February 2023: What are you reading?

[WildflowerMom]

Journey to the Cross (lent devotional)   https://www.amazon.com/Journey-Cross-40-Day-Lenten-Devotional/dp/B08TN2MRF6/ref=sr_1_1?crid=Q9C93HRC68ZV&keywords=journey+to+the+cross+paul+david+tripp&qid=1677336286&sprefix=Journey+to+the+%2Caps%2C106&sr=8-1

If  https://www.amazon.com/If-Trading-Your-Regrets-Possibilities-ebook/dp/B00XNJGQT4/ref=sr_1_13?crid=2DKQYH7QOCJYD&keywords=If&qid=1677336251&sprefix=if+%2Caps%2C107&sr=8-13

Antarctica.  https://www.amazon.com/Antarctica-Intimate-Portrait-Mysterious-Continent-ebook/dp/B006R8PHW0/ref=sr_1_13?crid=2ZH5HN3TCBQE6&keywords=antarctica&qid=1677336211&sprefix=Antacr%2Caps%2C95&sr=8-13

[Grace Hopper]

21 hours ago, Vintage81 said:

Last night I finished Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting by Clare Pooley. I think @Storygirl previously read this book and it sounded like something I'd like, so I put a hold on it at the library. I did really like it!! I enjoyed all of the eclectic characters in the book, especially Iona and her dog Lulu. I also liked the whole setting of them getting to know each other during their train rides. I was able to guess the big plot twist from the get-go, but it didn't really matter, because this was still a fun book. (4.5 stars)

I really enjoyed that book last year! I have tried to read another work by Pooley (can’t remember which one), but just couldn’t get into it. Probably just bad timing, think I’ll try again. I would like to see a well-done movie version of Rules for Commuting!

20 hours ago, madteaparty said:

I’m back to trying and read Life and Fate, will fail again. It’s a hard book to read for various reasons.

we listened to Frankenstein on audio while in the French alps, which was appropriate and most excellent narration. 
dd and I are reading The Book Thief (dislike) and a book about a woman code breaker (ok). 

The Book Thief was one of those novels that I had to get maybe a third of the way into before it fully engaged me. Maybe because it was one of the first books to include styles other than straight text printing in the manuscript? Anyway, I think it’s a sad but important story. 
 

I’m halfway through Grisham’s The Boys from Biloxi and it is kinda typical late-stage Grisham, tons of straight narrative with very little dialogue. It is set on the Mississippi gulf coast where I spent much time in my youth, so I’m enjoying that part. I will finish it but unless there’s some major upswing I probably won’t strongly recommend it. 
 

From last week - can’t remember if I mentioned this upthread already? -  I did watch the film version of Where’d You Go, Bernadette. The film was fun but the book was waaaay better, imo. 

[Vintage81]

27 minutes ago, Grace Hopper said:

I really enjoyed that book last year! I have tried to read another work by Pooley (can’t remember which one), but just couldn’t get into it. Probably just bad timing, think I’ll try again. I would like to see a well-done movie version of Rules for Commuting!

Yes…a movie would be fun!! 

[kokotg]

My Less is Lost audiobook loan timed out, and now I'm halfway through with 11 weeks to go on the waitlist! Oops. So now I just started The Cartographers based on a Facebook friend's strong recommendation. It's a thriller about maps, which isn't my usual sort of fare, but we'll see. And then I'm reading David Guterson's The Last Case, which started off slow but has me sucked in now, nearly halfway through. David Guterson is the Snow Falling on Cedars guy who also homeschooled his kids and wrote a book about homeschooling before he was well known, so I've always had him in my head as an interesting guy, though I hadn't read anything of his since Snow Falling on Cedars many years ago.

Edited February 25, 2023 by kokotg

[Grace Hopper]

46 minutes ago, kokotg said:

My Less is Lost audiobook loan timed out, and now I'm halfway through with 11 weeks to go on the waitlist! Oops. So now I just started The Cartographers based on a Facebook friend's strong recommendation. It's a thriller about maps, which isn't my usual sort of fare, but we'll see. And then I'm reading David Guterson's The Last Case, which started off slow but has me sucked in now, nearly halfway through. David Guterson is the Snow Falling on Cedars guy who also homeschooled his 5 kids and wrote a book about homeschooling before he was well known, so I've always had him in my head as an interesting guy, though I hadn't read anything of his since Snow Falling on Cedars many years ago.

Who is the author of The Cartographers? My library search turned up two different authors. 

[kokotg]

2 minutes ago, Grace Hopper said:

Who is the author of The Cartographers? My library search turned up two different authors. 

Peng Shepherd

[Storygirl]

1 hour ago, kokotg said:

My Less is Lost audiobook loan timed out, and now I'm halfway through with 11 weeks to go on the waitlist! Oops. So now I just started The Cartographers based on a Facebook friend's strong recommendation. It's a thriller about maps, which isn't my usual sort of fare, but we'll see. And then I'm reading David Guterson's The Last Case, which started off slow but has me sucked in now, nearly halfway through. David Guterson is the Snow Falling on Cedars guy who also homeschooled his kids and wrote a book about homeschooling before he was well known, so I've always had him in my head as an interesting guy, though I hadn't read anything of his since Snow Falling on Cedars many years ago.

So annoying that you have to wait so long for the second half!

About The Cartographers -- I'll be interested to hear how you like it. The ending turned weird for me, but many people love it.

About David Guterson -- I've also only read Snow Falling on Cedars, a very long time ago. But, interestingly, his brother, Ben Guterson, is also an author, and I've really enjoyed his middle grade fantasy series, Winterhouse. I still need to read the third one in the series but can recommend the first two.

[kokotg]

13 minutes ago, Storygirl said:

 

About David Guterson -- I've also only read Snow Falling on Cedars, a very long time ago. But, interestingly, his brother, Ben Guterson, is also an author, and I've really enjoyed his middle grade fantasy series, Winterhouse. I still need to read the third one in the series but can recommend the first two.

interesting! I just looked them up, and I bet my 10 year old would like them...he's read a surprising number of books about mysterious hotels lately. Well, two.

[Storygirl]

I finished a few more books.

In print, I read The World of All Creatures Great and Small: Welcome to Skeldale House, which gave a fun look behind the scenes of the PBS series.

And a bunch on audio. I zip through audio on double speed and listen while doing other things, so I get through them faster than a physical book.

The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner. This is the second book in a series. When I first read the first one many moons ago (The Thief), I was entralled, but I'm not sure I ever read the sequels. I reread The Thief last year, and I'm sorry to say that I didn't love The Queen of Attolia as much as I had hoped. Too much political intrique and focus on battling enemies, which is not my jam.

The Lions of Lucerne by Brad Thor. I put this one on my list, because my dad likes this author. Then I realized it was an abridged version, but decided to listen to it anyway. It was okay. Protagonist has to foil a plot to kidnap the President, while being a suspect. This was Thor's debut, and perhaps they get better, but I'd probably rather read other things.

The Windsor Knot by SJ Bennett is a fun mystery, in which someone is killed at Windsor Castle. In this series, Queen Elizabeth is the amateur sleuth, with the help of one of her secretaries. The Queen is a delightful character. I may read the next one in this series.

My First Popsicle by Zosia Mamet is a collection of food-related essays, written by various celebrities. I have to admit that I have not heard of most of them! I enjoyed some of them more than others; my favorite was the essay by Busy Phillips (who narrates not only her own but some of the others). The title makes the book sound child friendly, but, PSA -- it is not.

 

 

[Kareni]

Yesterday I read the young adult novel, All That's Left in the World by Erik J. Brown. I enjoyed this survival romance story, but I could imagine that a book featuring a pandemic might not suit every reader.  (FIC 18, RR 7, NF 2, NS 3//) 

"When Andrew stumbles upon Jamie’s house, he’s injured, starved, and has nothing left to lose. A deadly pathogen has killed off most of the world’s population, including everyone both boys have ever loved. And if this new world has taught them anything, it’s to be scared of what other desperate people will do . . . so why does it seem so easy for them to trust each other?

After danger breaches their shelter, they flee south in search of civilization. But something isn’t adding up about Andrew’s story, and it could cost them everything. And Jamie has a secret, too. He’s starting to feel something more than friendship for Andrew, adding another layer of fear and confusion to an already tumultuous journey.

The road ahead of them is long, and to survive, they’ll have to shed their secrets, face the consequences of their actions, and find the courage to fight for the future they desire, together. Only one thing feels certain: all that’s left in their world is the undeniable pull they have toward each other."

Regards,

Kareni

[marbel]

I'm updating my reading log. So many discards! I keep getting books from the library and quitting them. 

Re: David Guterson - I also started The Last Case late last year, but I didn't finish it. I had loved Snow Falling on Cedars years ago. 

I finished The Franchise Affair (Josephine Tey) and enjoyed it. It was an odd mixture of outdated and contemporary - dealing with tabloid press and public opinion. I've started Tey's Miss Pym Disposes. 

Also listened to The Sedleigh Hall Murder and The Farming Murder, both by Roy Lewis. They were pretty good mysteries, main character (very likeable) is a lawyer struggling with glaucoma, but they got a little tedious and it seemed like book 3 in the series might be very similar, so I didn't go on. I might later though. I quite like the narrator (John Lee) and might put up with a not-super-great story read by him!

I started and rejected The Last Dickens, by Matthew Pearl. It had been on my list for a long while but I never got to it. Well, it was meant to be a Dickensian mystery involving Dicken's Mystery of Edwin Drood, which was unfinished when Dickens died. At about 100 pages I realized I could be reading an actual Dickens novel instead of a novel about Dickens.  (Other discards were The Whalebone Theater, Razorblade Tears (S A Crosby), Burntown by Jennifer McMahon, and A Fine Balance by Rohan Mistry. They just weren't for me.)

Still enjoying (mostly) Moby Dick. 

Trying to decide which Dickens to start. 

Edited February 25, 2023 by marbel

[Storygirl]

I didn't finish The Age of Vice by Deepti Kappor. I love crime fiction, but this one is too dark for me, with too much time spent in the heads of corrupt people. Set in India, the book shows how a poor young man gets caught up in working for a rich family that is enmeshed in organized crime.

I can't say that climate-warning fiction is my normal choice, but I did enjoy The Displacements by Bruce Holsinger, which traces what happens to a well-off family who loses everything in a hurricane and ends up in a FEMA camp. There are multiple perspectives in this novel, including the FEMA camp director, and there are additional complications that add layers of interest.

On the Rooftop by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton was a Reese Witherspoon Book Club selection. Now that Vivian's three supremely talented daughters are all adults, she hopes to get their singing group a management contract, but the young women are forming their own ideas about what they want for their futures. Set in the 50's, the story explores the choices of the four Black women, in the midst of their urban community being overtaken by white developers. It took me awhile to get into this audiobook's narrative voice, but then the story caught me up.

[marbel]

Re: Bruce Holsinger - I enjoyed The Gifted School, which is funny-not funny story about parents and their gifted children, and the lengths parents will go to in ensuring their kids succeed.  The Displacements sounds good too.

[KrissiK]

I am also reading Bunyan’s “The Pilgrim’s Progress” with a study gude. i just wanted to get more out of it than just reading. So, i bought a companion study guide which is good.  I also picked up and will start this evening “A Gentleman in Moscow” by Amor Towles. A friend recommended it.

Edited February 26, 2023 by KrissiK

[marbel]

12 minutes ago, KrissiK said:

I am also reading Bunyan’s “The Pilgrim’s Progress” with a study gude. i just wanted to get more out of it than just reading. So, i bought a companion study guide which is good.  I also picked up and will start this evening “A Gentleman in Moscow” by Amor Towles. A friend recommended it.

A Gentleman in Moscow is one of my favorite books! I had a slow start with it, and rejected it once, but went back to it and loved it so much!  

[Kidlit]

Just finished and LOVED Beth Moore's memoir in audio, All My Knotted Up Life.  The biggest thing I have in common with Beth is being raised in the church (though not Southern Baptist or anyhing close for me) and being Southern.  Those two things made it extremely enjoyable.  I also LOVED her honesty about things she's only hinted at before.   It was a 5 star listen for me. 

[Kareni]

1 hour ago, KrissiK said:

 I also picked up and will start this evening “A Gentleman in Moscow” by Amor Towles. A friend recommended it.

I quite enjoyed this book. I hope that you will, too!

Regards,

Kareni

[Grace Hopper]

6 minutes ago, Kidlit said:

Just finished and LOVED Beth Moore's memoir in audio, All My Knotted Up Life.  The biggest thing I have in common with Beth is being raised in the church (though not Southern Baptist or anyhing close for me) and being Southern.  Those two things made it extremely enjoyable.  I also LOVED her honesty about things she's only hinted at before.   It was a 5 star listen for me. 

Does she read it herself? I was about to order the book but if she is the audiobook reader, I’d prefer that!

[math teacher]

On 2/17/2023 at 7:41 AM, KrissiK said:

I guess I am on a biography kick. I finished “Becoming Elisabeth Elliot” by Ellen Vaughn. the first volume. Good book. i have to say i never liked the woman. i always thought her as cold, demanding and too perfect. This book was an authorized biography, and I really have a different opinion of her now. While i don’t think i would ever be friends with her, I am understanding that she is just a very complex person and i have a new appreciation for her.

I am also reading the autobiography of a man (now passed away) who was a big name in my denomination. It is very interesting. I’m learning a lot of history, which is fascinating, and also just…stuff about the denomination (Mennonite Brethren). He seems very even handed, neither gushing, nor bashing, but very objective about the strengths and problems the mid-twentieth century MB’s had. I am enjoying this book.

You might enjoy Becoming Mrs. Lewis by Patti Callahan. It's the story of the woman who became C.S. Lewis's wife. I listened to it on audible, and I thought it was well done. And a fun one-The Autobiography of Santa Claus by Jeff Guinn.

[alysee]

I cant figure out what to read next. I Keep picking up duds. Suggestions for me? I usually like murder mysteries, Amish mysteries, fiction(that doesn't have infidelity)

 

[marbel]

18 minutes ago, alysee said:

I cant figure out what to read next. I Keep picking up duds. Suggestions for me? I usually like murder mysteries, Amish mysteries, fiction(that doesn't have infidelity)

 

A Gentleman in Moscow! 

[marbel]

I'm trying to decide which Dickens novel to read next. I have already read:

Oliver Twist

A Christmas Carol

Bleak House

Hard Times

Great Expectations

David Copperfield

I own all his novels in the lovely Oxford Illustrated Editions. Anyone remember book clubs - where they'd entice you to join up by selling you something ridiculously cheap, and then you had to buy a certain number of books to remain in the "club?" That's how I got my full set of Dickens for, like almost nothing. There is some nonfiction in there too. 

Anyway... Dickens fans, what is your favorite?  

[Amethyst]

7 hours ago, kokotg said:

My Less is Lost audiobook loan timed out, and now I'm halfway through with 11 weeks to go on the waitlist! Oops. So now I just started The Cartographers based on a Facebook friend's strong recommendation. It's a thriller about maps, which isn't my usual sort of fare, but we'll see. And then I'm reading David Guterson's The Last Case, which started off slow but has me sucked in now, nearly halfway through. David Guterson is the Snow Falling on Cedars guy who also homeschooled his kids and wrote a book about homeschooling before he was well known, so I've always had him in my head as an interesting guy, though I hadn't read anything of his since Snow Falling on Cedars many years ago.

Family Matters by Guterson was one of the books I read way back when I was a brand new homeschooler. Then loved Snow Falling on Cedars. The Last Case is on my Want to Read list. Interested to hear how you like it. 
 

I’m a little late to this thread, but this month I’ve been reading My Phantoms by Gwendolyn Riley and really just schlogging through. Finally gave up when my girls gave me Lessons in Chemistry for my bday , and enjoying that much better. Phantoms is going back to the library unfinished! Just started listening to Rebecca on Libby. 

[Vintage81]

2 hours ago, KrissiK said:

I am also reading Bunyan’s “The Pilgrim’s Progress” with a study gude. i just wanted to get more out of it than just reading. So, i bought a companion study guide which is good.  I also picked up and will start this evening “A Gentleman in Moscow” by Amor Towles. A friend recommended it.

 

2 hours ago, marbel said:

A Gentleman in Moscow is one of my favorite books! I had a slow start with it, and rejected it once, but went back to it and loved it so much!  

 

1 hour ago, Kareni said:

I quite enjoyed this book. I hope that you will, too!

Regards,

Kareni

I also really enjoyed A Gentleman in Moscow! It was a slow burn, but a good read. I have The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles on my TBR shelf and I’m determined to get to it this year! ☺️

[Kidlit]

1 hour ago, Grace Hopper said:

Does she read it herself? I was about to order the book but if she is the audiobook reader, I’d prefer that!

Yes!!!  This made it extra good to me. 

[Vintage81]

1 hour ago, math teacher said:

You might enjoy Becoming Mrs. Lewis by Patti Callahan. It's the story of the woman who became C.S. Lewis's wife. I listened to it on audible, and I thought it was well done.

I read this book a few years ago for book club…it was an interesting story.

[Storygirl]

1 hour ago, alysee said:

I cant figure out what to read next. I Keep picking up duds. Suggestions for me? I usually like murder mysteries, Amish mysteries, fiction(that doesn't have infidelity)

 

Have you read the Linda Castillo mystery series? Kate Burkholder is the chief of police in the town where she grew up. She used to be Amish. This series is intense in parts and is not a gentle Amish mystery, though. The first one or two are not my favorites, but she is on my "must read" list whenever she writes a new one.

[Storygirl]

1 hour ago, alysee said:

I cant figure out what to read next. I Keep picking up duds. Suggestions for me? I usually like murder mysteries, Amish mysteries, fiction(that doesn't have infidelity)

 

Or maybe the Flavia de Luce series by Alan Bradley? They are categorized as adult mysteries, but Flavia is a precocious child sleuth. Completely delightful.

[Storygirl]

40 minutes ago, Vintage81 said:

 

 

I also really enjoyed A Gentleman in Moscow! It was a slow burn, but a good read. I have The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles on my TBR shelf and I’m determined to get to it this year! ☺️

I really enjoyed The Lincoln Highway more than A Gentleman in Moscow, and DH is the opposite!

[Kareni]

2 hours ago, marbel said:

Anyone remember book clubs - where they'd entice you to join up by selling you something ridiculously cheap, and then you had to buy a certain number of books to remain in the "club?" That's how I got my full set of Dickens for, like almost nothing.

I belonged to such a club and have my own gilded set of classics!

 

2 hours ago, marbel said:

Anyway... Dickens fans, what is your favorite?  

I haven't read much Dickens, but my favorite was A Tale of Two Cities.

Regards,

Kareni

[Kassia]

3 hours ago, Storygirl said:

I really enjoyed The Lincoln Highway more than A Gentleman in Moscow, and DH is the opposite!

I'm like your DH.  I think both are great books but I preferred A Gentleman in Moscow.  Rules of Civility (same author) was really good too.

Just finished Rena's Promise: A Story of Sisters in Auschwitz, which was an amazing book but obviously not a light read.

Starting Foster, by Claire Keegan.  

 

[alysee]

9 hours ago, Storygirl said:

Have you read the Linda Castillo mystery series? Kate Burkholder is the chief of police in the town where she grew up. She used to be Amish. This series is intense in parts and is not a gentle Amish mystery, though. The first one or two are not my favorites, but she is on my "must read" list whenever she writes a new one.

I have! I'm just waiting my turn for her current book to read. 

[Grace Hopper]

12 hours ago, Storygirl said:

Or maybe the Flavia de Luce series by Alan Bradley? They are categorized as adult mysteries, but Flavia is a precocious child sleuth. Completely delightful.

Love Flavia! For so many years the annual release of a new story made every January seem not so cold! Wish there were more. 
 

I think Bradley was 70 when the first came out, then one a year for about ten years. I keep saying I’m going to do a reread and as I do, make a book list of all the literature referenced by the characters and have that be a reading challenge in itself. I thought a film series was in the works but may have been scrapped when covid hit. 

[Amoret]

17 hours ago, marbel said:

I'm trying to decide which Dickens novel to read next. I have already read:

Oliver Twist

A Christmas Carol

Bleak House

Hard Times

Great Expectations

David Copperfield

I own all his novels in the lovely Oxford Illustrated Editions. Anyone remember book clubs - where they'd entice you to join up by selling you something ridiculously cheap, and then you had to buy a certain number of books to remain in the "club?" That's how I got my full set of Dickens for, like almost nothing. There is some nonfiction in there too. 

Anyway... Dickens fans, what is your favorite?  

I have read all of his novels, except Martin Chuzzlewit, which is next on my list -- Bleak House is my very favorite, but I see that you have already read that. A Tale of Two Cities and Little Dorrit are my next two favorites.

[KrissiK]

23 hours ago, marbel said:

A Gentleman in Moscow is one of my favorite books! I had a slow start with it, and rejected it once, but went back to it and loved it so much!  

 

22 hours ago, Kareni said:

I quite enjoyed this book. I hope that you will, too!

Regards,

Kareni

 

21 hours ago, Vintage81 said:

 

 

I also really enjoyed A Gentleman in Moscow! It was a slow burn, but a good read. I have The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles on my TBR shelf and I’m determined to get to it this year! ☺️

I love it. I love the way Towles uses words. Already wondering which one of his to order next.

Edited February 27, 2023 by KrissiK

[The Governess]

On 2/6/2023 at 12:03 AM, The Governess said:

I love reading, but my current reading load has been positively exhausting!!

I teach ancient and medieval literature at a small private school. For my ancient lit class I am 2/3 of the way through  Plato’s Republic and about halfway through a related commentary. For my medieval literature class I just finished Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (the general prologue and about 6 of the actual tales) and the Cambridge Companion to the tales. Next up is Langland’s Piers Plowman and Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowls.

I am taking some literature classes through Oxford University’s continuing education department. We are currently studying Victorian literature. For that class, I’ve read The History of Mary Prince, The Wonderful Adventures of Mary Seacole, and Oliver Twist. I’m currently working through Jane Eyre and Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss. And I am reading excerpts from a fascinating  text on Victorian child psychology called The Mind of the Child.

End(ish) of February update:

Finished:

-Plato’s Republic - wish I had read this earlier! I think his Theory of Forms is beautiful even with its flaws. I like his idea of the tripartite soul governed by reason. The idea that education is meant to transform the mind so that it is able to understand the beautiful and so the soul is oriented toward the good... well, it doesn’t get much more classical than that! I certainly take issue with some elements of his “utopian” Just City, but overall I really enjoyed reading this.

Jane Eyre. Love, Love, Love this novel and have read it several times. I wish I had read this book as a teenager when I based my worth on how well I lived up to other’s expectations. Jane is passionate but also profoundly moral and is her own best friend and advocate.

The Mill on the Floss. A realist novel but surprisingly tragic and deterministic. I liked some of the characters but the family dynamics were so toxic. An important work, though, and I’m still thinking about it, which tells me there is something worthy there.

-Rajmohan’s Wife. This is a Bengali novel written during the Victorian period. Short and fun, with robbers, kidnappings, family feuds, and a secret romance. 

Still working on:

-Piers Plowman. There is some beautiful religious imagery in the story. Love is described as growing so full and heavy up in heaven that it spilled over onto earth in the form of Christ. But it’s also as small and sharp as the sharpest needle, one that can pierce through the highest wall or the strongest armor. Love can’t be kept out.

Started:

- Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics - I’m on Book 4 out of 10. I really like the idea of virtue ethics - that the kind of person you are is what matters, rather than the isolated outcomes of your actions. His idea of being-at-work, that virtue is an active state rather than a passive one, seems like a good thing for today’s passive generation to contemplate.

-Aristotle’s Way by Edith Hall - she takes Aristotle’s ethical ideas and applies them to our modern times. It’s nice to read this alongside the primary text.

Next up, I’ll be studying the Victorian poets for my class, reading Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, and seeing how Aquinas adapted Aristotle’s ethics for his Christian medieval audience. 

[The Governess]

On 2/25/2023 at 1:57 PM, marbel said:

I'm updating my reading log. So many discards! I keep getting books from the library and quitting them. 

Re: David Guterson - I also started The Last Case late last year, but I didn't finish it. I had loved Snow Falling on Cedars years ago. 

I finished The Franchise Affair (Josephine Tey) and enjoyed it. It was an odd mixture of outdated and contemporary - dealing with tabloid press and public opinion. I've started Tey's Miss Pym Disposes. 

Also listened to The Sedleigh Hall Murder and The Farming Murder, both by Roy Lewis. They were pretty good mysteries, main character (very likeable) is a lawyer struggling with glaucoma, but they got a little tedious and it seemed like book 3 in the series might be very similar, so I didn't go on. I might later though. I quite like the narrator (John Lee) and might put up with a not-super-great story read by him!

I started and rejected The Last Dickens, by Matthew Pearl. It had been on my list for a long while but I never got to it. Well, it was meant to be a Dickensian mystery involving Dicken's Mystery of Edwin Drood, which was unfinished when Dickens died. At about 100 pages I realized I could be reading an actual Dickens novel instead of a novel about Dickens.  (Other discards were The Whalebone Theater, Razorblade Tears (S A Crosby), Burntown by Jennifer McMahon, and A Fine Balance by Rohan Mistry. They just weren't for me.)

Still enjoying (mostly) Moby Dick. 

Trying to decide which Dickens to start. 

I recently read Oliver Twist and David Copperfield. I liked Copperfield more, but it’s quite long. The other one I’ve been wanting to read is Hard Times. 

[The Governess]

On 2/25/2023 at 6:23 PM, marbel said:

I'm trying to decide which Dickens novel to read next. I have already read:

Oliver Twist

A Christmas Carol

Bleak House

Hard Times

Great Expectations

David Copperfield

I own all his novels in the lovely Oxford Illustrated Editions. Anyone remember book clubs - where they'd entice you to join up by selling you something ridiculously cheap, and then you had to buy a certain number of books to remain in the "club?" That's how I got my full set of Dickens for, like almost nothing. There is some nonfiction in there too. 

Anyway... Dickens fans, what is your favorite?  

Ooops, I should have kept reading! You’ve read more Dickens than I have.

What about A Tale of Two Cities?

[Kareni]

I enjoyed the contemporary romance The Foreman and the Drifter: A Gay M/M Cowboy Romance (Farthingdale Ranch Book 1) by Jackie North. I'd say though that I favor the author's time travel romances. (Adult content) (FIC 19, RR 7, NF 2, NS 3//) 

"With Farthingdale Ranch at risk, Leland Tate, ranch manager, has to get tough and make sure everyone on the ranch follows the rules he’s laid out. That means no handouts, no fraternizing, and no drifters.

But what happens when a young drifter comes looking for a job? What happens when that drifter makes Leland want to break all the rules?"

Regards,

Kareni

[Quarter Note]

On 2/7/2023 at 11:26 PM, The Governess said:

You should definitely try one!! I started a year ago and have really enjoyed them. Their logic/critical reasoning course and another course on critical reading were both excellent introductions. And there are always such interesting people participating - of all ages and from all around the world.  

Sorry to take so long to get back to this.  I would really like to try one of the courses, I'm just not sure if I can keep up with the reading at this point in my life.  However, I decided that whether I take the course or not, I'm going to at least start on the reading list for "The Brontës".  How fun!

[Quarter Note]

On 2/25/2023 at 7:23 PM, marbel said:

I'm trying to decide which Dickens novel to read next. I have already read:

Oliver Twist

A Christmas Carol

Bleak House

Hard Times

Great Expectations

David Copperfield

I own all his novels in the lovely Oxford Illustrated Editions. Anyone remember book clubs - where they'd entice you to join up by selling you something ridiculously cheap, and then you had to buy a certain number of books to remain in the "club?" That's how I got my full set of Dickens for, like almost nothing. There is some nonfiction in there too. 

Anyway... Dickens fans, what is your favorite?  

Oh, @marbel, I'll jump in!  Let's see - @Kareni, @Amoret, and @The Governess all give a nod to A Tale of Two Cities, and I'll add my recommendation as well.  That book has one single word that is, to me, the single most poignant word in all of English literature that I've ever read.  Does that pique your interest? 😉  If you do read it, please let us know.  I'd love to talk about that scene with you and others!

Also, would you consider The Pickwick Papers?  I read that for the first time a few years ago.  It took about ten chapters (not to worry - they're short, Dickens-length chapters) before I could really get into it, but after that I loved it!  You'll find in there a proto-Christmas Carol, lots of madcap comedy. and of course, his witty turns of phrases.  Especially at the end, Dickens shows his usual themes of redemption and goodness.  By the last chapter (which was about a thousand pages out!), I didn't want it to end!

Have fun!

Edited February 28, 2023 by Quarter Note

[Quarter Note]

On 2/26/2023 at 7:57 PM, The Governess said:

End(ish) of February update:

Finished:

-Plato’s Republic - wish I had read this earlier! I think his Theory of Forms is beautiful even with its flaws. I like his idea of the tripartite soul governed by reason. The idea that education is meant to transform the mind so that it is able to understand the beautiful and so the soul is oriented toward the good... well, it doesn’t get much more classical than that! I certainly take issue with some elements of his “utopian” Just City, but overall I really enjoyed reading this.

Jane Eyre. Love, Love, Love this novel and have read it several times. I wish I had read this book as a teenager when I based my worth on how well I lived up to other’s expectations. Jane is passionate but also profoundly moral and is her own best friend and advocate.

The Mill on the Floss. A realist novel but surprisingly tragic and deterministic. I liked some of the characters but the family dynamics were so toxic. An important work, though, and I’m still thinking about it, which tells me there is something worthy there.

-Rajmohan’s Wife. This is a Bengali novel written during the Victorian period. Short and fun, with robbers, kidnappings, family feuds, and a secret romance. 

Still working on:

-Piers Plowman. There is some beautiful religious imagery in the story. Love is described as growing so full and heavy up in heaven that it spilled over onto earth in the form of Christ. But it’s also as small and sharp as the sharpest needle, one that can pierce through the highest wall or the strongest armor. Love can’t be kept out.

Started:

- Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics - I’m on Book 4 out of 10. I really like the idea of virtue ethics - that the kind of person you are is what matters, rather than the isolated outcomes of your actions. His idea of being-at-work, that virtue is an active state rather than a passive one, seems like a good thing for today’s passive generation to contemplate.

-Aristotle’s Way by Edith Hall - she takes Aristotle’s ethical ideas and applies them to our modern times. It’s nice to read this alongside the primary text.

Next up, I’ll be studying the Victorian poets for my class, reading Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, and seeing how Aquinas adapted Aristotle’s ethics for his Christian medieval audience. 

The Governess, you're my kind of reader!  😊  Piers Plowman has been on my list of books to read for several years, but I haven't gotten to it yet.  I also love, love, love Jane Eyre.  

I think that I'll just take your finished list and tack it on to my to-read list.  

[Kassia]

13 minutes ago, Quarter Note said:

 

Also, would you consider The Pickwick Papers?  I read that for the first time a few years ago.  It took about ten chapters (not to worry - they're short, Dickens-length chapters) before I could really get into it, but after that I loved it!  You'll find in there a proto-Christmas Carol, lots of madcap comedy. and of course, his witty turns of phrases.  Especially at the end, Dickens shows his usual themes of redemption and goodness.  By the last chapter (which was about a thousand pages out!), I didn't want it to end!

Have fun!

Great suggestion!  🙂

[Kareni]

I have been hurriedly trying to finish my next book group book before my daughter arrives Friday from South Korea; this was a challenge since the book is about 600 pages but, yay, I am done! I did have to admire the author's wit when in the acknowledgments she thanks her editor and says, "Paring down an unwieldy thousand page manuscript into this slender wisp of a thing was not an easy process...."

I enjoyed Great Circle: A novel by Maggie Shipstead (but did I say it was long?); it is basically the life story of an aviatrix and her attempt to circle the globe over the poles and the story of a modern day actress who is cast to play her in a movie. The book also tells the story of the pilot's parents and her twin brother. The book has a huge cast of characters, and I could have benefited from a list. (As a side note, the Kindle version which I used to read the final 200 pages is not indexed so there was no help to be had there in looking up character names.) All that said, this proved to be a good read and I look forward to the discussion. Trigger alerts for abuse to children and adults.(FIC 20, RR 7, NF 2, NS 3//) 

"After being rescued as infants from a sinking ocean liner in 1914, Marian and Jamie Graves are raised by their dissolute uncle in Missoula, Montana. There--after encountering a pair of barnstorming pilots passing through town in beat-up biplanes--Marian commences her lifelong love affair with flight. At fourteen she drops out of school and finds an unexpected and dangerous patron in a wealthy bootlegger who provides a plane and subsidizes her lessons, an arrangement that will haunt her for the rest of her life, even as it allows her to fulfill her destiny: circumnavigating the globe by flying over the North and South Poles.

A century later, Hadley Baxter is cast to play Marian in a film that centers on Marian's disappearance in Antarctica. Vibrant, canny, disgusted with the claustrophobia of Hollywood, Hadley is eager to redefine herself after a romantic film franchise has imprisoned her in the grip of cult celebrity. Her immersion into the character of Marian unfolds, thrillingly, alongside Marian's own story, as the two women's fates--and their hunger for self-determination in vastly different geographies and times--collide. Epic and emotional, meticulously researched and gloriously told, Great Circle is a monumental work of art, and a tremendous leap forward for the prodigiously gifted Maggie Shipstead."

Regards,

Kareni

[Amira]

I'm nearly finished with the second of two books I've listened to this week by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States and Loaded.  There's a lot of overlap between the two of them, but they're also both distinctly important books, I thought.  I have her Not A Nation of Immigrants and "All the Real Indians Died Off" on hold.  But next I'll listen to These Precious Days for my book group.

[marbel]

7 hours ago, Quarter Note said:

Oh, @marbel, I'll jump in!  Let's see - @Kareni, @Amoret, and @The Governess all give a nod to A Tale of Two Cities, and I'll add my recommendation as well.  That book has one single word that is, to me, the single most poignant word in all of English literature that I've ever read.  Does that pique your interest? 😉  If you do read it, please let us know.  I'd love to talk about that scene with you and others!

Also, would you consider The Pickwick Papers?  I read that for the first time a few years ago.  It took about ten chapters (not to worry - they're short, Dickens-length chapters) before I could really get into it, but after that I loved it!  You'll find in there a proto-Christmas Carol, lots of madcap comedy. and of course, his witty turns of phrases.  Especially at the end, Dickens shows his usual themes of redemption and goodness.  By the last chapter (which was about a thousand pages out!), I didn't want it to end!

Have fun!

OK, Pickwick Papers it is! I did note all the suggestions for A Tale of Two Cities, but that is one I have never been able to get far into. I don't know why. I was all set to pull out Nicholas Nickelby but am just as happy to go with the Pickwickians!  🙂

[Kareni]

A bookish post from the Word Wenches site ~

WWR—What We've Read in February

Regards,

Kareni

[KrissiK]

4 hours ago, marbel said:

OK, Pickwick Papers it is! I did note all the suggestions for A Tale of Two Cities, but that is one I have never been able to get far into. I don't know why. I was all set to pull out Nicholas Nickelby but am just as happy to go with the Pickwickians!  🙂

I'm tempted by Pickwick now, myself. But it will have to wait. I'm reading three books now.

[Vintage81]

Since we were just talking about this one…

https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-and-culture/a40991963/ewan-mcgregor-a-gentleman-in-moscow/

[Kareni]

Last night I finished The Flaw in All Magic (Magebreakers Book 1) by Ben S. Dobson; this was an enjoyable quick mystery/fantasy.  The main character was expelled from a magical university after revealing in his thesis that he did not possess any magic. He is asked to help solve a murder at that same university. (FIC 21, RR 7, NF 2, NS 3//) 

"In a city of magic, it takes a man with none to solve an impossible murder.

Tane Carver can't use magic, and he doesn't trust it. But he understands it better than most, even in a city of elves and dwarves and sprites and mages. So when an impossible murder is committed on the campus of a warded magical university, he's called in to consult.

The only problem is, it's the same university he was kicked out of for lying about his ability to use magic. And the lead investigator is an old flame who isn't so fond of him anymore. And then there's the half-crazy half-orc who insists she's his partner, whether he likes it or not. Oh, and the masked mage who keeps trying to kill him.

So there are a lot of problems, really.

Now, Tane’s life depends on the one truth that has never failed him. The flaw in all magic that those who have it like to ignore: the mage.

Outsmart the mage, and you outsmart the spell.

And outsmarting mages is what Tane does best."

Regards,

Kareni