Two Years of Blogging

Today is the second anniversary of my first blog post.

After one year of blogging, I felt like I was settling in and accomplishing the goals I had set for myself in the blog. After two years, some of my goals have changed. I want to do fewer reading challenges and focus on specific goals, like more books written by authors from a variety of countries and occasionally dipping into other genres outside of mystery fiction.

In the last year of blogging, I have discovered new authors.

Naomi Hirahara is a new-to-me author whose books feature Mas Arai, a 69-year-old Japanese American gardener in the Los Angeles area. Mas Arai is a unique protagonist and the books provide a picture of a community and culture that I don't have much familiarity with. I just finished the first book in the series, Summer of the Big Bachi. Review coming soon.

I have also re-discovered authors I had not read in a long time. I read six books by Agatha Christie, three featuring Hercule Poirot, one starring Miss Marple, and two stand-alone novels.  

The Mystery of the Blue Train is a favorite. First of all, it features a train and many scenes on a train. I also like the variety of characters; the rich, the not so rich. Thieves and those who prey on the wealth of others.

Several people take the train to the Riviera, and one dies before journey's end. Hercule Poirot will be engaged to solve the murder.






I discovered that I enjoy cross-genre books that combine fantasy or science fiction with crime fiction. One example is Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch. I am eagerly awaiting the start of the Once Upon a Time Challenge in Spring 2014 so that I can read the next two books in the series, Moon Over Soho and Whispers Under Ground.

There are so many books and authors I want to read this year, and I know I will not get to all of them. I want to read more espionage fiction (Len Deighton, John Le Carré, Alan Furst, Dan Fesperman, Tom Gabbay, David Downing). I want to read books by Raymond Chandler, John D. MacDonald, and Ross MacDonald. And that list does not even scratch the surface.

I look forward to another year of blogging, enjoying more books and enjoying interacting with other bloggers and discovering new books and authors that they have read and reviewed.