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Post by lesserknownpea on Dec 30, 2015 9:35:06 GMT
Last year I read 25 books so I set a goal of 35 books this year. Well I read 52 books! I love Goodreads, just found out about it at the start of the year. I just got back from a 10 day vacation in Cancun where I read: The Architect's Apprentice by Elif Shafak This is by a famous Turkish author and it's an epic tale that takes place during the Ottomon Empire. It was a thick book, fictional but based on real people. I really enjoyed it. Cartwheel by Jennifer duBois A fictional account of the Amanda Knox story but based in Buenos Aires. I was disappointed with the book because there's no ending, I still don't know who did it! You need a dictionary to read this book. Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget by Sarah Hepola This was a fascinating memoir by a young woman who was social drinker but couldn't remember anything the next day. Finding Me: A Decade of Darkness, a Life Reclaimed: A Memoir of the Cleveland Kidnappings by Michelle KnightI had watched the movie before I left staring Taryn Manning so I downloaded the kindle book at the airport and finished it on the way home. Now I'm reading Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland by Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus to get the other side of the story. See Amanda and Gina are no longer speaking to Michelle, even though they were held hostage together for 11 years! Each book only tells their side of the story. I've been reading this at night on my kindle in bed and it's been giving me bad dreams. The Piano Teacher by Janice Y.K. Lee I'm also reading this historical fictional about a British woman who gives piano lessons in Hong Kong in the 1950s, very fascinating! May I ask what your take is on the two different memoirs? I've read Michelle Knights book, couldn't put it down. I felt so bad for her.
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Deleted
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Jun 2, 2024 13:12:53 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Dec 31, 2015 18:37:53 GMT
I've been in a reading funk this year. It's been a shitty year. It needs to be quiet and I need to be fully awake. That doesn't happen often in my home. I'm another pea who doesn't like to set reading goals by number of books. It sucks the fun out of reading for me. I know myself, I would cheat and pick smaller books. I think it is fun to find lists and pick books that way. I'm perfectly okay if the lists are never completed. I *try* to keep track on goodreads of what I have read or listened to and I think it's 14. I just finished The Girl from Krakow by Alex Rosenberg. It was one of those free books you can get from Amazon once a month if you are a prime member. "It’s 1935. Rita Feuerstahl comes to the university in Krakow intent on enjoying her freedom. But life has other things in store—marriage, a love affair, a child, all in the shadows of the oncoming war. When the war arrives, Rita is armed with a secret so enormous that it could cost the Allies everything, even as it gives her the will to live. She must find a way both to keep her secret and to survive amid the chaos of Europe at war. Living by her wits among the Germans as their conquests turn to defeat, she seeks a way to prevent the inevitable doom of Nazism from making her one of its last victims. Can her passion and resolve outlast the most powerful evil that Europe has ever seen?" I give it 2 stars. It was one of those books you keep reading because you want to see how it ends. I didn't care for the main character at all. The writing didn't flow for me. I felt like I was reading a history book. Rita needed to flee Russia. She obtained false papers and fled to Poland. Russia was about to invade Poland. Rita needed to leave. I'm currently reading A Wicked Snow by Gregg Olsen. He is a true crime writer who has also written three novels and this is one of them. So far, so good. Some parts are quite detailed and too gruesome for me when it comes to death, so I skip some paragraphs here and there.
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Deleted
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Jun 2, 2024 13:12:53 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Dec 31, 2015 18:52:11 GMT
I've thought about Circling The Sun or The Japanese lover, Isabella Allende's new book. Has anyone read either of these? Paige. I've read Circling the Sun and gave it 4/5 stars. She was a fascinating woman! I haven't read The Japanese Lover (it's on my list - I do like her books). Since you mentioned those two books, you might also like A Marriage of Opposites or The Accidental Empress if you haven't already read them (both were books I really enjoyed this year). I loved The Paris Wife and have this on my very long to read list!
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