I’ve been going through my TBR pile, matching books to bingo squares. This fourth row has been the hardest by far, and I’ve had to invoke two more Spell Pack cards to make them work These are my tentative plans so far, totally subject to change without notice.
ROW 4
There was no way I was reading anything for American Horror Story as Horror really isn’t my jam. So I used the Transfiguration Spell Card to turn this square into Spellbound, which gives me the perfect excuse to read Kevin Hearne’s new book that takes place in the world of the Iron Druid Chronicles: Ink & Sigil. This is one of 2 books I’ve purchased for this year’s Halloween Bingo, and I can only hope it arrives in time.
Another square I’m invoking a Spell Pack card for – this one Wild Card. My wild card author is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I haven’t decided which title yet – but it’ll either be one of the Sherlock Holmes stories, or I have a book of Tales of Terror and Mystery I might give a go.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to read for this one but then I saw the book list of titles suggestions for the prompt, and there it was. H.R.F. Keating’s novelisation of Neil Simon’s movie, Murder by Death; my namesake. The ending pisses me off, but eh – it’s still worth a re-read.
This is both a re-read and a purchase, because apparently, I originally read this digitally. I’ve also bought the Alex Price entries and the newest title that centers on the cuckoo whose name escapes me at the moment, so it might be one of those instead.
I consulted the lists for this one and decided on Dorthy Sayers’ hangman Holiday; I have it and I don’t think I’ve read any of the stories yet.
I just revisited “Hangman‘s Holiday“ courtesy of a DLS/ Ian Carmichael playlist on YouTube — I hope you‘re going to enjoy it!
And, yeah, those squares would have made me reach for my spell pack, too …
It’s funny – when I first got my card I looked it over and thought – wow!, MR totally nailed my card this year. And then I got to planning for the fourth row and thought – how did I miss these first time around?
But overall, she still totally nailed this card. So many great squares for me this year. 🙂
Yes, pretty much exactly my feeling about my card. Lots, of mystery, plenty of my favorite “nondenominational” squares, and really low on horror, with only one square that, right now, I feel compelled to use my spell pack for (Stone Cold Horror). For however much she says these are random combinations, she’s really getting great at tailoring the parameters of our cards to our individual preferences.
She really is. Except for Psych and Terror in Small Town, she could not have given me a more tailored set of squares, and my first though upon seeing it was ‘ i know she’s in a hurry and busy, but now nice of her to take into account my tastes anyway and give me ‘my’ kind of squares. ‘ Which I doubt she took the time to do, but it’s fun to believe she did anyway. 😀
It’s great fun to believe it … and you know, for however much I’m willing to believe the “random” thing, knowing how busy she is, the more people I hear praising how much their card meets their respective preferences, the more I’m also willing to believe she really has found some way beyond the four main categories to tailor the outcome of the selection. (As an aside, I also noticed that very few of my squares on this year’s card were also on last year’s card.)
I haven’t had time to compare last years yet. I’m still pulling together the last of the books for the final row, and then I still have so much work getting my blog in good enough shape to actually play the game from here without it being a major hassle. Otherwise I’m going back to BookLikes and bettle with them there. The devil I know and all that. I have to say I’m really not warming up to GR yet. I check in each day and try to participate, but I’m on edge the whole time. And I really hate GR functionality. But I really, really love seeing so much of the gang there together. sigh
Oh, same here, which is one of the reasons why I’m not half as active there as I used to be on BL. — For the moment, I’m focusing on sprucing up my WP blog (and I hope they will NEVER actually FORCE the block editor on me). I hope I’ll get it done by the time Halloween Bingo starts, but I kind of doubt it. Oh well! 🙁
The block editor is … I don’t know wtf to call it. It’s seductive because it offers some micro-layouts that are appealing to me right now as I’m trying to juggle getting everything moved, exported/imported etc. and they save me time battling WP’s css. But then they don’t render on half the WP outlets (mobile, desktop app) so why the hell bother? headdesk
The platform I‘m using for my office website has a sort of block editor, effectively without giving you the option of not using it. (You can, but there‘s no WYSIWYG screen, so you always have to switch back and forth between HTML and draft preview screen, which drives me nuts and pretty much makes this a non-option for me.). I swear, if they didn‘t have by far the best plans for offices my size I‘d have decamped elsewhere long ago. If WP ever makes the block editor compulsory, that will be the exact moment I‘ll be starting to explore alternative hosting platforms for my blog. Dumbing down of this kind ALWAYS gets in the way of a more creative and individualized layout, never mind not properly rendering half the time even if you do think you‘ve made them work for you. And if they‘re not even rendering properly everywhere as designed and straight out of the box … (sigh).
Exactly!
Ah, so many good ones here! Wimsey and of course “Murder by Death”, but also the ACD. Quite a few tales in Tales of Terror and Mystery were in the collection of “Gothic Tales” I read a couple of years ago. This also has The Case of Lady Sannox that is also included Capital Crimes.
I was stressing about who my Wild Card author would be until the head-slap moment came, ACD is truly a no-brainer for me and I’ve been itching to read more of his writing, rather than going back to Holmes everytime. Not that I love having a reason – or not – to revisit Holmes, but I want to see what else ACD can do (that isn’t scifi). I hope you enjoyed the stories you read?
I really liked them all but not equally so, of course. I thought it was really exciting to read the stories that ACD “wanted” to write rather than felt he “had” to write (i.e. Holmes), and I thought it fitted in well with the picture I had of him as someone who maintained a sort of boyish interest in tales of the supernatural etc, I certainly will recommend the stories because some of them are just totally fab and it would be a crying shame in ACD was only known for his Holmes stories.
Well, you know how much I like his earliest Haunted House mystery – the one the experts turned their noses down on. So I’m really looking forward to seeing what he did once he got older and more experience under his belt. 🙂
I’m already looking forward to hearing what you’ll make of the stories. I really, really am.
Btw, there is a story in your Tales of Terror and Mystery book that definitely is a “daylight only” story. IIRC, I very much wanted to reach for my blanket. (And I am not talking about Lady Sannox.) ;D
LOL – thanks for the vague but chilling warning. I guess I’ll start all of them in the morning so when I hit the truly terrifying one I’ll have the day to recover. 😀
Well, it would be too easy to tell you which one. XD
I have to say this block editor thing in gutenberg looks great on the block page and the webstie, but boy does it fall apart in the reader app – and I’m guessing the mobile app. Why push something like blocks so hard it it’s just going to make sites that use it look complete crap in 50% of the viewing ports? sigh more workarounds to look for.
Amen. 🙁