Themis-Athena's Garden of Books

Of course Sunny and (in particular) Charlie will be part of this game, but I also wanted to include the wonderful gifts I received just in time for this year's bingo.  So this is what I've come up with:

 

Called Squares:

 

My marker for called squares is inspired by LA's beautiful Halloween-themed handmade bookmark.

 

Read Squares:

My marker for read squares shows Mystery Cat Charlie with my Halloween socks from OB.

 

Called and Read Squares:

My marker for called and read squares has Charlie "blacking out" the respective square (without also featuring the net, though, which when trying out various designs I found obscures too much of Charlie's face; the net works much better with the actual squares of the bingo card).

 

Given his coloring, Charlie will of course be doing the heavy lifting, i.e. will be showing up on almost all of the [called and] read squares of my card, except for ...

 

Called = Read: Center Square

... the the center (raven) square, where read equals called, and where Mystery Cat Sunny will make his appeareance, Halloween socks in tow, once I've read a book I've decided to assign to that particular square.

 

 

So, I had to go down to Frankfurt yesterday, and as I had hoped when composing my original post for this prompt, I managed a small side trip to that store.

 

This year's Halloween snacks now officially include:

 

* Orange chocolate / cocoa truffles

* White chocolate and almond truffles

* Cocoa and dark chocolate coated almonds

* Chili, vanilla and cinnamon chocolate

* Red wine chocolate

* Almond pistachio cookies

* Chocolate wafers

* Fudge.

 

(While I was there, I also stocked up on some favorite teas, spiced rice (their own blend) and condiments.)

 

 

The subtext of love and lust being equated with disease continues.

 

In which context, incidentally, Spanish allows the author to create nuances and allusions that are pretty much untranslatable into English or German (or even French or Italian, for that matter), by dint of the sole fact that "to love" and "to want, to desire" (in both a physical sense and otherwise) are the same word -- querer.  And he doesn't even have to use it all the time, either.

 

On a separate note, the German translator is skipping parts of the original text.  In chapter 3 it was only one sentence (and I did such a double take there that I reread the paragraph in question a couple of times in both Spanish and German because I initially thought I'd just missed it -- but nope, it really wasn't me), but in chapter 4 it's an entire fragment of dialogue.  In both cases, the gist of the missing stuff is incorporated (by the author himself, mind you) into another statement in close proximity, but Vicent clearly considered the extra sentence / dialogue important nevertheless, otherwise he wouldn't have included them -- so who is the translator to decide they don't merit being included in the translation?  It's one thing not to translate literally, and to play with punctuation and sentence flow in order to better convey a sense of the original.  It's another thing entirely to decide part of the text doesn't need to be translated to begin with!

Expansion into a full review to come (if I find the time), but for the moment:

 

If you even have the slightest interest in Tudor history and politics, run, don't walk to get this book.  And for a special treat, also get the audio version narrated by David Rintoul.  This is an intense, fact-packed read and (in either the print or audio version) not a book to rush through; but it is SO worth taking the time.  What a fascinating personality -- and what an amazing biography.

Well, that escalated quickly ...

 

 

... and all that, in language (and with imagery) vaguely reminiscent of Camus's La Peste.  Hmmm ...

A great biography of an extraordinary man.

[World map created with Mapchart.net]

 

The aim: To diversify my reading and read as many books as possible (not necessarily 80) set in, and by authors from, countries all over the world.  Female authors preferred.  If a book is set in a location other than that of the author's nationality, it can apply to either (but not both).

 

On the map I'm only tracking new reads, not also rereads.

 

The Books:

Africa

Nigeria

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Purple Hibiscus (new)

 

Egypt

Elizabeth Peters: Crocodile on the Sandbank (new)

Agatha Christie: Murder on the Nile (new) and Death on the Nile (revisited on audio)

 

Zimbabwe

Alexandra Fuller: Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight (new)

 

Morocco

Laila Lalami: The Moor's Account (new)

 

Rwanda

Clea Koff: The Bone Woman (new)

 

Ghana

Kofi Annan: Interventions: A Life in War and Peace (new)

 

Sierra Leone

Aminatta Forna: The Memory of Love (new)

 

 

 

 

 

Americas

USA

Michelle Obama: Becoming (new)

Mary Roberts Rinehart: The Red Lamp (new)

Nevada Barr: Track of the Cat (new)

Louise Erdrich: The Plague of Doves (new)

James D. Doss: The Night Visitor (new)

Ann Leckie: The Raven Tower (new)

* Puerto Rico

Rosario Ferré: The House on the Lagoon (new)

 

Canada

Stef Penney: The Tenderness of Wolves (new)

Margaret Atwood: Hag-Seed (new)

 

Brazil

Clarice Lispector: The Hour of the Star (new)

 

Curaçao

John le Carré: The Night Manager (new)

 

Dominican Republic

Julia Alvarez: How the García Girls Lost Their Accents (new)

 

Haiti

Tom Reis: The Black Count (new)

 

 

 

 

 

Asia

China

Xinran: The Good Women of China (new)

 

Japan

Shizuko Natsuki: Murder at Mt. Fuji (new)

 

North Korea

Hyeonseo Lee: The Girl with Seven Names (new)

 

South Korea

Min Jin Lee: Pachinko (new)

 

Sri Lanka

Michael Ondaatje: Anil's Ghost (new)

 

Turkey

Elif Shafak: Three Daughters of Eve (new)

 

India

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni: Sister of My Heart (new)

M.M. Kaye: Death in Kashmir (new)

William Dalrymple: The Last Mughal (new)

 

Kyrgizstan

Chingiz Aitmatov: Jamilia (new)

 

Philippines

Laurence Bergreen: Over the Edge of the World (new)

 

Iraq

Gertrude Bell, Georgina Howell (ed.): A Woman in Arabia: The Writings of the Queen of the Desert (new)

 

Azerbaijan

Banine: Days in the Caucasus (new)

 

 

 

 

 

Australia / Oceania

Australia

Joan Lindsay: Picnic at Hanging Rock (new)

 

New Zealand

Ngaio Marsh: Vintage Murder and Died in the Wool (both revisited on audio)

Witi Ihimaera: The Whale Rider (new)

 

 

 

 

 

Europe

United Kingdom

Lorna Nicholl Morgan: Another Little Murder (new)

Stephen Fry, John Woolf, Nick Baker: Stephen Fry's Victorian Secrets (new)

P.D. James: A Taste for Death (revisited on audio)

Agatha Christie: The Big Four, Why Didn't They Ask Evans?, The Unexpected Guest, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, The Secret Adversary (twice), Parker Pyne Investigates, and The Mysterious Mr. Quin (all revisited on audio; The Unexpected Guest also in print); The Lost Plays: Butter in a Lordly Dish / Personal Call / Murder in the Mews (new)

Elizabeth Ferrars: Murder Among Friends (new)

Barbara Pym: Excellent Women, Quartet in Autumn, and An Unsuitable Attachment (all new)

Terry Pratchett: Equal Rites (revisited on audio), Mort, and Sourcery (both new)

Georgette Heyer: Why Shoot a Butler?, They Found Him Dead, and A Blunt Instrument (all new)

Nicholas Blake: A Question of Proof (new)

Joy Ellis: The Murderer's Son and The Fourth Friend (both new)

Peter Grainger: An Accidental Death (new)

Elizabeth Gaskell: My Lady Ludlow (new)

Various Authors / Contributors: Agatha Christie Close Up: A Radio Investigation (new)

Virginia Woolf: The String Quartet (new)

John Buchan: The 39 Steps (revisited on audio)

Oscar Wilde: Lord Arthur Savile's Crime (new)

Ellis Peters: The Hermit of Eyton Forest, Dead Man's Ransom, The Leper of Saint Giles, St. Peter's Fair, The Virgin in the Ice, and Monk's Hood (all revisited on audio)

Patricia Wentworth: The Alington Inheritance, The Gazebo, The Benevent Treasure, Anna, Where are You?, The Key, The Ivory Dagger, Out of the Past, The Silent Pool, The Catherine Wheel, and The Fingerprint (all new)

Dorothy L. Sayers: Whose Body? (twice) and The Five Red Herrings (both revisited on audio)

Martin Fido: The World of Sherlock Holmes (new)

Ian Rankin: In a House of Lies (new)

John le Carré: Our Game and A Murder of Quality (both new)

Martin Durrani & Liz Kalaugher: Furry Logic (new)

The Detection Club: The Floating Admiral (reread)

Tony Medawar (ed.) & var. Golden Age mystery writers: Bodies from the Libary (new)

Peter Lovesey: The Last Detective (new)

Colin Dexter: Morse's Greatest Mystery and Other Stories (new)

Miles Burton: The Secret of High Eldersham (new)

Ngaio Marsh: The Nursing Home Murder (revisited on audio)

Ellen Wilkinson: The Division Bell Mystery (new)

Ronald Knox: The Three Taps and The Body in the Silo (both new)

Jane Austen: Sense and Sensibility (revisited on audio)

Frank Froest: The Grell Mystery (new)

Julian Symons: The Belting Inheritance (new)

Israel Zangwill: The Perfect Crime, aka The Big Bow Mystery (new)

Richard Hull: The Murder of My Aunt (new)

Elizabeth George: Deception on His Mind (revisited on audio)

Douglas Adams: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (new)

C.J. Sansom: Tombland (new)

Winifred Holtby: South Riding (new)

Wendy Moore: Wedlock (new)

J.K. Rowling: The Casual Vacancy (new)

Ruth Rendell: A Sleeping Life and The Monster in the Box (both new)

Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman: Good Omens (revisited on audio)

Candace Robb: The Apothecary Rose (new)

Arthur Conan Doyle: The Mystery of Cloomber (new)

Cary Elwes: As You Wish (new)

 

Ireland

Tana French: The Witch Elm (new)

 

Greece

Stephen Fry: Mythos (new)

Madeline Miller: Circe (new)

 

Sweden

Astrid Lindgren: Die Menschheit hat den Verstand verloren: Tagebücher 1939-1945 (A World Gone Mad: Diaries, 1939-45) (new)

 

France

Emmuska Orczy: The Elusive Pimpernel (new)

Sarah Bakewell: At the Existentialist Café (new)

 

Croatia

Agatha Christie: Murder on the Orient Express (revisited on audio)

(Note: Yugoslavia at the time of the writing -- but the action is set after the train has passed Vinkovci, aka "The Gateway to Croatia".)

 

Spain

Dolores Redondo: El guardián invisible / The Invisible Guardian (new)

 

Italy

Andrea Camilleri: The Shape of Water (new)

 

Germany

John Le Carré: A Small Town in Germany (new)

 

 

 

The "Gender Wars" Stats:

Read to date, in 2019:

Books by female authors: 88

- new: 62

- rereads: 26

 

Books by male authors: 38

- new: 35

- rereads: 3

 

Books by F & M mixed teams / anthologies: 4

- new: 3

- rereads: 1

 

 

 

The Reading Lists:

AFRICA: 

http://booklikes.com/apps/reading-lists/974/africa

 

LATIN / SOUTH AMERICA AND CARIBBEAN: 

http://booklikes.com/apps/reading-lists/975/latin-south-america-and-caribbean

 

EAST / SOUTHEAST ASIA AND OCEANIA: 

http://booklikes.com/apps/reading-lists/981/east-southeast-asia-and-oceania

 

MIDDLE EAST AND CENTRAL ASIA: 

http://booklikes.com/apps/reading-lists/977/middle-east-and-central-asia

 

EASTERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE: 

http://booklikes.com/apps/reading-lists/978/eastern-and-central-europe

 

WOMEN WRITERS (global list):

http://themisathena.booklikes.com/post/1618777/women-writers-reading-list

Finished the first chapter.  So far, this is shaping up as a story told with gentle irony -- foil rather than epee or broadsword. Several passages had me laughing out loud; I particularly like the juxtaposition of a Spanish seaside town somewhere south of Valencia at the full, exasperating and more than just a little ridiculous height of the summer tourist season with the fierceness and elegance of the story of Ulysses / Odysseus and Circe ... and Penelope (whose name here is Martina).

 

And I can already see that to me, this is also going to be an a study of translation.  I notice that the German translator -- while by and large fairly literal -- at least occasionally sets literal accuracy at naught in order to catch the spirit rather than the words; e.g., when inane lyrics such as

"Corazón de melón, de melón, melón, melón, corazón"

are rendered by the equally inane and rhythmically similar

"In meiner Brust schlägt die Lust, Lust, Lust, in meiner Brust"

-- never mind that the actual words are entirely different. (I bet Willi Zurbrüggen, the translator of the German edition, had a lot of fun looking for that one, and I actually wish he'd had that kind of courage a bit more often.)  And now, of course, I also want to know how that particular bit was dealt with in the English translation ...

 

Having just finished Sarah Bakewell's The Existentialist Café, one of the passages that had me laughing for reasons that the author may or may not have intended was this:

"Entre las personas que aguardaban al juez no había ningún filósofo. De ser así, mientras llogaba el informe oficial de la muerte, se pudo haber discutido de fenomenología, de la apariencia de los seres o de la realidad de los cuerpos presentes."

 

"Ein Philosoph befand sich nicht unter den Personen, die auf den Untersuchungsrichter warteten. Wäre dem so gewesen, hätte man, bis der Tod offiziell festgestellt war, die Zeit mit einer phänomenologischen Diskussion über die Gegeständlichkeit der Wesen oder die Wirklichkeit vorhandener Körper überbrücken können."

What goes around comes around!

 

(Though, I don't think "die Wirklichkeit vorhandener Körper" fully captures the meaning of "la realidad de los cuerpos presentes" , but anyway.)

 

Onwards to chapter 2, where we supposedly learn how this book's Odysseus and Penelope first met.

I don't know how much reading I'll be able to get done at home during this year's bingo, and doubtlessly part of it will be in bed before going to sleep, where I don't eat anything (and the only drink allowed is mineral water).

 

That said, as we established last year, tea is kind of a biggie in this household, and it's definitely my drink of choice while reading.  Especially now that I have such a nice mug to go with it ... thanks to BT's gift of earlier this year!

 

 

 

As a matter of fact, since a number of my (up to now) "go to" tea brands are English, and since I'm in absolutely no mood to pay the taxes that are looking ever more likely if the Bozo version of Brexit becomes a reality, a while ago I placed orders with my favorite British purveyors to tide me over for the foreseeable future, so now I'm right back to that "good grief, where do I store all this stuff?" situation.

 

 

As for food, there currently are no snacks in my home, but I'll have to go down to Frankfurt later this month, and I'll do my level  best to make time to swing by that store ... where I'll doubtlessly find a few extra delicious and not altogether too spooky treats to go with my tea!

 

 

Like virtually all of my book consumption this year, my Halloween Bingo books are more or less necessarily going to have to be primarily audiobooks.  So I had a look at my Audible and CD collections what might fit the bill for my card, and here's what I've come up with (mostly new-to-me books but also a few rereads); currently most likely choices first, then the alternative choices in alphabetical order, and listing all books for every square where they match:

 

INTERNATIONAL WOMAN OF MYSTERY

Plenty of choices from the writings of white American and British women, so here I'm just going to list the non-U.S. and UK authors as well as the books by WoC.

 

Most likely:

* Sara Collins: The Confessions of Frannie Langton

* Margaret Atwood: The Testaments

 

Alternatives:

* Margaret Atwood: The Robber Bride, The Handmaid's Tale, The Testaments
* Nina Blazon: Siebengeschichten
* Trudi Canavan: The Magicians' Guild
* Edwidge Danticat: Krik? Krak!
* Silvia Moreno-Garcia: Gods of Jade and Shadow
* Toni Morrison: Beloved
* Sofi Oksanen: The Purge

 

 

LOCKED ROOM MYSTERY

Most likely:

* Nicholas Blake: Minute for Murder

* Clayton Rawson: Death from a Top Hat

 

Alternatives:

* John Dickson Carr: The Hollow Man
* Arthur Conan Doyle: The Golden Pince Nez, The Second Stain, The Bruce-Partington Plans, The Crooked Man, the Naval Treaty
* P.D. James: Unnatural Causes

 

 

DEADLANDS

Most likely:

* Terry Pratchett: Pyramids

 

Alternatives:

* Nina Blazon: Siebengeschichten

* John Dickson Carr: The Hollow Man
* Edwidge Danticat: Krik? Krak!
* Elizabeth Kostova: The Historian
* Terry Pratchett: Eric
* Diane Setterfield: Once Upon a River
* Bram Stoker: Dracula

 

 

FEAR THE DROWNING DEEP

Most likely:

* Delia Owens: Where the Crawdads Sing

 

Alternatives:

* Margery Allingham: Blackkerchief Dick
* Hans Christian Andersen: Fairy Tales
* J.M. Barrie: Peter Pan

* Nina Blazon: Siebengeschichten
* Jim Butcher: The Aeronaut's Windlass
* Agatha Christie: The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories, Halloween Party
* Freeman Wills Crofts: The Cask
* Edwidge Danticat: Krik? Krak!
* Joy Ellis: The Guilty Ones
* Stephen Fry: Heroes
* Elizabeth George: Careless in Red
* P.D. James: Unnatural Causes, Devices and Desires
* Dennis Lehane: Shutter Island
* Anne McCaffrey: Dragonflight
* Michael McDowell: Blackwater
* Herman Melville: The Confidence-Men
* Diane Setterfield: Once Upon a River
* Mary Stewart: This Rough Magic
* Jay Stringer: Ways to Die in Glasgow

 

 

RELICS AND CURIOSITIES

Most likely:

* Patricia Wentworth: Eternity Ring

 

Alternatives:

* Peter Ackroyd: Hawksmoor
* Hans Christian Andersen: Fairy Tales
* Nina Blazon: Siebengeschichten
* Trudi Canavan: The Magicians' Guild
* Agatha Christie: The Pale Horse, Halloween Party
* Freeman Wills Crofts: The Cask
* Edwidge Danticat: Krik? Krak!
* Jeffery Deaver: The Cold Moon
* Alexandre Dumas: The Three Musketeers
* Michael Ende: Die unendliche Geschichte (The Neverending Story)
* Ken Follett: Eye of the Needle
* Stephen Fry: Heroes
* Neil Gaiman: Fragile Things
* Michael Gilbert: Smallbone Deceased
* Jason Goodwin: The Janissary Tree
* Donna Leon: The Jewels of Paradise, The Golden Egg
* Scott Lynch: The Lies of Locke Lamora
* Silvia Moreno-Garcia: Gods of Jade and Shadow
* Ellis Peters: A Morbid Taste for Bones, The Devil's Novice
* Terry Pratchett: Wyrd Sisters, Pyramids
* Christopher Priest: The Prestige
* Philip Pullman: His Dark Materials
* Clayton Rawson: Death from a Top Hat
* Mary Stewart: The Last Enchantment
* Josephine Tey: The Daughter of Time
* Barbara Vine: Asta's Book, A Dark-Adapted Eye
* Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray

 

 

DARK ACADEMIA

Most likely:

* James Hilton: Murder at School

* Donna Tartt: The Secret History

 

Alternatives:

* Nina Blazon: Siebengeschichten
* Joanne Harris: Gentlemen and Players
* Michael Innes: Death at the President's Lodging
* Robert B. Parker: School Days
* Philip Pullman: His Dark Materials

 

 

MODERN NOIR

Most likely:

* Joy Ellis: The Guilty Ones

 

Alternatives:

* Jay Bonansinga: The Sleep Police
* Ann Cleeves: The Crow Trap, Raven Black
* Jeffery Deaver: The Bone Collector, The Cold Moon
* Hugh Fraser: Harm
* Joanne Harris: Gentlemen and Players
* Anthony Horowitz: The Word is Murder
* Marlon James: A Brief History of Seven Killings
* Dennis Lehane: Shutter Island
* Jo Nesbø: Macbeth
* Robert B. Parker: School Days
* Ian Rankin: Rebus series
* Ruth Rendell: Some Lie and Some Die
* Peter Robinson: Gallows View, Wednesday's Child
* Jay Stringer: Ways to Die in Glasgow
* Donna Tartt: The Secret History
* C.J. Tudor: The Taking of Annie Thorne
* Minette Walters: Disordered Minds
* R.D. Wingfield: A Killing Frost
* Mystery Writers of America Presents: Vengeance
* Various Authors: MachUp

 

 

GHOST STORIES

Most likely:

* Nina Blazon: Siebengeschichten

 

Alternatives:

* Georgette Heyer: Footsteps in the Dark
* Michael McDowell: Blackwater

* Barbara Michaels: Witch

* Toni Morrison: Beloved
* Ellis Peters: A Morbid Taste for Bones
* Terry Pratchett: Wyrd Sisters, Pyramids

 

 

GOTHIC

Most likely:

* Peter Ackroyd: Hawksmoor

 

Alternatives:

* Marie Belloc Lowndes: The Lodger
* Nina Blazon: Siebengeschichten
* Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights
* John Dickson Carr: The Hollow Man
* Agatha Christie: The Pale Horse
* Wilkie Collins: The Woman in White
* Neil Gaiman: Fragile Things
* Thomas Hardy: The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the D'Urbervilles
* Victor Hugo: The Hunchback of Notre Dame
* Elizabeth Kostova: The Historian
* Michael McDowell: Blackwater
* Barbara Michaels: Witch

* Toni Morrison: Beloved
* Delia Owens: Where the Crawdads Sing
* Christopher Priest: The Prestige
* Ann Radcliffe: The Mysteries of Udolpho
* Mary Roberts Rinehart: The Circular Staircase
* Diane Setterfield: Once Upon a River
* Mary Stewart: This Rough Magic
* Bram Stoker: Dracula
* Barbara Vine: The Blood Doctor, A Dark-Adapted Eye
* Patricia Wentworth: Pilgrim's Rest
* Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray

 

 

TRULY TERRIFYING

Most likely:

* Audible Original: Evil Has a Name

* Susan Orlean: The Library Book

 

Alternatives:

* Agatha Christie: Autobiography
* Neil Gaiman: The View from the Cheap Seats
* Christopher Hibbert: The Borgias and Their Enemies
* Sebastian Junger: The Perfect Storm
* Hesketh Pearson: Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life
* Patrick Radden Keefe: Say Nothing
* Bob Woodward: The Last of the President's Men, The Secret Man

 

 

CRYPTOZOOLOGIST

Most likely:

* Neil Gaiman: Fragile Things

* Terry Pratchett: Guards! Guards!

 

Alternatives:

* Arthur Conan Doyle: The Lost World
* Michael Ende: Die unendliche Geschichte (The Neverending Story)
* Stephen Fry: Heroes
* Anne McCaffrey: Dragonflight
* Victor Hugo: The Hunchback of Notre Dame
* Terry Pratchett: Pyramids, Guards! Guards!
* Philip Pullman: His Dark Materials
* Bram Stoker: Dracula
* J.R.R. Tolkien: The Children of Húrin, Tales from the Perilous Realm

 

 

DIVERSE VOICES

Most likely:

* Toni Morrison: Beloved

 

Alternatives:

* Nina Blazon: Siebengeschichten
* Zen Cho: Sorcerer to the Crown
* Sara Collins: The Confessions of Frannie Langton
* Edwidge Danticat: Krik? Krak!
* Alexandre Dumas: The Three Musketeers
* Marlon James: A Brief History of Seven Killings
* Silvia Moreno-Garcia: Gods of Jade and Shadow

 

 

BLACK CAT

Most likely:

* Jim Butcher: The Aeronaut's Windlass
* Barbara Michaels: Witch

 

Alternatives:

* Sofie Ryan: The Whole Cat and Caboodle
* Various Authors: Magicats
* Various Authors: Feline Felonies

 

 

CREEPY CRAWLIES

Most likely:

* Silvia Moreno-Garcia: Gods of Jade and Shadow

 

Alternatives:

* Arthur Conan Doyle: The Lion's Mane
* Stephen Fry: Heroes
* Victor Hugo: The Hunchback of Notre Dame
* Rudyard Kipling: The Jungle Book
* Alexander McCall Smith: The Girl Who Married a Lion
* Terry Pratchett: Pyramids
* Philip Pullman: His Dark Materials
* Bram Stoker: Dracula

 

 

COUNTRY HOUSE MYSTERY

Most likely:

* Anna Katherine Green: The Leavenworth Case

* Anthony Rolls: Scarweather

 

Alternatives:

* Margery Allingham: The White Cottage Mystery
* Agatha Christie: The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories, The Pale Horse, Curtain, Halloween Party
* Wilkie Collins: The Woman in White
* Matthew Costello, Neil Richards: Cherringham
* Arthur Conan Doyle: The Naval Treaty, The Return of Sherlock Holmes (several stories), His Last Bow (several stories)
* Elizabeth George: Careless in Red, This Body of Death, Believing the Lie
* Georgette Heyer: The Unfinished Clue, Footsteps in the Dark
* P.D. James: Unnatural Causes
* Mary Roberts Rinehart: The Circular Staircase
* Diane Setterfield: Once Upon a River
* Patricia Wentworth: Pilgrim's Rest

 

 

SPELLBOUND

Most likely:

* Zen Cho: Sorcerer to the Crown

 

Alternatives:

* Hans Christian Andersen: Fairy Tales
* J.M. Barrie: Peter Pan
* Nina Blazon: Siebengeschichten
* Jim Butcher: The Aeronaut's Windlass
* Trudi Canavan: The Magicians' Guild
* Agatha Christie: The Pale Horse
* Michael Ende: Die unendliche Geschichte (The Neverending Story)
* Jennifer Estep: Kill the Queen
* Stephen Fry: Heroes
* Neil Gaiman: Fragile Things
* Lois McMaster Bujold: The Curse of Chalion
* Silvia Moreno-Garcia: Gods of Jade and Shadow
* Terry Pratchett: Wyrd Sisters, Maskerade, Pyramids
* Philip Pullman: His Dark Materials
* Diane Setterfield: Once Upon a River
* Mary Stewart: The Last Enchantment
* J.R.R. Tolkien: The Children of Húrin, Tales from the Perilous Realm
* Various Authors: Magicats

 

 

A GRIMM TALE

Most likely:

* Stephen Fry: Heroes

 

Alternatives:

* Hans Christian Andersen: Fairy Tales
* Nina Blazon: Siebengeschichten
* Neil Gaiman: Fragile Things
* Alexander McCall Smith: The Girl Who Married a Lion
* Silvia Moreno-Garcia: Gods of Jade and Shadow

* Mary Stewart: The Last Enchantment

 

 

CREEPY CARNIVALS

Most likely:

* Fredric Brown: The Dead Ringer

 

Alternatives:
* John Dickson Carr: The Hollow Man
* Arthur Conan Doyle: The Veiled Lodger
* Christopher Priest: The Prestige
* Clayton Rawson: Death from a Top Hat

 

 

PAINT IT BLACK

Most likely:

* Trudi Canavan: The Magicians' Guild

 

Alternatives:

* Margery Allingham: The White Cottage Mystery, Blackkerchief Dick
* Nicholas Blake: Minute for Murder, Thou Shell of Death, The Beast Must Die
* Agatha Christie: The Pale Horse
* Ann Cleeves: Raven Black
* Sara Collins: The Confessions of Frannie Langton
* Wilkie Collins: The Woman in White
* Michael Crichton: The Great Train Robbery
* Thomas Hardy: The Mayor of Casterbridge
* Anthony Horowitz: The Word is Murder
* Marlon James: A Brief History of Seven Killings
* Elizabeth Kostova: The Historian
* Scott Lynch: The Lies of Locke Lamora
* Lois McMaster Bujold: The Curse of Chalion
* Toni Morrison: Beloved
* Mario Puzo: The Godfather
* Ruth Rendell: Some Lie and Some Die, Simisola
* Peter Robinson: Wednesday's Child
* Donna Tartt: The Secret History
* C.J. Tudor: The Taking of Annie Thorne
* Barbara Vine: The Blood Doctor, Asta's Book, A Dark-Adapted Eye
* Various Authors: Classic Crime Short Stories

 

 

Squares for which I've already got too many options to list them all here:

 

Finally, since I've found books for all of my card's squares, I don't currently expect to be using my transformation spells.  If during the game I decide I'm not in the mood for any of the book choices listed here, though, these are the squares (currently without associated books) from which, as of right now, I'd most likely make my replacement / transformation selection:

 

 

 

One recommendation and three expectations:

 

Ann Leckie - The Raven Tower: That rare beast of a newly-released book that worked for me on every level despite all the hype attached to it.  Fantasy / supernatural, but without the usual menagerie of magical beasts: instead, an alternative early medieval society and its (very much alive) gods, with a truly awesome narrator. My review is HERE.

 

Margaret Atwood - The Testaments: The new release I'm looking at with the greatest amount of trepidation, because come on, how do you match something as iconic and monumental as The Handmaid's Tale ... even as that book's own author?

 

Silvia Moreno-Garcia - Gods of Jade and Shadow: The book that, thanks to Chris's review, instantly made it onto a good number of Halloween Bingo reading lists; including mine.  A modernized (well, sort of) retelling of the Popol Vuh rendered in a storyteller's voice, what's not to like?

 

And, finally:

 

Michael Connelly - The Night Fire: Connelly never lets up and his writing is still as crisp as on day one.  Bosch and Ballard return as a team (I'm very much hoping as a team only), moonlighting in the investigation of a cold case Bosch has "inherited" from his recently-deceased mentor. -- Side note: I've been bingeing on the Bosch TV series while compiling my "Halloween Bingo pre-party" posts up to now, which of course has only served to increase my anticipation of this particular book.

 

 

Late to today's party and most of my really big favorites have already made an appearance in other folks' posts, so I figured I'll just list mine and showcase at the top of my post some of the books that haven't yet been highlighted by others.  By bingo category, with suspense and mysteries together in one block and an extra block for the children's books instead:

 

MYSTERIES / SUSPENSE

Dorothy L. Sayers: Lord Peter Wimsey series, especially the Wimsey & Vane subseries / quartet

Arthur Conan Doyle: Sherlock Holmes series
Agatha Christie: Poirot, Miss Marple and Tommy & Tuppence series, The Witness for the Prosecution, The Mousetrap, And Then There Were None, Crooked House, Towards Zero, The Sittaford Mystery
Patricia Wentworth: Miss Silver series
Ngaio Marsh: Roderick Alleyn series
Josephine Tey: Brat Farrar, The Daughter of Time, The Franchise Affair
John Dickson Carr: The Hollow Man
Anthony Wynne: Murder of a Lady
Mavis Doriel Hay: The Santa Klaus Murder
Georgette Heyer: Envious Casca
Robert van Gulik: Judge Dee series
Georges Simenon: Maigret series
Graham Greene: The Third Man
John Mortimer: Rumpole series
Ruth Rendell: Inspector Wexford series
P.D. James: Inspector Dalgliesh series
Dennis Wheatley: Who Killed Robert Prentice?
Q. Patrick: File on Fenton and Farr
Mary Roberts Rinehart: Locked Doors
Rex Stout: Nero Wolfe series
Patricia Highsmith: The Talented Mr. Ripley
Raymond Chandler: The Big Sleep
Dashiell Hammett: The Maltese Falcon
Cornell Woolrich: Rear Window, The Bride Wore Black
James M. Cain: Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice
John Dudley Ball: In the Heat of the Night
Mario Puzo: The Godfather
Neil Simon, H.R.F. Keating: Murder by Death

 

 

SUPERNATURAL (FANTASY, SCIENCE FICTION), DYSTOPIA
William Shakespeare: The Tempest
J.R.R. Tolkien: The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings
C.S. Lewis: The Chronicles of Narnia
Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451
Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid's Tale
George Orwell: 1984
Aldous Huxley: Brave New World
Philip K. Dick: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Sheri S. Tepper: The True Game
Alfred Lord Tennyson: The Lady of Shalott

 

 

GOTHIC & HORROR
William Shakespeare: Macbeth
Jane Austen: Northanger Abbey
Charlotte Brontë: Jane Eyre
Anne Brontë: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Daphne Du Maurier: Rebecca
Christina Rossetti: Goblin Market
Charles Dickens: Bleak House, A Christmas Carol, The Signalman
Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Canterville Ghost
Wilkie Collins: The Moonstone
Theodor Storm: Der Schimmelreiter (The Dykemaster)
Edith Wharton: Ghost Stories
Edgar Allan Poe: The Cask of Amontillado, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Raven, The Mask of the Red Death
Bram Stoker: Dracula
Mary Shelley: Frankenstein
Robert Louis Stevenson: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Henry James: The Turn of the Screw
Shirley Jackson: The Lottery, We Have Always Lived in the Castle

 

 

CHILDREN'S BOOKS
Otfried Preußler: The Little Witch, The Little Ghost
Robert Arthur, et al.: The Three Investigators series
T.H. White: The Sword in the Stone
Wilhelm Hauff: Fairy Tales

 

 

Aren't they just gorgeous?

 

They're also officially cat-approved.

(Don't worry, OB.  Thy survived the inspection unblemished -- otherwise there would have been hell to pay here.)

 

What do you mean, "They're not for us???"

 

Though of course ...

Nothing says "Halloween" like a picture of pumpkin socks being photobombed by a (mostly) black cat!

DARK ACADEMIA

Somehow, British universities and public schools seem to provide a particularly fertile ground for this sort of story:

 

* Dorothy L. Sayers: Gaudy Night (Oxford University)
* Agatha Christie: Cat Among the Pigeons (private girls' school)
* Nicholas Blake: A Question of Proof (public school)
* Edmund Crispin: The Moving Toyshop (Oxford University)
* James Hilton: Murder at School (public school)
* Michael Innes: Death at the President's Lodging (fictional college)
* P.D. James: Death in Holy Orders (priests' seminary)
* P.D. James: Shroud for a Nightingale (nursing school)
* Elizabeth George: Well-Schooled in Murder (public school)
* Elizabeth George: For the Sake of Elena (Cambridge University)
* Colin Dexter: Inspector Morse series (Oxford University)
* Susanna Gregory: Matthew Bartholomew series (Cambridge University, 14h century)
* Ian Morson: William Falconer series (Oxford University, 13th century)
* Shirley Mckay: Hue and Cry (St. Andrews University, 16th century)

 

 

DYSTOPIAN HELLSCAPE

My quartet of must-read dystopian novels has so far consisted of:

 

* George Orwell: 1984
* Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451
* Aldous Huxley: Brave New World
* Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid's Tale

 

Obviously, with the impending release of Atwood's The Testaments, there might now be a fifth book to add to that group -- for the moment it's on my TBR.

 

 

INTERNATIONAL WOMAN OF MYSTERY

Based on the definition of this square, all U.S. authors are "international for UK readers and vice versa, and both of them are "international" for me.  We all have plenty of favorite women writers from both of these countries -- so here are a few from elsewhere (based on MR's definition of this square as an outrcrop of "Terrifying Women"; i.e., writers whose books fit any of the Halloween Bingo categories):

 

* Zen Cho (Malaysia, UK)

* Donna Leon (Italy, U.S.)

* Dolores Redondo (Spain)

* Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Mexico, Canada)

* Isabel Allende (Chile; now also U.S.)

* Edwidge Danticat (Haiti)

* George Sand (France): novel La mare au diable (The Devil's Pool)

* Emmuska Orczy (Hungary, France, UK)

* Nina Blazon (Germany, Slovenia)

* Juli Zeh (Germany): novel Schilf (Dark Matter)

* Helene Tungsten (Sweden)

* Karin Fossum (Norway)
* Isak Dinesen (aka Karen / Tania Blixen) (Denmark, Kenya)

* Sofi Oksanen (Estonia): novel The Purge (Fegefeuer)

* Tana French (Ireland; going by nationality also U.S.)

 

 

PSYCH

Hoo boy.  Sooo many great books -- there is a seriously immense amount of f*cked up people walking around in in literatureland.  (Including authors messing with their readers' minds.)

 

* Agatha Christie: By the Pricking of My Thumbs, Endless Night, And Then There Were None, Crooked House, Murder Is Easy, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
* John Dickson Carr: The Hollow Man
* Edgar Allan Poe: Pretty much anything he ever wrote -- to begin with The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Feather, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Cask of Amontillado, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Oval Portrait, and Annabelle Lee
* Charles Dickens: The Signalman
* Robert Louis Stevenson: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
* Washington Irving: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
* Henry James: The Turn of the Screw
* E.T.A. Hoffmann: Der Sandmann (The Sandman)
* Shirley Jackson: The Lottery and We Have Always Lived in the Castle
* Cornell Woolrich: The Bride Wore Black
* Raymond Chandler: The Big Sleep
* Dashiell Hammett: The Maltese Falcon
* Michael Connelly: The Concrete Blonde, The Poet, Blood Work, A Darkness More Than Night, The Narrows
* George Pelecanos: Shame the Devil
* Dennis Lehane: Mystic River
* Ann Leckie: The Raven Tower
* Elizabeth George: A Suitable Vengeance and A Great Deliverance
* Joy Ellis: Jackman and Evans series
* Peter May: The Blackhouse and Coffin Road
* Ian Rankin: Knots and Crosses, Tooth and Nail, Black and Blue, Dead Souls
* Val McDermid: Carol Jordan and Tony Hill series, A Place of Execution
* Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling): The Silkworm, Career of Evil
* P.D. James: Devices and Desires
* Barbara Vine: A Dark-Adapted Eye
* Minette Walters: The Ice House
* Margery Allingham: Death of a Ghost and The Case of the Late Pig
* Kazuo Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go
* Anthony Horowitz: The House of Silk
* Iain Pears: An Instance of the Fingerpost, Stone's Fall, The Portrait
* C.J. Sansom: Revelation
* Ellis Peters: A Morbid Taste for Bones, The Hermit of Eyton Forest, The Devil's Novice

* Umberto Eco: The Name of the Rose

* Tana French: In the Woods
* Karin Fossum: He Who Fears the Wolf
* Joe Nesbø: The Snowman

 

 

TRULY TERRIFYING
* John Berendt: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
* Truman Capote: In Cold Blood
* Norman Mailer: The Executioner's Song
* Joseph D. Pistone: Donnie Brasco
* David Simon: Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets
* Miles Corwin: The Killing Season : A Summer Inside an LAPD Homicide Division
* Barry Scheck, Jim Dwyer, Peter Neufeld: Actual Innocence
* Sr. Helen Prejean: Dead Man Walking
* Steve Bogira: Courtroom 302: A Year Behind the Scenes in an American Criminal Courthouse
* Jonathan Harr: A Civil Action

* Joseph Wambaugh: The Onion Field

* Edward Humes: Mississippi Mud
* Joe McGinniss: Blind Faith
* Lowell Cauffiel: Eye of the Beholder
* Nicholas Pileggi: Casino
* Michael Connelly: Crime Beat: Stories of Cops and Killers, and Murder in Vegas
* Harold Schecter: True Crime: An American Anthology
* Christiane F.: Wir Kinder Vom Bahnhof Zoo (Autobiography of a Girl of the Streets)
* Eric Jager: Blood Royal: A True Tale of Crime and Detection in Medieval Paris
* Kate Summerscale: The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher
* P.D. James: The Maul and the Pear Tree: The Ratcliffe Highway Murders, 1811
* Victoria Blake: Mrs. Maybrick
* Angus McLaren: A Prescription for Murder: The Victorian Serial Killings of Dr. Thomas Neill Cream
* Judith Flanders: The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime
* William Roughead: Classic Crimes
* Members of the Detection Club: Anatomy of Murder, and More Anatomy of Murder
* Kathryn Harkup: A Is For Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie

* David Suchet: Poirot and Me

* William S. Baring-Gould: Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street: A Life of the World's First Consulting Detective

* Vincent Starrett: The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes

* Martin Fido: The World of Sherlock Holmes

* Michael Cox: The Baker Street File: A Guide to the Appearance and Habits of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson

* David Stuart Davies: Bending the Willow: Jeremy Brett As Sherlock Holmes

* David L. Hammer: The Travelers' Companion to the London of Sherlock Holmes

* Scene of the Crime: A Guide to the Landscapes of British Detective Fiction
* Richard Lindberg: Return to the Scene of the Crime: A Guide to Infamous Places in Chicago
* Alain Silver, Elizabeth Ward: Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles
* Eddie Muller: Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir
* Jim Garrison: On the Trail of the Assassins
* Hannah Arendt: Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil
* Louise Arbour: War Crimes and the Culture of Peace
* Richard J. Goldstone: For Humanity: Reflections of a War Crimes Investigator
* Clea Koff: The Bone Woman: A Forensic Anthropologist's Search for Truth in the Mass Graves of Rwanda, Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo
* Michael P. Scharf, Paul R. Williams: Peace with Justice?: War Crimes and Accountability in the Former Yugoslavia
* Gary Jonathan Bass: Stay the Hand of Vengeance: The Politics of War Crimes Tribunals
* Judith Armatta: Twilight of Impunity: The War Crimes Trial of Slobodan Milošević

 

 

KING OF FEAR

Stephen King's own works:

* Carrie
* Misery
* Pet Semetary

* The Shining
* The Long Walk

* Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption

* On Writing

 

From King's recommendations in On Writing, as listed HERE, HERE and HERE:

* Michael Connelly: The Poet and The Narrows
* Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness
* Gabriel García Márquez: One Hundred Years of Solitude
* Elizabeth George: Deception on His Mind
* Peter Høeg: Smilla’s Sense of Snow
* Stieg Larsson: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
* Harper Lee: To Kill a Mockingbird
* Dennis Lehane: The Given Day
* George Pelecanos: Hard Revolution
* J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s (Philosopher's) Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

 

 

FILM AT 11

I guess most people here know my likes when it comes to movie and TV adaptations, but anyway ...

 

Stand-alone books adapted as stand-alone movies:

* Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None, Crooked House, Witness for the Prosecution, Why Didn't They Ask Evans?
* Jane Austen: Northanger Abbey
* Charlotte Brontë: Jane Eyre
* Anne Brontë: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
* Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights
* Daphne Du Maurier: Rebecca
* Charles Dickens: Bleak House and A Christmas Carol
* Bram Stoker: Dracula
* Mary Shelley: Frankenstein
* Anne Rice: Interview with the Vampire
* John Fowles: The French Lieutenant's Woman
* Isabel Allende: The House of the Spirits
* John Berendt: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
* Sr. Helen Prejean: Dead Man Walking
* Stephen King: (Rita Hayworth and) the Shawshank Redemption, Carrie, Misery, The Shining

* S.S. Van Dine: The Kennel Murder Case

* Graham Greene: The Third Man

* Cornell Woolrich: Rear Window
* John Dudley Ball: In the Heat of the Night
* John Gregory Dunne: True Confessions
* Dashiell Hammett: The Maltese Falcon
* James M. Cain: Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice
* Elmore Leonard: Get Shorty
* John Grisham: The Firm, The Client, A Time to Kill, The Pelican Brief
* Frederick Forsyth: The Day of the Jackal
* Barbara Vine: A Dark-Adapted Eye, Gallowglass, A Fatal Inversion
* Minette Walters: The Ice House

* Ethel Lina White: The Lady Vanishes

* Barry Unsworth: Morality Play

* Umberto Eco: The Name of the Rose

* Peter Høeg: Smilla's Sense of Snow

* George Orwell: 1984

* Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451

 

Book series installments made into stand-alone movies or vice versa:

* Agatha Christie: Poirot: Murder on the Orient Express (Albert Finney); as well as Death on the Nile and Appointment with Death (Peter Ustinov)

* Agatha Christie: Bundle Brent / Superintendent Battle: The Seven Dials Mystery (Cheryl Campbell, James Warwick)

* Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid's Tale

* Walter Mosley: Devil in a Blue Dress

* James Ellroy: L.A. Confidential

* Raymond Chandler: Marlowe: The Big Sleep, Farewell My Lovely, The Lady in the Lake, The Long Goodbye (with different actors starring as Marlowe)
* Dashiell Hammett: The Thin Man (original movie and 5 sequels)

* Mario Puzo: The Godfather (3 movies)

* Tony Hillerman: The Dark Wind (Fred Ward, Lou Diamond Phillips)

 

Book series adapted as TV series or sequential movies:

* J.R.R. Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings

* C.S. Lewis: The Chronicles of Narnia

* J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter

* Arthur Conan Doyle: Sherlock Holmes (Jeremy Brett, David Burke / Edward Hardwicke)
* Dorothy L. Sayers: Lord Peter Wimsey (two series: Wimsey / Vane: Harriet Walter & Edward Petherbridge; Wimsey solo: Ian Carmichael)
* Agatha Christie: Poirot (David Suchet, Hugh Fraser), Miss Marple (Joan Hickson), Tommy & Tuppence (Francesca Annis & James Warwick)
* E.G. Hornung: Raffles
* Ngaio Marsh: Inspector Alleyn (Patrick Malahide)
* Margery Allingham: Campion (Peter Davidson)
* P.D. James: Inspector Dalgliesh (Roy Marsden; 2 episodes: Martin Shaw)

* Ruth Rendell: Inspector Wexford (George Baker, Christopher Ravenscroft)
* Ellis Peters: Brother Cadfael (Derek Jacobi)
* Colin Dexter: Morse (John Thaw, Kevin Whately; including TV spin-offs: Endeavour (Shaun Evans) and Lewis (Kevin Whately, Laurence Fox))
* Elizabeth George: Inspector Lynley (Nathaniel Parker, Sharon Small)
* Ian Rankin: Rebus (2 series; John Hannah and later Ken Stott)
* John Morimer: Rumpole of the Bailey (Leo McKern)
* Caroline Graham: Midsomer Murders (John Nettles, later Neil Dudgeon)

* Henning Mankell: Wallander (2 adaptations: 1 series starring Kenneth Branagh; 1 series co-produced in Sweden and Germany)

* Stieg Larsson: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and sequels

* Michael Connelly: Bosch (Titus Weilliver)

* Tony Hillerman: Skinwalkers, Coyote Waits, and A Thief of Time (Wes Studi, Adam Beach)

* Craig Johnson: Longmire (Robert Taylor, Lou Diamond Phillips)

* Rex Stout: Nero Wolfe (Maury Chaykin, Timothy Hutton)

 

Honorary mention: Murder by Death; novelized by H.R.F. Keating and Neil Simon.  Its not a book-to-movie adaptation (rather the reverse), so going by the definition for the square it probably doesn't count, but this list just wouldn't be complete without it.

 

 

Today's prompt is for favorite horror reads; that not being much of my thing (outside, perhaps, the gothic classics and anything more edifying or funny rather than scary), I think I'm going to leave that prompt to Char, Bark's Books (aka Bark at the Ghouls), and the site's other horror fans.  Instead, I'm going to catch up on the prompt from the day before yesterday -- I'm really, really excited about the new squares.

 

This is going to be another multiple-post reply ... because come on, these covers are just too beautiful not to give them a space of their own!