Weekly Reading Thread: Jan 10 - 16

I finished "Cold Sassy Tree" today and was totally disppointed in the ending. It was like the author had a page limit and was getting too close so she cut it short. It was an ok book to begin with, but the ending was too abrupt. I feel like I need to keep reading it to wrap things up, but there is nothing more to read.

I finally read Tuesdays With Morrie and really liked it.

This week I am starting two separate books. The librarian at school recommended The Daring Ladies of Lowell so I am reading that. In order to get working on reading my missed classics, I also started Lord of the Flies this weekend. I have support periods at school and I wanted to be able to help students who are reading it.

Two good ones for me this week.

I read The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry for my book club. Really enjoyed it and would like to read second book about Queenie. I do recall some peas mentioning this second book, did you enjoy it as well?

The other book I listened to was At the Water's Edgeby Sara Gruen. It was everything I love about audio books. This is my second book by Sara Gruen and she really writes a story that appeals to me. I think she is on my list of authors that I'll purchase whatever they write when it's released.

ETA:  Would anyone care to share what books their book clubs have selected for 2016?  I'm picking for the month of March for a very  mixed group of readers.  It needs to be under 300 pages and cannot deal with child death.  Last year the two that were most enjoyed were A Man Called Ove and Eleanor and Park.  Least enjoyed A Spool of Blue Thread and The Namesake.

It was! I am glad you enjoyed it.

I finished THE MAGIC STRINGS OF FRANKIE PRESTO by Mitch Albom. I loved it.

Now I'm readingTHE READERS OF BROKEN WHEEL RECOMMEND. It reminds me a bit of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society and/or Big Stone Gap. It's about a young woman from Sweden who goes to visit her pen pal in a small Iowa farming community, only to arrive and find that the pen pal has died. It's a light-hearted read and I'm enjoying it so far.

I'm not in a book club, but based on that criteria, I'd recommend:
The Dressmaker by Rosalie Ham
and
The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

I finished reading a collection of the first five Joe Dillard books by Scott Pratt, a new author for me. I got it for cheap on an Amazon deal so gave it a try and I'm glad I did. An excellent legal thriller series with good plots and interesting characters. I've enjoyed it very much and have added the next two books to my Goodreads to-read list.

I started The Drop by Michael Connelly, 17th in the Harry Bosch series. I'm about a third into it and am really enjoying it. This one's a page-turner as Harry tries to solve a 20 yr old cold rape case and the current mysterious death of the son of a councilman Harry has previously locked horns with.

Then, for a bit of fluff and humor, I'm also reading Takedown Twenty by Janet Evanovich, the 20th in the Stephanie Plum series. As always, predictable but entertaining.

The Storied Life of AJ Fikry was our first book of 2015 and liked, but not loved by most.
I have not heard of The Dressmaker (was thinking of the one by the same title by Kate Alcott) so I will look into that one.  Thanks!

I read Crash & Burn by Lisa Gardner. It's her 3rd book in a series about a police officer turn private investigator, Tessa Leoni. This book was good and kept me guessing all the way until the end.

I read The Relic Master by Christopher Buckley and really liked it.  From Amazon: "Set in the 1500s, the novel follows the exploits of Dismas the Relic Master, who partners with Albrecht Dürer (yes, the famous painter) to pit two wealthy relic collectors against one another. Greed, ego, and high jinks ensue as this smart, funny, fast-paced novel shows us that money and power have always corrupted, and if not always absolutely, at least in ways that will leave onlookers scratching their heads in wonder."

I also read The Ice Twins by S.K. Tremayne and loved it.  Creepy, creepy stuff.  A couple has twin daughters, age 7, and one, Lydia, dies in an accident.  A year later, the surviving twin, Kirstie, starts to says SHE is Lydia and it's Kirstie who died.  The surviving twin gets more and more disturbed, and the mother starts to question what really happened on the day of the accident.  Not-put-downable,  I thought.  

I'm probably alone in this one, but I tried reading Cutting for Stone and just couldn't get through it.  It started off promisingly, but I had to give up at the 45% point (on my Kindle).  I just lost interest in all the characters and it just felt... bogged down.  

I hate January, but I usually do get a lot read this time of year, I have to admit.

I read The Anchoress by Robyn Cadwallader, which I think pjaye mentioned a few weeks ago. It takes place in the 13th century and it's about a young woman who chooses to have herself sealed up in a small cell adjoining the town church so that she can spend the rest of her life in prayer and contemplation. I had never heard of this phenomenon, and I thought the author did a good job exploring the reasons a woman might choose such a life and the ramifications of that. I'd recommend it to anyone who likes medieval settings, for sure.

Then I read At The Water's Edge by Sara Gruen, about a young wealthy couple and their friend who take off for Scotland in the last months of WW II, to try to prove the existence of the Loch Ness Monster. It just wasn't that great. The characters were all pretty unlikeable, and the romance felt unreal to me.

Then I read A Fireproof Home For the Bride by Amy Scheibe, which took place in 1950s Minnesota and started out quite nicely as a coming-of-age story about a young woman who starts to have second thoughts about her arranged marriage plans and a life as a farm wife. Then it devolved into a ridiculous sort of mystery...ugh, it's not even worth trying to describe. It was like the author had about four ideas for a book and tried to jam them all into one. I had seen it on the new books shelf at the library and read the prologue, which was beautifully written...but the rest was a big disappointment.

And I read Lady Bird and Lyndon: The Hidden Story of a Marriage That Made a President by Betty Caroli. I like reading about marriages, and I'd never read anything about the Johnsons, so this was a pretty interesting read. The author was clearly a big fan of Lady Bird, and not so much LBJ, and she really did make it sound like he would never have been president if he hadn't very wisely married a woman who could prod him along, help him out of his depressions, and most importantly, smooth the ruffled feathers of everyone he insulted--which was just about everyone. I enjoyed it a lot, but now I'd like to read something a little more balanced about LBJ.

Tonight I finished The Wild Girl by Kate Forsyth. This is a gorgeous novel about Dorothea Wild, who lived next door to Wilhelm and Jakob Grimm--you know, the brothers Grimm--for years. She's documented as one of the people who told the brothers the fairy tales they wrote down and published, and she had a romance with Wilhelm. The author took the facts we know about Dorothea and imagined a really rich story about her family and her love for Wilhelm, all set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars. I'm sometimes leery about fiction that's written about people who really existed, but this author imagined a plausible story while sticking close to the facts. There is a physical and sexual abuse plotline that could be a trigger--I feel like I need to mention that--but this really is a beautiful and worthwhile read, especially if you like fairy tales.

I love his books! 

I started reading We Need to Talk About Kevin but so far I really do not like it. The main character is awful. I have discovered I don't like books with unlikeable characters. I hated Gone Girl for that reason.

I put it down for now and started the Fifth Wave because it comes out as a movie soon and the trailer looked good. I like it so far.