WHAT ARE YOU READING? - Part 6

The old topic is getting too long so time to move to a new one.

Stop by, grab a beverage and tell us what you are reading (or had been reading or plan to be reading) :)

Today I started Killers of the Flower Moon and got swept up in the story. I know nothing about the Osage murders, so it's all new to me.

Just finished an ER book, No Small Change by Annie Cook. It was...odd. I have a lot of complaints about it; the author is incredibly heavy-handed - in signaling the romance, in blaming actions and events on menopause, in using magic as the solution for everyone's problems, and the tired old trope of "oh, they're hurt, I love them" to get her protagonists out of their ruts. And yet. I had things to do today and I didn't get them done because I wanted to keep reading. The characters are vivid and complex and fascinating, the setting is nicely depicted (including that this is just post-pandemic, there are a lot of references to the way that upended people's lives), and even with the heavy-handedness it was still a great story and some fascinating interactions. There's a sequel (or will be soon) and I want to read it. Oh, yeah, looks like this was her first book - I _definitely_ want to keep reading her.

Since my last update I finished the following three books.

Cédric Gras : Alpinistes de Mao (Mao's Alpinists)
Jules Verne : Autour de la lune (Round the Moon)
Nella Larsen : Passing

And as of the moment I'm completely enraptured by Dracula. I can't put it down!

I have been stuck in three (four if you count my year-long read of Clarissa) for what seems like forever: The Ground Beneath Her Feet, which I'm enjoying but it can't be read quickly; Is Just a Movie, which was delightful at first, but is now meandering and I thought it was half the length it actually is; and therefore have mostly halted Sometimes a Great Notion which is also seems wordy and meandering.....

I have finished This Other Eden and find it to be too beautiful a book to resist going back to the beginning to reread for a deeper appreciation of language and craft. This short novel says so much about the human spirit.

So I’m rereading This Other Eden and hoping to finish Faulkner’s The Mansion this week as well.

I am really loving my read of Tom Lake

I finished Fatelessness today. My brain is still processing, and not getting anywhere. But it's been awhile since I really got into a book. I'll start The Mansion by William Faulkner next.

Also, I'm listening to A Spell of Good Things (which is good, but not exciting, if that makes sense), and working through a collection Rainer Maria Rilkes poetry and prose, called Ahead of All Parting (which I'm finding a little bewildering).

Finally got to A Little Too Familiar, which is just as wonderful as I was promised - cozy paranormal romance, with found family on multiple levels. It does have a few detailed sex scenes, but the focus is much more on their relationship(s) and on the characters as people. Love it, immediately got on the library waitlist for the second book (which came out last week, fortunately). There's a third - probably next year - I'll get on that waitlist a lot sooner.

Finished hogfather for the discwork Death books challenge. I loved the begining and Sir terry as always loves his puns, Towards the middle thing just get to convuluted, which is typical of his books. Didnt mind when I first read but now its all too much. But the ending makes up for it all. giving it 4*

Finished orwells roses Loved this book wonderful look at an orwell you wont recognize and interesting digressions into roses as art as commerce, as patterns, as protest Sassy Lassy wrote an excellent review which says what I want to say much better than I can, so with her permission, here it is

"It's somehow comforting to discover that George Orwell loved roses. This man, with one of the bleakest perspectives on his times and the future, found solace in that most elemental of human activities, cultivating a garden, the solution preferred by another philosopher in another turbulent age.

In April, 1936, Orwell moved to a small rented cottage in Wallington, one with a tin roof, lacking gas, electricity, and indoor toilet. While fairly standard rural living for the times, it was not exactly easy living. He immediately planted a garden, one focussed mainly on food, but he also planted roses; not an obvious choice given the circumstances. Later there would be goats.

Gardens are full of life and death, but also of hope. This is the influence on Orwell and his writings Solnit examines in these essays.

At first they seem to meander, but then suddenly they return to the subject, and everything falls into place. How else does Ralph Lauren's 1980s insistence on chintz and roses morph into a discussion of the imperial passion for importing the products of empire, and then connect to Jamaica Kincaid and her visceral reaction to the colonisation of her Antigua home? Solnit suggests The Road to Wigan Pier provides the parallel and the answer, with Orwell saying You have got to choose between liberating India and having extra sugar. Which do you prefer?

Another essay. "In the Rose Factory", quotes Orwell on coal, saying It is only very rarely, when I make a great mental effort, that I connect this coal with the far-off labor in the mines. Solnit visited an actual rose factory in Bogata, describing the process of growing roses for the floral industry, and the condition under which the female workers work, ending with ...it was even more rarely that anyone connected the roses to the invisible toil in these greenhouses. They were the invisible factories of visual pleasure.

Orwell's Roses is not by any means a standard biography. Rather, it is an exploration and a meditation on the writer, his works, and how he is viewed today. Solnit certainly knows her subject and his writing. Her thoughts often provide a different way of viewing them; ideas that definitely inspire another look at Orwell.

As for those roses he planted, they were still there at the cottage when Solnit visited in 2016."

highly recommended 5*

I'm starting two new books. Homestead by Melinda Moustakis which is a first novel about homesteading in Alaska in the 1950s. For nonfiction, I'm trying Nine Black Robes by Joan Biskupic, which is about the Supreme Court's recent swing to the right and the consequences. I expect it to be interesting but upsetting.

>11 japaul22: I read Nine Black Robes a month or so ago. It was excellent!

>12 arubabookwoman: I think I put it on hold at my library after you recommended on the "has anyone read?" thread when I asked about Supreme Court reading. Looking forward to it!

I’m not reading much but like to see what others here are up to

Finishing up an "old" favorite: Kate Grenville's The Idea of Perfection, which I first read back in 2003. So funny and yet...

Dusted off The Soul of an Octopus a month ago; it had been sitting around for years, and unexpectedly my RL book group wanted a break from depressing social issues so it was just the right thing. Then Other Minds, also sitting around for years, helpfully filled in some gaps. Just started Monarchs of the Sea about cephalopod evolution; this one I just acquired.

I finished Killers of the Flower Moon, my second excellent nonfiction read in a row. I'll still listening to (and enjoying) The Color of Water, but need to find a new paper book to start. So many delightful options calling my name!

reading the man who walked through walls and the napolean of Notting Hill both are really funny satires on politics

>17 labfs39: I read The Wager last month. What a ride that was. I understand that Scorcese and Decaprio are teaming up for a film version of that as well.

Right now I am finishing up The Warrior With Broken Wings by Thorsten Brandl It is not as engaging as Palladium but still a great story.

>19 JHemlock: Interesting. I hadn't heard of The Wager, but the next time I'm in the mood for this sort of book, I'll look for it.

Today I started Woman at Point Zero and am already halfway through. Intense.

I finally finished The Greenlanders and have now started on The Book of Eels by Patrik Svensson. Which is translated from Swedish, so I guess I've got some kind of Scandinavian theme going.

>22 bragan: The Book of Eels
I have this around and was reminded of it when dchaiken reviewed it earlier this year. Fits into my current theme of slimy squishy things in the water so I may get to it. Meanwhile I watched a documentary.

>23 qebo: interesting theme. 🙂

>22 bragan: >23 qebo: I enjoyed The Book of Eels. Low key, but has its rewards.

>23 qebo: That is a very specific theme, and probably a perfect book to go with it!

>24 dchaikin: I'm enjoying parts of it more than others, but it's definitely worth a read.

I'm reading Ordinary Monsters by J. M. Miro. Oh, how extremely wonderful! I feel like I'm reading Dickens, Faulkner, and modern lit at the same time. And, it's kinda creepy, especially to be reading right before bed! But I adore it.

I've just finished Three Thirds of a Ghost by Timothy Fuller. This is the third book in Fuller's Jupiter Jones mystery series, a now obscure set that was evidently relatively popular when the books were first published in the early 1940s. In the series' first book, Jupiter Jones, a wise-cracking, over-confident know-it-all, had just graduated from Harvard and got involved in a Thin Man sort of way in helping the police (who of course didn't want his help) solve the murder of a Harvard professor. Jones' saving grace is his ability to laugh at himself and his pretensions. In this third book, Jones by by now is himself teaching literature at his alma mater. I've got bit of a review up on my Club Read thread.

Next up for me will be Ghost Season, a novel by Sudanese-American author Satin Abbas.

I must not have done anything but read in August -- am ending the month with 16 reads and one DNF.

Standouts this month were Homeland, a collection of Barbara Kingsolver short stories, and the absolutely stunning On the Clock by Emily Guendelsberger, which I raved about upthread.

3.5 stars for
-Hogfather, Terry Pratchett (part of the Discworld challenge)
-Garden Spells, Sarah Addison Allen (a totally unexpected delight from an author I'd never heard of)
-Bloodstream, Tess Gerritson (a medical thriller with an ending I didn't see coming)
-An Otherwise Perfect Plan, Ken Schafer (a YA novel that was an LTER)

I also read all three of Vonda McIntyre's Star Trek movie novelizations, The Wrath of Khan, The Search for Spock, and The Voyage Home

Rounding out the month, in more-or-less descending order of interest...
False Summit, Cam Torrens
The Girls Who Stepped Out of Line, Mari K. Eder
The Summer Place, Jennifer Weiner
The Boleyn King, Laura Andersen
The Cry of Dry Bones, N.T. McQueen
He Was Some Kind of a Man, Roderick McGillis (August selection for my Wish List challenge)
Chocolate on a Stick, Carole Bellacera

I finished The Bee Sting by Paul Murray yesterday and I need to think about it for a few days before I put anything into a review. Trying to work through why he ended the novel where he did.

I'm whole-heartedly loving A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, to the point of going out and buying another one of his novels before I was halfway through this one.

I've just started Lazy City by Rachel Connelly, which has an interesting start and I'm continuing a slow perusal of Van Gogh and the Avant-Garde: Along the Seine, the catalog from an exhibition I recently visited.

>29 RidgewayGirl: I’m curious about The Bee Sting. I wanted to read Skippy Dies, but haven’t gotten to it. So I thought it might make a nice pairing (if i like The Bee Sting).

I've read three more books since my last post.

Shi Dan : Mémoires d'un eunuque dans la cité interdite (Memoirs of a Eunuch in the Forbidden City)
Shinsuke Numata : La Pêche au toc dans le Tôhoku
Bram Stoker : Dracula

Leading to my best reading month so far this year at 6 books, and more importantly, a reading pace of about 50 pages a day. (My reading page average for the year was at 21 pages a day.) I had a difficult first half to the year due to personal life so it feels good to well, feel good again which means wanting to read again.

I’ve finished Old God’s Time, which I liked a lot. Stream of consciousness narration, strong character development, beautiful writing. Recommended, even though a bit confusing for me because of narrative technique.

I’ve begun Volker Ullrich’s Hitler: Ascent 1889-1939, a biography for the WWII challenge—when I get to the 2nd vol., I’ll actually be reading about the WWII years. I began Ascent yesterday, and am finding it very readable.

finished the hands of my father and its such a wonderful memoir of a young boy with deaf parents, in the 30s, Despite his frustration at having to interpret the world for them at a very young age, there is so much love between them all. His father was a very wise man, but also angry at the hearing world that treated them so badly (this was in the days when signing was frowned upon; neither family learned how to communicate with their children) This memoir is a tribute to both his parents and was indeed a language of love. 5*

I finished Nervous Conditions tonight and am considering what to read next. Maybe The Exploded View by Ivan Vladislavic, or maybe something light after a string of heavy topics.

I finished listening to A Spell of Good Things, and apparently misunderstood the title. But I got very into the book. Next, and with some excitement after recent comments by kjuliff and JoeB1934 on my thread, I'll start listening to Old God's Time by Irish author Sebastian Barry.

I started Entangle Life by (the wonderfully named) Merlin Sheldrake.

Greetings all! I'm about 80% through the very good Ghost Season a novel about a village at the crossroads of civil war in Sudan by Sudanese-American author Fatin Abbas.

My pleasure-reading time is about to shrink, however, as this coming week I begin a course at Columbia University via their free seniors' auditing program. I'm taking a class on Latin American History (i.e. South and Central America, rather than Latin culture in the U.S.). I'm guessing there will be plenty of reading. My wife is taking a class on LBGT History. We don't get graded, and it's up to the individual professor the degree to which auditoring students are invited to take part in class discussion and so forth. I don't know what the case will be in my class, but regardless, I feel that there's no point in taking the class if I don't do the reading, too. The syllabus isn't posted yet. I may not find out until the first class on Tuesday. We have a Columbia University ID cards and everything!

>37 rocketjk: What a wonderful program, Jerry. I'll follow along with interest to see what is assigned for reading.

the lost education of horace tate for the RTT September school days theme

Glad we have our LT back. Yesterday it was pulled down because of a cyber attack. (There was a notice on fb).

>37 rocketjk: fantastic, Jerry. Enjoy

Yesterday i started Old New York, a 1924 collection of stories by Edith Wharton. The stories all tie into The Age of Innocence.

I am halfway through The Exploded View and finished the audiobook, The Color of Water. The latter was fantastic.

Finished Patient H. M. a few days ago, and had already lined up American Prometheus as the next audio book. 26 hours, and I'm about 2 hours in.

I’m about halfway through Pearl by Sian Hughes, so far not too impressed. Where are the promised references to the medieval Pearl by an anonymous contemporary of Chaucer? Hopefully things will pick up in the second half.

>43 dianelouise100: I was just considering reading that.

Yay we're back!

>37 rocketjk:, >40 dchaikin: (and others who have been reading about racial justice)you both may be very interested in the lost education of Horace Tate Im not finished with it but it is an amazing story, one that has been hidden until til this author ,who was working with Tate, discovered all the files.

>45 cindydavid4: Thanks! I will look into that book.

a tid bit from the book: principal at a poc school has been promised new text books. when he goes to pick them up, they are the same 20 year old books he used as a kid. apparently the white kids get to use them first then he'd get them. its maddening by itself when it happened in 1949; but knowing that such racism continues to happen now intolerable

I finished the very good Ghost Season by Fatin Abbas, a novel about a small Sudanese village more or less on the front of the civil war that ended up splitting the country in two in 2011. We experience the feared renewal of fighting after a long layoff through the eyes of five disparate but intertwined characters, all of whom are believable and well drawn, as is the book as a whole. You can find a longer review on my Club Read thread.

Next up for me will be another "classics" hole fllled, as I decided to finally read Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe. However, my pleasure reading will be slowed down by the fact that I've just started auditing a class on Latin American History at Columbia University and will have quite a bit of reading to do for the course. The main textbook will be Early Latin America. A History of Colonial Spanish America and Brazil by James Lockhart and Stuart B. Schwartz, with selected readings excerpted by several other works.

Just finished a beta read of Cam Torrens' third Tyler Zahn book, 'Scorched'. (No touchstone because it hasn't been assigned an ISBN yet.)

I'm now reading The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue. It's eerily prescient of Covid, but having been published in July 2020, she must have finished writing it prior to the outbreak? How long does it take a book to go to press?

from NPR "s Donoghue explains in the author's note to her new novel, The Pull of the Stars, she began writing the story in 2018, inspired by the centenary of the Spanish Flu pandemic. Donoghue delivered the final draft to her publishers this past March,(2019) just as a stunned world was taking in the enormity of the coronavirus crisis.

Understandably, her publishers fast-tracked the publication of The Pull of the Stars, which is set in a maternity ward in 1918 in Dublin, a city hollowed out by the flu, World War I and the 1916 Irish Uprising"

>51 cindydavid4: wow

I’ve finally opened a Chaucer. I’m reading an introduction to Troilus and Criseyde. (And I finished Faulkner’s Snopes trilogy)

>51 cindydavid4: Wow, it's uncanny how similar the tone of the book is to what happened during covid. Not all the specifics, but the feel.

Yes, I read Pull of the Stars a couple of months ago and was also shocked that she wrote it before the pandemic. There are lots of lines about masking, situations with people coughing on crowded buses, comments about ineffectual government responses, etc. that had me in utter disbelief that she wrote it before the pandemic!

>55 japaul22: I had the same reaction, I knew they had anti mask organiations, but the rest was new to me

Before Covid, there was SARS:

SARS in Canada

>57 LolaWalser: Very true. Parts of the world were struck hard by SARS. I looked up a list of pandemics/epidemics by death toll on Wikipedia, and the influenza of 1918-1920 that Donogue references, was the second deadliest, after the bubonic plague of the 14th century. Covid is fifth after HIV (although that death toll is spread over decades).

I brought it up in reference to Donoghue. She wasn't prescient; SARS was like a dress rehearsal for Covid here.

We know she wasnt precient, just amazed how close both events were. weve had so many -bird flu, SARS, Ebola/ and now that people are no longer vaccinating their kids, I suspect polio and measles will have a comback

Just finished Napoleon of Notting Hill satire written in 1904 and takes place in 1984. The author apparently chose that date from Orwells novel. According to lecture by Dale Ahlquist, President, American Chesterton Society "This was the man who wrote a novel called The Napoleon of Notting Hill, which inspired Michael Collins to lead a movement for Irish Independence." I have no thoughts about this but interested in others reactions

I dont remember which challenge this was for, but Mark recommended it to me This was the authors first book, and I think it shows in repetition and digressions. I did enjoy the humor and satire, but somewhere along the way I got lost, possibly because I didn't pick up on some local references. Glad I read it, id give it a 3.5

how do I find a post? I am looking for the Monthly Author Challenge for September I tried the search bar but it tells me no results.any help would be much appreciated

>62 cindydavid4: https://www.librarything.com/topic/352136

For that group - just open the group and it will be towards the start of the list if I had been away and had not pinned it yet. Which I just did (waving from London on my way back to the States).

>44 dianeham: I’ve now finished Pearl, which I wound up liking a lot, though not as well as the other three Booker Longlist novels I’ve read…but that’s just me, of course. There are important references later in this book to the medieval Pearl, and I think I was misled in my expectations by the description of the novel.

As Ullrich’s biography of Hitler is proving too long for me to think of finishing by the end of September, I’m considering two WWII novels I’d like to read: Corelli’s Mandolin or A Thread of Grace. Any opinions about either of those?

>64 dianelouise100: l’ll keep my own expectations in check. 🙂 Glad to know you enjoyed it.

>65 dianelouise100: I liked Thread of Grace, although not not as much as some of Russell's other books. I didn't write a review, so I'm afraid I can't give you more specifics on what I liked or not.

>63 AnnieMod: thanks. and jealous btw. Hope its cool AND rainy there :)

>65 dianelouise100: I loved Captain Corelli's Mandolin. Haven't read the other (yet) but it's on my TBR.

my review of the lost education of Horace Tate is here
https://www.librarything.com/topic/351927#n8226524

>67 labfs39: >69 WelshBookworm: Thanks! I’ve read Birds without Wings and loved it. I’ve read a couple of very early novels by Mary Doria Russell, but don’t remember them, I think I liked them. Sounds like both could be good possibilities, so maybe I’ll check the library for what’s available.

I'm now reading An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green. I don't feel like it's quite living up to the promise I felt it had in the start, but I'm enjoying it well enough still, anyway.

I finished The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind last night. Excellent story, and I hear there is a movie version.

I’ve added a tome to my reading, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years by Diarmid MacCulloch. This is the text for a class I’m taking, and I won’t finish it until May (a chapter a week), so it will be one of my “big books” for ‘24. I’ve also pulled the medieval Pearl from my stacks and am giving it a reread to supplement my reading of Hughes’ Pearl. I’m thinking there are more similarities between the two than I’d realized, and I welcome the opportunity to read the Pearl Poet, whom I’d pretty much forgotten.
And I continue with the biography of Hitler for WWII reading. I’ve found that Corelli’s Mandolin is the more easily accessible of the WWII novels I was considering, so it will be in the mix soon.

>74 dianelouise100: i listened to MacCulloch’s biography of Thomas Cromwell. It was excellent.

>75 dchaikin: I’ve been reading Christianity today and am thankful to find this book not only very dense, but very clear and readable as well.

I started This Other Eden today. Excellent reading so far. His description of the wave that covered the island is amazing.

>77 labfs39: i’m hoping i like it when i get there

I finished Old God’s Time yesterday evening, on audio. It wanders - in subject, times, and realities. I enjoyed it a lot.

I’ve started a fourth Booker longlist book on audio - If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery. So far mainly about growing up Jamaican in Miami, meaning a serious identity crisis. Weirdly it’s all second person, but it’s, well, funny. I’m entertained.

I've finished About People by German author Juli Zeh (which apparently was released in an English translation last week) and am now listening to Old God’s Time (what a book!) and reading Affections by the Rodrigo Hasbún (finally found a book by a Bolivian author).
And I reserved This Other Eden on Cloud Library. Looks interesting.

ETA right translation of the title by Rodrigo Hasbún.

I am working through the Slough House novels and novellas in order: now reading London Rules.
Somewhere in the earlier threads I mentioned that I am trying to read the novellas in Standing by the Wall: The Collected Slough House Novellas in the proper order in between the novels (a process that started in June) but the summer ended up being a bad time for the series - between travel, work and them being hardcovers (so not traveling well) and getting distracted, I am just getting back to the series again :) But all the books need to go back to the library in 2 weeks so I decided it is time to stop getting distracted.

>79 Trifolia: Enjoy Old God’s Time!

I’m reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I never read it before and decided it was time.

>82 dianeham: it is time. Fun book. 🙂

I'm continuing the Meg Langslow series with No Nest for the Wicket. I was disappointed with the last one. This one is back in the groove. I want to play extreme croquet!

I just finished incomplete reads of about 20 short story collections for a best-of-the-year work judging... I dislike having to do partial reads, but it was that or nothing, and there were other judges besides me. One of my projects in the next few months will be to go back and finish the ones I liked best, so right now I'm reading Jamel Brinkley's Witness, which is very good. He's got a really good ear for human nuance.

Also reading Diane Mehta's Tiny Extravaganzas, a poetry collection out next month. She's a friend, and I'm going to do a Q&A with her for Bloom, but in spite of being prepped to like this I'm really impressed. She's a beautiful writer.

>82 dianeham: I’m reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I never read it before and decided it was time.

Ah, that's lovely. I have owned many sets of the Chronicles of Narnia. I think I'm down to two now. I used to read them about every seven years. Now I haven't read them in several decades, but I'm considering a reread.

After 17 days and only getting through 106 pages, I've put Australian novel Foal's Bread by Gillian Mears aside (I think it's just not the right time for this one) and am trying a more contemporary Aussie book, Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson.

Just finished the LTER, If That Was Lunch, We've Had It. Fun book, and a quick read, about a couple of young slackers from New Zealand who are trying to figure out how to "make a squillion dollars" without actually working for it.

sort of stalled in my reading the last week or so, I know it willl come back, just needs the right book and right read to do it

Again, three more books since my last post:
Keyi Sheng : Un paradis
Robert Louis Stevenson : Treasure Island
Ira Ishida : Call-Boy

Have been enjoying Ursula LeGuin’s last volume of poetry.

Finished the excellent This Other Eden and started another good one, Akin.

I've recently read The World We Make, which I loved -- the idea of the personification of NYC, the authors sense of humor, just a lot of fun. Love in a Fallen City was melancholy and lovely and The Great Believers was heart-wrenching.

I'm now fairly deep into The Bethrothed.

The Vizard Mask Diana Norman

Set aside the octopus books to read The Devil's Highway for a RL book group that'll meet next week.

>93 ELiz_M: Oh I need to read that, loved the city we became forgot about this sequel

After the first Narnia book, I read A Serial Killer’s Daughter. Now I’m reading Girls and Their Monsters: The Genain Quadruplets and the Making of Madness in America.

well that didnt take long. elsthread some of us were talking Emma Donogue and while Id read several, I realized I never read astray her collection of short stories. How wonderful these are, each is based on an event in the past, and with her usual undersanding of human nature, she comes up with some real gems. Hope the rest of them are as good

>97 dianeham: That sounds interesting, Diane. I'll look forward to your review when you finish.

>98 cindydavid4: Weren’t they neat stories? I read them this summer and loved the explanation she included after each one. Donoghue is a favourite author of mine too.

I've been sucked into the (wonderful) vortex that is Nathan Lowell's Golden Age of the Solar Clipper series of series. No villains, no huge events - just people going through more-or-less normal life (on starships traveling and trading between planets and stations). Ok, there's bad guys - at one point he has a captain who's a serial sexual abuser, of his crew who can't get away. But he's not a Villain - just a nasty guy who needs to be dealt with (and is). There's a lot of wonderful people of many (many) types; the heroes are people who work together, respect each other and their crews (financially and otherwise)...None of this sounds fun to read, but it is. People talking to each other, joking, doing work, dealing with crises, helping each other, solving problems large and small. It's very hard to stop reading at any point - in a book or between them.

>101 jjmcgaffey: The Solar Clipper series sounds interesting -- I'll keep an eye out for the series.

>102 LyndaInOregon: As far as I can see - available on Amazon only (ebooks). They do go on sale now and then. And unsurprisingly, I had very little sleep last night - started one book, finished it, started another...finished it at 6:30 am and collapsed for a couple hours' sleep (fortunately I didn't have anything scheduled today).

>103 jjmcgaffey: Currently still working my way through The Avram Davidson Treasury on my Kindle, but I put a couple of the paper copies on my Paperback Swap Wish List.

Finished a small collection of three short stories by Shusaku Endo, Le Dernier souper et autres nouvelles. Trying to get back into my Japanese reading as I have quite a TBR that has piled up but I haven't been picking anything up from it in a while -- at least, not books in translation.

Opened Eduardo Halfon’s The Polish Boxer today.

>106 dchaikin: Ooh, I'm tempted to join you, Dan, but I have to read The Midnight Library for book club (which I'm not excited about as friends who have read it didn't like it). Oh, what the heck, The Polish Boxer is short. I'm going to dig it out!

>107 labfs39: !! Awesome! I have a couple flights this weekend (taking my daughter back to college). I probably will read most of it onboard. The first 30 pages are fun.

Also I found some time to dig into Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde. I’m finding it readable and lovely. All charm and linguistic play, and my Broadview edition, with original language plus notes, is so far a perfect guide. (Thanks Joyce, for edition advice)

>77 labfs39: I loved this book. So many unique characters with so many different points of view.

Like a lot of you, my summer reading has been slow. I started many books that just weren't doing anything for me; spent a good deal of time trying to get into them but finally gave up.

I just finished The Invisible Hour. I hadn't read anything by Alice Hoffman in years and didn't expect to like it. But, overall, I did! Not crazy about all the time travel business, and but it was an interesting idea to link some of the main characters to Hawthorne and to make a case for the way reading can influence our lives. This was a 4 star read for me--not great but definitely worth the time.

I just started Wednesday's Child, a short story collection by Yiyun Li. So far, it's promising to be wonderful.

>80 AnnieMod: Have you been watching "Slow Horses"? It's an Apple TV production, based on the Slough House novels. Two seasons so far, and I'm eagerly awaiting the third. And this from someone who usually doesn't enjoy mysteries/spy stories/thrillers. Of course, it helps that Gary Oldman plays Jackson.

>110 Cariola: Nope, want to finish the novels and stories before even looking at the show :)

>109 Cariola: This Other Eden was very well-crafted. The characters are amazing: Esther in her rocking chair, Zachary Hand to God Proverbs and his tree, and of course Ethan.

I'm reading a biography of Simone de Beauvoir called Becoming Beauvoir that was published in 2019. It's very interesting so far.

For fiction I'm reading The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. It's a fun read with a great premise - a bit over-written, but the idea carries it - a young woman in the 1700s makes a deal with the devil that she'll be immortal and unbound to people's expectations of her, but what she gets is immortality but also that no one remembers her once she's out of their sight. I'm enjoying it.

>113 japaul22: They both sound good. Thanks.

>113 japaul22: loved TILAR for about the first 2/3rd of the book. I cant remember what pulled me out of the book but remember giving it a 3 for liking the beginning. will be interested in your review

Just finished astray one of the few works from Donogue that I havent read. A collection of short stories based on small sized new events. She makes all of them interesting, tho didnt care that much for the ones from the gold rush. But still interesing

I read My Murder overnight last night. It was entertaining although pretty confusing toward the end.

>111 AnnieMod: I haven't read the books, so I can't say how faithful they are to the original. But I am really enjoying the series.

>116 cindydavid4: I had pretty much the same reaction to Astray. I've liked most of her novels; wasn't keen on The Pull of the Stars, mainly because it seemed that her research took the forefront rather than the story or characters. I decided to skip Haven but may get to it eventually.

I’ve finished Pearl by the Pearl Poet in a new verse translation by Simon Armitage. This edition offers facing pages of middle English and Armitage’s translation, which I enjoyed. I find the Pearl/Gawain Poet’s northern dialect of middle English more difficult and time consuming than Chaucer’s middle English, so found this work very helpful. Still a great poem, so medieval.

I’ve begun a new novel, The Dark Side of Love by Rafiq Schami, for a Syrian novel challenge. I’ve just gotten into it and finding it very compelling and readable.

>118 Cariola: I generally do not have issues with changes or issues with keeping both timelines in my head and connecting dots when they diverge a lot (or a little) but as I’d planned to read the book for ages, it just made sense to me that way. I expect to like it as well - I enjoy the books very much and short of it being a disaster (which I would have heard of by now), the series should be just up my alley.

finally finished lessons in chemistry and despite my blood pressure going up whenever I read another way women were wronged*, it was rather a delightful read. Cant wait for the series

*tho I did notice how much society went after men who did not tow the line.

so I found Marilynne Robinsons the giveness of things at my local indies sale pile, and since i love her novels, decided to try this. I consider myself a well read and somewhat intelligent person, but I gave up in the middle of the first chapter. She uses lots ofwhat might be called 'philosophiz' I could read the words but had no idea what she was talking about. Has anyone read this who can give me a way into it?

I finished Daniel Defoe's classic, Moll Flanders. Lower class life in early 18th century London was a tough go, all right, and Newgate Prison was a horrible place to land. But the novel is really a story of a tough-minded woman who survives on her own terms despite a dizzying series of setbacks and misfortunes. You can see my longer review on my Club Read thread.

Next up for me will be The Other Side of Silence, the 11th book in Philip Kerr's glorious Bernie Gunther noir series.

I'm excited that I got an early copy of Lauren Groff's new book, The Vaster Wilds. I'll be reading it next.

For nonfiction, I'm still reading Becoming Beauvoir, a bio about Simone de Beauvoir. I'm finding it interesting.

OH! im jealous!let us know what you think of it

I suddenly finished four books - The Polish Boxer by Eduardo Halfon, Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake, Old New York by Edith Wharton, and, on audio, If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery.

But I've only started one new book, on audio, These Precious Days by Ann Pratchett Otherwise I'm mainly carrying on with Troilus and Criseyde and Walden.

Eager to read all those new ones! I loved Pratchett hope you like it as much3

Reading coconut for this months African theme. Ive gotten really distracted by other things so Im way behind, but hope o finish it soon

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra

I found this on the shelf at the library yesterday and a scan of the first couple of pages made me bring it home. It has caught me up at once, and I’ve finished about a third. I’ll be taking it along on a trip to Rhode Island to visit family, should make wonderful entertainment on the plane tomorrow.
I’ve also downloaded the audio of Western Lane of the Booker SL. The four+ hour flights should be enough to finish it, either going or coming. Airplanes and airports are so much nicer with a good book.

It’s very annoying that Prophet Song is no longer availble on Audible! I finally have a credit.

oh loved that book! had no idea what I was getting into. reading this reminded me of the group of Chechnyans took over a school and held it hostage. Also read mercury pictures presents and liked it as well

I’m (sort of) reading an ER copy of Eugene J. McGillicuddy's Alien Detective Agency. I really don’t want to keep reading it. It’s really annoying. I even find the title annoying. I feel like I should finish it. All the reviews so far are relatively good. So I don’t feel like I can just stop and write a review saying it was unreadable. Maybe I can just skim the second half? The review is basically "this book is not for me." The book is full of thousands of types of aliens and as many ai - all in real time and virtual time. And the detective McGillicuddy fancies himself a 1930s gumshoe in a fedora.

>131 dianeham: I just finished Eugene J. McGillicuddy's etc etc, and full review is here.

You might want to take a look at it before making your decision, though given what you've said in the post, I suspect skimming is going to be your best option.

Miller absolutely packed everything but the kitchen sink into this, but didn't allow the reader any time to take it in, in any meaningful way. There are a lot of wonderful ideas here, but none are really developed or considered, and after a while, all the alien races and individuals just run together. As noted late in my review, the undercurrent of angst on the part of the research scientist with nothing left to research is probably the most thought-provoking idea in the novel. The rest is just Cap'n Billy Whiz-Bang.

>132 LyndaInOregon: thank you.

I finished The Other Side of Silence, the 11th entry in Philip Kerr's wonderful Bernie Gunther historical noir series. Gunther started out the series as a homicide detective in Nazi-era (but pre-war) Berlin. Now it is the mid-50s and he is working as a concierge in a decent but not great hotel on the French Riviera. This time we meet Somerset Maugham, who is living in the same town and is being blackmailed. You can find my somewhat longer review, if you're so inclined, on my Club Read thread.

Next up, I'll finally be reading The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood.

reading Edith Whatons old ny for the classic challenge: classic women and absolutley wonderful. Laughing through much of it

I was able to get Prophet Song by Paul Lynch in hardback from Blackwells in England. It cost $18.60 in USD. it was free shipping and it got here in under a week.

FINALLY got my hold on Miss Benson's Beetle. It's a hoot. Enjoying it very much.

For years I've been saying that I'd like to read more non-fiction but I never manage it. My wish is taking care of itself at the moment, and my latest non-fiction book is East West Street by Philippe Sands, a barrister specialising in international law for whom a work trip to Lviv triggers a desire (or even a need?) to uncover his family's history (they came from what was at the time I'm currently reading about south-east Poland and is now Ukraine). I'm enjoying it immensely, and it's led me on to another non-fiction book which I'm reading at the same time, Clara's War by Clara Kramer - Sands mentions it because Kramer was from the same small town as part of his family.

On the fiction front, all you Maisie Dobbs fans out there (you know who you are!) have finally worn me down. I'm really enjoying the first one.

>138 rachbxl: all you Maisie Dobbs fans out there (you know who you are!)
Guilty as charged! I'm glad you are enjoying it though.

I finished The Polish Boxer and The Midnight Library, and am halfway through Our Lady of the Nile by Scholastique Mukasonga for the African Novel Challenge. It's good, but as the protagonist is Tutsi, I'm dreading finding out what's going to happen.

>139 labfs39: you are indeed one of them!

I've just finished Lauren Groff's new novel, The Vaster Wilds.

I think I'll finish Becoming Beauvoir in the next few days - it's been an interesting read.

For fiction, I wanted something light so I started the third book in the Thursday Murder Club series, The Bullet that Missed.

I am reading a very unusual book - The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill: Alien Encounters, Civil Rights, and the New Age in America by Matthew Bowman. I read a review of it somewhere and it sounded fascinating. I started the kindle sample and really got sucked in because Barney is from West Philadelphia not far from where I went to high school. Betty and Barney are an interracial couple and early reporters of an alien sighting. Betty lived in New Hampshire and is descended from a long line of Christian liberals (and labor organizers).

In 'the more things change the more they stay the same category". In Whartons old new york ithis takes place in the 1870s. Women are gossipping, when one exclaims, "they used to meet at the fifth avenue hotel!" ..... Sillerton-Jackson, in response to my mother, grumbled through his perfect china set "Fifth Avenue hotel? they might meet in the middle of Fifth Avenue nowadays, for all that anyone cares. Gave me a chuckle.

>144 cindydavid4: 🙂 i love seeing that quote here

I finished Walden. Hm. I might have had just as happy a reading life without it, but it was curious

I’ve started The Man Who Lived Underground by Richard Wright. I’ve gotten a little tired of him. Yes, it’s important and well done. Yes, it is actually a book we all should read it, and feel bad for not having read it. But I can’t help feeling I don’t want to read it, as I reluctantly pick it up. It’s short, anyway.

finished old new york and Im so glad to have read this gem. and the last line, oh......definitly 5*

also finished bread giversits a novel, but really a memoir of the authors life growing up in an ultra orthodox household in the early 1900s. her depiction of her father who would let his family starve so he could continue to study the torah I hope it was over the top, but Id have to take her word for it. Her story is a similar immigrant one of balancing tradition with asimilation in America The introduction and forward of the book are worth reading to find out about her life, and what it took to get the book published, and rereleased years later. The melodrama in the book didn't feel right, but once you get passed that its a good book3.5*

I read Leonora Carrington's The Hearing Trumpet for my book club last month, and it was really fun—a little surrealist but also totally apprehensible, with wonderful strong-willed characters navigating old age and a very strange universe. Great book club book, too, especially for all of us ladies of a certain age, with lots to discuss.

Also finished Diane Mehta's poetry collection Tiny Extravaganzas, which I thought was great. I really like poetry to be multilayered and a little challenging, as long as I can find a way in, and this didn't disappoint. Lots of poems on interacting with art/dance/music, on loss, on parenting an almost-grown child, with inventive and fun-to-read-out-loud language.

Now I'm finishing up Work Won't Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone after a couple of stop-and-start library holds, and Jamel Brinkley's Witness, plus gearing up to read Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead for next month's book club.

I am, reluctantly, going to DNF Marion Zimmer Bradley's Heartlight. I didn't realize, when I picked it up, that it is part of a long and complex series of at least four books.

My most recent read was an LTER that turned out to be the second part of a duology, and reading it was more of a chore than a joy, since I had only the vaguest idea of what was going on most of the time. I'm unwilling to put myself into that situation again.

I'm also reluctant to dig up the three earlier books in this series. "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun", not make a career of multi-volume sagas. At least, not right now. (I had the same problem with the Outlander series, which I at least got into on the ground floor, so to speak, and bailed out only after the first three volumes, when I realized Gabaldon had no intention of wrapping this thing up within her -- and probably, my -- lifetime.)

Well, shoot. I'm coming off a really crummy reading month. September was full of mediocrities, and October isn't looking much better. There must be something in my TBR stack that appeals!

I'm reading The healer's war by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough as part of my challenge to read all works which received the Hugo or Nebula award.
This is about an American nurse in Vietnam during the Vietnam war, based on the author's experience, and the fantasy elements are small and so far a bit superfluitous.
I found it well written and engaging at first but at the halfpoint my interest is somwhat waning.

I read Suspension of Mercy by Patricia Highsmith - not great but had a nice twist. Currently reading Finding Dorothy by Elizabeth Letts - about Mrs L. Frank Baum.

I finished Our Lady of the Nile with mixed feelings. Today I started Bellevue: Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America's Most Storied Hospital.

Interested what you think of Dorothy

Just finished Miss Benson's Beetle. What I want to read next is still in the hold queue. So I have downloaded Laurentian Divide and A Flickering Light (both available on Libby) for my road trip to Illinois tomorrow. My nephew is getting married on Friday! And I have The Adventures of Alianore Audley ready to go on Kindle.

I have a few unfinished reads I'm still working on, but mostly I've been working in the yard (lots of fall stuff to do) and I have unpacked the last dish pack in the garage. Still two weeks shy of my one-year anniversary, so that's excellent progress as far as I'm concerned! :-D

so a bit of confusion today: I picked up my Kindle, wondering what I was going to read next when I realized I had not finished the man who walked through walls for the Classic challenge August classic in translation. I was already liking this when I got distracted by september reads. Just started back with "the problem of summertime" and fell in love with it again. The story involves the government decidjng that time should be sped up by 19 years. Our man realizes this, then appears in a place where its still 19 years ago. Crazy multiple universes and all that. with a sober ending. Will have to complete this before I go on to my Oct reads!

Speaking of which, I forgot to note that I read the October classic "womens classics" already, by reading old ny which is rating abig 5*

You wonder what happened to September? the theme was non ficrtion and I ws going to read HG Wells Outline of Histoy. and some how it flew by without me reading it.

Its making me think Im in a strange parallel universe in my reading......should I be worried?...:)

>154 cindydavid4: Are you in the Discworld RAL? The current selection is Thief of Time, which might explain "what happened to September"! (Or then again, maybe not.)

>155 LyndaInOregon: yes i am and yes I think that will be an apt read!

I finished and thoroughly enjoyed These Precious Days, the essay collection by Ann Patchett. I had trouble choosing my next audiobook, and ended up choosing one from the National Book Award longlist, one where I couldn’t find any reviews - The Council of Dolls by Mona Susan Power. So far, I’m regretting it - a four-year-old narrator and lower level writing. It just feels too dumbed down. But maybe it will switch to a older voice at some point.

Also I’m starting Ghosts, Edith Wharton’s 1937 story collection, one her last publications.

I'm really enjoying Nathan Hill's new novel, Wellness, which I hadn't expected to like so much given my mixed feelings about his first novel, The Nix. I also started Lou Berney's new thriller, Dark Ride, last night and it is wonderful.

I'm reading I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makkai and am completely drawn in. And finally, I've started a novel called Mudflowers by Canadian author Aley Waterman and, a quarter in, am still waiting for some sort of plot or storyline to emerge. I don't think I'm someone who needs a strong plot in a novel, but I do need some sort of scaffolding to hang the pages I'm reading on.

Finishing up Sky Above Kharkiv: Dispatches from the Ukrainian Front by notable author/poet Serhiy Zhadan who volunteered to assist the war effort. This covers the first four months of the war. It took me some time to settle in, but one soon becomes invested in his story.... (I have since picked up some of his other work and another poetry anthology, called Words for War.
Little did I know what was coming ....

I continue with Bellevue, which is so far excellent (I'm up to the 1830s), and started Horse on audio for book club.

I just spent the afternoon with a book that I am sure will be on my top ten list for this year, the book is two old women Read this for next months RTT theme "indiginous people' Its the legend from Athabascan tribe Alaska (where the author is from) about a starving tribe leaving two old women to die because there is not enough food. what happens next is not surprising, but is written so well that the ending is indeed a surprise. 5* highly recommended (she has two more books that I plan to read as well)

>161 cindydavid4: Two Old Women -- yes! Yes! It was really a wonderful read.

I wasn't aware that she had other books. I just ordered Bird Girl and the Man Who Followed the Sun -- was surprised to find it listed on Paperback Swap -- and put Raising Ourselves on my wish list.

I ordered both, the second one is more of a memoir

>160 labfs39: My book club is doing Horse also this month. My hold (audio) became available a few days ago. I'm still finishing up A Flickering Light so it will be next in line.

Since my last update I've read many more books. The second half of the year has been better for reading as I get over the depression I had the first half of the year. My English language TBR is dwindling quickly!

Yukio Mishima : Life for Sale
Minae Mizumura : Inheritance From Mother
Virginia Woolf : Jacob's Room
Tarjei Vesaas : The Birds
Ottessa Moshfegh : My Year of Rest and Relaxation
Moliere : Dom Juan

>165 lilisin: how was Moshfegh? (I haven’t read her work yet)

Oh I love Moliere! We did Imaginary Invalid in HS, Saw Tartuf and the Misanthrop on local stage.Never read Dom juan, is it as good as his others?

>166 dchaikin:

To be blunt as possible with my opinion, it's the type of writing style and plot typical of what a Masters in Creative Writing graduate would provide. Which means it's well written (although lacking in personal style) and well done, and yet uninteresting all at the same time.

>167 cindydavid4:

It's actually my first Moliere so can't compare it to his others but I did enjoy it despite its simplicity. I just really liked the character of Sganarelle as he wants to revolt against his master's faults but is too cowardly to do so.

>168 lilisin: thanks. Interesting, and not what I expected.

Have started Daniel Mason's new novel, North Woods; I'm terribly distracted currently and my reading is a bit spread out, but I like what I've read so far (I've read all of his previous books). Also still reading Serbiy Zhadan.

The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng was released on audio today. I started this morning. I’m about 45 minutes in and it’s touched on rural South Africa in 1947, Penang (in modern Malaysia) in 1921 and W. Sommerset Maugham. And the two audio readers are excellent. I’m smitten for the moment.

I abandoned The Council of Dolls 3 hours in (and I have momentarily lost any faith in the NBA longlist.)

none of the rules apply Kate Atkinson

theif of time for the disc world book challenge " death

the hearing trumpet based on many suggestions here about

and I am still trying to make my way throughBlack Sea I find it fascinating but its a bit dry and hard to read. tho I intend to do so

I finished two old women for the RTT indigenous peoples Novemeber theme
excellent, and now i am eager to receive bird girl and man follow the sun and raising ourselves

Well, I finally read Margaret Atwood's modern classic, A Handmaid's Tale. I found it to be astounding, and it's probably scarier now than when it was originally published.

Next up for me is Call for the Dead the first book in John le Carre's George Smiley series, because I need another series to be in the midst of. Sure, why not?

>173 rocketjk: Just treat is a first novel - the series gets MUCH better after that. Worth reading and gives you background and all but I was happy that it was not my first Smiley book.

PS: And another series I need to get back to...

>174 AnnieMod: Thanks! Happily for me, I'm about 40 pages in and very much enjoying the writing style, especially for a first novel. I'm definitely going to read the second Smiley book, A Murder of Quality, sometime soon. I know I should read the whole series. I'll see where I stand time-wise after the first two.

I've just started Telesa: the covenant keeper by Samoan author Lani Wendt Young. This is a YA book about a half Samoan girl brought up in the US coming to Samoa after her father's death, to learn more about her origins. It seems that her mother's story is wrapped in mystery... I'm hoping to learn a bit about life in Samoa with this book.

>171 dchaikin: Rats, I just used my last audible credits and cancelled my membership. I couldn't keep up and it was stressful to have the credits piling up (I had three unused ones). I wish I had seen this post before I used them up as I would have gotten The House of Doors. Instead I got Covenant of Water, Apeirogon, and Prisoners of the Castle.

>177 labfs39: those sound good too. I’m really interested in Covenant of Water. Of course, check your library. (I don’t know what your library’s digital access is like)

Finished Starter Villain by John Scalzi, which was at the same time lots of fun, but not completely satisfying. Now reading The Red Scholar’s Wake by Aliette de Bodard, which I’m loving so far.

I haven't posted in a while, mainly because it took me a long time to complete my last book, Wednesday's Child by Yiyun Li. As the title should suggest, the stories are "full of woe," full of loss, mostly sad and at best bittersweet.

Last night I started Daniel Mason's latest, North Woods, a collection of stories all tied to the same house in New England.

>170 avaland: It's rare for us to be reading the same thing. Like you, I've had a lot of distraction and hope this one moves faster for me than the last.

>141 japaul22: I was torn between the Mason and the Groff, both of which are on my kindle. How is The Vaster Wild?