Showing posts with label Tony Hillerman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tony Hillerman. Show all posts

Saturday, January 6, 2024

Some Kind of January 2024 Hillerman TBR...

I went through my usual waffling around regarding what I want to read next. Often I go with what I'm currently agonizing about wanting to complete. Still, there is a lot of unnecessary overthinking and consideration in all the meticulousness and thoroughness given the decision. Shoot, there are even days where I decided to read something, go to bed, and am running late to work because I've somehow changed my mind while asleep. But I must bring a book with me every time I leave the house! 

Nonetheless, after having read about five or six Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee Tony Hillerman series books back in July; reading the final five written by Hillerman, before his daughter Anne picked up the series after his death, has been heavy on my reading spirit. Thus, as of right now, I’ve decided to do this.

I’ve labeled this the “No New Friends in 2024” TBR. Honestly, all it means is that I’m going to try not to start a new series of books until I wrap up at least one that I’ve been reading for years. Last year I finished the Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters. I’m still hoping I can finish the Adam Dalegish series by P. D. James (only five more books to go there), and then decide what to do from there.

Anyway, I do plan on going further into Tony Hillerman’s world with the revival of the series introduced by his daughter. Just at another time (hopefully). As of right now, I want to gather up the final words Hillerman had to share about Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn.

So here we go…


As I’m writing this, I finished book #14, Hunting Badger. I’m currently 82 pages away from the end of book #15, The Wailing Wind. I might pull an all-nighter on that one. After that, only three more to go: The Sinister Pig (#16), Skeleton Man (#17), and The Shape Shifter (#18). I have to say, I’m proud of myself for not actually buying the books but checking them out from my library.

Anyway, back to crimes in the desert to launch 2024. Which, obviously, I love reading about.

Thursday, October 10, 2019

More Hillerman with a Good Ole Jim Chee Collection

What I got in the mail yesterday! Yay! Finding Hillerman's three-Leaphorn-books-in-one collection at the FotL sale last weekend got me thirsting. So I had to order the follow-up collection containing the next three books in the Leaphorn series. Yet, People of Darkness (book 4), The Dark Wind (book 5) and The Ghost way (book 6) introduce Hillerman’s other Native American detective, Jim Chee. Which was always fine and cool with me, but...

...I was always curious why the first three books were Leaphorn-led. Then how the following three books were for Hillerman's Jim Chee detective. Later down the series the two become a team. Still what was behind this move? In this video, the late Hillerman breaks down why the difference.




I can see myself grabbing these Jim Chee stories now. I can taste it now. Navajo reservations. Native American culture. A murder mystery with mystic themes. Setting. Setting. Setting. And, well, this is what I’ve been craving.

Monday, October 7, 2019

The Irresistible 25-Cent Friends of the Library Sale This Weekend

The timing couldn’t be more than perfect. I spent the latter of Saturday morning prowling around the public library’s 25-cent book sale. Who could resist? Who does resist? Plus, earlier that morning, I returned a few new releases and detoxed a shelf. So why not see what one can pick up for 25-cent? :)


Contents Under Pressure is the first book in Edna Buchanan’s Miami-based crime reporter, Britt Montero, mystery series. I had it for years in mass market; spotted this hardcover, and made the exchange.


More male crime writers are on my reading agenda. Having never read a Le Carra British spy novel, this three-book collection seems fitting. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is the third book in Le Carra’s Smiley series. While The Looking Glass War is the 4th. A Small Town in Germany is a stand-alone. These books released in the ’60s. Another edge of interest and joy for something new to taste.


I could have screamed when I spotted this book containing the first three books in Tony Hillerman’s Joe Leaphorn series. I checked out an exact copy from my library back in June, and read each story back-to-back in less than a week. Matter-of-fact, I read the first book, The Blessing Way, in less than five hours. So when I saw this at the sale for 25-cent, I snatched it and held it close for my personal library. Now I need to get the follow-up omnibus collection to continue Leaphorn’s stories. My excitement for finding this particular book is an understatement.

While I looked around at the sale, nothing else really caught my attention.  So I left it at this.  Adding the Hillerman book to my personal library was worth it all! Serendipity at its finest!

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