Andrzej Sapkowski - Authors List

Andrzej Sapkowski - Authors List. I read 7 books in this Polish author's The Witcher series starting with the Sword of Destiny in 2020. Actually I read all of these books in about a six month period. I usually don't read sword and sorcery novels but for some reason, maybe the onset of the Covid Pandemic, I dived into this fantasy series... and enjoyed the novels. There was also the first season of the TV series on Netflix at that time. I would watch that and two more seasons over the next few years but never had an urge to read any more of his books.

Andrzej Sapkowski books I've read:

• Sword of Destiny, 1992 - Mar 2020
• The Last Wish, 1993 - Apr 2020
• Blood of Elves, 1994 - May 2020
• The Time of Contempt, 1995 - Jun 2020
• Baptism of Fire, 1996 - Jul 2020
• The Tower of Swallows, 1997 - Sep 2020
• Lady of the Lake, 1999 - Oct 2020

Pendergast: The Beginning

Pendergast: The Beginning by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, 2026. This prequel origin story of Agent Pendergast was just published about three months ago and I was fortunate to be able to download an e-book copy from the library so quickly. The book was then so good that I read it in four day and just finished it. Having read so many novels in this Pendergast detective series it was fun to see how he got started with the FBI and his unique style of investigation. An incredible thriller.

I wrote about these writers in my Authors List series of post here and I had read 26 of their Preston & Child novels. This is number 27.

So Blue So Funky Soulful Grooves - Kitchen Listening

Kitchen Listening to a lot of soulful funky instrumental jazz over the past few days. Earlier in the week we played one of my favorite funky jazz compilations Blue Break Beats from Blue Note Records which I wrote about a few months ago. This time we played several albums over a couple of days. All soul jazz instrumentals and three of them featuring the Hammond organ.

It was great listening to all of this wonderful classic music.

Various Artist Compilations from my collection.

• Soulful Grooves: R&B Instrumental Classics Vol. 1, 1996
• Soulful Grooves: R&B Instrumental Classics Vol. 2, 1996
• So Blue So Funky: Heroes of the Hammond Vol. 1, 1991
• So Blue So Funky: Heroes of the Hammond Vol. 2, 1994
• Organ-Ized: An All-Star Tribute to the Hammond B3 Organ, 1999

Kim Stanley Robinson - Authors List

Kim Stanley Robinson - Authors List. I read 6 science fiction books by this author starting with the fantastic Mars Trilogy series.

Kim Stanley Robinson books I've read:

• Red Mars, 1992 - Jun 1999
• Green Mars, 1993 - Jul 1999
• Blue Mars, 1996 - Apr 2004
• 2312, 2012 - May 2013
• New York 2140, 2017 - Oct 2022
• The Ministry for the Future, 2020 - Apr 2025

Edgar Allen Poe - Authors List

Edgar Allen Poe - Authors List. 6 books. I guess we all read a little bit of Poe when we were in school. Then about 20 years after high school I got a little obsessed with him and read a few collections of his works.

I also liked all those films of his stories made in the early to mid 1960's. Saw them all at that neighborhood theater on the avenue around the corner. Also the earlier Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi films.

His stories in television and film.

Edgar Allan Poe collections I've read:

• The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings, 1843 - Oct 1988
• The Murders in the Rue Morgue: The Dupin Tales, 1844 - Nov 1988
• The Raven and Other Poems, 1845 - Apr 1989
• The Pit and the Pendulum and Other Stories, 1842 - Nov 1989
• The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales, 1960 - Sep 1990
• The Masque of the Red Death, 1842 - Nov 1991

Nick Hornby - Authors List

Nick Hornby - Authors List. I read 5 books from this wonderful British writer and also really liked the movies made from four of his books... especially High Fidelity and then the TV series in 2020 too. I was making lots of "mixed tape" CDs when I read that book and saw the movie in 2000. 

I also liked the novel and film About A Boy which I read and saw around the same time.

I should check out some of his later novels.

Nick Hornby books I've read:

• High Fidelity, 1995 - Sep 2000
• About A Boy, 2001 - Oct 2002
• Fever Pitch, 1992 - Jul 2007
• Juliet, Naked, 2009 - Jan 2011
• Funny Girl, 2014 - May 2015

Dinner @ JT's

Another dinner at JT's Urban Italian Restaurant on Elmwood Ave. It's one of our regular dinner places along with being one of the restaurants we take out of town folks for a nice dinner in Buffalo.

It was a great night in the restaurant. The bar was full and there were plenty of tables in use. A nice Thursday night. We had 6 pm reservations and we left around 7:30. We had a wonderful time. Service was great as usual and we took a couple of boxes home of some serious leftovers for dinner tomorrow.

I had rigatoni bolognese and Becky had a chicken parmesan cutlet. I also had some Tuscan Blend and a Peroni draft beer.

Overall we had a very nice evening at one of our favorite restaurants.

John Burdett - Authors List

John Burdett - Authors List. I've read 6 of his novels and all part of the Sonchai Jitpleecheep Bangkok detective murder mystery series. Burdett is an English crime novelist who has mostly lived in France and Thailand and writes about the collisions of Western and Asian norms and morality from the perspective of a part Thai and American outsider working as a detective in Bangkok. I found his novels to be fascinating and bizarre almost to an extreme but also very entertaining.

I read the first four books rather quickly one after another in 2011 and then the fifth book several years later. I always had it in the back of my mind to get to that last book that came out in 2015 but it took me over ten years. I've only just read the last book of the series and finished it today. It only took me a week to read it.

John Burdett books I've read:

• Bangkok 8, 2003 - Jun 2011
• Bangkok Tattoo, 2006 - Aug 2011
• Bangkok Haunts, 2007 - Sep 2011
• The Godfather of Katmandu, 2010 - Dec 2011
• Vulture Peak, 2012 - May 2015
• Bangkok Asset, 2015 - Apr 2026

The Meters - Kitchen Listening

Listening to The Meters. Some New Orleans style funky music with a two and a half hour set of their first four albums. These early albums were mostly instrumentals with some occasional funky singing thrown in. Toe tappin' and chair dancin'.

I saw them perform during Mardi Gras week down in New Orleans in 1974. 

• The Meters, 1969
• Look-Ka Py Py, 1969
• Struttin', 1970
• Cabbage Island, 1972

Next Season - Buffalo Chamber Music

Last night we got the flyers announcing the line-up for next season's 8 concerts of the Buffalo Chamber Music series. 

• Jupiter Quartet - Oct 7
• Poiesis Quartet - Nov 10
• YCA on Tour Piano Trio - Dec 15
• Quatuor Diotima - Jan 26
• Brentano Quartet - Feb 9
• Isidore String Quartet - Mar 30
• Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center - Apr 26

Looking forward to another season after a six month break.