Book a Week 2020 - BW8: 52 Books Bingo - Four Seasons and Four Legged Animals

[Robin M]

The lyrics running through my head today are from James Taylor's You Got a Friend. Why is it that I can't ever remember the whole song but just a snippet which turns into a ear worm for the day. 

Winter, spring, summer or fall
All you've got to do is call
And I'll be there, ye, ye, ye
You've got a friend

Does anyone else wake up to music playing in their head in the morning? No? Just me. Hmm.... 😊

Which leads to our Bingo categories for the week: Four seasons and/or four legged animals. How many ways can we go with four seasons?  Ideas include but are not limited to:

 

Read a book with Four Seasons in the title 
Read a book with one or more of the Seasons in the title 
Read a book which experiences nature's four seasons during the telling of the tale. 
Read a book about the four seasons. 
Read a book in which someone goes through four seasons in their life such as aging or trials.
Read a book about four seasons of marriage.

Explore the symbolism of the four seasons, examples of seasonal symbolism, or Literature connections to Real Reasons for Seasons.

For four legged animals, otherwise known as quadrupeds, we can go a variety of ways:  Real life four legged creatures such as horses, dogs, cats, lions, elephants, sheep, etc. Or the mythical or fictional variety with  dragons, griffins, unicorns, werewolves, and other were creatures. 

Let your imagination be your guide and have fun following rabbit trails.

Link to week 7

Visit  52 Books in 52 Weeks where you can find all the information on the annual, mini and perpetual challenges, as well as share your book reviews if you like.

[Robin M]

Good morning or afternoon or evening as the case may be.  I’m currently reading David Baldacci’s Long Road to Mercy, #1 in his Atlee Pine series about a female FBI who is the sole resident agent in charge of protecting the Grand Canyon.    (Whodunit)

I finished Thea Harrison’s Dragon Bound, #1 in the Elder Races series.  Once I started reading it, didn’t want to stop. Sort of reminded me of Nalini Singh’s Guild Hunter series with an ensemble case except with Dragons and half humans. Love the characters and look forward to reading more. (Dragons)  

Quick comfort read by one of my favorite romantic suspense authors, Cindy Gerard who really needs to go back to writing more stories in the bodyguard and one eyed jack series.   Snow Blind which is #6 in the Stormwatch series written by 6 different authors.  Now that I’ve read Gerard installment, I really want to read the rest of the series.   Happy they are available through Kindle Unlimited   (Love and Mystery)

Still sipping from The Lost City of Z and really doubting Grann’s sanity in attempted to forge into the Amazon.  Not really a great breakfast read as there are cringe worthy description of diseases and illness Fawcett and other members of his team experience.  Yuck!  (answer me this)

I'm also enjoying listening to Faith Hunter's Cat O Nine Tails, a compilation of 13 stories from  Jane, Beast's Molly's, Rick's and even Bruiser's pov.  

Edited February 23, 2020 by Robin M

[Negin]

12 minutes ago, Robin M said:

The lyrics running through my head today are from James Taylor's You Got a Friend. Why is it that I can't ever remember the whole song but just a snippet which turns into a ear worm for the day. 

Winter, spring, summer or fall
All you've got to do is call
And I'll be there, ye, ye, ye
You've got a friend

Does anyone else wake up to music playing in their head in the morning? No? Just me. Hmm.... 😊

Robin, yes, very often. Also, that's one of my favorites. My dh and I love this song. 

I read The Seven Martyrs of Hurmuzak - 5 Stars - My dear mom recommended this book to me and I am so grateful to her for that. Here’s a link to my Good Reads review, since I can post photos there. I would only recommend this book to Baha’is.

I've been re-organizing all my photos and I can't quite recall if I've shared these or not. 

The first one is from the L'Occitane store in NY - their flagship store. This is their display of hand creams. We love their hand creams and had never seen so many all at once! Plus, the ceiling is decorated with flowers. Their store is across the street from the Flatiron Building (2nd picture). 

The third picture is one we took of the sunset here several months ago. 

[Robin M]

How is everyone feeling? Do you need more virtual chicken soup?
 

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@Pen: On the sickness front, we are well, but I’ve been browsing through Buhner’s Herbal Antiviral book as well as Secret Teachings of Plants.Wishing everyone wellness also!!! and adding some virtual oregano, garlic, onion, and lemon juice to that virtual chicken soup 

 

Yummy!  I'll have to check out the Secret Teaching of Plants.

@Kareni Wonderful links with plenty of rabbit trails. Thank you!   More additions to my want list. 

@Negin Great pictures and love the picture of you and your daughter. Adorable.

@RootAnn  Caffeine,  the book, sounds interesting. My hubby has made a science out of roasting coffee beans and blending all the difference flavors.  I'm a pepsi girl myself. 

@Mothersweets  Weaver takes a Wife is one of my favorite rereads as well. 

@Ali in OR  Hmm, This is How you Lose the Time War sounds great. Thanks! 

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@mumto2  I also finished two of my books with red covers so Dh is really happy with his idea! ❤️  I had forgotten that I can read a Harlequin in under two hours........he offered to source more.............😳🤣🥰

Love it.  Hubby supplied me with a bunch of detective and mystery stories from a garage sale and every time he sees me reading a physical book, he asks "Is that one of mine."  😁  Have fun reading your 'red covers'. 

@Teaching3bears  What did your kids think of Moby Dick?

 

 

[Kareni]

15 minutes ago, Robin M said:

How is everyone feeling? Do you need more virtual chicken soup?

I'm in need of soup as I'm now sick. Drats.

I hope that everyone else is healthy.

**

Some bookish posts ~

From the SBTB site -- The Rec League: Mysteries with Romance Crossover Appeal

https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2020/02/the-rec-league-mysteries-with-romance-crossover-appeal/#comments

Here's your first taste of Christopher Paolini's epic sci-fi debut To Sleep in a Sea of Stars [coming in September]

https://ew.com/books/2020/02/12/christopher-paolini-sea-of-stars-excerpt/

Check Out the Original Illustrations From Jules Verne’s Voyages Extraordinaires

https://www.tor.com/2020/02/21/check-out-the-original-illustrations-from-jules-vernes-voyages-extraordinaires/

NEW MYSTERY TO THE OLD WEST

There's a new generation of western mystery series BY ANN PARKER

https://crimereads.com/women-writers-westerns/

Regards,

Kareni

[SereneHome]

37 minutes ago, Robin M said:

Good morning or afternoon or evening as the case may be.  I’m currently reading David Baldacci’s Long Road to Mercy, #1 in his Atlee Pine series about a female FBI who is the sole resident agent in charge of protecting the Grand Canyon.    (Whodunit)

I finished Thea Harrison’s Dragon Bound, #1 in the Elder Races series.  Once I started reading it, didn’t want to stop. Sort of reminded me of Nalini Singh’s Guild Hunter series except with an ensemble case but with Dragons and half humans. Love the characters and look forward to reading more. (Dragons)  

Quick comfort read by one of my favorite romantic suspense authors, Cindy Gerard who really needs to go back to writing more stories in the bodyguard and one eyed jack series.   Snow Blind which is #6 in the Stormwatch series written by 6 different authors.  Now that I’ve read Gerard installment, I really want to read the rest of the series.   Happy they are available through Kindle Unlimited   (Love and Mystery)

Still sipping from The Lost City of Z and really doubting Grann’s sanity in attempted to forge into the Amazon.  Not really a great breakfast read as there are cringe worthy description of diseases and illness Fawcett and other members of his team experience.  Yuck!  (answer me this)

I'm also enjoying listening to Faith Hunter's Cat O Nine Tails, a compilation of 13 stories from  Jane, Beast's Molly's, Rick's and even Bruiser's pov.  

Oh my goodness, I started this book a month ago and still on chapter 4.  I also have his The lost city of monkey God - will you be reading that one?

[Robin M]

@loesje22000 It's been a while since I've read anything by Karen Dionne. Marsh King's Daughter is going on my wishlist. 

@Matryoshka  Congrats on finishing One Hundred Years of Solitude.  Adding Golden Child to my wishlist as well. 

@Excelsior! Academy  Both Black Robe Fever and A Weed in the Church sound intriguing. 

@Dicentra Gorgeous picture of the lake and sunset.  

@Violet Crown  One of these days I'll read something by Graham Greene.   Are you reading anything special for Lent?  

@Pen the only place I found gentian was on etsy.

@melmichigan  Thanks for the link up to the Paranormal Women's Fiction group.  Exploring! 

@JennW in SoCal Blood Curse sounds fascinating. 

@Maus  I loved Merton's Seven Storey Mountain which lead to reading Seeds Of Contemplation and more.  He is a fascinating person and I listened to some lectures give by him at a conference available on Audible.  I have several ebooks by him which I've been working through slowly.  I may try The Way of Shuang Tzu soon. 

 

 

 

 

[Matryoshka]

Finished two books this week, not including the one I finished last Sunday and included in last week's tally... 😉

20. The Last Policeman by Ben Winters - for SciFi book club.  Set in the near future, a huge asteroid is due to make contact with Earth in about 6 months, so really it's all over.  Our protagonist, a young man who's just been rapidly promoted to detective as many people are quitting their jobs to do Bucket List type of things or commit suicide.  He's always wanted to be a detective, so this is kind of his bucket list thing, except that virtually all of the deaths they're seeing are suicides.  He's suspicious that one that seems to be is not and sets about to solve it, to the utter apathy of pretty much everyone else.  It's also set quite locally to me, which I hadn't been expecting but was kind of fun.  4 stars.

21. Gehen, ging, gegangen / Go, Going, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck - While the character Richard was definitely a framework for us white folk to learn about the African refugee crisis, I thought it was pulled off fairly well.  I'm planning on reading her other books.  4 stars.

Currently reading An American Marriage for the new book club at the book shop I just joined, and listening to The Other Americans, which I am liking except for the voice actor for Jeremy, whose voice annoys me, but I like all the other narrators (they have one for each person's perspective), so that's just a quibble.  I just cracked open La casa de los espíritus / The House of the Spirits for a re-read - I read it the first time many years ago.  

[Robin M]

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@Lady Florida. I had an Audible credit and thought I'd use it on one of the Edward Rutherfurd books. After listening to a few samples I decided on Sarum. I'm absolutely loving it and will likely use future credits on some of his other novels. Thank you @Negin and everyone else who made recommendations on where to start with his books

I can't decide. All his books sound good. 

@Lori D. Ender's Game sounds so much like the Hunger Games which was a difficult read as it had the same theme. Children fighting children.  Is there much difference and would you consider Ender's Game a better read?     Thank you for all your thoughts on The Hobbit.  Greatly appreciated and provides a great written visual of the story, supplementing what I already read. Brings it all back to the forefront again and makes me want to read it all over again.  Picked up The Fellowship of the Rings in anticipation of starting it in April.  I actually found a paperback without minuscule print. 😀

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@Seasider My eyes keep seeing Lord of the FiLes and all I can think is, I could use some help organizing my home office... #sleepdeprivedbrain

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@Pen  I am now looking around at papers and saying “Lord of the Files” to myself...   an island of sinister out of control paper rises up!   Zombie-like Walking Dead 💀 files and envelopes lurk menacingly in the dark and attack me like evil human shredder machines come to life.

Life of the Files it is. My file basket is overflowing as well and I just discovered a pile I hadn't filed before we moved the business in a drawer.  My stack had babies.  *facepalm*  I hate filing. 

 

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@mumto2 I also read Nalini Singh’s A Madness of Sunshine which was not at all what I was expecting.  I know the author as a writer of urban fantasy/ paranormal fiction and this was a pretty competent mystery with absolutely no paranormal elements or intense adult scenes.  The book was set in New Zealand and made me want to travel there.  Not the start of a series I suspect, but enjoyable.  

Good to hear as I have this on in my virtual stacks. 

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@aggieamyAnd as an adult ... I wondered who paid for all that medical care? I'm going to get lost down some Polio and 1950's medicine this afternoon.

Research for your next book???

 

[mumto2]

@Kareni I hope you feel better soon!
 

@Negin thanks for the pictures!  Beautiful beach!

Rose Cottage was a surprise as I discovered I apparently read it in 2018 while Brit Tripping!  I knew it was set in the rather elusive Tyne and Wear but did not this I read it then.......Goodreads says differently!😂 It was good and it fit my mood so I quickly reread it in one sitting!   I still plan to read the Gabriel Hounds in the next month or so.https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/51042385

The Vanishing Man is the second Charles Lennox prequel and I thought it was rather good.  It was “another” book based on a Willian Shakespeare theme, this one centered on a lost play.  I am really looking forward to getting my hands on the third prequel in a couple of weeks!  Good audiobook series btw.  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39863477-the-vanishing-man
 

Finally I finished What the Wind Knows which may be a new favorite!  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40407141-what-the-wind-knows The time travel elements were very romantic and satisfying and for those who like a serious helping of history this book did a good job on the Irish situation for the 1916 Through 1923 or so.  This is significantly fluffier but in some ways reminded me of a Milkman prequel.@aggieamy not sure if you and your Dd have read this but both of you would like it!  

i have one letter left in my Mary Stewart spelling challenge and have been enjoying a contemporary romance called Anyone but You with a seriously cute stinky basset hound.https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33732.Anyone_But_You?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=VVIqD44a8e&rank=1 I have a rather bland Poirot on audio happening......Cards on the table. 

 

 

[Lori D.]

4 hours ago, Robin M said:

... Ender's Game sounds so much like the Hunger Games which was a difficult read as it had the same theme. Children fighting children.  Is there much difference and would you consider Ender's Game a better read?     Thank you for all your thoughts on The Hobbit.  Greatly appreciated and provides a great written visual of the story, supplementing what I already read. Brings it all back to the forefront again and makes me want to read it all over again.  Picked up The Fellowship of the Rings in anticipation of starting it in April.  I actually found a paperback without minuscule print. 😀

While they are both dystopias of a sort, they are incredibly different, IMO, and both have ideas worth exploring. Ender's Game probably has more ideas to explore in it than Hunger Games, but is older and feels a little bit dated in some areas. The violence in Ender's Game is traditional military games (ranks, strategies) in which people are not hurt or killed (until outside of the game room), while the violence in Hunger Games is very gladitorial/survivor in nature -- it is the "bad" kids, from the wealthy districts who have trained since birth to be victors, who are callously killing while the "good" Katniss and several other kids from the poor districts "only kill" in self defense or to stay alive to game's end.

The Hunger Games trilogy, written in 2008-2010, started off exploring the ideas of using child gladiator-style battles as a way of both distracting the populace from the problems in the dystopia, while keeping the lower levels (districts) of the dystopia under their thumb. It also started to explore the idea of PTSD, as well as fashion extremities, but sort of dropped the ball for most of books 2 and 3 to focus on the "love triangle" and conflicted emotions of heroine Katniss, and showcasing her skill as an archer and survivor in escalating gamer-like levels of gladiator competitions as the books progress.

Ender's Game was initially a short story published in 1977, and then expanded into a novel in the mid-1980s. It has a strong Cold War vibe to it, with the twist that the nations of Earth have had to put aside their differences to fight the mutual threat of an alien invasion. The aliens were defeated and prevented from landing on Earth, but Earth nations are still pulling together to put together an assault force to bring the battle to the aliens. The child soldiers are being trained to remotely guide the assault force, and training happens in a battle room, like traditional military "war games" to practice strategies without hurting one another. What is violent and disturbing is the mindset that the adults are training the children to have in order to lead the assault force on the aliens -- not too unlike in the Congo region of Africa, with the real-life stripping of innocence and childhood by adults in order to turn them into child soldiers. (And, also, several outside-the-battle-room real, violent, vicious child on child fights that end very brutally.)  Ender's Game is also a series of novels, with a second series of novels told from the perspective of one of the main commander soldiers under Ender.

4 hours ago, Robin M said:

... Picked up The Fellowship of the Rings in anticipation of starting it in April.  I actually found a paperback without minuscule print. 

Lol -- I will be using one of the several OLD paperback editions of the trilogy that we have around -- from the '60s and '70s, with pages falling out and page edges crumbling. 😉 Just holding the same copies of this trilogy that is so well-loved at our home is worth the effort of careful book-holding. 😉 

Edited February 24, 2020 by Lori D.

[Kareni]

2 hours ago, Robin M said:

Does anyone else wake up to music playing in their head in the morning?

Once in a while, I do. It's frequently a Tom Lehrer tune particularly if I've recently listened to one of his CDs.

16 minutes ago, mumto2 said:

@Kareni I hope you feel better soon!

Thank you. Me, too!

Regards,

Kareni

[Dicentra]

2 hours ago, SereneHome said:

Oh my goodness, I started this book a month ago and still on chapter 4.  I also have his The lost city of monkey God - will you be reading that one?

I think The Lost City of the Monkey God is Douglas Preston, not Grann. 🙂  I read it when it first came out and liked it but I like all the books that he (and Lincoln Child) write.

https://www.prestonchild.com/books/preston/monkeygod/

[Dicentra]

3 hours ago, Robin M said:

The lyrics running through my head today are from James Taylor's You Got a Friend. Why is it that I can't ever remember the whole song but just a snippet which turns into a ear worm for the day. 

Winter, spring, summer or fall
All you've got to do is call
And I'll be there, ye, ye, ye
You've got a friend

Does anyone else wake up to music playing in their head in the morning? No? Just me. Hmm.... 😊

Me! 😄  And I seem highly susceptible to ear worms.  My niece was letting her daughter (my great-niece) listen to that Baby Shark song on YouTube and I happened to hear it.  That thing was stuck in my head for weeks!!

[Matryoshka]

10 minutes ago, Dicentra said:

I think The Lost City of the Monkey God is Douglas Preston, not Grann. 🙂  I read it when it first came out and liked it but I like all the books that he (and Lincoln Child) write.

https://www.prestonchild.com/books/preston/monkeygod/

Yes, I've read the Monkey God book but not City of Z (someone's going to have to give us a comparative analysis at some point 😉 ) .  I have read Killers of the Flower Moon, though, which is apparently also by Grann and was very good!

[SereneHome]

1 hour ago, Dicentra said:

I think The Lost City of the Monkey God is Douglas Preston, not Grann. 🙂  I read it when it first came out and liked it but I like all the books that he (and Lincoln Child) write.

https://www.prestonchild.com/books/preston/monkeygod/

oh, that's embarrassing.  why did I think they were by the same author???

[Dicentra]

5 minutes ago, SereneHome said:

oh, that's embarrassing.  why did I think they were by the same author???

No worries! 🙂  Confession...  Folks were talking about The Marsh King's Daughter and I assumed they were talking about the book by Elizabeth Chadwick - historical fiction/romance set in the 13th century during the last days of the reign of King John.  But they were not.  I was very confused for a while. 😉 😄

[Liz CA]

Audiobook:

"A beautiful blue death" by Charles Finch

Only about a third into it but very interesting. This was recommended by mum on this board and I know I can trust her.  🙂

Reading:

"Death at the Deep End" by Patricia Wentworth

Since I am still sick (but finally on the mend with the help of antibiotics) I went through some older book threads and this series was mentioned. Barely started it but I am intrigued.

I have actually taken some days off work (which feels very weird because I hardly ever take sick days) and have been able to read more.

Finished "The Killing Tide" by Dani Pettrey and I am sorry to say it was disappointing. I read the author's other series and very much enjoyed them but this one was so predictable. Also, it seemed that the first 3/4 of the book dragged on with little substance, then suddenly all the action occurs in the last ten pages or so. Hope the author redeems herself with the next book.

[Teaching3bears]

7 hours ago, Robin M said:

 

@Teaching3bears  What did your kids think of Moby Dick?

They really liked it!

 

 

 

[Teaching3bears]

I am still reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. It might qualify as four seasons of trials.  I don't know yet.

I finished The Years That Matter: How College Makes or Breaks Us  by Paul Tough.  I strongly recommend this book.  It was so interesting.  I don't know if the title really reflects the book.  It was all about the SAT and ACT tests and disparity in the US between classes and how colleges have tried to fix that but haven't really succeeded.  It's a mixture of information and in-depth stories about people that illustrate his points.

I forgot to say that last week, for homeschooling, we finished Thimble Summer by Elizabeth Enright.  Partway through I realized that we read it before, maybe 10 years ago.  It took me several chapters to figure that out, which is sad though maybe we listened to it on CD and I wasn't paying attention the whole time.  It's a very sweet and nicely written book.  I liked the whole book, but this time reading it I was really touched by the last page which is a description of how happy the main character is.  There was something so beautiful about that description.  It's kind of strange the way characters in books for young people in the past were so often happy and nowadays we have so many dystopian novels for young people.  Would you agree?  I wonder what it says about us?

 

 

[SereneHome]

Not sure if I am "allowed" to post this here, but we finished Harriet the Spy last week. Oh boy did that bring a lot of conversations about people and feelings and "white" lies. And I am 99% sure that I am the only one - but I really REALLY didn't like Harriet. Like if I had a daughter, I would NOT want my daughter to be friends with her....

Edited February 24, 2020 by SereneHome

[Violet Crown]

Working on volume 3 of Memoirs of Vidocq. Took a break this week to read, under compulsion, YA novel God King by somebody. Also starting Great Expectations; Wee Girl just finished her abridged Penguin edition so it's once more through the adventures of Pip for me, and then the BBC production. Family Dickens, hurrah. And continuing Decadent Poetry, which is wonderful but not as exciting as the title might suggest.

Edited February 24, 2020 by Violet Crown
orthographical failure

[Pen]

I didn’t yet finish the book I started about Beavers.  Maybe this is the week for that!  I think it probably delves into beaver life in all seasons too. 

 

 

[JennW in SoCal]

I am very disappointed to learn that Decadent Poetry is not as exciting as the title suggests!

I finished my two audiobooks this week.

Winter of the Witch was ... fine. Not bad. Better than ok. But it is the third and final book in a series, and I felt that in many ways the 2nd and 3rd books were just rehashes of the first one. I found the first title, Bear and the Nightingale, quite a satisfying fantasy, really a historical fiction with fantastical elements. I really liked it. But, for me at least, there was no real need for the subsequent 2 books. 

Roadshow: Landscape with Drums was a great travel book written by a fellow introverted, book-loving musician. I will never travel the world on a motorcycle, but it was fun to so vicariously, and I've added a few spots to my travel bucket list. And I loved that a big rock star drummer experiences performances the way I do, that he gets annoyed with himself over slips in focus or dumb mistakes. 

I read yet another of the Tony Hillerman mysteries, this time the 4th one, People of Darkness, which introduces Jim Chee. It was another solid mystery, but his mysteries certainly improved with each title. A couple of weeks ago I read the 8th book, A Thief of Time, and it is plotted out much better. But the things that make his books so good are there from the first, the way he sets the scene perfectly, bringing the Navajo land and people to life. You really can't go wrong starting anywhere in the series.

I'm heading out to the Hawaiian islands for my next book. I've been carrying a copy of Moloka'i by Alan Brennert everywhere I've gone for almost a year now. Seems like I should finally crack it open!

So before coming to check in tonight I was reading the thread entitled "Wuhan virus" on the corona virus. I've got to confess that I first heard about the virus in early January as I was finishing Station Eleven, a book about the aftermath of a global pandemic that quickly kills almost everybody, knocking our advanced civilization back a hundred years or more. Thanks to the book, even the earliest news had me thinking of what we need to stock up on here at home. It is a positive book, by the way, with a traveling troupe of musicians and actors performing Beethoven and Shakespeare by firelight. No zombies. Anyway, all this is just the lead up to a tongue in cheek question: Do you have your quarantine book supply lined up?!  I've got quite the pile of "to be read" titles here!

[SKL]

Howdy! 

I'm about 3/4 done with the 4th book of the "Rose books" (Rose Wilder Lane).

Paused Wuthering Heights audiobook to get the kids caught up on Johnny Tremain, but will probably get back to WH this week.

This Sunday was a "Bible Reading Sunday" meeting at church.  I have to admit that I still didn't finish Matthew on our audiobook.  Just haven't gotten back to it with all the rest going on.  Theoretically we should be way past Matthew ... oh well.  (I've read the Bible many times in print, but still notice something new with each re-read.)

[Negin]

13 hours ago, Kareni said:

I'm in need of soup as I'm now sick. Drats.

Kareni, hope you feel better very soon. 

[Violet Crown]

19 hours ago, Robin M said:

Read a book in which someone goes through four seasons in their life such as aging or trials.

The four volumes of Memoirs of Vidocq reflect the "seasons" of Eugène Vidocq's life; volume 1 is his life as a young criminal; volume 2, as a police informer; volume 3, as the founder and director of the crime-detection agency le Sûreté Nationale. I think the fourth volume will be his post-resignation life as the head of the first private detection agency. It's all very over-written in the usual early-18th-century style, but engaging, and it's only too bad that a more modern English translation isn't available. (Wikipedia tells me that Vidocq himself kept it short, but Balzac, Hugo, and Dumas, who knew all about the correlation of verbosity and income, persuaded him to let it be ghostwritten to four volumes.)

Edited February 24, 2020 by Violet Crown

[Lady Florida.]

On 2/21/2020 at 1:37 PM, Lori D. said:

I was a tad more forgiving, as I loved her first book, Confessions of X, a literary fiction work with historical setting and a biographical aspect. (The X refers to the name-unknown lover of Augustine before his conversion.) Also -- I've met Suzanne Wolfe in person! 😄 That always makes me more forgiving of an author, lol. But yes, there were some anachronisms that bugged me, too. I just tried to enjoy it as a fluff murder mystery, and gave it grace as her first outing in that genre. 😉 

Yes, I enjoyed it as a fluff mystery and kept reading because I wanted to know what happened. 🙂 

On 2/23/2020 at 1:28 PM, Robin M said:

Does anyone else wake up to music playing in their head in the morning? No? Just me. Hmm..

I set my alarm to different songs each day so I wake up with my alarm song in my head. I do have a few songs that are my regulars but sometimes I'll just give Alexa general instructions like "wake me up to 80s music, classical, The Beatles," etc.. 

 

On 2/23/2020 at 2:52 PM, Robin M said:

I can't decide. All his books sound good. 

(This quote is in reference to the Edward Rutherfurd books)

That's how I felt too! I think I picked Sarum because it seemed like it went back in history farther than the others. I'm pretty sure any one of them would be a good place to start.

 

On 2/23/2020 at 3:24 PM, mumto2 said:

 

The Vanishing Man is the second Charles Lennox prequel and I thought it was rather good.  It was “another” book based on a Willian Shakespeare theme, this one centered on a lost play.  I am really looking forward to getting my hands on the third prequel in a couple of weeks!  Good audiobook series btw.  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39863477-the-vanishing-man
 

 

Oh, I need to get back to that series. The next book for me would be Gone Before Christmas, which I think is a novella. Do I *need* to read that one or can I skip right to The Vanishing Man, which is next?

On 2/23/2020 at 1:36 PM, Robin M said:

 

Accidental quote I can't get rid of lol. 

 

On 2/23/2020 at 5:05 PM, Matryoshka said:

Yes, I've read the Monkey God book but not City of Z (someone's going to have to give us a comparative analysis at some point 😉 ) .  I have read Killers of the Flower Moon, though, which is apparently also by Grann and was very good!

I read all three and never noticed that Flower Moon and City of Z were by the same author. As for the comparison between City of Z and Monkey God, on the surface they do seem very much alike. There are real differences though. They take place in different countries - Brazil and Honduras respectively. City of Z goes back and forth between historical information about Fawcett's expedition and the author's trip to try and follow the expedition's route. Monkey God has some discussion about previous expeditions IIRC, but it mostly covers the trip the author is on, as well as giving information about archaeological finds. Both were interesting imo, but I thought Monkey God had a touch of first world entitlement to it. Well, come to think of it they both do.

@Kareni I hope you're feeling better.

Edited February 25, 2020 by Lady Florida.

[Lady Florida.]

I've been meaning to share this. Our English mystery BaWers will enjoy it. 

Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village

[mumto2]

32 minutes ago, Lady Florida. said:

I've been meaning to share this. Our English mystery BaWers will enjoy it. 

Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village

😂. Love the list and for books those are so the suspects.  As a side note......Our family as the” newcomers” are really obnoxious because we tend to stand more on the preservation side of village disagreements   .   We worked really hard to keep the historic Lyme Trees.......there are many trees sort of cascading over the road into the village that we fell in love with before moving there.  Planted for Queen Victoria’s Jubilee and for the most part healthy but needed some serious pruning.  It was thought to be easier to plant new oak trees.......Makes me happy to see those beautiful trees every time we go “home”.  

35 minutes ago, Lady Florida. said:

Oh, I need to get back to that series. The next book for me would be Gone Before Christmas, which I think is a novella. Do I *need* to read that one or can I skip right to The Vanishing Man, which is next?

The Woman in the Water takes place when Lennox is 23 so well before A Beautiful Blue Death. The Vanishing Man is also before.

I still haven’t read The Inheritance or Gone Before Christmas.  I have left both in part because I didn’t want it to end and now it hasn’t.  😂 I will most likely read those after I read the newly released The Last Passenger which supposedly is the last of the prequels.  The prequels are full length or very close btw.  

[mumto2]

12 hours ago, JennW in SoCal said:

: Do you have your quarantine book supply lined up?!  I've got quite the pile of "to be read" titles here!

😂😉. I have given this some thought very briefly as in did  I want to trigger all of my suspended hold’s at the paper book library.  The answer was no.  I am pretty sure we have more than enough in the house and garage as long as we feel up to moving a box or two.  Plus I have over 3000 in my kindle library.................now if Overdrive and Kindle broke that would be a crisis for me.

 

18 hours ago, Liz CA said:

A beautiful blue death" by Charles Finch

Only about a third into it but very interesting. This was recommended by mum on this board and I know I can trust her.  🙂

I hope you feel better soon!  Glad you are enjoying a Beautiful Blue Death.  I actually finished the first one and didn’t return to the series for a couple of years........  In my opinion this series sort of picks up steam as it rolls along and is at its best a bit later on .  So if you like this one keep reading/listening.   The possibility of spoilers exist in this series that might make it hard to go back imo so try to stay in order.

[Kareni]

@Neginand @Lady Florida., thank you for the good wishes. Still sniffling here....

**

Today only, free for Kindle readers ~

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey

 "A timeless memoir of drug addiction from one of the leading intellectuals of the Victorian age

At first, Thomas De Quincey found opium to be a harmless pleasure. A twenty-year-old intellectual living in nineteenth-century London, De Quincey took laudanum sparingly, spacing out his doses so their effect would not be dulled. But after years of casual use, intense stomach pains caused him to rely on the drug more and more, until he was taking opium daily, and living in a world divided between hallucinatory bliss and aching physical torment.
 
De Quincey’s account of his addiction made him a celebrity. His rhapsodies of hallucination influenced generations of authors, from Poe and Baudelaire to Jorge Luis Borges, and warned countless readers of the dangers of drug dependency. "

 Regards,

Kareni

[Lady Florida.]

3 hours ago, Lady Florida. said:

I've been meaning to share this. Our English mystery BaWers will enjoy it. 

Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village

Quoting myself to point out that the comments to that article are pretty funny too. 

[Kareni]

Over the weekend I finished several books.

Stars Beyond (Stars Uncharted Book 2) by SK Dunstall

I enjoyed this; however, the Linesman series is still my favorite Dunstall work. Here's the blurb, but one should definitely read the first book in the series before reading this.

 "The crew of Another Road are back, closer than ever to the biggest score in the galaxy. . . if they can stay a step ahead of the Justice Department agents and Company men tracking them.

An engineer with a fondness for weapons. A captain with no memory. An obsessive genemodder who loves to tinker. Meet the crew of Another Road.

Josune, Roystan, and Nika have escaped the company thugs trying to kill them. They've gotten a new spaceship to replace The Road (after it was blown up underneath them). And their new ship is armed to the teeth with dangerous weapons, courtesy of Josune. All that's left to do before they head out to find the legendary lode of transurides is to restore Roystan's memory. To do that, they need to collect the genemod machine Nika has ordered.

But first, they have to shake off the Justice Department agent and the Companies tracking them.

It should be easy. They've done it before. What could possibly go wrong?"

@mumto2, have you read this yet?

* *

I also finished the historical romance A Wicked Kind of Husband (Longhope Abbey) by Mia Vincy; this had some amusing dialogue that had me laughing aloud. I'll definitely be happy to read more by this author. (Adult content)

"It was the ideal marriage of convenience…until they met

Cassandra DeWitt has seen her husband only once—on their wedding day two years earlier—and this arrangement suits her perfectly. She has no interest in the rude, badly behaved man she married only to secure her inheritance. She certainly has no interest in his ban on her going to London. Why, he’ll never even know she is there.

Until he shows up in London too, and Cassandra finds herself sharing a house with the most infuriating man in England.

Joshua DeWitt has his life exactly how he wants it. He has no need of a wife disrupting everything, especially a wife intent on reforming his behavior. He certainly has no need of a wife who is intolerably amiable, insufferably reasonable … and irresistibly kissable.

As the unlikely couple team up to battle a malicious lawsuit and launch Cassandra’s wayward sister, passion flares between them. Soon the day must come for them to part … but what if one of them wants their marriage to become real?"

 **

I also enjoyed reading/browsing Drawing and Painting Beautiful Faces: A Mixed-Media Portrait Workshop by Jane Davenport though I did not do any of the projects. I did take away some ideas.

"Drawing and Painting Beautiful Faces is an inspiring, mixed media workbook on how to draw and paint beautiful, fashion illustration-style faces. Author Jane Davenport is a beloved artist, and popular international workshop instructor known by her students and fans for her effervescent, enthusiastic, happy and encouraging style.
In this book, she guides you step-by-step through the foundations of drawing a face, developing harmonious features, creating smooth skin tones, playing with bright colors, shading, highlighting and so much more. This book is full of new techniques to engage and inspire your imagination."

 Regards,

Kareni

[Excelsior! Academy]

I'm still currently reading a chapter a week of What is a Family? by Edith Schaeffer for a book club and Ember Falls as our family's afternoon read aloud.  I have also started Modern Etiquette Made Easy by Myka Meier and The Testaments by Margaret Atwood. Myka Meier runs The Plaza Hotel's finishing program.

 

6. Black Robe Fever by Gary L. Richardson

A Bear Called Pattington (Not counted toward my book total, but too sweet not to list.)

7. A Weed in the Church by Scott T. Brown

[Excelsior! Academy]

On 2/23/2020 at 12:28 PM, Robin M said:

Which leads to our Bingo categories for the week: Four seasons and/or four legged animals. How many ways can we go with four seasons?  Ideas include but are not limited to:

 

Read a book with Four Seasons in the title 
Read a book with one or more of the Seasons in the title 
Read a book which experiences nature's four seasons during the telling of the tale. 
Read a book about the four seasons. 
Read a book in which someone goes through four seasons in their life such as aging or trials.
Read a book about four seasons of marriage.

Explore the symbolism of the four seasons, examples of seasonal symbolism, or Literature connections to Real Reasons for Seasons.

For four legged animals, otherwise known as quadrupeds, we can go a variety of ways:  Real life four legged creatures such as horses, dogs, cats, lions, elephants, sheep, etc. Or the mythical or fictional variety with  dragons, griffins, unicorns, werewolves, and other were creatures. 

 

This is in my GoodReads to read cue:

Winter: An Anthology for the Changing Seasons

Melissa Harrison (Editor)

 3.97  ·   Rating details ·  109 ratings  ·  27 reviews

Winter is a withdrawal: quiet and dark and cold. But in the dim light frost shimmers, stars twinkle and hearths blaze as we come together to keep out the chill. In spite of the season, life persists: visiting birds fill our skies, familiar creatures find clever ways to survive, and the world reveals winter riches to those willing to venture outdoors.

In prose and poetry spanning seven hundred years, Winter delights in the brisk pleasures and enduring beauty of the year's turning. Featuring new writing from Patrick Barkham, Satish Kumar and Anita Sethi, extracts from the work of Robert Macfarlane, James Joyce and Kathleen Jamie, and a range of exciting new voices from across the UK, this invigorating collection evokes the joys and the consolations of this magical time of year.

 

 

 

Edited February 24, 2020 by Excelsior! Academy

[Pen]

On 2/23/2020 at 10:55 AM, Robin M said:

How is everyone feeling? Do you need more virtual chicken soup?
 

Yummy!  I'll have to check out the Secret Teaching of Plants.

 

My most favorite is the top one in set of pics below.  (Plant Intelligence). Even the blue flower delights me!  And I imagine it as borage a favorite edible flower even if maybe it isn’t.  But it wasn’t available as Audible afaik.  The bottom one I’ve never seen at all irl. 

 

•  
•  
• 

[Violet Crown]

18 hours ago, JennW in SoCal said:

I am very disappointed to learn that Decadent Poetry is not as exciting as the title suggests!

Me, too. The introduction (which is really good and informative) features a fantastic 1895 review of poet Arthur Symons's most recent book of verse. (Symons literally wrote the book on Decadent and Symbolist poetry, which I read last year.) 

Quote

Mr Arthur Symons is a dirty-minded man, and his mind is reflected in the puddle of his bad verses. It may be that there are other dirty-minded men who will rejoice in the jungle that records the squalid and inexpensive amours of Mr Symons, but our faith jumps to our hope that such men are not. He informs us in his prologue that his life is like a music-hall, which should bring him a joint-action for libel from every decent institution of the kind in London. By his own showing, his life is more like a pig-sty, and one dull below the ordinary at that. Every woman he pays to meet him, he tells us, is desirous to kiss his lips; our boots too are desirous, but of quite another part of him, for quite another purpose.

Isn't that wonderful? And then we turn, perhaps, to "Stella Maris," the most controversial of Symons's poems, and the one that most aroused the above reviewer's, um, ire. I don't know about you, but I felt, reading that, as I felt listening to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring after learning that its first performance sparked a riot from the enraged audience. Do I live in an age of such depravity, I ask myself, that I can barely see what all the fuss is about? 

 

[Violet Crown]

On 2/23/2020 at 1:25 PM, Robin M said:

@Violet Crown  One of these days I'll read something by Graham Greene.   Are you reading anything special for Lent?  

I will try to be better about reading one of Newman’s Parochial and Plain Sermons daily. Yourself?

[Kareni]

2 hours ago, Violet Crown said:

Isn't that wonderful?

That ["Every woman he pays to meet him, he tells us, is desirous to kiss his lips; our boots too are desirous, but of quite another part of him, for quite another purpose."] is indeed wonderful! Thanks for the chuckle.

Regards,

Kareni

[mumto2]

5 hours ago, Kareni said:

Over the weekend I finished several books.

Stars Beyond (Stars Uncharted Book 2) by SK Dunstall

I enjoyed this; however, the Linesman series is still my favorite Dunstall work. Here's the blurb, but one should definitely read the first book in the series before reading this.

 "The crew of Another Road are back, closer than ever to the biggest score in the galaxy. . . if they can stay a step ahead of the Justice Department agents and Company men tracking them.

An engineer with a fondness for weapons. A captain with no memory. An obsessive genemodder who loves to tinker. Meet the crew of Another Road.

Josune, Roystan, and Nika have escaped the company thugs trying to kill them. They've gotten a new spaceship to replace The Road (after it was blown up underneath them). And their new ship is armed to the teeth with dangerous weapons, courtesy of Josune. All that's left to do before they head out to find the legendary lode of transurides is to restore Roystan's memory. To do that, they need to collect the genemod machine Nika has ordered.

But first, they have to shake off the Justice Department agent and the Companies tracking them.

It should be easy. They've done it before. What could possibly go wrong?"

@mumto2, have you read this yet?

* *

I also finished the historical romance A Wicked Kind of Husband (Longhope Abbey) by Mia Vincy; this had some amusing dialogue that had me laughing aloud. I'll definitely be happy to read more by this author. (Adult content)

"It was the ideal marriage of convenience…until they met

Cassandra DeWitt has seen her husband only once—on their wedding day two years earlier—and this arrangement suits her perfectly. She has no interest in the rude, badly behaved man she married only to secure her inheritance. She certainly has no interest in his ban on her going to London. Why, he’ll never even know she is there.

Until he shows up in London too, and Cassandra finds herself sharing a house with the most infuriating man in England.

Joshua DeWitt has his life exactly how he wants it. He has no need of a wife disrupting everything, especially a wife intent on reforming his behavior. He certainly has no need of a wife who is intolerably amiable, insufferably reasonable … and irresistibly kissable.

As the unlikely couple team up to battle a malicious lawsuit and launch Cassandra’s wayward sister, passion flares between them. Soon the day must come for them to part … but what if one of them wants their marriage to become real?"

 **

I also enjoyed reading/browsing Drawing and Painting Beautiful Faces: A Mixed-Media Portrait Workshop by Jane Davenport though I did not do any of the projects. I did takeaway some ideas.

"Drawing and Painting Beautiful Faces is an inspiring, mixed media workbook on how to draw and paint beautiful, fashion illustration-style faces. Author Jane Davenport is a beloved artist, and popular international workshop instructor known by her students and fans for her effervescent, enthusiastic, happy and encouraging style.
In this book, she guides you step-by-step through the foundations of drawing a face, developing harmonious features, creating smooth skin tones, playing with bright colors, shading, highlighting and so much more. This book is full of new techniques to engage and inspire your imagination."

 Regards,

Kareni

Stars Beyond has been on my recommendation list at my library that owns all their other books for many months now.  They haven’t had a major purchase of Overdrive books for a couple of months so I am waiting impatiently.😉. That said I think I will be flooded with my requests in about a week as I think I am probably first in line for a virtual stack when they do make that purchase.  Glad you enjoyed it!

I have a different Mia Vince in my hold’s stack which should be appearing in my account very soon.  Glad to hear you enjoyed it!

Before I forget my four legged book just arrived in my account  Running with Sherman which I am really looking forward to.  I ❤️Donkeys.  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43834684-running-with-sherman?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=rJbYc2mqv4&rank=1

[Robin M]

On 2/23/2020 at 11:15 AM, SereneHome said:

Oh my goodness, I started this book a month ago and still on chapter 4.  I also have his The lost city of monkey God - will you be reading that one?

I hadn't heard about Monkey God. Perhaps I'll give a go next year!

On 2/23/2020 at 11:13 AM, Kareni said:

I'm in need of soup as I'm now sick. Drats.

I hope that everyone else is healthy.*

Hope you feel better soon! 

On 2/23/2020 at 12:26 PM, Lori D. said:

While they are both dystopias of a sort, they are incredibly different, IMO, and both have ideas worth exploring. Ender's Game probably has more ideas to explore in it than Hunger Games, but is older and feels a little bit dated in some areas. The violence in Ender's Game is traditional military games (ranks, strategies) in which people are not hurt or killed (until outside of the game room), while the violence in Hunger Games is very gladitorial/survivor in nature -- it is the "bad" kids, from the wealthy districts who have trained since birth to be victors, who are callously killing while the "good" Katniss and several other kids from the poor districts "only kill" in self defense or to stay alive to game's end.

The Hunger Games trilogy, written in 2008-2010, started off exploring the ideas of using child gladiator-style battles as a way of both distracting the populace from the problems in the dystopia, while keeping the lower levels (districts) of the dystopia under their thumb. It also started to explore the idea of PTSD, as well as fashion extremities, but sort of dropped the ball for most of books 2 and 3 to focus on the "love triangle" and conflicted emotions of heroine Katniss, and showcasing her skill as an archer and survivor in escalating gamer-like levels of gladiator competitions as the books progress.

Ender's Game was initially a short story published in 1977, and then expanded into a novel in the mid-1980s. It has a strong Cold War vibe to it, with the twist that the nations of Earth have had to put aside their differences to fight the mutual threat of an alien invasion. The aliens were defeated and prevented from landing on Earth, but Earth nations are still pulling together to put together an assault force to bring the battle to the aliens. The child soldiers are being trained to remotely guide the assault force, and training happens in a battle room, like traditional military "war games" to practice strategies without hurting one another. What is violent and disturbing is the mindset that the adults are training the children to have in order to lead the assault force on the aliens -- not too unlike in the Congo region of Africa, with the real-life stripping of innocence and childhood by adults in order to turn them into child soldiers. (And, also, several outside-the-battle-room real, violent, vicious child on child fights that end very brutally.)  Ender's Game is also a series of novels, with a second series of novels told from the perspective of one of the main commander soldiers under Ender.

Thank you and you've talked me in to trying Ender's Game. 

On 2/23/2020 at 2:03 PM, Dicentra said:

Me! 😄  And I seem highly susceptible to ear worms.  My niece was letting her daughter (my great-niece) listen to that Baby Shark song on YouTube and I happened to hear it.  That thing was stuck in my head for weeks!!

Oh my.  Did you see the carpool karaoke with Celion Dion in which she did the Baby Shark song?  Hilarious.  I've got the chorus of Billie Eilish's When the Party's Over rummaging around my brain today.  Another carpool karaoke exposure.  

21 hours ago, JennW in SoCal said:

I am very disappointed to learn that Decadent Poetry is not as exciting as the title suggests!

Anyway, all this is just the lead up to a tongue in cheek question: Do you have your quarantine book supply lined up?!  I've got quite the pile of "to be read" titles here!

Hmm!  I think we have enough books in the house to hold us over.  🙂

 

3 hours ago, Pen said:

 

My most favorite is the top one in set of pics below.  (Plant Intelligence). Even the blue flower delights me!  And I imagine it as borage a favorite edible flower even if maybe it isn’t.  But it wasn’t available as Audible afaik.  The bottom one I’ve never seen at all irl. 

 

•  
•  
• 

The blue flower is gorgeous! 

2 hours ago, Violet Crown said:

I will try to be better about reading one of Newman’s Parochial and Plain Sermons daily. Yourself?

I have Trevor Hudson's Pauses for Lent: 40 Words for 40 days.  Instead of morning pages which usually turn into morning grumbles, figured this would be more positive.  Also Jill Duffield's Lent in Plain Site which is once a week and seems to blend with Pauses quite well. 

[Pen]

Need for humor—

Now reading/listening: 

The Totally Unscientific Study of the Search for Human Happiness https://www.amazon.com/dp/1616208066/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_zzkvEbM3T9E10

 

To Say Nothing of the Dog: Or How We Found the Bishop's Bird Stump at Last https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001706RUY/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_ywkvEbTT0KHJQ

 

[mumto2]

@JennW in SoCal and others, I just discovered that Emily St. John Mandel, the author of Station Eleven, has anew book releasing nest month called the Glass Hotel.  The reviews say that it is nothing like Station Eleven but still very good...............I just put a hold on the audio. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45754981-the-glass-hotel?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=1KcfP3YsEQ&rank=1

[Penguin]

With regard to reading material, I could probably be quarantined until I reach my 100th birthday. Foodwise, I would need Doordash or Instacart by about Day 3.

I finished two books this week, and rated both with five stars.

Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote. Southern Gothic at its finest. Capote was 23 when this book was published in 1948, and it was a bestseller.

Michelle Obama's Becoming. I rarely listen to audiobooks, much less audiobooks that are 19 hours long. I enjoyed both her writing and her audio narration. For me, it was like two different books. There was so much in her life that I could relate to, right up until they Barack Obama's 2004 speech at the DNC. After that, their life changed completely and I then enjoyed reading about a lifestyle that is almost beyond my comprehension.

One of my favorite relatable moments: She talked about driving around in Barack Obama's car, and his car had a very special feature on the passenger side. When we first met, my husband's car had the exact same feature. When you looked down, you could see the road through the rust hole in the floorboard 🙂

 

 

[Violet Crown]

On 2/23/2020 at 11:18 PM, JennW in SoCal said:

Anyway, all this is just the lead up to a tongue in cheek question: Do you have your quarantine book supply lined up?!  I've got quite the pile of "to be read" titles here!

This cries out for a Coronavirus Quarantine reading list. Two literary must-reads that spring to mind are Daniel Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year, about the London plague of 1667 -- short and readable, and tremendously interesting -- and Mary Shelley's The Last Man, possibly the earliest post-apocalyptic fiction, in which the world's population succumbs to a plague (except the Byron figure, who naturally gets himself killed in a war).

What else? Anyone?

[JennW in SoCal]

5 minutes ago, mumto2 said:

@JennW in SoCal and others, I just discovered that Emily St. John Mandel, the author of Station Eleven, has anew book releasing nest month called the Glass Hotel.  The reviews say that it is nothing like Station Eleven but still very good...............I just put a hold on the audio. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45754981-the-glass-hotel?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=1KcfP3YsEQ&rank=1

I actually read The Glass Hotel before Station Eleven, thanks to an advanced reader's copy I was handed at an event. It is good but not as great, and it is still incredibly evocative -- several months later and I still can feel myself in some of the scenes in the story. It would be best to read it after Station Eleven as several characters are in both. 

[Matryoshka]

Just now, JennW in SoCal said:

I actually read The Glass Hotel before Station Eleven, thanks to an advanced reader's copy I was handed at an event. It is good but not as great, and it is still incredibly evocative -- several months later and I still can feel myself in some of the scenes in the story. It would be best to read it after Station Eleven as several characters are in both. 

Is it a sequel?  A prequel?

[JennW in SoCal]

3 minutes ago, Violet Crown said:

This cries out for a Coronavirus Quarantine reading list. Two literary must-reads that spring to mind are Daniel Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year, about the London plague of 1667 -- short and readable, and tremendously interesting -- and Mary Shelley's The Last Man, possibly the earliest post-apocalyptic fiction, in which the world's population succumbs to a plague (except the Byron figure, who naturally gets himself killed in a war).

What else? Anyone?

Those both sound great!  I'd add Station Eleven for sure. And Moloka'i, about leprosy. 

[Matryoshka]

4 minutes ago, Violet Crown said:

This cries out for a Coronavirus Quarantine reading list. Two literary must-reads that spring to mind are Daniel Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year, about the London plague of 1667 -- short and readable, and tremendously interesting -- and Mary Shelley's The Last Man, possibly the earliest post-apocalyptic fiction, in which the world's population succumbs to a plague (except the Byron figure, who naturally gets himself killed in a war).

What else? Anyone?

Well, I've still got The Plague by Camus that I've been meaning to finally tackle in French.  I first read it in high school (in English), and we were having a plague of gypsy moth caterpillars at the time.  There were so many you could go outside and hear them pooping from the trees like it was a light rain. There were too many to fit in the trees, so they were climbing up the tree trunks, the sides of houses, and blades of grass in the yard.  They were even crawling across the asphalt so densely you'd have to step on them.   Who then all got a plague of their own (they all got sick and their insides turned to black goo).  That book stuck with me...