Book Club 2025: Arkhangelsk by Elizabeth H. Bonesteel

I started reading this book a week ago, but then stopped and read some other books in between.

It’s not that it’s a bad book — and Elizabeth H. Bonesteel should surely win the coveted “Most Real-Sounding Name For An Author” prize of 2025 — it’s a pretty exciting mystery set on a far-away planet. And it’s not badly written, either? But it’s, like… er… I’m having a hard time pinpointing exactly why I’m not enthusiastic about the book, but I’m not.

Fortunately, I don’t have to! Hah! Take that, pinpoint!

Arkhangelsk (2021) by Elizabeth H. Bonesteel (Buy new, buy used, 4.17 on Goodreads)

Book Club 2025: Some Memories of Drawings by Georgia O’Keeffe

Hm, why did I buy this one again…? Oh, right, I read Andrew White’s comics piece on O’Keeffe, and I think he recommended this book in the commentary or something?

It’s a very handsome book.

And I didn’t realise she worked in all these different styles…

O’Keeffe’s comments are quite amusing, too.

Some Memories of Drawings (1974) by Georgia O’Keeffe (Buy used, 4.34 on Goodreads)

Book Club 2025: Death of an Old Goat by Robert Barnard

Am I doing this? Hm… Well, I thought it might be slightly amusing to log books I’m reading… but I don’t want to review books, because if you’re reviewing books, you start reading them in a different way, and I don’t want to do that.

So, like, perhaps just a couple sentences about each book? Or something? Let’s see whether this works out or not. If not, I’ll just ditch the blog series.

I’ve read this before, about two decades ago, but I was totally hung over today, so I wanted something nice and easy to relax with. And I didn’t remember anything at all about the book, so that worked out fine. I mean, it’s a murder mystery, so…

Barnard is pretty misanthropic, and this time around he spends 200 pages making fun of Australians. And as usual, the murder doesn’t happen until one third in, and there’s a shocking twist at the end. Originally enough, the shocking twist doesn’t happen until the very final sentence, which is a nice touch.

The book is just what the doctor ordered.

Death of an Old Goat (1977) by Robert Barnard (Buy used, 3.53 on Goodreads)