The Great Carpezio
Pearl Clutcher
Something profound goes here.
Posts: 2,930 
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Post by The Great Carpezio on Sept 19, 2022 4:34:00 GMT
I finally finished reading Pandora’s Jar and quickly read Kindred this week. What did you read this week?
🟠 Pandora’s Jar
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2 This took me forever to read. It wasn’t the best choice to start before going back to work teaching because it felt a bit like work while reading it. It was good. It was just fairly academic and not as engaging and light as I needed, and since I teach high school mythology, I found myself often making connections and thinking about my course as I read it, so it took forever to get through.
Various essays about the women in Greek mythology.
🟠 Kindred
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This is an older classic that I had not read. Octavia Butler’s time travel/slave narrative/historical fiction novel was engaging and a brisk read. Although it was released in 1980, it felt very modern and not like it was written in the late 70’s. I really enjoyed this one.
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finaledition
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,896
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Post by finaledition on Sept 19, 2022 5:08:03 GMT
I started my reread of the Beartown series in anticipation of the third book coming out on 9/27. I don’t normally reread books, but I have loved this series and it’s been nearly 5 years since the last book so I want to refresh my memory of all the storylines and characters. I finished Beartown and about 1/2 way thru book 2. I am enjoying them every bit as much as the first time.
My friend won an advanced copy of The Winners and it’s quite monster-definitely longer than the others.
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Post by maryland on Sept 19, 2022 11:54:23 GMT
Finished the audio book The Wife Upstairs - Paula Hawkins and it was good, but I was busy when listening to the last part and I was so confused at what happened. I better stop listening books when packing for a trip. Reading Daisy Darker, but not that interested in it, so it's taking me a while. Started a new on on the kindle, but because I am not seeing the cover when I read, I never remember the names of my kindle books! I am so bad about reading 30 pages then reading something else instead. Still trying to get used to reading on a kindle.
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The Great Carpezio
Pearl Clutcher
Something profound goes here.
Posts: 2,930
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Post by The Great Carpezio on Sept 19, 2022 12:38:29 GMT
I started my reread of the Beartown series in anticipation of the third book coming out on 9/27. I don’t normally reread books, but I have loved this series and it’s been nearly 5 years since the last book so I want to refresh my memory of all the storylines and characters. I finished Beartown and about 1/2 way thru book 2. I am enjoying them every bit as much as the first time. My friend won an advanced copy of The Winners and it’s quite monster-definitely longer than the others. I loved Beartown, but I started the second during my reading lull of ahem--threeorfouryears--ahem...and never finished it. Maybe I need to read that soon, so I can go on to the next one. |
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hutchfan
Drama Llama
Posts: 6,133
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Post by hutchfan on Sept 19, 2022 14:14:09 GMT
I read a giveaway book I won at Goodreads.
Twice A Quinceanera by Yamile Saied Mendez.
Nadia dumps her awful boyfriend of a decade Brandon right before their wedding so since everything is already bought and paid for she decides to hold her own Quinceanera and the venue that was to hold her wedding is owned by a former summer fling Marcos who is running the business in his sister's place.
When Nadia is left to work out the arrangements with Marcos sparks fly.
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Post by katiescarlett on Sept 19, 2022 14:18:03 GMT
I have 9 hours left on Fairy Tale by Stephen King (out of 24) and I'm not loving it. It will probably be a 2.5 read for me bumped up to a 3 because King is my favorite author but this one just isn't working for me. I'm actually bored and ready for it to be done!
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Post by jeremysgirl on Sept 19, 2022 14:25:23 GMT
I'm still listening to The Storyteller by Dave Grohl. It is very good. I like that he narrates it himself. I could relate to his feelings of grief after Kurt Cobain's death. He described it very well. The book is long, though and I still have several more hours to listen to. I also just received this book in the mail. It was just released on Wednesday. I read the prologue last night and it sounds so very interesting. Wulf is a historian with a philosophy specialty. I think it's going to be super interesting.  |
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Post by rymeswithpurple on Sept 19, 2022 14:32:30 GMT
Currently reading The Lost City of Z; finished The Butchering Art last week (while I was waiting for my primary care doc at my appointment, of all places).
My husband and I had listened to part of Churchill and Orwell: The Fight for Freedom on a recent trip, as we'd recently finished Animal Farm, so I may have to check out the actual book to finish it.
I also picked up two random books while looking for Instant Pot cookbooks: Dreamland: adventures in the strange science of sleep and Behave: the biology of humans at our best and worst. Both sound interesting, but I've not started them just yet.
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Mystie
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,299
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Post by Mystie on Sept 19, 2022 16:31:57 GMT
I read Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman by Lucy Worsley. I love Agatha, and I love Lucy, so this was a no-brainer! It was a good basic bio of Agatha, and I enjoyed Lucy's interpretations of some of the mysterious events of Agatha's life.
And I read Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney, a mediocre thriller that hinges on a disorder called prosopagnosia, or face blindness, where a person is unable to recognize the faces of even their closest loved ones. I don't know how common it is in real life, but I have a stack of library books from several weeks ago sitting here, and I just picked up one, and it's a mystery that is also crafted around the disorder! So maybe it's the disability du jour among writers right now.
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The Great Carpezio
Pearl Clutcher
Something profound goes here.
Posts: 2,930
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Post by The Great Carpezio on Sept 19, 2022 17:07:54 GMT
I have 9 hours left on Fairy Tale by Stephen King (out of 24) and I'm not loving it. It will probably be a 2.5 read for me bumped up to a 3 because King is my favorite author but this one just isn't working for me. I'm actually bored and ready for it to be done! Bummer! I want to read this one. |
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Post by mnmloveli on Sept 19, 2022 17:38:20 GMT
THAT’S NOT WHAT HAPPENED (‘18) BY KODY KEPLINGER : 4 STARS
DESCRIPTION: It's been three years since the Virgil County High School Massacre. Three years since my best friend, Sarah, was killed in a bathroom stall during the mass shooting. Everyone knows Sarah's story--that she died proclaiming her faith. But it's not true. I know because I was with her when she died. I didn't say anything then, and people got hurt because of it. Now Sarah's parents are publishing a book about her, so this might be my last chance to set the record straight . . . but I'm not the only survivor with a story to tell about what did--and didn't--happen that day. Except Sarah's martyrdom is important to a lot of people, people who don't take kindly to what I'm trying to do. And the more I learn, the less certain I am about what's right. I don't know what will be worse: the guilt of staying silent or the consequences of speaking up . . .
REVIEW: Found while I was looking up another book; just happened to catch by eye. TRIGGER ALERT : School Shooting. I like the author’s writing. The general plot is about the aftermath of a school shooting and straightening-out the truth from a lie that got started by accident. It does have religious overtones when one witness is being pressured by some religious people not to speak-out. A lesson that even a little lie and steamroll into big problems. Kept me intrigued the entire way. LOVED the ending! This is labeled as a young adult book, 7-9 grade. I don’t know if I would want my 12 year old reading this.
NEVER LOOK BACK (‘19 - Read ‘22 - 3 Stars) BY ALISON GAYLIN : 3 STARS
DESCRIPTION: For thirteen days in 1976, teenage murderers April Cooper and Gabriel LeRoy terrorized Southern California's Inland Empire, killing a dozen victims before perishing themselves in a fire... or did they? More than 40 years later, twentysomething podcast producer Quentin Garrison blames his troubled upbringing on the murders. And after a shocking message from a source, he has reason to believe April Cooper may still be alive. Meanwhile, New York City film columnist Robin Diamond is coping with rising doubts about her husband and terrifying threats from internet trolls. But that's nothing compared to the outrageous phone call she gets from Quentin... and a brutal home invasion that makes her question everything she ever believed in. Is Robin's beloved mother a mass murderer? Is there anyone she can trust?
REVIEW: New author for for me this year, 2022. First 2 books I read were The Collective (‘21 - Read ‘22) and If I Die Tonight (‘18 - Read ‘22) were both 4 Stars.
I loved the writing just as much as the first 2 I read. My only problem was there were quite a few characters whose lives were like a big ball of yarn. A little hard to keep track of the unwinding which dropped this from 4 stars to 3 stars.
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Post by mnmloveli on Sept 19, 2022 17:39:03 GMT
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gottapeanow
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 2,752
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Post by gottapeanow on Sept 19, 2022 17:51:22 GMT
I read one this week: The German Wife by Kelly Rimmer.
Honestly, this is my favorite Rimmer book yet, and that's really saying a lot! This is based on true events, Operation Paperclip, where German scientists, members of the Nazi party, were brought to the US to work on our rocket program. Their pasts were whitewashed and even erased. They move with their families to a neighborhood to try and begin a new life. But a WW2 soldier with a serious case of PTSD seriously complicates matter.
Told in several timelines and from different points of view, this story is as much about the American wife as the German wife. (They are the same person.)
This book catapulted to one of my all-time favorite WW2 novels, along with The Nightingale and The Alice Network. It's definitely one of my favorite reads of the year. Highly recommend! 5/5 stars
Lisa
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mimima
Drama Llama
Stay Gold, Ponyboy
Posts: 5,020
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Post by mimima on Sept 19, 2022 18:59:24 GMT
In the past few days, I spent some time on an airplane so had some good reading time. I'd never been to Chicago before and greatly enjoyed - though I got caught completely unprepared in a downpour! I left here in summer and got back in fall, though I am ALL IN for fall weather!
The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd:
I didn't love the way that the characters dumped backstory, but it was a quick, good read. I suspect that it will fade quickly from memory. 3/5 stars.
Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty:
While I liked the character growth at the end, up until then, I didn't like anyone and the slow reveal was frustrating. For IRL Book Club 2.5/5 stars
Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen. This is the first Franzen book that I have read and there were aspects that I really enjoyed, but there were a lot of characters that I didn't enjoy spending time with, which greatly outweighed those points. 2.5/5 stars
The Last Ballad by Wiley Cash Not history that I am familiar with, but the flow of the story gets interrupted by the introduction of too many narrators, leaving the original story behind. I enjoyed my YouTube rabbit hole of the real-life main character's music. 3/5 stars
The Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan I am not a writing-style reader (per Nancy Pearl) so the fact that the writing was the main style didn’t work so well for me. I did like the selkie background of the book and spent some time contemplating that. 2.5/5 stars
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edie3
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,476
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Post by edie3 on Sept 19, 2022 20:47:21 GMT
I read My Wife is Missing which started out good, then there were all kinds of twists that seemed improbable to me.
I also read And There He Kept Her which was just okay.
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Post by tampascrapper on Sept 19, 2022 21:02:31 GMT
I have 9 hours left on Fairy Tale by Stephen King (out of 24) and I'm not loving it. It will probably be a 2.5 read for me bumped up to a 3 because King is my favorite author but this one just isn't working for me. I'm actually bored and ready for it to be done! I’m listening to it and have about 10 hours left. I’m enjoying it even though it’s not action packed like some of his books. So far it’s 4 stars for me. I think 24 hours for an audiobook is too long |
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Post by ~summer~ on Sept 19, 2022 21:28:12 GMT
I finished Lessons in Chemistry which is my top book of 2022 so far. Absolutely loved the main character- highly recommend!
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Post by birukitty on Sept 20, 2022 18:12:41 GMT
I've missed posting for the last couple of weeks so here we go:
Abundance by Sena Jeter Naslund is a historical fiction book about the life of Marie Antoinette. It was published in 2006 so it's not a new book, but it was just what I was looking for. I don't know why but I've had difficulty finding a good NF book about Marie Antoinette. Either they were dry as toast, or they were too complex. This one was just right. At 556 pages it's not a light read but it covers her life and the history of everything that happened in a manner that I found educational but still very enjoyable. I gave it 4 stars on goodreads.
Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein is the follow up to a book I read a few years ago called Code Name Verity which I really loved. For some reason I've been confusing Code Name Verity series (about women pilots in WWII) with the Lilac Girls series (about women spies in WWII, WWI and the Civil War) by Martha Hall Kelly. Because of this I totally missed when the sequel to Code Name Verity (Rose Under Fire) was published 9 years ago until I stumbled across it twp weeks ago. I read it this past week and really liked it. It's about an 18 year old female pilot who gets captured by the Nazis and sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp. Ravensbruck was the largest concentration camp for women and in 1942 started medical experiments on close to 80, mostly Polish women nicknamed the "Rabbits". Anyway, this book covers the camp and the pilots friendship with some of the "rabbits". It's a YA historical fiction book. I gave it 4 stars. By the way, an excellent non-fiction book that I read a couple of years ago is "Ravensbruck" by Sarah Helm if anyone is interested.
The Teacher of Warsaw by Mario Escobar. This is a historical fiction book about a 60 year old male teacher (a true person) in Warsaw, Poland who has dedicated his life to children and runs a children's orphanage with 200 children when the Nazi's invade on Sept.1, 1939. Soon they are trapped in the Warsaw ghetto and the book follows his struggle to continue to provide for the children, protect them and hopefully smuggle some of the children out before it is too late. I was very much looking forward to this book, but sadly I was disappointed. It was the writing style in this book-the character often had lengthy, disjointed and rambling philosophical reflections that took me away from the story line and bored me to tears. Please don't let my review discourage you-we all have different tastes.
The Child on Platform One by Gill Thompson is a historical fiction book about 2 mothers. One, Eva, is a young Jewish mother in Prague with a 5 year old daughter. The other, Pamela, is a mother in England with a son. Eva sends her daughter to England on one of the Kindertransports to keep her safe and Pamela who works as a volunteer to find places for the children ends up taking in Eva's daughter. I enjoyed this book and gave it four stars.
After I read Rose Under Fire I was "in the mood" for more WWII books and that's all I wanted to read. So instead of choosing from my shelf of library books (none of which fit the bill) I turned to my own shelves. That's where I found my next book.
Nuremberg: The Reckoning by William F. Buckley Jr. This book was published 20 years ago and is a historical fiction book. In my 44 years of reading about WWII this was my first book about Nuremberg and it was a good introduction, but after this I am looking for a much better one. The main character is a German American (fictional character) who is yanked from Army duty in America to serve as an interpreter at Nuremberg Palace of Justice in 1945. The writing was very good and the story line was wonderful. My only problem with the book was that it focused on a fictional war criminal (high ranking Nazi) and a fictional concentration camp, although many of the other Nazi war criminals were mentioned-Albert Speer, Herman Goring etc. I would have enjoyed the book immensely better had the author chosen instead to use a real Nazi and a real concentration camp, because that is one of the biggest reasons I love historical fiction-I learn about history at the same time that I'm reading a story. In the last few years historical fiction authors have started including a section in the back of their books where they discuss what parts of their books are fiction, what parts are true, ect. and I really appreciate that section so much. Obviously I can read a non-fiction book on the subject and I often do after reading a HF book. Anyway, I gave this book 4 stars.
DH and I are planning a trip to Germany in 2024 (he's never been) and Nuremberg is on the list of places I want to take him to. Now I'm even more interested-I've never been to Nuremberg.
Happy Reading Everyone!
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Post by sawwhet on Sept 20, 2022 18:47:48 GMT
I finished Lessons in Chemistry which is my top book of 2022 so far. Absolutely loved the main character- highly recommend! I felt that way too, then I read Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin 💁🏻♀️ |
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Post by birukitty on Sept 20, 2022 23:01:52 GMT
BTW, I was at my wonderful local public library yesterday and was reminded that it's banned book week this week. They had a wonderful display of banned books. I was talking to the librarians about recent events in the red states regarding book banning (efforts to pull books from school libraries and even some public libraries). I was asking them if there'd been any problems like that here in MD (we are a blue state) and they said not really although sometimes a few parents will ask for more conservative books to be put into the children's section but it doesn't happen often. They asked me if I'd seen their display as I'd walked in and suggested I check one out. I thought it was a great idea. So I checked out "Maus" by Art Spiegelman.
Maybe consider reading a banned book this week?
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Post by mnmloveli on Sept 22, 2022 20:54:59 GMT
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