What Fiction are you reading this week, January 26, 2020?

[hermetic]

Books are a uniquely portable magic. - Stephen King

I got The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison. A road trip story! I love road trip stories. This one looks like it’s going to be really great. “Bursting with energy, a bighearted, soulful, and inspired novel that ponders life's terrible surprises and the heart's uncanny capacity to mend.” Hat tip to japple for the rec.


Listening to Wintersmith, the 35th novel in the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. This one was written for the YA readers but I’m enjoying it as it’s a metaphor for winter giving way to spring and that’s one thing to be happy about these days. Plus, it’s delightfully amusing. There’s a witch named Miss Tick.

Any readings making you happy this week? Or not?

[Squinch]

1. True Confessions by John Gregory Dunne. Noir about corrupt Catholics and cops in LA in the

40s with a Black Dahlia-type investigation thrown in. Really well written.

[hermetic]

5. Sounds good

"A fast-paced and often hilarious classic of contemporary fiction, True Confessions is about a crime that has no solutions, only victims."

It was a movie, too, with Robert Duvall and Robert De Niro.

[33taw]

2. Trumps defense.

[dewsgirl]

10. Me too.+1

[The Polack MSgt]

12. GMTA. I was just coming to say this

n

[TexasProgresive]

3. I really liked Tooth and Nail

I picked up some of Terry Pratchett books. I am reading Weathersmith which is a young adult novel featuring a 13 year old witch in training Tiffany Aching. It is a lot of fun and quite humorous.

[hermetic]

4. Yup

That's the one I'm listening to. Really enjoyable.

[sdfernando]

6. The Art of the Deal

[underthematrix]

7. #TraitorTrump's tweets

[TexasProgresive]

8. I didn't read your post until I posted- I love the witch names.

Granny Weatherwax
Mrs Earwig
Miss Level
Miss Pullunder
Miss Eumenides Treason
And others.

[hermetic]

9. Absolutely!

And Miss Tick is mystic, what better name for a witch? I didn't catch on to that right away....

[TexasProgresive]

14. I love a good pun and Sir Terry is up to the job.

[dweller]

11. Jar City

by Arnaldur Indriðason
one his first in his Erlendur series, actually the 3rd but the 1st translated.
have read many of his later in the series, and located this copy in a local thrift shop...
from wiki: The body of a 70-year-old man who was struck on the head with a glass ashtray is found in a flat in Norðurmýri. The only clues are a photograph of a young girl's grave and a cryptic note left on the body. Detective Erlendur discovers that the victim was accused of a violent rape some forty years earlier but was never convicted.
and
far from reinforcing the kind of myths of Icelandic national identity promoted by eugenicists earlier in the twentieth century and re-invoked by the publicity machine around DeCODE, Indriđason’s novel uses the figure of the defective gene not only to expose and trouble national mythologies of social and familial cohesion and continuity but to ask some fundamental questions about the meaning of innocence and guilt, justice and punishment in the face of the identification of genes that bear the secret not of life but of death.

quite a creepy mystery and intriguing Icelandic police procedural

✌🏼

[hermetic]

13. That surely sounds interesting

Will have to keep an eye out for it.

[japple]

15. I LOVED the Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving. The characters are all well drawn, and

the road trip was so much fun. I hope you like it, too.

Moving on to Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans and wishing I could give credit to whomever recomended it. What a good story.

When Noel Bostock—aged ten, no family—is evacuated from London to escape the Nazi bombardment, he lands in a suburb northwest of the city with Vera Sedge—a thirty-six-year old widow drowning in debts and dependents. Always desperate for money, she's unscrupulous about how she gets it.

Noel's mourning his godmother Mattie, a former suffragette. Wise beyond his years, raised with a disdain for authority and an eclectic attitude toward education, he has little in common with other children and even less with the impulsive Vee, who hurtles from one self-made crisis to the next. The war's provided unprecedented opportunities for making money, but what Vee needs—and what she's never had—is a cool head and the ability to make a plan.

On her own, she's a disaster. With Noel, she's a team.

Together, they cook up a scheme. Crisscrossing the bombed suburbs of London, Vee starts to make a profit and Noel begins to regain his interest in life. But there are plenty of other people making money out of the war—and some of them are dangerous. Noel may have been moved to safety, but he isn't actually safe at all. . . .

Many thanks for the weekly thread, hermetic.

[murielm99]

16. Welcome to the Pine Away Motel and Cabins,

by Katarina Bivald.

The protagonist is dead. She was killed by a truck while crossing the road near the beloved motel where she worked. She is unable to move on to the next plane.

It is supposed to be dark humor. There are LGBTQ themes. I will finish the book, but I would not recommend it to anyone. I don't like it.

[hermetic]

19. Alrighty then,

We'll give that one a miss. I like the name, though. The Pine Away.

Hey, I hope you are feeling better now. I saw where you were ailing from the flu and I thought to myself that this is a really bad time to get the flu. Not that there's any really good time to have it, but you know what I mean. Scary stuff. So, wishing you and hubby good health.

[PennyK]

17. This is actually about a TV show based on books

Last year I read The Liebermann Papers, a series by Frank Tallis and loved it. Well, BBC made a series out of three of the books. Each one runs 1 1/2 hours, but Masterpiece decided to split them in half for some reason (actually they might contain more 'adult' material than PBS's usual stuff).
They started showing it last week but my local channel was out for most of the week (new antenna). They did re-air the first one Friday night, but I saved it so that I can watch the first show in full tonight.
Dr. Liebermann is an early psychiatrist, trained by Freud, who gets together with a police detective with whom he solves murders. It's turn-of-the century Vienna, so it's pretty much a Viennese "Alienist." Liebermann is Jewish and boy is there plenty of antisemitism in the books, not to mention music and strudel.
I read that some of the people who worked on Sherlock were involved. Hoping they did a good job.

[hermetic]

20. Sounds like it will be good

Evidently the show is called Vienna Blood and I hope they put it out on DVD eventually. I'd like to see it.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

18. Just started

The Darkest Time of Night by Jeremy Finley.

The 7 year old grandson of a U.S. Senator goes missing, and all his older brother will say is "The lights took him." So far it's very good.

[hermetic]

21. Count me in

The Darkest Time of Night is a fast-paced debut full of suspense and government cover-ups, perfect for thriller and alien fans alike.