Mystie
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Post by Mystie on May 30, 2016 4:04:59 GMT
I'm all excited because I had a good reading week, so I'm going to go ahead and start the thread! This week I read The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, which several people here had read and liked. I liked it, too. I love to read about art and art forgery, I love to read about Dutch masters, and though the 20th century characters didn't really grip me, the writing was really wonderful. I read The Fireman, which is Joe Hill's new book that I found at the library. It was quite good. Not perfect, and it could have used some editing for length, but a good solid apocalypse story with a very likeable heroine. And I read The Song of Hartgrove Hall, Natasha Solomons' newish book that I think pjaye had recommended. Loved this one. I've liked Solomons' other books, too, but this one was really gorgeous. Again, it hit my loves: old houses, English countryside, music. I've moved back over to non-fiction now and am reading The Better Angel: Walt Whitman and the Civil War. It's about the volunteer work Whitman did in army hosiptals throughout the Civil War. Really well-written. |
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Post by sugarmama on May 30, 2016 4:12:49 GMT
Well, okay then! I'm about to start Uprooted--finally. I have been trying to read this for months, but other things keep getting in the way!
Recently finished No One Knows, a book I got from Book of the Month. I enjoyed it--similar to Gone Girl and Girl on the Train except the main character was not so unlikeable.
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The Great Carpezio
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Something profound goes here.
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Post by The Great Carpezio on May 30, 2016 4:20:59 GMT
Absolutely.
I was running late since we are camping and don't have wifi and at times no phone service.
Thanks!
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Mystie
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,299
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Post by Mystie on May 30, 2016 4:23:10 GMT
Absolutely. I was running late since we are camping and don't have wifi and at times no phone service. Thanks! You have all my sympathy.   |
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Post by pjaye on May 30, 2016 4:54:22 GMT
This week I read The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, which several people here had read and liked. I liked it, too. I love to read about art and art forgery, I love to read about Dutch masters, and though the 20th century characters didn't really grip me, the writing was really wonderful. I've got The Last Painting of Sara de Vos coming up soon, so good to hear you enjoyed it. There's an Australian book club TV show and they just reviewed this last week and all 5 people on the panel liked this as well - although I did mute my TV a few times because I didn't want to hear too much about the story when they were discussing it. I'm excited to listen to it now.
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gottapeanow
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Post by gottapeanow on May 30, 2016 5:20:29 GMT
Thanks for starting the thread, Mystie.
I read The Last Mile, a new book by David Baldacci. I thought it was very good and gave it 4/5 stars.
I am reading Everyone Brave Is Forgiven, a brand new release by Chris Cleve. He wrote Little Bee. He is an amazing writer.
Lisa
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Post by RobbyKay on May 30, 2016 5:24:00 GMT
Hi Readers,
I finally finished Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits by David Wong. It was OK - it seemed kind of long and silly at the end. There was lots of violence - but it was all cartoonish. Read at your own risk.
I picked up Paul Kalanithi's When Breath Becomes Air - a nonfiction work about a neurosurgeon who is diagnosed with cancer - he describes being a doctor, and then a patient. It's short and bittersweet. i highly recommend it - but read with tissues nearby!
I finally finished a book I have been reading in chunks for the past several months - Neurotribes by Steve Silberman - about the origins of autism and autism research and treatment. It was long, but fascinating.
Does your local public television station show the Well Read program? It airs on Sunday mornings here, and today's guest was Elizabeth Strout, and she was talking about her most recent book, My Name is Lucy Barton. I picked up a copy today. It's a short book, and I'm about a third of the way through. It's about a woman who is estranged from her rural, impoverished family. She falls ill and spends time in the hospital, and her mother comes to stay with her while she's there. For five days, her mother never leaves her side. The two women discuss many topics, and we slowly discover their secrets. It's not exciting or action packed, but I'm enjoying getting to know these women.
Have a great reading week!
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Post by littlebee0408 on May 30, 2016 6:24:33 GMT
Thanks for starting the thread, Mystie. I read The Last Mile, a new book by David Baldacci. I thought it was very good and gave it 4/5 stars. I am reading Everyone Brave Is Forgiven, a brand new release by Chris Cleve. He wrote Little Bee. He is an amazing writer. Lisa Lisa, too funny, I read Everyone Brave is Forgiven last week, and really enjoyed it. I agree he is an amazing writer. And right now I am reading The Last Mile which is another of my favourite authors, and I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed it as well. Happy reading, everyone! |
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Post by pjaye on May 30, 2016 6:30:54 GMT
from last week I finished Loving Frank by Nancy Horan. You know when they say about a book "its explosive/stunning/unexpected conclusion" Well this is one of the few times that's been true. Totally not how I expected this to end...but it's all based on fact which just goes to show that truth really can be stranger than fiction. I enjoyed this and ended up giving it 4 stars. I'm interested to know more about Frank Lloyd Wright now though, will have to get an autobiography at some stage and hear his side of the story.
Next was Bad Behaviour by Liz Byrski. Someone in another group described her books as "hen lit" i.e. chick lit for more mature women  . The first book of hers I have read; she's an Australian author and similar in style to Liane Moriarty and a more modern Kate Morton. This is about 3 main female characters and tells their stories back in the 1960s when they were in their 20s and then up to modern day. Relationships & breakups/pregnancy/political awareness/dealing with change etc. Overall I liked it and gave it a solid 3 stars, not earthshattering but good stories that kept me interested. I'll read more by her in the future.
Currently listening to Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith. I saw the movie Carol (based on her novel The Price Of Salt) which I didn't really like (didn't think the two female actors had any chemistry and didn't find their relationship believable) but it piqued my interest to see if the book might be better and found an anthology at the library and Strangers on a Train is the first story. I saw the Hitchcock movie many years ago, but don't really remember much about it. Two men meet on a train trip in the 1940s and one has an awful wife who cheats and won't divorce him and the other has a controlling father, eventually one of them comes up with a plan that each one kills the relative of the other to get them out of the way and because there will be no motive, they'll both get away with it. As this was written in the 1940s as well, some of the writing doesn't really hold up that well and I've been bored with large chunks of un-edifying dialogue between the two men, and the women in the story are quite weak as well. Not quite finished yet, but think this will be 3 stars and I'll listen to The Price of Salt next and see how it compares to the movie. |
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Post by pjaye on May 30, 2016 6:34:35 GMT
My Name is Lucy Barton. I picked up a copy today I didn't see the point of this "book" I needed so much more information about the rest of their lives - it just felt like a half realised idea to me. It was like an outline for a character that would appear in a future book, but without the rest of the story around it there really wasn't any point to it. |
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Post by miominmio on May 30, 2016 9:33:55 GMT
Thanks for starting the thread, Mystie. I read The Last Mile, a new book by David Baldacci. I thought it was very good and gave it 4/5 stars. I am reading Everyone Brave Is Forgiven, a brand new release by Chris Cleve. He wrote Little Bee. He is an amazing writer. Lisa The Last Mile was great! |
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Deleted
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May 18, 2024 1:50:06 GMT
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2016 10:34:22 GMT
I'm listening to A Winter Haunting by Dan Simmons, I didn't realise it was a sequel but it makes sense in it's own right. It's very creepy!
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Mystie
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,299
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Post by Mystie on May 30, 2016 10:46:37 GMT
Currently listening to Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith. I saw the movie Carol (based on her novel The Price Of Salt) which I didn't really like (didn't think the two female actors had any chemistry and didn't find their relationship believable) but it piqued my interest to see if the book might be better and found an anthology at the library and Strangers on a Train is the first story. I saw the Hitchcock movie many years ago, but don't really remember much about it. Two men meet on a train trip in the 1940s and one has an awful wife who cheats and won't divorce him and the other has a controlling father, eventually one of them comes up with a plan that each one kills the relative of the other to get them out of the way and because there will be no motive, they'll both get away with it. As this was written in the 1940s as well, some of the writing doesn't really hold up that well and I've been bored with large chunks of un-edifying dialogue between the two men, and the women in the story are quite weak as well. Not quite finished yet, but think this will be 3 stars and I'll listen to The Price of Salt next and see how it compares to the movie. Try The Talented Mr. Ripley, that's my favorite of hers. |
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Post by belgravia on May 30, 2016 13:23:30 GMT
Currently listening to Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith. I saw the movie Carol (based on her novel The Price Of Salt) which I didn't really like (didn't think the two female actors had any chemistry and didn't find their relationship believable) but it piqued my interest to see if the book might be better and found an anthology at the library and Strangers on a Train is the first story. I saw the Hitchcock movie many years ago, but don't really remember much about it. Two men meet on a train trip in the 1940s and one has an awful wife who cheats and won't divorce him and the other has a controlling father, eventually one of them comes up with a plan that each one kills the relative of the other to get them out of the way and because there will be no motive, they'll both get away with it. As this was written in the 1940s as well, some of the writing doesn't really hold up that well and I've been bored with large chunks of un-edifying dialogue between the two men, and the women in the story are quite weak as well. Not quite finished yet, but think this will be 3 stars and I'll listen to The Price of Salt next and see how it compares to the movie. Try The Talented Mr. Ripley, that's my favorite of hers. I am a huge Patricia Highsmith fan! I've read most of her work and I think the Ripley books are my favourite - there are five. |
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scrappyesq
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You have always been a part of the heist. You're only mad now because you don't like your cut.
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Post by scrappyesq on May 30, 2016 13:41:44 GMT
I always see this thread but then forget to post. I'm reading The Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee. Its about an opera singer who has a past that no one knows about (at least she thinks no one knows). Then an opera writer approaches her to star in an opera that has a storyline exactly like her life. I'm enjoying it so far, I'm relatively early in the book, but I've already read one passage that nearly brought me to tears. A good sign.
I'm also waiting until 12:01am tomorrow to download Lisa Kleypas' latest, Marrying Winterbourne. I've been waiting for this book since last August when I first heard about it!! It killing me that May 31 is finally here, and I'm annoyed that I don't have one more day of vacation to sit here and devour it.
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janeliz
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Post by janeliz on May 30, 2016 13:46:01 GMT
I read The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney.
I liked it very much. I enjoyed the quirky characters and multiple layers to the story.
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Post by pjaye on May 30, 2016 13:50:59 GMT
I think the Ripley books are my favourite - there are five. Oh, well that counts me out! not looking for another series, and 5 is way too many for me, my tolerance of the same characters runs out at about book 3. I don't think Highsmith is for me, The end of Strangers in a Train was a let down and this copy I have contains some novels and some short stories, didn't like the first two short stories and fast forwarded through the third one and currently doing the same for the next one. |
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Dalai Mama
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Post by Dalai Mama on May 30, 2016 13:57:30 GMT
I finally got around to reading Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer (a recounting of the 1996 Mt Everest debacle). It was a 330 page ego stroke, rife with such obvious bias that it was difficult to wade through in parts. The author obviously worshiped Rob Hall, the lead guide and owner of the team he was on, and demonized pretty much everyone else (although Hall was the only one whose clients actually died that day). If someone had more money than the author, they had 'bought their way onto the mountain' and were obviously incompetent while the author's many mistakes were attributed to oxygen deprivation. It was just a strange read.
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mimima
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Post by mimima on May 30, 2016 15:28:57 GMT
I felt the same way about "Loving Frank," pjaye, I had no idea.
I read "Murder in Chelsea " by Victoria Thompson, one of the Gaslight Mystery series. I enjoy them and this one advanced the personal story very nicely, so it was a good read.
I just finished "A Memory of Violets" by Hazel Gaynor. It was very sweet, albeit predictable
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Post by ilovelucydog on May 30, 2016 16:10:24 GMT
I just finished China Rich Girlfriend. It was the sequl to Crazy Rich Asians.I really enjoyed it. It was a fun, easy summer read. I started another fun, easy read.... The Year We Turned Forty. It has sucked me right in. I'll be ready for a serious book next!
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Post by leannec on May 30, 2016 16:21:34 GMT
I read The Widow by Fiona Barton ... it was well written and I would recommend it  Now I'm enjoying my vampire porn addiction with the newest Black Dagger Brotherhood title by J.R. Ward called The Beast  |
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lisaknits
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Post by lisaknits on May 30, 2016 18:42:54 GMT
This week I read The Dressmaker by Rosalie Ham. It's a story set in a small, rural town in Australia in the 1950s. The main character returns after 20 years away, to help her ill mother. She comes face-to-face with the people who tormented and bullied her as a girl. I found the writing interesting, but all the characters are walking talking clichés. I didn't like any of the characters - how could any entire town be filled with nothing but bullies and bitches? The book is being made into a movie starring Kate Winslet and Liam Hemsworth.  I'd give it a 2 out of 5 stars. |
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Post by kellybelly77 on May 30, 2016 18:54:51 GMT
A couple for me over the last 2 weeks. I have been traveling so much for work and personal so I haven't had much time to read or listen!
Wynn in Doubt by Emily Hemmer. A book about a gal who is lost after graduating from college, not really knowing what she wants to do with her life. Living with her parents in her small hometown working at a bar. After her grandmother dies she goes on to investigate her great grandmother who was estranged from the family. The story takes you back to prohibition days. It was a fun, quick little read. I think i gave it 4 stars.
And Wreckage by Emily Bleeker. This was similar to the movie Cast Away. Plane crash, a couple folks live and wind up on a deserted island for a couple years. They are rescued and you find out a bunch of secrets from their time on the island and how they struggle to come back home. The book was a bit confusing. It switched back and forth between present day interviews, immediately after the rescue and then the days on the island. I was so lost for a bit trying to figure out who a character was due to all the flip flopping back and forth you hear about this person but they don't explain who it is until about 3/4 of the way through the book. I kept thinking, how did i miss this! Turns out I didn't they just flipped around too much! I gave it 2.5 stars I think. Story was fine but I hated how much it moved around.
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my3freaks
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Post by my3freaks on May 30, 2016 20:28:06 GMT
Absolutely. I was running late since we are camping and don't have wifi and at times no phone service. Thanks! You have all my sympathy. This made me laugh, I totally agree! I hate camping. I do hope you are having fun The Great Carpezio and of course time to relax and read! I finished Feverborn by Karen Marie Moning the most recent in her Fever series. I enjoyed it, and the ending really has me looking forward to the next one that comes out in January. I *think* I read somewhere that the next one is the last in the series. I'm now reading The Firebird by Susanna Kearsley. I'm about 70% done, and enjoying it. It's listed as 2nd in the "Slains Series" first being The Winter Sea which I read a couple weeks ago and really enjoyed. Historical romance, and an interesting take on time travel. |
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Post by hollymolly on May 30, 2016 21:34:59 GMT
Just finished Faithful Place by Tana French. Frank Mackey is an undercover detective in Dublin. He has not been back home in 22 years, since he was ditched by his girlfriend on the night they were supposed to run away together. His sister calls to tell him that the girlfriend's suitcase was found in the house where they were supposed to meet. Now Frank has to re-examine the biggest moment in his life, as well as deal with his crazy family.
It was a tense thriller with great characters. Their were a couple of times I laughed out loud, but it's not a funny book. I like this one better than her first, In The Woods. Her books are related and involve the Dublin Murder Squad in some way, but they are each from the perspective of a different main character. I'm anxious now to read the other books in which Frank is a minor character, because I'd like to see him from other perspectives.
Have started The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. It's the first in the Cemetery of Lost Books series. I love books, and I love books about books and booklovers, and I love books about secrets and mysteries. I'm having a hard time putting it down.
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Post by peano on May 30, 2016 23:26:22 GMT
I'm trying to read more fiction and I'm most successful when I finish a book and then pick up the next literally immediately. So I've had a couple on my iPad forever that I finally picked up because I saw they're coming out as films: Me Before You which I enjoyed a lot and The Girl on the Train. This one, I'm having trouble getting into. I think next up will be Eligible, Curtis Sittenfeld's latest which is a play on Pride and Prejudice set in modern day. I always like her novels.
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Post by anxiousmom on May 30, 2016 23:29:26 GMT
from last week I finished Loving Frank by Nancy Horan. You know when they say about a book "its explosive/stunning/unexpected conclusion" Well this is one of the few times that's been true. Totally not how I expected this to end...but it's all based on fact which just goes to show that truth really can be stranger than fiction. I enjoyed this and ended up giving it 4 stars. I'm interested to know more about Frank Lloyd Wright now though, will have to get an autobiography at some stage and hear his side of the story. Loving Frank is in the top 25 of my favorite books. I really enjoyed it and am a big fan of his to begin with, so I knew how it was going to end, but it was so well done that even knowing the end I was still engrossed in the story to the bitter end. |
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Post by msdintz on May 30, 2016 23:36:58 GMT
I read How to start a fire by Lisa Lutz. Loved her Spellman files series. This book was ok. Confusing as it jumped all over the place time wise but if you could keep track of that the story was good.
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Post by supersoda on May 30, 2016 23:38:00 GMT
I listened to The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt. It is YA...light, easy, entertaining coming of age story set in the 60s. A very Wonder Years vibe.
I'm now listening to All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. It's taken me a few tries to get into it, but now I'm really enjoying it.
I'm reading The Last Summer (of You and Me) by Ann Brashars. I was looking for light, but I'm pretty meh about this book so far. I was confused when I saw the author--I though she wrote another book that I enjoyed, but she actually wrote The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series.
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MsKnit
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Jun 26, 2014 19:06:42 GMT
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Post by MsKnit on May 30, 2016 23:46:28 GMT
I forgot about Joe Hill's new book. Thank you for the reminder!
This week's books:
I finished Room by Emma Donoghue. I know this one was popular a few years ago. However, I just got around to reading it. I thought it was good. Using the child's POV made the book. However, if he lived with an adult his entire life, why was he talking/thinking with such a juvenile manner. Didn't make sense. Otherwise, I thought the writer did well with a tough subject. She covered the events and feelings after the rescue, the adjustments, quite well. I never truly thought of the overwhelming attention from the general public. Plus, the questions/second guessing of the mother and her choices were thought provoking.
Next was Dark Places by Gillian Flynn. The author seems to enjoy writing about unlikeable characters. LOL! The protagonist couldn't help but be truly messed up though. It was a bit predictable in places. But, I completely missed the twist of who did it. After the fact, I felt stupid for missing it.
Then, I read A Separate Peace by John Knowles. I can not recommend this one. It was set in a New England boy's boarding school from summer of 1942 to graduation 1943. Basically, it was the story of an asshole who gets away with purposefully injuring a so called friend. The friend dies before graduation. Years later he returns to visit the scenes of where the boy was injured.
At present I am reading Genie--A Scientific Tragedy by Russ Rymer. I picked this one up due to my Anthropology class last semester. Genie was a severely neglected child who wasn't discovered until 12 years of age (1970), when her mother was seeking help for herself. Instead of the dept. she was seeking, she came into a social services offices. Genie's condition was so extreme that the dept. got her the help she so desperately needed. So far the author has only been giving background, much of it scientific and a little about Genie.
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