Weekly Reading Thread: April 8-14

It was a good week for me:

The Sellout (Beatty) I have walked by this book in the library countless times because I wasn't sure about the plot, but I finally picked it up. It's really impossible to describe. For one, it's satire done in the most hilarious, cutting, and daring fashion. A young black man living in a fictional south central Los Angeles neighborhood wants to bring back life to his home town. He decides to reinstate slavery and school segregation in the local middle school. A very daring concept for a novel, but so well done by this author. You must read with an open mind and roll with the premise. It was a 5 star book for me.

An American Princess was my Kindle First choice this month. It tells about the life of Allene Tew a young woman who rose from a simple childhood to become one of the most wealthy women during the Gilded Age. She was married 5 times and experienced both great success and great tragedy during her life. Her story was very interesting, but she never "came alive" for me as a real person. It is a good reminder of an age when women had few rights and choices in life.

Just started Jane Yolen's Mapping the Bones. Also reading The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. Certainly thought provoking (and makes a lot of sense, in some regards).

I read two this week.

The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan. So powerful and beautifully written. This was my first book by Amy Tan but will not be my last. 5/5 stars.

Close to Home by Cara Hunter. (Make sure you pick up the right book as there are dozens by this name. This is a mystery about Daisy, an eight-year-old girl who goes missing. Her dad, mom, and older brother are keeping secrets. But would one of them kill her? Lots of twists. And that ending. This is already set up as a detective series. 4/5 stars.

I am reading The Anatomy of a Miracle by Jonathon Miles, but it's not really holding my interest after more than 100 pages. So I might quit reading because. So. Many. Books. Lol.

Lisa

I read LONGBOURN by Jo Baker- this is the story about the staff that serves The Bennet family of Pride and Prejudice. It was an okay book for me, it took me a bit to get into the story.

I started FORCE OF NATURE by Jane Harper. It’s the sequel to THE DRY although you don’t need to have read the first novel. Same characters. I liked The Dry. I find Force of Nature started stronger. I wish I had more time to read but i just don’t at the moment.

Paige.

Lots of Scandi Noir.....waiting on Yrsa Sigurdsdottir’s latest

In anticipation of seeing Elizabeth Strout at the library this past weekend, I read Olive Kitteridge (4 stars) and The Burgess Boys (2.5/3 stars) (I had previously read two of her other books, but wanted to read these books too). I love her writing and how she can make ordinary people compelling. I didn't really like The Burgess Boys though.  She was wonderful in her talk - articulate and funny. 

I also read Angels Flight by Michael Connelly (Harry Bosch #6) - another good entry in the series. I was highly amused by the part where Harry found an internet address and didn't know what it was/what to do with it (the book was published in 2000) and another detective explained what the "information superhighway" was. 

I'm currently reading An American Marriage and Before We Were Yours.

I finished Blackout and Fade to Black by David Rosenfelt. I had read the first already but couldn't remember it completely so I reread it before reading the sequel. Easy, fun thrillers with likable characters.

I just started Fifty Fifty, the sequel to Never Never by James Patterson.

I finished The Baker's Secret by Stephen Kierman.  What a great book! Poignant without being sappy, touching, witty- it is a testament to the resiliency of the human spirit.  But most of all I loved the way he used words. I would re-read some pages and let the prose roll over in my mind, almost like tasting them and savouring them. Great character development, great use of words; it keeps a good pace & never drags.  Set in a small coastal town near the Normany beaches  just before D-Day, when the area was occupied by the Nazis prior to the invasion that seemed like it would never come.  Emma, the protagonist, runs a black market bartering ring that literally keeps the villagers alive.  There are many memorable characters in this story, and the author does a good job of letting the reader understand why they do what they do in order to survive. But underneath it all, they treat their community as a family with a common enemy. There is a lot of suspense, examples of bravery, and action in this story. The author uses a baking metaphor throughout the book, and ends the book on the taste of hope.   I highly recomment this one!!

Just started The Indigo Girl by Natasha Boyd, which was recommended by birukitty. So far, so good.

In the last couple of weeks, I've read:

The Blue Castle by LM Montgomery.  One of her stand-alone books, this one is about an "old maid" walking out of her controlled life and following her dreams.  A really fun one.

As it was our Holy Week, I read a self-published book, The Road to Golgotha by Christine Rogers.  It had a lot of the pitfalls of a self-published novel (editing errors being number one) but I found it to be a very well done set of short stories about the last days of Christ through the eyes of different participants.  Edifying and one that I will return to next year.

Hitty: Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field.  A childhood favorite that I am not sure I'd read in adulthood.  Very well done, goes through the 18th and 19th Century through the eyes of a handmade doll that goes from family to family and adventure to adventure.

Village Diary by Miss Read. I didn't realize how much I'd laugh out loud.  Giggle.
 

I liked this book, but it did require some concentration (the language and some of the philosophy/theory sections). 

Just one for me this week. I read The Magdalen Girls by V.S. Alexander which is a historical fiction book that takes place in Ireland in 1962 in the convent of The Sisters of the Holy Redemption. This convent is one of the Magdalen Laundries. If you've ever watched the film "Philomena" which came out in 2013 with Judy Dench then you have some idea of what the Magdalen Laundries were about.  I thought they were a place young unwed mothers were sent but as this book illustrates any girl could be sent to them by her parents if there was even the thought that she might be tempting the wrong man, too pretty or too independent. Once a place of refuge they have evolved into grim workhouses. When the book opens we meet 16 year old Teagan, a good girl who lives with her alcoholic father and timid mother. Her beauty tempts the new young priest in town and before she knows what is happening her father sends her to this convent. There she meets another girl who becomes her best friend. They band together to try to survive the grim reality of where they are and maintain hope that they will ever be able to leave. I really liked this book. It had wonderful writing that made me feel as though I was there with characters I cared about, and one in particular I hated. I gave it 4 stars on Goodreads. 

I've had a few migraines lately so I haven't been able to get to the library to pick up my latest batch of books. I looked among my shelves and found a copy of The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena. It's a thriller which I don't read very often but hey, I've got to read. I can't go a day without reading. I'm about 2/3 of the way through and so far it's been good. I'll review it next week. Before this I picked up 4 other books and couldn't get into any of them. 

Gamgam, I hope you love The Indigo Girl as much as I did. I added The Baker's Secret to my TBR list on Goodreads.  

I'm still reading You Can't Touch My Hair by Phoebe Robinson but am also now reading The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein. I'm reading this as part of an educational Twitter chat I plan to participate in. So far I've read the first three chapters, and while it's all stuff I "knew," the amount of evidence for intentional governmental segregation in just public housing is astounding. And, that it was happening well into the 70s and 80s. (This is evidence of my privilege that I didn't really realize all that.)

I. couldn't. do it. 

Maybe I'll give it another go down the road, but I could NOT get into that book and gave up.