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Book a Week in 2014 - BW4


Robin M
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I finished my winter read "Dead Cold" by Louise Penny. It ended on enogh of a cliff hanger so I went ahead and checked out the next two Inspector Gamache books this afternoon. The both looked great.

 

I also continued my reread of Catherine Coulter's Bride series. The Hellion Bride is done. Not a favorite but it did let me mark Jamaica on my map so that was fun.

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Any books you've read that have made you feel that way?

 

I felt that way about Island of the World by Michael D O'Brien.  I read it a couple of years ago and the world simply stopped that day - nothing else happened.  Unfortunately, the book is 900 pages long ... My poor husband & kiddos ...

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I felt that way about Island of the World by Michael D O'Brien.  I read it a couple of years ago and the world simply stopped that day - nothing else happened.  Unfortunately, the book is 900 pages long ... My poor husband & kiddos ...

 

Yes, that book is amazing! My experience was similar, except that I became so emotionally involved in that book that there came a point when I had to force myself to put it down for a bit lest my heart completely break.

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I can't come up with just one book that has consumed me.   All the books by authors Dean Koontz and James Rollins do.  All of Frank Peretti's Darkness books,  Once I start their stories, I can't put them down. 

 

Which characters, if any, have made you cringe in embarrassment with them? 

 

 

 

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The Rosie Project, Patrick Taylor's An Irish Country Doctor and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society are just a few books available on Kindle or Nook for  $1.99 or $2.99.  Check out B&N $2.99 deals for this week.

 

Yes, of course, I downloaded The Rosie Project.  Just couldn't resist.

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I finished The Goldfinch last night and was...disappointed. I'm not sure why. It started out great, but then didn't seem to really go anywhere, it just plodded along. Maybe I was expecting too much?  Maybe I was in the wrong mood while reading it? I don't know.

 

I just put Ice Hunt in my cart. It sounds like something I'd enjoy. While searching for Ice Hunt, Winter's Tale popped up, so I put that in my cart, too. I thought maybe I should read it before the movie came out. 

 

I just started Kindred by Octavia Butler. It's one my dd has talked about for several years. She loaned me a copy while she was home for Christmas break, so I need to get it read before she comes back for Spring break. 

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In my 40's, many of Connie Willis's books have kept me engrossed to the end. It used to be Agatha Christie, Daphne Dumaurier, and Mary Stewart, when I was younger. Any good mystery will do it.

 

Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy gets to me every time, along with James Hilton's Lost Horizon. It doesn't seem to matter that I know how they will turn out.

 

ETA: I just thought I'd mention that dh is quite taken with Monuments Men and has been reading it faster than his usual speed. Also 9yo ds is zooming through the Hobbit for the first time, after I suggested it when he complained of being in the reading doldrums. These things make me happy.

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I finished The Goldfinch last night and was...disappointed. I'm not sure why. It started out great, but then didn't seem to really go anywhere, it just plodded along. Maybe I was expecting too much?  Maybe I was in the wrong mood while reading it? I don't know.

 

 

 

I finished last night too, and I kind of feel the same way. Maybe it's the "Winter Blues" but the book was very depressing to me. That being said, the story will stay with me for quite sometime and I am glad I read it.

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Man, I feel like the owner of dissenting opinions this week...  :leaving:  :lol:  (Or should I use this symbol? :smash:  LOL.)

 

I *loved* both Murakami's Kafka on the Shore & Tartt's The Goldfinch.

 

(Maybe I need to start posting in the unpopular opinion thread instead of the BaW thread. :tongue_smilie:)

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I'm enjoying my selections so far this year, but nothing is grabbing hold of me.  I'm wanting a book that grips me so tight I have to stay up all night and read it.  Like Water for Elephants did, when, at 5 in the morning I'm on my knees at the foot of my bed, bouncing up and down, cheering Old Jacob on, and desperately trying not to wake up my dh.  I haven't read anything that has left me wrung out, physically AND emotionally, in a long time.

 

I want to read something where I disappear, and when I read the last word on the last page, I'm so disconnected to the real world that it doesn't feel real at all.

 

Any books you've read that have made you feel that way?

 

Recently, I have read 2 books that have sucked me in and taken over my thoughts.  The first one was  The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce (I absolutely love Harold!) and then last week I read  Loving Frank by Nancy Horan. The latter is a fictionalized account of Mamah Borthwick's life--she left her children to have an affair with Frank Lloyd Wright.  I fell  deep into Mamah's  story.   Another book that sucked me in was   We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver.  This is a disturbing, disturbing book.  I think it stuck hard with me  because I finished it one week before Sandy Hook.  Reality became mixed up with fiction.

I felt that way about Island of the World by Michael D O'Brien.  I read it a couple of years ago and the world simply stopped that day - nothing else happened.  Unfortunately, the book is 900 pages long ... My poor husband & kiddos ...

I had tried to read this right after you finished it because you gave it such a glowing report but I just could not  get into it.  I have seen a few other people give it a positive report as well recently so I think I should give it another shot.

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Oh, that is such a beautiful summation of many of my reactions to Anna Karenina... thank you. I've been thinking about rereading it again, and this has made me even more eager to do so.

 

 

 

Thank you, and I'm glad that I helped inspire a re-read! I have War and Peace as well , but I am going to give myself a break before starting. :)

 

I just finished Smart but Scattered by Dawson and Guare. I am struggling with keeping dd9 on task with a few of her responsibilities, and this book provides several ideas on how to deal with her weaknesses. It also revealed that I struggle with many of the same things she does (!), and now I am able to sympathize with her rather than just get frustrated.

 

This year's books:

 

2. Smart but Scattered - Dawson and Guare

1. Anna Karenina - Tolstoy

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I had tried to read this right after you finished it because you gave it such a glowing report but I just could not get into it. I have seen a few other people give it a positive report as well recently so I think I should give it another shot.

I do think you have to give this a little while ... 100-150 pages at least. I didnt get completely engrossed until the last 300-400 pages. Thankfully.

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I'm enjoying my selections so far this year, but nothing is grabbing hold of me.  I'm wanting a book that grips me so tight I have to stay up all night and read it.  Like Water for Elephants did, when, at 5 in the morning I'm on my knees at the foot of my bed, bouncing up and down, cheering Old Jacob on, and desperately trying not to wake up my dh.  I haven't read anything that has left me wrung out, physically AND emotionally, in a long time.

 

I want to read something where I disappear, and when I read the last word on the last page, I'm so disconnected to the real world that it doesn't feel real at all.

 

Any books you've read that have made you feel that way?

Let's see I can remember:

 

The Book Thief

The Night Circus

Hidden series (YA)

Moonstone

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I've been reading Terry Pratchett's Dodger for something light and fun, but now I have pink eye and don't feel like reading much. Ick. Thirty years old and my first bout of it.

 

Oh yuck to having pink eye!  Didn't want you to think I was in anyway endorsing having pink eye by clicking that "like" button!  The audio version of Dodger is quite good if you want to continue without having to use your eyes.  Pratchett's postscript to Dodger was really interesting, by the way. Don't skip it when you get there!

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Finished Anthony C. Winkler's The Lunatic tonight. Funny, raunchy, out-of-order outrageousness that packs a bit of a morality tale. Plus, it has some of the best verdurous characters ever set down in print. Thoroughly delightful & well-recommended.

 

(Caveat emptor: Some may not care for the raunchy tone of the book. Personally, I thought it was quite hilarious.)

 

 

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 Plus, it has some of the best verdurous characters ever set down in print.

 

You've introduced me to a new word, Stacia.  The definitions I'm seeing seem to indicate that verdurous means green, flourishing or healthy.  Is that the meaning as you see it?  (I remember some Orion slave girls in Star Trek that would certainly fit that definition.)

 

Regards,

Kareni

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You've introduced me to a new word, Stacia.  The definitions I'm seeing seem to indicate that verdurous means green, flourishing or healthy.  Is that the meaning as you see it?  (I remember some Orion slave girls in Star Trek that would certainly fit that definition.)

 

Regards,

Kareni

 

Actually, I mean plants.  ;)  (Hope I used my new vocabulary word correctly!) LOL. The madman Aloysius (the main character) carries on conversations with various things, including the trees and bushes. And, I must say, the trees & bushes are hilarious.

 

From The Lunatic:

“A preaching bush woke up Aloysius. It was a bush that claimed to have taken a correspondence course from an American seminary, that sat in a dirty gully and did nothing but rant and rave all day except during the fiercest heat of the sun when it had to content itself with muttering like an old man. Once or twice before, this same bush had awoken Aloysius from a sound sleep with its preaching until he had threatened to chop it up with his machete the next time. Now the bush was waxing full force as though it were in a church being listened to attentively by fifty toothless old women.â€

 

“Next time you pull a knife on me," Inga growled, "this is vhat I do to you."

 

She hammered a scruffy bush with the violent and athletic kick of a Chinaman in a kung fu movie.

 

"Extreme Unction!" the bush howled. "Call de priest! Me need Extreme Unction!"

 

"Inga!" Aloysius cried. "De bush no trouble you! Him is a Catholic bush! â€

 

:lol:  What a fun book.

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The Rosie Project, Patrick Taylor's An Irish Country Doctor and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society are just a few books available on Kindle or Nook for  $1.99 or $2.99.  Check out B&N $2.99 deals for this week.

 

Yes, of course, I downloaded The Rosie Project.  Just couldn't resist.

 

All RIGHT already!!  

 

Just downloaded it.  

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Man, I feel like the owner of dissenting opinions this week...  :leaving:  :lol:  (Or should I use this symbol? :smash:  LOL.)

 

I *loved* both Murakami's Kafka on the Shore & Tartt's The Goldfinch.

 

(Maybe I need to start posting in the unpopular opinion thread instead of the BaW thread. :tongue_smilie:)

 

Considering all the glowing reviews for both of these books, I would say that mine is the dissenting opinion. :001_cool:

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