What are you reading this week of April 15, 2018?

[hermetic]

I sure would love to sit here and read...



I'm still into Tales of Burning Love by Louise Erdrich and To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis. Willis is SO funny, I can just picture M Python doing some of these scenes. Plus, if you are a person who likes stories with dogs and or cats, you probably should read this one.

What are you into this week? Please be sure to mention the author's name as sometimes there are many books with the same title.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. Last night I read DA by Connie Willis.

It's a novelette, published on its own. Sometime in the future when there's a space academy, a high school student who never applied, is practically the only kid on the planet NOT eager to attend, gets selected to go anyway.

Funny and charming.

I'm working on a short story collection After the Plague, by T. C. Boyle. Quite good.

In non-fiction I'm almost done with The Water Will Come by Jeff Goodell. It's about climate change and rising oceans. Very good. Makes me glad I live very far inland, even though I understand the appeal of living on or next to water.

[hermetic]

5. The water WILL come

of this I have no doubt. So I am also glad to be inland in spite of my great love for the sea. Last year we had some major spring flooding and I was outside with my snow shovel pushing water off of my walkways. My mail carrier came by and I told her that I had always wanted to live next to the water, but this wasn't exactly what I had in mind.

The T. C. Boyle book does sound quite good so I am going to be looking out for that one. Thanks!

[TexasProgresive]

2. Finished "Draft Animals" & giving M Connelly a rest

Bone Box by Faye Kellerman, a Decker/Lazarus novel. It seems they left LA for upstate New York.

[hermetic]

6. Ahh,

Serial killer stuff. Always entertaining, imo. Ms Kellerman has been on my must-read list for a long while but I have yet to start. Last week did some thrift store shopping and came away with a couple more Preston/Child's so that will keep me going for a while. Good to see you.

[getting old in mke]

12. Of course, for M Connelley, Season 4 of "Bosch"

dropped last friday.

[dhol82]

3. Just started Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan

It’s my book club pick for the month and I’m really enjoying it.

[hermetic]

7. That does sound enjoyable

Egan’s first historical novel follows Anna and Styles into a world populated by gangsters, sailors, divers, bankers, and union men. Manhattan Beach is a deft, dazzling, propulsive exploration of a transformative moment in the lives and identities of women and men, of America and the world. It is a magnificent novel by one of the great writers of our time.

[peggysue2]

21. About two-thirds through Manhattan Beach

I agree--very enjoyable, well-written and rich in character.

I'm also on the last few pages of The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin. This is another novel I would recommend. Once you get beyond the rather kitschy premise of four siblings receiving their exact death dates by a mysterious fortuneteller, the novel dives into questions of family loyalty and loss, what we believe and why and surviving vs living. Though I had a few quibbles with the material, the writing and characterization were excellent and overall the story was satisfying and full. It's the sort of thing I want when I invest in a novel read--a feast as opposed to a snack.

Next up? I read a review of Jo Nesbo's Macbeth, a crime noir, an updated rendition of the original play set in Glasgow. That sounded interesting.

So much to read, so little time!

[murielm99]

4. Sleeping Beauties

by Stephen and Owen King.

[hermetic]

8. Such an intriguing plot line

I would imagine Stephen had fun writing with his son. Some people weren't too impressed with this one, though. Do let us know how you feel about it in the end. Thanks.

[pscot]

9. Starman Jones

The preface calls it Horatio Alger in space I'd forgotten what a slick writer Heinlein was and what fun he is to read. I must have read this back in the day but it's brand new again. I'm also reading The Children Return by Martin Walker. This is the 5th or 6th of the Bruno series and Islamic terror arrives in peaceful Perigord.

[hermetic]

13. Gosh

I read Starman way back a long time ago, too. Barely remember it.

[Number9Dream]

10. "The Fermata" by Nicholson Baker

Someone suggested to me "The Fermata" by Nicholson Baker. I actually found it as an inter-library loan. It's a sci-fi, comedy, erotic novel. The main character uses his power to stop time to take off women's clothes, and other erotic acts. It was original, if nothing else. Overall it was just OK. I've read sexier stuff.

[hermetic]

14. Oh well

We tried. I think it sounds kind of fun.

[japple]

11. Thank you for the weekly thread, hermetic. I am back from Texas and had to

hit the ground running to get caught up on home obligations and cat rescue stuff. I also had several feline house guests (including 3 bottle babies!!!) in the past 2 weeks, so not much time for reading. I started reading Michael Farris Smith's book, Desperation Road on Friday and have gotten so hooked on the story and the writing style that it's been hard to put down. Reminds me a bit of Cormac McCarthy--gritty story, with fluid, spare delivery. I also enjoyed his book, Rivers which is a dystopian work that I read several years ago. He has a new book, too, that I will download as soon as it is available at the library.

Here is a blurry picture of those 3 sweet little bottle babies. They would not hold still for a picture.

?3

[hermetic]

15. Look at those babies!

So precious. You are such a good "mom."

Smith does sound like a good writer:

Delivered in powerful and lyrical prose, Desperation Road is a story of troubled souls twisted with regret and bound by secrets that stretch over the years and across the land.

Rivers sounds quite intriguing, too:

Eerily prophetic in its depiction of a southern landscape ravaged by extreme weather, Rivers is a masterful tale of survival and redemption in a world where the next devastating storm is never far behind.

Stay safe down there!!

[japple]

16. Finished Desperation Road last night and think it one of the better endings from one of the best

authors I've read this year.

Next up: A work of fiction by Steve Earle https://www.amazon.com/Ill-Never-This-World-Alive-ebook/dp/B004XJDDLW/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524001850&sr=1-1&keywords=steve+earle

Doc Ebersole lives with the ghost of Hank Williams—not just in the figurative sense, not just because he was one of the last people to see him alive, and not just because he is rumored to have given Hank the final morphine dose that killed him.

In 1963, ten years after Hank's death, Doc himself is wracked by addiction. Having lost his license to practice medicine, his morphine habit isn't as easy to support as it used to be. So he lives in a rented room in the red-light district on the south side of San Antonio, performing abortions and patching up the odd knife or gunshot wound. But when Graciela, a young Mexican immigrant, appears in the neighborhood in search of Doc's services, miraculous things begin to happen. Graciela sustains a wound on her wrist that never heals, yet she heals others with the touch of her hand. Everyone she meets is transformed for the better, except, maybe, for Hank's angry ghost—who isn't at all pleased to see Doc doing well.

A brilliant excavation of an obscure piece of music history, Steve Earle's I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive is also a marvelous novel in its own right, a ballad of regret and redemption, and of the ways in which we remake ourselves and our world through the smallest of miracles.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

17. The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton

Looking for a fantasy book to include in my Young Adult Literature class. This isn't going to be the one, but it is incredible. I picked it from a list of "top 50 fantasy" books because the review compared it to 100 Years of Solitude. That was a big claim. It is a nice young adult look at that kind of writing. The protagonist is a young girl born with wings. I am about 60% done. We weave in and out of stories about her grandmother, her mother, and her life. Worth the read.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

18. Finished Gentleman in Moscow last week.

Wow. Just read that book. It is that good. I have thought about it every day since I finished. It easily landed in my top 10 books.

[Ilsa]

19. Just finished "Bound" by Sally Gunning.

A pre-Revolutionary War novel about a girl on her way to Philadelphia from London. Her mom and two brothers die on the trip over, and they land in Boston. Her father has to borrow money at the end of the trip and she becomes indentured at age 7 in the 1750s. At age 15 she runs away after being repeatedly raped by her master.

The writer explains the laws well and mostly tells the story from this immature girl's POV. At the end of the book, the author talks about being indentured vs being enslaved, and about how human slavery is as bad now as it ever was.

I'm reading something light, next.

[PennyK]

20. Trigger Mortis by Anthony Horowitz

It's a James Bond, authorized by the Fleming estate, and it takes place right after Goldfinger. I'm hoping that some of that Horowitz humor will enlighten the Bond macho-osity. So far, not bad.
I just finished Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear. Another period young woman detective, and it wasn't bad, but one of the main characters, our heroine's mentor, was barely fleshed out, and there was not one whit of humor or lightness in the book. I get that WWI wasn't a fun time in England, but this is one series I will not be continuing with.

I downloaded Libby, to borrow ebooks from my library, and listened to some audiobook samples. Me like! I'll definitely go for it when I get my eye surgery (which it turns out will be covered by insurance -- I have ptosis, a stretching out of the eyelid muscles).