Kassia Posted July 12 Share Posted July 12 (edited) 2 hours ago, Ottakee said: Same here. What one would you suggest? I'm planning on reading The Colour of Lightning next, but I think you were asking @Lady Florida.since she's actually read the books. 🙂 Edited July 12 by Kassia 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amoret Posted July 12 Share Posted July 12 30 minutes ago, Ottakee said: What one would you suggest? I am in the middle of Simon the Fiddler, and it is really good. I am going to have many long periods of waiting this week, so I just requested two or three of her books from the library to keep me busy. 6 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madteaparty Posted July 12 Share Posted July 12 (edited) On vacation i read the International Man Booker winner, Kairos. This was an interesting experience I’m still processing a little. I don’t see how it would be appealing to anyone without an eastern block background or some knowledge of that world. I started French Windows because i wanted something easy after Kairos and something set in France to help me stay in the mood for my own book. It’s easy and short and engaging so finishing that on my flight tomorrow. I also brought Stone Blind and Crossing to Safety on paperback but my sisters requisitioned those so i think I will get on kindle now. ETA that Kairos did put me in the mood for some Brecht. Edited July 12 by madteaparty 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bookbard Posted July 12 Share Posted July 12 1 hour ago, Laura Corin said: I just finished re-reading it. I was particularly struck this time by how JE very nearly succumbs to Rivers' coercive control. Yes! Bronte is able to draw such fine portraits of different sorts of people. And it seems an extremely religious book nowadays, but apparently it was seen as anti-Christian in its time. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lady Florida. Posted July 12 Share Posted July 12 1 hour ago, Kassia said: I'm planning on reading The Colour of the World next, but I think you were asking @Lady Florida.since she's actually read the books. 🙂 The three I read are News of the World, Simon the Fiddler, and Chenneville. I can recommend all of them. I was thinking of reading Enemy Women next but it will likely depend on which I can get from my library. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kassia Posted July 12 Share Posted July 12 53 minutes ago, Lady Florida. said: The three I read are News of the World, Simon the Fiddler, and Chenneville. I can recommend all of them. I was thinking of reading Enemy Women next but it will likely depend on which I can get from my library. I'm glad you quoted me because I had the title wrong - I want to read The Color of Lightning next! I mixed up the titles! Thanks for sharing the ones you've read. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmandaVT Posted July 13 Share Posted July 13 Finished the Calculating Stars - I liked it enough to finish, and the plot has me hooked enough to want to see what happens next, so I ordered the next in the series, The Fated Sky, today. I love the used options on Amazon! I also started James this week. I really like it so far—it follows the plot of Huckleberry Finn, and I'm enjoying reading Jim/James' perspective of the events. A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view. From the “cult literary icon” (Oprah Daily), Pulitzer Prize Finalist, and one of the most decorated writers of our lifetime. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ottakee Posted July 13 Share Posted July 13 (edited) I just finished Before I am Gone I got it as a free kindle book. Story of a young woman all alone in this world who is diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. She then makes a bucket list to do before she is gone. As few parts are a bit of a stretch but the story pulled me in and caused me to need Kleenex more than once. Two years ago I lost a friend to cancer just 8 weeks after a diagnosis. Wednesday another friend from church had surgery for brain cancer and they could only get 85%of it. Not sure what her prognosis is yet. Those things made the book very real to me. Edited July 13 by Ottakee 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kareni Posted July 13 Share Posted July 13 That does sound like a challenging read, @Ottakee. I send good wishes to your friend. Regards, Kareni 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori D. Posted July 13 Share Posted July 13 23 hours ago, Amoret said: I am in the middle of Simon the Fiddler, and it is really good. I am going to have many long periods of waiting this week, so I just requested two or three of her books from the library to keep me busy. Fantastic book! News of the World, also by Jiles is just as good. I've also read her Lighthouse Island. It is a futuristic dystopia, and also well-done with some wonderful, poetic prose. It falls down in the last chapters when it suddenly switches to a completely new character POV, and leaves the ending flat... but it's still worth reading, even though flawed. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kareni Posted July 13 Share Posted July 13 I've read several books over the past week. (Adult content in all.) I enjoyed The Cowboy and the Outcast and The Cook and the Gangster which are both contemporary romances by Jackie North. The first is about a convict on parole and a man who works on the ranch on which he is serving parole while the second is about a cook on a western ranch and a man (with mob ties) who had been his best friend/crush some fifteen years earlier. Here are the blurbs: "Everywhere I go, I look for home. You are my home. On the run for two years from an abusive family situation, Kell searches for a safe harbor. Instead of that happening, Kell gets arrested, but, unbelievably, amidst the horrors of prison, there shines a glimmer of hope. Marston’s life is a mess. Everything he touches crumbles to dust. A second chance comes in the form of a job with the Farthingdale Valley New Start Program, except the two parolees assigned to him don’t even show up, so the job is a disaster from the get-go. Temptation appears to Marston in the form of a particular ex-con: skinny, foul-mouthed, unable to keep up with the other prison-hardened parolees. Now he’s Marston’s responsibility. Marston has failed at everything else - he knows he’ll fail at resisting temptation. Can’t sleep. Can’t touch. Can’t have. Kell and Marston are lonely, until they find each other. Can they make love last?" and "“Time cannot erase the love I feel for you, my friend.” Levi has worked very hard to find a private corner of the world where his past can’t catch up to him. His life, with its fourteen-hour days working in the ranch’s kitchen, is a little humdrum, but he likes it that way. And it’s safe, because he lets no one get close. While cutting onions one day, Cassidy sees a clip of a documentary on TV, and lo, he sees his old friend Levi, who he’s been looking for for years. The next day, he’s traveling west to Wyoming, taking a job as a chef at a guest ranch. When Cassidy shows up in his kitchen, Levi’s world is turned upside-down." ** I also read Wish from the Heart by Hope Bennett which is a contemporary romance novella featuring a djinn and the man who has just purchased his bottle. The djinn had lived a normal life until about twenty years ago when he was cursed by a rejected lover. "I don’t trust men. I especially don’t trust men with my heart, not that I have one. I don’t have a body at all, actually. Genies don’t. So why does my new master make me feel all the things I don’t want to? Pat has no idea that the bottle he just bought in an old bric-a-brac shop contains a genie. Me. I have to obey his commands. I have to grant his three wishes. Only Pat doesn’t play by the rules and his first wish isn’t even for himself. How am I meant to hate him when I learn how big his heart is? A genie falls for his master romance, featuring a prickly genie, an adorkable master, three wishes, and a happily ever after." /// Regards, Kareni 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori D. Posted July 13 Share Posted July 13 On 7/12/2024 at 2:20 PM, Kassia said: I read News of the World and really liked it, but haven't read anything else written by her yet. Simon the Fiddler is set in the same time/location/world, and the main character of News of the World even shows up briefly in one short scene in Simon the Fiddler. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori D. Posted July 13 Share Posted July 13 (edited) On 7/1/2024 at 7:24 PM, Kareni said: ...For my book group, I read Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey; I'd heard many mentions of this author, but this was my first book by her. I talked a lot about this book with my husband as I was reading it speculating about what might happen next. I'd call that a successful story! ... Brat Farrar, along with Miss Pym Disposes, are the most "different" from Tey's usual style -- both of these have more of a slow/deep character development focus, with the mystery aspect more in the backdrop. But all of her books are incredibly well-written and WAY worth reading -- read them slowly and savor them. 😄 Daughter of Time is the perhaps the book Tey is most known for. It is more of a traditional mystery-- and yet totally unique. When the author's usual detective character is laid up in the hospital, through reading some books and bed-bound investigation, he delves into the centuries-old mystery of King Richard III, and what happened to his nephews, the "Princes in the Tower" -- 2 young boys/brothers, who were imprisoned in the Tower of London in the late 1400s, during the almost century-long fight for the throne that became known as The War of the Roses... Anyways, all of her books are well-worth reading! 😄 Edited July 13 by Lori D. 7 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kareni Posted July 14 Share Posted July 14 I enjoyed reading/looking at Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds: 100 New Ways to See the World by Ian Wright. If you or someone you know likes maps/information, this book might hit the spot. "Which countries don’t have rivers? Which ones have North Korean embassies? Who drives on the “wrong” side of the road? How many national economies are bigger than California’s? And where can you still find lions in the wild? You’ll learn answers to these questions and many more in Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds. This one-of-a-kind atlas is packed with eye-opening analysis (Which nations have had female leaders?), whimsical insight (Where can’t you find a McDonald’s?), and surprising connections that illuminate the contours of culture, history, and politics. Each of these 100 maps will change the way you see the world―and your place in it. 100 color maps." Regards, Kareni 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura Corin Posted July 14 Share Posted July 14 15 hours ago, Lori D. said: Brat Farrar, along with Miss Pym Disposes, are the most "different" from Tey's usual style -- both of these have more of a slow/deep character development focus, with the mystery aspect more in the backdrop. But all of her books are incredibly well-written and WAY worth reading -- read them slowly and savor them. 😄 Daughter of Time is the perhaps the book Tey is most known for. It is more of a traditional mystery-- and yet totally unique. When the author's usual detective character is laid up in the hospital, through reading some books and bed-bound investigation, he delves into the centuries-old mystery of King Richard III, and what happened to his nephews, the "Princes in the Tower" -- 2 young boys/brothers, who were imprisoned in the Tower of London in the late 1400s, during the almost century-long fight for the throne that became known as The War of the Roses... Anyways, all of her books are well-worth reading! 😄 I think each of her books is quite different though. It's one of the things that has got in the way of TV adaptations, I would think - the tone and trajectory is different in each. I haven't read her hit play, Richard of Bordeaux, but I'm sure that would be interesting too. I'm reading Farewell my Lovely, continuing with The Story of Art and listening to Mother-Daughter Murder Night. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lady Florida. Posted July 14 Share Posted July 14 On 7/12/2024 at 9:39 PM, AmandaVT said: I also started James this week. I really like it so far—it follows the plot of Huckleberry Finn, and I'm enjoying reading Jim/James' perspective of the events. That's this month's book for my IRL book club. I won't be at the meeting because dh is having shoulder replacement surgery Tuesday and the meeting is Wednesday. I'm planning to read it anyway but it's still on hold at the library and will be for several more weeks. This morning I finished North Woods. It tells the story of one house through the centuries and in doing so tells the story of its inhabitants and the land. I liked it but there was an unexpected aspect that annoyed me. I gave it three stars for the annoyance factor, otherwise it probably would have been a four star read for me. If you're okay with spoilers, already read it, or aren't planning to read it, this is what annoyed me. Spoiler I was not expecting ghosts and I really dislike stories with a supernatural element. The ghosts were all former inhabitants of the house. I understand from a storytelling point of view how the ghosts could tell the story of the house better than just a narrator but that didn't make me like it any better. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kassia Posted July 14 Share Posted July 14 @Lady Florida. hope your DH's surgery goes well. I know recovery can be difficult from shoulder surgery. I'm still reading Sociopath, but I really don't like it. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lady Florida. Posted July 14 Share Posted July 14 Just now, Kassia said: @Lady Florida. hope your DH's surgery goes well. I know recovery can be difficult from shoulder surgery. Thanks. He's having reverse total shoulder replacement and the doctor said full recovery will take 6 months to a year. However, he should be on the road to recovery in about 3 months and able to do most things by then. It's his right shoulder and he joked that maybe he could try using my left handed scissors so at least he has a good attitude about it. A friend had total shoulder replacement (but not reverse) in January and she's still in physical therapy. Her range of motion is almost completely back to normal. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kareni Posted July 14 Share Posted July 14 I needed to read a book featuring pets for a summer reading bingo. I enjoyed In Dog We Trust: #1 in the Golden Retriever Mystery Series by Neil S. Plakcy which is described as a cozy mystery. It's the first in a series of nineteen books, I see. A man (serving parole for a hacking crime) is close by when his neighbor is murdered; he calls in the crime and ends up caring for her dog, Rochester. Rochester often alerts the man to clues that help him and others solve his neighbor's murder. I would read on, but sadly none of my libraries carry the series. "Steve’s ripe for a new relationship—divorced, over forty, and still dusting himself off from a lamentable sojourn in prison, an unusual experience for a professor, to say the least. (He really must do something about his hacking habit!) Rochester’s a handsome, homeless, loveable golden retriever whom Steve had always found too big, too enthusiastic, and too shaggy. But tragedy struck their neighborhood when someone murdered Caroline, Steve’s nice next-door neighbor, while she walked her best friend, Rochester. Steve’s the unlucky guy who finds her body and he just knows, despite their differences, that he has to take in the broken-hearted pooch. Once they’re both properly rehomed, these two form a detective partnership that’ll make you sit up and beg for more. Eat your hearts out, Spade & Archer—pretty soon they’ve got a warm and fuzzy thing going. Big furry forthrightness—not to mention heart—meets tech-savvy craftiness as they work their case. Rochester has no idea he has the potential to be the greatest doggy detective since Rex the Wonder Dog was a pup. But he’s got a job to do and he has to find a way to train Steve in the fine art of investigation. Unbeknownst to Steve, his life just changed radically—because a big furry mentor has just trotted into it. Both want justice for Caroline, and Rochester’s way of expressing it is simply to sniff out one clue after another in the hope his two-legged colleague can piece them together. Steve’s way—when all’s said and done— is still to bend the law a little, with the help of Caroline’s contraband laptop. And also to follow Rochester’s trail of treats." Regards, Kareni 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teaching3bears Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 On 7/12/2024 at 12:45 PM, Lady Florida. said: Add me to the list. I liked The Nightingale but didn't love it. I started to read The Great Alone but couldn't get interested and abandoned it. I just don't think she's an author for me. I absolutely loved Winter Garden but I did not love The Nightingale either. It took me two years to get through it. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teaching3bears Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 I have been reading a lot: The Other Mothers by Katherine Faulkner (i did not get a lot out of it) The Burning Girl by Claire Messud (worth reading) The Perfect Parents by J.A. Baker (on Kindle) was okay. The Gifted School by Bruce Holsinger. The writing was not great but the characters were quite good. However, I hated the ending. Great Expectations by Dickens. I am reading this with my sons and I think he’s brilliant. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GailV Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 The Boys in the Boat: Nine American and Their Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown. Audio edition; listened in the car on the way to Colorado and back. It's 14 hours long, and generally a great car book except that during some of the passages describing races you want to drive faster and faster. We also have a hardback copy, and will revisit some sections in it. Plus we want to re-watch the movie now. And DH wants to watch Triumph of the Will, which he hadn't heard of before this (we know so much more about Leni Reifenstahl now, plus all sorts of other people, places and events from this time period). Purrs and Poison: Chatty Cat Cozy Mysteries No. 1 by Elle Wren Burke. Extremely fluffy murder mystery centering on a cat with the ability to psychically communicate with a specific handful of people. Book one in a series, but it seems to be a spin-off from some other series that likely included a lot of these same characters. This was my down-time read on vacation, and was pretty perfect for that. Free on Kindle Unlimited. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GailV Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 On 7/12/2024 at 5:25 PM, madteaparty said: ETA that Kairos did put me in the mood for some Brecht. I've shared this with my Brecht-loving, book-loving dd! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kassia Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 @GailV I've been wanting to read Boys in the Boat for a very long time and have never gotten to it for some reason. My dd might like the cat book. 🙂 I finished Sociopath, a memoir, and hated it. I shouldn't have finished it and am mad at myself for wasting more time on it. I'm starting a historical fiction book that I expect to like, Forgotten Fire. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kareni Posted July 16 Share Posted July 16 For my book group meeting this week, I read Fever by Mary Beth Keane. This was an intriguing book about Typhoid Mary that left me feeling a lot of sympathy for her. I'll be interested to discuss the book with others in the group. "On the eve of the twentieth century, Mary Mallon emigrated from Ireland at age fifteen to make her way in New York City. Brave, headstrong, and dreaming of being a cook, she fought to climb up from the lowest rung of the domestic-service ladder. Canny and enterprising, she worked her way to the kitchen, and discovered in herself the true talent of a chef. Sought after by New York aristocracy, and with an independence rare for a woman of the time, she seemed to have achieved the life she’d aimed for when she arrived in Castle Garden. Then one determined “medical engineer” noticed that she left a trail of disease wherever she cooked, and identified her as an “asymptomatic carrier” of Typhoid Fever. With this seemingly preposterous theory, he made Mallon a hunted woman. The Department of Health sent Mallon to North Brother Island, where she was kept in isolation from 1907 to 1910, then released under the condition that she never work as a cook again. Yet for Mary—proud of her former status and passionate about cooking—the alternatives were abhorrent. She defied the edict. Bringing early-twentieth-century New York alive—the neighborhoods, the bars, the park carved out of upper Manhattan, the boat traffic, the mansions and sweatshops and emerging skyscrapers—Fever is an ambitious retelling of a forgotten life. In the imagination of Mary Beth Keane, Mary Mallon becomes a fiercely compelling, dramatic, vexing, sympathetic, uncompromising, and unforgettable heroine." Regards, Kareni 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmandaVT Posted July 16 Share Posted July 16 I'm working through The Anxious Generation this week. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet, aside from the author being a bit heavy-handed so far. I feel like he's trying to bash me on the head with the point that he's trying to make. Even though I agree with his premise that the rise of smartphones and social media is a contributing factor to increasing anxiety and depression in Gen Z and Gen Alpha, at the moment, I want to find counterarguments because I'm annoyed with his writing. Will update when I finish! 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrissiK Posted July 16 Share Posted July 16 (edited) I am in the middle of “Nicholas and Alexandra: The Classic Account of the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty” by Robert K. Massie, which is an excellent book, though very very very long and now that we’re in the middle of WWI, quite depressing. And i know it’s going to get worse because they all die. I decided to do a little mini-unit on Russia this summer, so I’ve been also watching the free video series about Russia that Hillsdale College had been advertising and then, just for kicks, added Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment”. That book is….very compelling, but hard to read. And long. Sometimes I wonder why I do this to myself. Edited July 16 by KrissiK 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kareni Posted July 17 Share Posted July 17 I bought and read a book that was released today, JFH: Justin F**king Halstead by GiGi DeGraham. It's a contemporary romance featuring two college students who become friends and then more. Both are well known on campus -- one is a talented football player; the other suffered a brutal attack the prior year. A lot of attention in the story is paid to dealing with trauma and recovery. This is a book that I will reread. (Adult content) "Ethan Andrews never saw Justin Halstead coming. A broody jock with a propensity for studying. A hot-mess conundrum who, for some reason, continues to show up at Ethan’s dorm room door. Something is happening between them, but one particular sport stands in the way. Ethan never imagined falling for an overbearing, overprotective athlete with a Hall of Fame future and a secret heart of gold. Taking the giant leap out of the closet nearly killed Ethan, and no one seems to understand his desire to close that door and stay inside his safe place. Strangely, Ethan finds he’s not alone, and it’s with the last person he ever expected to be his biggest supporter…" ** I also reread one of the author's prior books, Lucky by GiGi DeGraham, as I thought the two books might be connected. If they are, I did not see it. I enjoyed the reread. Regards, Kareni 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ausmumof3 Posted July 17 Share Posted July 17 On 7/10/2024 at 4:50 AM, Lady Florida. said: I'm one of those people who always has several books going at a time. My current crop includes: Napoleon: A Life, by Andrew Roberts. This would be a doorstopper if I wasn't reading the Kindle edition and since it's such a big book it's my long term read. It might take me a few months to finish because I don't read from it every day. Chenneville, by Paulette Jiles. Audible edition. This will be my 3rd novel by this author, the others being News of the World and Simon the Fiddler. News of the World is my favorite so far but I've yet to be disappointed by her novels. The Eustace Diamonds, by Anthony Trollope. A Goodreads group I'm in is reading the Palliser novels this year, one every other month. I'm behind because this is the third one that was supposed to be read in May. I was out of the country the entire month and forgot to download it to my Kindle. They're on the fourth one this month. I should be able to catch up before September when we read the fifth one. North Woods: A Novel, by Daniel Mason. This is the story of a house in New England (a cabin really) told through the stories of its inhabitants over the centuries. I just listened to The Eustace Diamonds on Libby. I’m not sure if I could have waded through it as a book but the audio was fun. Very Becky Sharp vibes I felt. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ausmumof3 Posted July 17 Share Posted July 17 I can’t remember which books I’d finished when I last posted. I have new Bluetooth headphones and I’ve been on school holidays so I’ve listened to a tonne of audio while cleaning and sorting. I’ve been on a bit of a Trollope reading marathon and listened to The Eustace Diamonds and Phineas Redux. I’ve just listened as they came in on Libby so out I’d order and I feel like I’ve missed some back story but still enjoyed them. The narrator was Simon Vance and I enjoy his style. I’ve also listened to Dune. I promised DS I’d listen to it and the last two times it’s come into my holds, I’ve been flat out and didn’t get to it. I had initial reservations but ended up really deep into the story. I found myself wishing I had the physical book to commonplace some quotes and go back and check details. I’ve put some of the later ones on hold but I won’t mind if they take a while to come in because they’re a bit too absorbing… I now have 1000 ships, the women’s war which is seeming promising I’ll update later. Also on audio. For physical books, I have Can You Forgive Her by Trollope and Otte Montagne for my Italian practice. I actually managed a whole chapter in one night which I’m quite proud of. Normally I get really tired and drift off, as it’s still a fair effort for my brain. I’m listening to the Lit Life Podcast and hope to start Harry Potter. I’ve read book 1 years ago but don’t remember that much of it. Not exactly reading related, but I wouldn’t have watched it if it wasn’t for the book, I’ve been watching A Gentleman in Moscow series on Paramount streaming. It wasn’t brilliant but seeing some of the settings and costumes was good and it still has that very deep sense of sadness and beauty as the book. I want to reread the book now just to refresh my memory but the hold list is huge. It’s one I wouldn’t mind adding to my physical bookshelf eventually. I’ve read a bit from this chunk of Russian history and it’s tough but also fascinating, stories of humanity in such impossible circumstances. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrissiK Posted July 18 Share Posted July 18 Just finished "The Mourner" by Richard Stark (a pen name of Donald Westlake). It's 4th in the Parker series of crime noir novels. It's a bit of an acquired taste, I think, because the writing is so stark (hence the pen name Richard Stark). But, I do get in the mood once in a while for one of his books. The protagonist, Parker, is a professional criminal with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kareni Posted July 19 Share Posted July 19 Michelle Diener’s Dark Horse (Class 5 Series Book 1) is free to US Kindle readers for several days. It’s a favorite science fiction romance. www.amazon.com/dp/B00Z9R1W9W Regards, Kareni 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
East Coast Sue Posted July 19 Share Posted July 19 I just finished Johnathan Rosen’s, The Best Minds. Now I’m reading Mark Sullivan’s, The Last Green Valley. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lynn Posted July 19 Share Posted July 19 The Accidental Time Machine The Silent Patient 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lady Florida. Posted July 19 Share Posted July 19 On 7/13/2024 at 5:39 PM, Lori D. said: Simon the Fiddler is set in the same time/location/world, and the main character of News of the World even shows up briefly in one short scene in Simon the Fiddler. While Simon doesn't appear in Chenneville he's briefly mentioned in relation to one of the characters. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori D. Posted July 19 Share Posted July 19 21 minutes ago, Lady Florida. said: While Simon doesn't appear in Chenneville he's briefly mentioned in relation to one of the characters. Nice! 😄 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kareni Posted July 20 Share Posted July 20 For a summer reading bingo, I needed to read an epistolary work. Due to @Kassia's mention of it last month, I chose to read Address Unknown by Kathrine Kressmann Taylor. What a short and powerful read! This fictional collection of letters between friends and business colleagues was originally published as a magazine story in 1938 and covers about sixteen months from late 1932 to early 1934. One man has recently returned to Germany with his wife and children; the other, also German, writes him from their place of business in San Francisco. The man in the US is Jewish, the man in Germany is not. I recommend this. "In this searing novel, Kathrine Kressmann Taylor brings vividly to life the insidious spread of Nazism through a series of letters between Max, a Jewish art dealer in San Francisco, and Martin, his friend and former business partner who has returned to Germany in 1932, just as Hitler is coming to power. Originally published in Story magazine in 1938, Address Unknown became an international sensation. Credited with exposing the dangers of Nazism to American readers early on, it is also a scathing indictment of fascist movements around the world and a harrowing exposé of the power of the pen as a weapon. A powerful and eloquent tale about the consequences of a friendship—and society—poisoned by extremism, Address Unknown remains hauntingly and painfully relevant today. " /// Regards, Kareni 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmandaVT Posted July 20 Share Posted July 20 @GailV @Kassia The Boys in the Boat is such a good one! @Kareni I just put Fever and Address Unknown in my Amazon cart - they look right up my alley, thank you! I started The House in the Cerulean Sea and Grading for Equity finished James (loved it). I'm working through the Applemore Bay series on my Kindle, too - light and clean, easy reads, perfect for before bed (also free on Kindle Unlimited!) I was at a two-day training last week that focused on ensuring equity for all learners - this one was focused on neurodiversity, and we spent a chunk of time discussing grading for equity, which prompted me to buy the book (I work in the curriculum department of a school district). I'm taking an ADHD training next month and just ordered an executive functioning book to help prep for that. (In case anyone is wondering why I have random grading books on my reading list!) 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amoret Posted July 20 Share Posted July 20 I finished Simon the Fiddler and read News of the World and Chenneville this week. I enjoyed all three immensely -- they have carefully crafted plots, well-developed characters, no gratuitous content, a nice balance of history and fiction, and language that was clear and often poetic. Two small quibbles: I wish the Simon we meet in News of the World had a story that aligned more neatly with the end of his book. It is similar, but there are some important differences. I know she wrote News first, but it is set later chronologically and I wanted to know how the REAL Simon's life played out, not an earlier version of the character that I didn't like quite as much. And in Chenneville, there are many references to The Woman in White, which I happened to read a few weeks ago. In some of the allusions, it seemed like the characters were referring to The Moonstone, which is more of a detective story/police procedural, but it hadn't yet been written when this book was set. I wonder if, in an earlier draft, she used Collins's later book, then realized it would be an anachronism and swapped out the stories and made a few edits to try to adjust the errors. These are small things and in no way took away from the pleasure of reading these three books. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kassia Posted July 20 Share Posted July 20 (edited) I finished Forgotten Fire, which I thought was excellent but so very sad and hard to read at times because of the content (historical fiction - Armenian genocide). Next will be Michael Richards' book, Entrances and Exits. Edited July 20 by Kassia 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kareni Posted July 21 Share Posted July 21 A bookish post ~ Jo Walton’s Reading List: June 2024 Regards, Kareni 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrissiK Posted July 22 Share Posted July 22 I got "The Secret Lives of Codebreakers: The Men and Women Who Cracked the Enigma Code at Bletchley Park" by Sinclair McKay. I already started reading it. Fascinating. I enjoy reading about really smart people. Several years ago I read "The Woman Who Smashed Codes: ATrue Story About Love, Spies and the Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America's Enemies" by Jason Fagone. It's along the same lines, but in America. Great books. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ottakee Posted July 24 Share Posted July 24 I just finished I Take My Coffee Black by Tyler Merritt. I had no idea who he was before I read the book. Excellent audiobook with him reading it and ad libbing at times. The book is very real and challenging. Story of him as a black Christian man, the mistakes he made, the challenges he faced, etc. Not what i expected, but way better and more challenging. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScoutTN Posted July 24 Share Posted July 24 Howl’s Moving Castle 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lady Florida. Posted July 24 Share Posted July 24 (edited) On 7/22/2024 at 7:34 PM, KrissiK said: I got "The Secret Lives of Codebreakers: The Men and Women Who Cracked the Enigma Code at Bletchley Park" by Sinclair McKay. I already started reading it. Fascinating. I enjoy reading about really smart people. Several years ago I read "The Woman Who Smashed Codes: ATrue Story About Love, Spies and the Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America's Enemies" by Jason Fagone. It's along the same lines, but in America. Great books. That does look fascinating. I put the audio book on my TBR since that was the only edition I could find at any of my libraries. I read The Woman Who Smashed Codes (actually that was audio too) and found it really interesting. I listened to it around the same time I read The Woman They Could Not Silence which has nothing to do with spies or codes but was also about a woman who did something amazing. I think it might have been Woman's History Month. 3 hours ago, Ottakee said: I just finished I Take My Coffee Black by Tyler Merritt. I had no idea who he was before I read the book. Excellent audiobook with him reading it and ad libbing at times. The book is very real and challenging. Story of him as a black Christian man, the mistakes he made, the challenges he faced, etc. Not what i expected, but way better and more challenging. I read that for my IRL book club last year. It's not really my cup of tea (or coffee) and having grown up Catholic I didn't understand a lot of the church references but it was interesting to hear his perspective. It also made for good conversation at our meeting. ETA: I too listened to the audio book that he narrated. Edited July 24 by Lady Florida. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ottakee Posted July 24 Share Posted July 24 39 minutes ago, Lady Florida. said: That does look fascinating. I put the audio book on my TBR since that was the only edition I could find at any of my libraries. I read The Woman Who Smashed Codes (actually that was audio too) and found it really interesting. I listened to it around the same time I read The Woman They Could Not Silence which has nothing to do with spies or codes but was also about a woman who did something amazing. I think it might have been Woman's History Month. I read that for my IRL book club last year. It's not really my cup of tea (or coffee) and having grown up Catholic I didn't understand a lot of the church references but it was interesting to hear his perspective. It also made for good conversation at our meeting. ETA: I too listened to the audio book that he narrated. I would have loved to do it as a book club book. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmandaVT Posted July 24 Share Posted July 24 This thread is so dangerous - I keep adding more books to my "to read" list, which is already huge! I finished The Anxious Generation. While I liked a lot of what he wrote, it felt like it could have been a paper or an article, not a full book. Bottom line - smartphones and social media are contributing factors to increasing depression and anxiety in children and teens. The solution? Don't give them smartphones or social media access until they're 16. Some of his graphs left me thinking that they could be good examples of making data tell the story you want it to tell. I'm almost finished with The House at the Cerulean Sea, and I'm making myself read slower because it is SO good I want to savor it. I picked up "New From Here," a Golden Dome nominee from last year, while I was at school yesterday. It looks fun. Also reading "School Communities of Strength, Strategies for Educating Children Living in Deep Poverty" (for work) 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lady Florida. Posted July 24 Share Posted July 24 17 minutes ago, AmandaVT said: This thread is so dangerous - I keep adding more books to my "to read" list, which is already huge! I agree! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ottakee Posted July 24 Share Posted July 24 44 minutes ago, AmandaVT said: This thread is so dangerous - I keep adding more books to my "to read" list, which is already huge! Same here. But so many diverse titles I would have never heard about before 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kassia Posted July 24 Share Posted July 24 I'll never live long enough to read all the books on my to-read list, but that doesn't stop me from adding to it constantly! 2 2 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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