Britain. There's skulduggery and battles and beautiful women. Swashes are buckled and bodices ripped as Burke fights and intrigues his way from the jungles of Haiti, through the court of the Spanish king, to a bloody climax in Buenos Aires. James Bond meets Richard Sharpe in a tale that is rooted surprisingly firmly in historical fact."
This text in combination with the book description led me to the decision to by a copy.
That's it for today. Come back next week for more ......
Movies
Hey, it's me Fide. I'm a remote control professional. I'm that fast that I can watch two movies at the same time.
Today I do something completely different. No movie trailer, no videos, no games!
A few month ago I read Radio Hope (digital January 2014) [Amazon Kindle, ASIN:B00I5HHTVS] by Sean McLachlan which is the first book in the Toxic World series.
"In a world shattered by war, pollution and disease. . .
A gunslinging mother longs to find a safe refuge for her son.
A frustrated revolutionary delivers water to villagers living on a toxic waste dump.
The assistant mayor of humanity's last city hopes he will never have to take command.
One thing gives them the promise of a better future--Radio Hope, a mysterious station that broadcasts vital information about surviving in a blighted world. But when a mad prophet and his army of fanatics march out of the wildlands on a crusade to purify the land with blood and fire, all three will find their lives intertwining, and changing forever." [Source]
I think it is important to mention following statement y the author:
"No zombies, no aliens, just regular people trying to live with their grandparents' mistakes." [Source]
I liked the intense story and was happy when I read that the second book - Refugees from the Righteous Horde - is in progress.
Now the author announced that he finished editing Refugees from the Righteous Horde and that he is waiting for the cover art. Meanwhile Sean McLachlan started to work on another important part of his book: THE BLURB
The blurb is the main information beside the cover.
And that is the point where you can take action and support Sean McLachlan.
Read the blurb version 2.0 and leave a comment with your opinion.
It does not matter whether you have read the first book or not. A lot of people discover a second or third book from an author first and decide based on the blurb, to have a look at the first book.
So don't hesitate and visit
Blurb Version 2.0
read the blurb and leave a comment.
Maybe you will be interested in Radio Hope (digital January 2014) [Amazon Kindle, ASIN:B00I5HHTVS] and/or the short story - set Toxic World universe - The Scavenger (digital) [Kindle Edition ASIN: B00J02F2NO].
That's all for today. See you next time....
Quotes
I 'm the Keeper of the minutes. But I don't mind when you call me Kotm. No, no. I don't explain to you how to pronounce.
Imagination is something needed when it comes to books and it is needed on both sides - author and reader. The following quote is a good analogy for that ......
"Anyone who can handle a needle convincingly can make us see a thread which is not there.”
E. H. Gombrich, Austrian born art historian, 1909 - 2001