Tag / Kindle

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Book 9 (of 52) – The Case of the Baited Hook

The Case of the Baited Hook – Erle Stanley Gardner

When a mysterious, late-night meeting with a man and a disguised woman, who may eventually become a client, puts Perry Mason in a bind after a trustee is found dead, he tries to figure out which of the many possibilities surrounding the case the disguised woman may be.  Once he is personally charged with aiding and abetting the homicide, but before he is officially arrested, he manages to track down the truth, both of his mystery client and who actually committed the murder, clearing hiw own name.

Originally published in 1940, The Case of the Baited Hook is 16th entry in Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason series.  This case, though heavily modified, was featured as the fourteenth episode of season one in the Raymond Burr version of the show.  Since this is a little further along in the series, the characters align more closely with those we are familiar with from television.  Thanks to a sale in the Kindle store to celebrate the new year, I was able to pick up a couple additional stories from Gardner’s oeuvre, which I hope to work through over the coming months,

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Book 1 (of 52) – Too Old For This

Too Old For This – Samantha Downing

When a journalist shows up on her doorstep looking to make a docu-series clearing her name, retiree Lottie Jones has only one option: to kill her and make her disappear.  However, this starts the ball rolling, as the police, the journalist’s boyfriend, and her mother start poking around.  Can Lottie pull her fat out of the fire without putting further focus on herself?

Samantha Downing’s latest, Too Old for This, brings her back to my Kindle for the first time since 2022.  In this tale, Downing has you pulling for the old lady, even though she really should be the villain of the piece.  Given my enjoyment of this book, I can only hope it won’t be another 3+ years before I come across Downing’s work again.

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52 Books in 52 Weeks – 2026 Edition

A new year is upon us, and it is time to once again set a goal of reading a book a week for the entire year, totaling 52 books in 52 weeks.

Last year, for the fifth straight year, I completed my goal, finishing the year with 61 books read.  Prior to that, I’d had a low point of eight books back in 2010 and a high point of 66 books.

While I am hoping to have a better balance between reading time and exercise this year, I’m going to give it another go.  I’ve got plenty of new books stocked up, both in the Kindle app on my iPad and actual physical books, not to mention my handy dandy library card, so I’ve got a good pile to start with.  As a reminder, the rules I am using are:

  • You can count a book as read as long as you have completed the book in 2026 and at least 50% of that reading takes place in 2026.
  • Any book counts as long as you’re not embarrassed to count it.
  • Poetry collections do indeed count.
  • Re-reading a book is okay as long as it isn’t done this year. (Reading Twilight twice in 2026 only counts as one read).
  • Audiobooks also count.

My first book of the year looks like it will be Too Old for This by Samantha Downing.  Here’s hoping 2026 is another good year when it comes to books.

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Book 64 (of 52) – Great Big Beautiful Life

Great Big Beautiful Life – Emily Henry

Alice thinks she has it made, having tracked down the long-missing former tabloid princess from one of the most storied families of the 20th Century and pitched her on writing her version of her family’s scandalous past.  Instead, she finds herself in competition with Hayden, a Pulitzer Prize winning author and Purdue alum who was invited down to the remote Georgia island to pitch the job as well.  While they both work on their separate pitches, they fall in love, knowing that this job could jeopardize their personal relationship.  And when Alice finds out the big secret that the heiress has been hiding, it does just that.

For the third year in a row, the Goodreads Choice winner for Favorite Romance has found its way onto my Kindle.  Emily Henry’s latest, Great Big Beautiful Life, isn’t your traditional romance novel, or at least not what I believe a traditional romance novel to be.  Its story shares some DNA with Taylor Jenkins Reid’s The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, where an aging protagonist looks back at her life story through her own lens while ostensibly working with a young author.  This is now the third entry from Henry that I have enjoyed, so I may need to consider looking into more of her back catalog going forward.

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Prolific Authors – 22 Books

It is time once again to take a look at the authors I have read the most, dating back to high school.  This year, I’m once again on pace to set a new record for books read in a year, so I thought it would be nice to take a deeper dive into those books I’ve read through August of this year. Since our last check-in, I’ve read an additional 1xx books, so there should be some movement over the past two years.  Without further ado, it’s time to take another look and see if my “favorite” authors have changed much over the years.  We conclude today with the sole author I’ve read 22 times, a level unseen two years ago.

Jeffery Deaver

In 1999, the first entry of Deaver’s Lincoln Rhyme series, The Bone Collector, was adapted into a film starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie.  Around that time, I picked up a paperback copy, which I read in 2000.  I slowly added additional titles as I would find them as remainders, picking up new hard covers for $3 or $4.


Things increased in 2015, when I started picking up titles on deals through the Amazon Kindle store or from the library, leading to 17 additional books added to my read bookshelf.  In August of last year, I finished off the Lincoln Rhyme series with The Broken Window.  There is still room to grow, as I have three remaining entries of his Kathryn Dance series, although my local library does not have them available in an electronic format, and what looks to be a new series where he has teamed up with Isabella Maldonado.

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Prolific Authors – 17 Books

It is time once again to take a look at the authors I have read the most, dating back to high school.  This year, I’m once again on pace to set a new record for books read in a year, so I thought it would be nice to take a deeper dive into those books I’ve read through August of this year. Since our last check-in, I’ve read an additional 1xx books, so there should be some movement over the past two years.  Without further ado, it’s time to take another look and see if my “favorite” authors have changed much over the years.  We continue today with our penultimate entry and the lone author I’ve read 17 times, who was at the top of this list two years ago.

Nancy Holder

My former most prolific author first came to my attention in 1998, when I read Halloween Rain, her first entry, along with Christopher Golden, in the series of books based on the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Twelve of her 17 entries, all of which are tie-ins to either Buffy and/or Angel, were read between 1998 and 2002.  After a nine-year layoff, she returned to my attention in 2011 with Carnival of Souls.

The Book Of Fours – Nancy Holder

Another five years went by, before she returned again with two books in 2016, one in 2018, and then, finally, one in 2021.  Seeing as I have depleted my backlog of Buffy novels, she’s likely to stay put for the foreseeable future, unless someone re-releases these cheaply on the Kindle.

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Prolific Authors – Seven Books

It is time once again to take a look at the authors I have read the most, dating back to high school.  This year, I’m once again on pace to set a new record for books read in a year, so I thought it would be nice to take a deeper dive into those books I’ve read through August of this year. Since our last check-in, I’ve read an additional 114 books, so there should be some movement over the past two years.  Without further ado, it’s time to take another look and see if my “favorite” authors have changed much over the years.  We continue today with the three authors I’ve read seven times, a decrease of two from two years ago.

Airframe – Michael Crichton

Michael Crichton

The prolific author, who died in 2008, first entered my bookshelf in 1989, when I was assigned to read The Andromeda Strain as part of my high school Biology class.  He continued to be a big part of my 90s reading, but has only added a single title, Airframe, in this century.

Rebecca Forster

One of my first Kindle finds, I’ve read the first seven entries in her Witness series.

J.K. Rowling

All seven entries in the Harry Potter series, which I read in 2016, make up Rowling’s total.  She continues to write under a pen name, but her horrific political views make it unlikely that she would end up on this list twice.

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Prolific Authors – Six Books

It is time once again to take a look at the authors I have read the most, dating back to high school.  This year, I’m once again on pace to set a new record for books read in a year, so I thought it would be nice to take a deeper dive into those books I’ve read through August of this year. Since our last check-in, I’ve read an additional 114 books, so there should be some movement over the past two years.  Without further ado, it’s time to take another look and see if my “favorite” authors have changed much over the years.  We continue today with the four authors I’ve read six times, two more than two years ago.

Swan Song – Elin Hilderbrand

Elin Hilderbrand

The best-selling author of novels set on her home island of Nantucket added four new novels to my read shelf these past two years.

David Mack

All six of his entries come from Star Trek: The Next Generation works I’ve read on my Kindle.

Sarah Pekkanen

She has teamed up with Greer Hendricks for four novels but has branched out on her own again in recent years.

Break No Bones – Kathy Reichs

Kathy Reichs

The creator of the books that were the inspiration for Bones, she has been rising steadily as I’ve gained a newfound appreciation for the novel series.

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Finishing A Challenge

Every quarter, Kindle releases a reading challenge as a way to gamify reading on their platform.  The Spring 2025 challenge, which wraps up tomorrow, was the first one I’ve ever completed, finishing all fifteen achievements.  Those achievements were:

Days Read

  • Bronze Reader: read on any 15 days during the challenge
  • Silver Reader: read on any 40 days during the challenge
  • Gold Reader: read on any 75 days during the challenge

The Gold Reader is the one I usually have an issue with.  Either due to other commitments or reading actual physical books, I’ve always fell short of the 75 days out of the 90 or so within the quarter.

Books Completed

  • Bookish: read one book
  • Bookworm: read two books
  • Bibliophile: read three books

This one is always easy.  For reference, I wrapped this one up less than two weeks into April.

Streaks

  • Head Start: read one day during the month
  • Perfect Week: read 7 days in a row (Sunday through Saturday)
  • Perfect Month: read every day for a calendar month (ex. every day in February)

Again, the Perfect Month is where I usually fall short.  This time I was able to complete that particular achievement in April.

Mystery

  • Case Closed: complete a Kindle book.
  • Afterglow: read at least three days between April 29 and May 2
  • Smart Start: read on a Monday in May. Can level up with each additional Monday you read in May
  • Parasol: complete one of the Amazon editor’s Summer Reading picks
  • Weekend Warrior: read on both Saturday and Sunday during a weekend in June
  • Insider: Follow an author on Amazon

The mystery selections are usually rolled out throughout the quarter, leaving little opportunity to plan ahead for them.  I ended up following an author simply to complete the goal here, but the Parasol one I finished by accident, as Alex Finlay’s Parents Weekend happened to be on the list.

Having finally completed one of these challenges, I hope I won’t be as hooked to their games, as it has certainly seen me focus on Kindle books to try and finish a challenge rather than reading an actual book.

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52 Books in 52 Weeks – 2025 Edition

A new year is upon us, and it is time to once again set a goal of reading a book a week for the entire year, totaling 52 books in 52 weeks.

Last year, for the fourth straight year, I completed my goal, finishing the year with 61 books read.  Prior to that, I’d had a low point of 8 books back in 2010 and a high point of 59 books.

Since I have nothing but time again this year and am still a remote worker, I’m going to give it another go.  I’ve got plenty of new books stocked up, both in the Kindle app on my iPad and actual physical books, not to mention my handy dandy library card, so I’ve got a good pile to start with.  As a reminder, the rules I am using are:

  • You can count a book as read as long as you have completed the book in 2025 and at least 50% of that reading takes place in 2025.
  • Any book counts as long as you’re not embarrassed to count it.
  • Poetry collections do indeed count.
  • Re-reading a book is okay as long as it isn’t done this year. (Reading Twilight twice in 2025 only counts as 1 read).
  • Audiobooks also count.

My first book of the year looks like it will be In a Strange City by Laura Lippman, the sixth entry in her Tess Monaghan series.  Here’s hoping 2024 is another good year when it comes to books.