What Are You Reading the Week of 2 August 2014?

Dennis Lehane (born 4 August 1965) is an American author. He has written several novels, including A Drink Before the War, Mystic River, and Gone, Baby, Gone, which were adapted into films. His novel Shutter Island was adapted into a film by Martin Scorsese in 2010.

Lehane was born and raised in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, and continues to live in the Boston area, which provides the setting for most of his books. He spent summers on Fieldston Beach in Marshfield. Lehane is the youngest of five children. His father was a foreman for Sears & Roebuck, and his mother worked in a Boston public school cafeteria; both of his parents emigrated from Ireland.

He was previously married to Sheila Lawn, formerly an advocate for the elderly for the city of Boston but now working with the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office as an Assistant District Attorney. Currently, he is married to Dr. Angela Bernardo, with whom he has one daughter. He lost his beagle, Tessa, in the fall of 2012 and is continuing the search for her.

He is a graduate of Boston College High School (a Jesuit prep school), Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida (where he found his passion for writing), and the graduate program in creative writing at Florida International University in Miami, Florida. He occasionally makes guest appearances as himself in the ABC comedy/drama TV series Castle.

His first book, A Drink Before the War (1994), which introduced the recurring characters Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, won the 1995 Shamus Award for Best First P.I. Novel. The fourth book in the series, Gone, Baby, Gone, was adapted to a film of the same title in 2007; it was directed by Ben Affleck and starred Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan as Kenzie and Gennaro. When commenting on the movie after receiving a sneak peek, Lehane commented that "I saw the movie and it's terrific, I wasn't gonna say anything if I didn't like it but it's really terrific." Reportedly, Lehane "has never wanted to write the screenplays for the films {based on his own books}, because he says he has 'no desire to operate on my own child.'"

Lehane's Mystic River was made into a film in 2003 also called Mystic River which was directed by Clint Eastwood. It starred Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, and Kevin Bacon (Lehane can be briefly seen waving from a car in the parade scene at the end of the film). The novel itself was a finalist for the PEN/Winship Award and won the Anthony Award and the Barry Award for Best Novel, the Massachusetts Book Award in Fiction, and France's Prix Mystère de la Critique.

Lehane's first play, Coronado, debuted in New York in December 2005, produced by Invisible City Theater Company. The play had its regional premiere at American Stage in St. Petersburg in April 2006, and its Midwest premiere in the fall of 2007 with Steep Theatre Company in Chicago. Coronado is based on his acclaimed short story "Until Gwen", which was originally published in The Atlantic Monthly and was selected for both The Best American Short Stories 2005 and The Best Mystery Short Stories 2005.

Lehane described working on his historical novel, The Given Day, as "a five- or six-year project" with the novel beginning in 1918 and encompassing the 1919 Boston Police Strike and its aftermath. According to Lehane,

The strike changed everything ... It had a big effect on the unionization movement, and Prohibition came on the heels of that, then Calvin Coolidge promising to break the unions. That's all linked to what's going on now.

While Lehane's epic novel centers on the 1919 Boston police strike, it contains a national sweep and might be the first of a trilogy or perhaps a four-book series. Lehane called the novel his "great white whale" and said that when he finally finished it, he would "either write a sequel—or take a break from the cops and return to Patrick and Angie." The novel was published in October 2008.

On 22 October 2007, Paramount Pictures announced that they had optioned Shutter Island with Martin Scorsese attached as director. The Laeta Kalogridis-scripted adaptation has Leonardo DiCaprio playing U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels, "who is investigating the disappearance of a murderess who escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane and is presumed to be hiding on the remote Shutter Island." Mark Ruffalo played opposite DiCaprio as U.S. Marshal Chuck Aule. Production started in March 2008; Shutter Island was released on 19 February 2010.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on 12 February 2010, Lehane revealed that he was working on a sixth book in the Patrick Kenzie & Angela Gennaro series, his first in 11 years. The book, titled Moonlight Mile, was released on 2 November 2010. His next book, World Gone By, will be released in March 2015.

The Kenzie-Gennaro novels
A Drink Before the War (1994)
Darkness, Take My Hand (1996)
Sacred (1997)
Gone, Baby, Gone (1998)
Prayers for Rain (1999)
Moonlight Mile (2010)

Other works
Mystic River (2001)
Shutter Island (2003)
Coronado: Stories (2006)
The Given Day (2008)
Live By Night (2012)
The Drop (2014)

Filmography
Mystic River (2003)
The Wire (2002 TV series) writer
--Episode 3.03 "Dead Soldiers" (2004) story and teleplay
--Episode 4.04 "Refugees" (2006) story and teleplay
--Episode 5.08 "Clarifications" (2008) story and teleplay
Gone Baby Gone (2007) novel
Shutter Island (2010) novel, executive producer
Castle (TV series) (2009) himself
The Dead Pool (2011 TV series)
--Episode 3.21 story and teleplay
Boardwalk Empire (2013) writer, creative consultant
The Drop (2014) writer

It is road trip time again and I am listening to The White Princess by Philippa Gregory. This is book 5 in the Cousin's War series and is the series of books on which the Starz series White Queen is based. These historical fiction novels might not be as factual as non-fiction works on the War of the Roses but they keep me listening while on the road. I think part of it is the narrator. She is really good.

I am also reading Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay and should finish it tonight. This one is another winner from this author.

Can't remember which one but one of Lehane's books mentioned my old Catholic high school, now defunct - since the building had to be sold off to pay victims of the pedophile crisis. It gave me a thrill to see the name in print. I should read more of his books since we come from the same neighborhood and so many of the areas he writes about are familiar. But often places that are too familiar are a tad mundane when reading fiction so ....

I'm reading Moss Hart's memoir Act One and reveling in the life of the theater in the 1920s and Hart's tenacious efforts to escape from crushing poverty. He was a marvelous writer who died too soon (in 1961 at age 57) but not before writing sparkling comedies like "You Can't Take it With You" and "The Man Who Came to Dinner" with George S. Kauffman; and directing "My Fair Lady" and "Camelot" on Broadway.

As far as memoirs go, this one is a classic, and I'm glad I've finally got round to reading it.

Nice, Richard. Dennis Lehane was a speaker at the Arts & Lecture series I attend. That man is a born storyteller!

I finished a LTER, Broken Spring. Can't say that I enjoyed it. Too much repetition and pro-Israeli slanted opinions about Middle Eastern issues. That said, I did learn a thing or two.

Still reading A Turn of the Light and Curse of the Mistwraith.

I'm tidying up loose ends this week. I didn't finish The Art Forger because I stopped to read a galley: Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good by Jan Karon. I'll finish both of them this week. I'm listening to The American by Henry James but I probably won't finish it until next week.

Just finished Reconstructing Amelia for book club (a little too Jodi Picoultish) and "Life Drawing", by Robin Black after meeting the author at our book store's happy hour. Life Drawing was pretty good and suspensful. Just cracked open the obituary writer, which so far I am drawn in. In the car, I am on chapter 61 of Voyager and still loving the Outlander series (it seems I start getting a little bored.. and then whoosh, she scoops me back in) Davina Porter is a fantastic narrator! On Vacation and hoping to enjoy more of the bag of books I brought along! Happy August!

>8 booklovers2: The Obituary Writer is one of my favorites. I hope you enjoy it.

I finished reading Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay last night. It was another good one by this author. It a bit of a departure from some of his books, but he really nailed the setting and spotlighted Celtic Mythology - which isn't done so often. The book is set in Provence and is about the big battles between the Celts (or Gauls - as Caesar called them) and the Romans. The author manages to bridge the long and lengthy history of the region and have lots of fantasy in it for the reader.

I have now started to finish Dark Voyage by Alan Furst. I have been reading this book for about a year on my Nook and since I don't read on my Nook that often (or the iPad app for the Nook) I went to the library and checked out the hardcopy. Somehow for me a book is more portable than is a machine. It is time to get this title done and move on.

I finished Shadowmancer, Beyond the Deepwoods and The Lotus Caves on the last day of July. I didn't enjoy the first at all, but the latter two were great. I am now listening to The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton and focussing my reading on The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin. I've also got Mana's Story by Peter Dickinson to hand as it's the last in the series and I'd like to get through it this week too.

Today I will be starting Fourth of July Creek bySmith Henderson and later in the week Everything I Never Told You byCeleste Ng and The Girl Who Came Home: A Novel of the Titanic by Hazel Gaynor.

#3 NarratorLady - Moss Hart's Act One is one of my favorites. I loved it so much I have gotten two friends to read it and they loved it as well!

Currently, I am reading Innocent Blood by P.D. James. It's really a re-read as I read it the summer before I left home for college. Now, my daughter is leaving for college in a little over a week so it feels like a strange symmetry. I'm not sure if symmetry is really the word I'm looking for but you get the drift. I bet the German language has a word for this; German seems to have a word for all of life's peculiarities.

I'm also enjoying Poison King: Life and Legend of Mithradates.

I'm about a third of the way through Legate's Daughter by Wallace Breem. I wish I liked it better. The main character is remarkably unchatty and dour, especially for a main character. Instead of getting his job done, he spends most of his time drunk, drugged and/ or confused. Honestly, pull yourself together Curtius Rufus!

Benitastrnad--I read Ysabel years ago but I had forgotten what it was about. Your notes brought it all back. I loved that book, even though I don't usually read fantacy.

There's nothing like holding a real book in yiur hands.

I was totally shocked by the ending of Shutter Island when I read it in 2011. Thanks for another great start Richard.

I'm reading The Rosie Project: A Novel by Graeme Simsion for my book club. Some nice, light reading for the summer.

I finished the complex, lengthy, and unusual novel, The Luminaries.

Next up I will return to The Dark by Sergio Chejfec, which I had set down to complete a RL book club read.

I have been out of town traveling in Alaska and British Columbia (beautiful!). I read Beauty and the Soul (great); and Pilgrim's Wilderness (great and very scary). Now I am reading Jane Eyre which is very good too! So it has been a good streak. I'm also working in the stories (fiction and non fiction) from The Last New Land.

>1 richardderus: Coincidentally I finished The Given Day in the wee hours of this morning. Wonderful book. I didn't realize there was a sequel, but after finding out, I found a cheap one on eBay, which should be waiting for me at home some day soon. I have enjoyed all the Lehanes that I've read, with the caveat that some of the Kenzie/Gennaros are better than others.

For a change of pace I started The secret Life of Bees today.

Thanks for selecting Mr. Lehane, RD! He is one of my favorites and Mystic River is easily one of my top reads of the past decade.

I am currently reading Dirty Love, (very good) and on audio, I am listening to We Were Liars, which has been disappointing.

>15 PaperbackPirate: The Rosie Project is a joy!!

>18 Jim53: I cannot come up with a bigger change of pace than moving from Lehane to The Secret Life of Bees. Except maybe to read Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Dennis Lehane is a good, solid craftsman and a really enjoyably inventive writer. He don't get no respec' because he writes crime novels, and I think that's dumb.

Thanks for the great start for the week, Richard. Lehane's Kenzie and Gennaro series is one of my favorites.

>18 Jim53: Live By Night is an excellent follow-up to The Given Day. Enjoy!

This week I'm reading Amy Bloom's latest, Lucky Us. It's very good.

This is weird. I've loved everything I've read by Dennis Lehane and give him all due respect even though I moan about my lack of love for crime novels. I especially liked The Given Day and when he came to talk in our city I asked if he planned a follow up on it and he said definitely not. Maybe it was because I had just been praising the baseball references in the novel or maybe it was because he was burned out at the time, he looked very tired. But, hmm. Well now I have to get Live by Night.
And speaking of how much I dislike crime novels, I just finished The Shining Girls and would have appreciated this information before I started the book: not only does the villain murder many intelligent, hard working women with dreams, aspirations and responsibilities, he also kills a dog in a very heart rending fashion. There, now you've been warned.
I also just finished Mr Mercedes which was much better, but enough of this dark stuff for a while.
Now I've started Emerald Green, the third of the Ruby Red trilogy about time traveling in England. I feel like I can breathe again.
I'm still working on Revolutionary Summer and find it amazing that we ever managed to get a federal government in the US.
Next up will be a book of short stories by Aimee Bender, The Color Master because I like her weirdness.

In anticipation of an upcoming trip to Italy, I'm spending a little time with Salvo Montalbano. For the last few years now, I've been gradually savoring Andrea Camilleri's wonderful series of police procedurals and I'm up to The Potter's Field.

I finished reading The Dark by Sergio Chejfec. A serious intellectual workout on the nature of relationship as surmised during one man's interior monologue. Pulled a couple of muscles on this one!

Next up to read is an Early Reviewer edition of The Ploughmen by Kim Zupan.

>23 browner56: Savor well, since Camilleri's almost 90 and there can't be too many more Montalbanos to come. Darn it!

Still struggling through Moby Dick although I am half way through and determined to finish it. For more enjoyable reading, I have start Life Drawing.

This thread seems like a great place to pick up suggestions for some great new things to read. Some seem to be right up my alley, especially Pilgrim's Wilderness, which I've never heard about but which sounds delightfully disturbing.

I've just started Meg Gardiner's The Nightmare Thief, after finishing Gillian Flynn's Dark Places (interesting but, I felt, overly dramatic) and Paula Brackston's The Winter Witch (quick, simple, fluffy read--better, I felt, than The Witch's Daughter).

I'm in the highly entertaining Trollope-land. This time it's the second book in the Palliser series, Phineas Finn.

The first episode of Outlander is available free online!

Premiere date is 9 August. Cheers!

>25 richardderus: Sad, but true, Richard. Still, I'm about two-thirds through this one and Camilleri is still at the top of his game. Given the lag in translating them into English, I figure there are at least two or three more good books left. I deeply mourned when Dibdin's Zen series went away and I will truly be crushed when Montalbano goes away for good.

#29 brenzi...I am a huge fan of the Palliser series....hope you enjoy Phineas!

I read the Early Reviewer edition of The Ploughmen and thoroughly enjoyed it. Wonderful use of language/vocabulary, a fascinating pair of characters, and just a good read!

Next up is another Early Reviewer book, Godforsaken Idaho: Stories by Shawn Vestal.

>20 richardderus: actually I'm finding some significant similarities in one shared theme, race relations in a time of change and upheaval, although of course the characters and tone are quite different.

>30 richardderus: Thanks, Richard. I've got to remember to set my DVR. One book was enough for me, but my daughter's on the fourth one and still going strong.

>31 browner56: Dibdin's death was a blow...and I miss the TV show, too. Three episodes?! C'mon!

Thank goodness for the fact Camilleri's prolific.

>33 Jim53: Tone difference is all, between those two anyway. Enjoy the Kidd!

>34 Citizenjoyce: For me, two books and good night. But I can see the TV possibilities very well indeed, and hope for the best.

Thanks for the good start, Richard.

I'm reading Orphan Train and The Silkworm, and enjoying both.

I've also got Camilleri's latest. Here's hoping he lives forever.

*Sigh* Book bullets are completely unmissable around these parts - having read this post, I then happened to see Shutter Island sitting front and centre on the shelf in the charity shop today.... it literally jumped off and into my hands - this isn't my usual kind of reading but I do step off my own well-trodden path often enough that... There's little that I won't try at least once. Anyway it came home with me - but I'm not sure when I'll get to it.

The english translation of the next Inspector Montalbano mystery "Game of Mirrors" isn't due out until April 28, 2015. That's nine months away! ***pregnant pause*** I guess that I can wait that long.

>40 fredbacon: booooooo
hisssssss hisssssssssssssssss
booooooooooooooooooooooooooo

:-P

I'll be here all week. Try the veal.

~27 Pilgrim's Wilderness is nothing short of surreal. If the story was not weird enough (and trust me, it is), the political wrangling that goes on is even weirder. Plus, just the sheer drama for such a small place, both before and after the family arrived ... oy. I heard about it when I was in Alaska, as the events occurred where we were traveling. So I downloaded it on Kindle and read it in the shadow of Denali (so to speak). The author is excellent, a local too, so his reporting is very, very good. Enjoy (if that is the right word!)

I am on vacation and hoping to get a lot of reading time in. First up is The Little Stranger.

>44 mynovelthoughts: The Little Stranger's been on my to-read list for ages. Let us know what you think.

I never thought I'd be reading a book about organization cover-to-cover, but Organize & Create Discipline by Justin Klosky has so many practical suggestions that I've found myself reading through most of the entries. Although I haven't had the chance to try any of them out yet, I have hope for the first time in my life that I can become a more organized person. We'll see if that translates into real life...

Just finished The Circle by Dave Eggers. The writing is a bit clunky, but the story was strong enough to keep me involved.

The fifth of August is for heroes, according to the meme. THE MARTIAN!

My 5-star review of Andy Weir's classic thriller set in Outer Space gets my vote, for Mark Watney!

How much I appreciate a wisecracking, smartass, and plain smart hero who gets it done. Crown Publishing Group bravo for taking this book to the next level!

The Martian is currently on a slow track at my house as the Wednesday-night read-aloud. It's a great one for this purpose, much better than many of the things we've tackled on this basis. At the rate of about thirty pages per weekly session, it takes us months to get through an average book, and we want it to be worth it. So no spoilers, please!

My fast track is the sixteenth Brother Cadfael, The Heretic's Apprentice, a cozy break in a sequence of some pretty heavy stuff. There've been a few by-the-ways also: waiting room stuff, mostly. The Kindle is earning its keep.

Yay for The Martian! Couldn't agree more.

I finished the last of the Ruby Red trilogy, Emerald Green: time travel in London overwhelmed by teen age romance. Then I finished Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence by Joseph J. Ellis and managed to work up a great deal of tension thinking we might lose. Really, it looks like we well could have. Then I finished The Color Master the last story of which, The Devourings is kind of a Sons of Anarchy with ogres and an Aimee Bender spin. I do love her writing.
Now I'm on to Tuesday's Gone my second Nicci French with the psychotherapist sleuth and Lady Fortescue Steps Out a Regency Era historical romance which I'm hoping will have more history than romance.

Oh, forgot to mention I also started Little Brother by Cory Doctorow which is rather outside my usual fare - a story narrated by a teen age boy about his band of school skipping computer hackers and game players. It was fascinating before The Big Thing happened, now I don't know where it will go, but I'm willing to go along. In most YA dystopias the book starts after society has made adjustments to The Big Thing, so it's nice to be here at the beginning.

I've reviewed Tom Williams's fantastic bluesmen-on-the-road novel DON'T START ME TALKIN' at The Small Press Book Review. Curbside Splendor Press made it an EXCELLENT design and it's amazingly good reading.

Finished Rebel Spring by Morgan Rhodes
#2 in her "Falling Kingdoms" series

Now: rereading While We Were Watching Downton Abbey by Wendy Wax

A Kindle deal led me to Pearl Buck's Peony, which I'm enjoying very much. I've read a lot of literature featuring Jewish characters, but I never knew a single thing about Jewish communities in China.

I finished Near to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector. I'm glad to have read it (it was recommended to me while I was still in college), but I'm also happy to move on to something else. The prose was beautiful in places, but I didn't always understand what she was talking about (nor did I care after awhile), and there just wasn't enough of a plot for me.

I'm now reading Larry McMurtry's The Last Kind Words Saloon, running from Lispector into the arms of Wyatt and Doc and the Wild West. Perhaps I'm overreacting, but I don't think so.

>54 Meredy: Meredy, my Classic's Book Club read Peony last year and I, too, had known nothing about the Jewish community in China. I really need to read the books I have about the Silk Road so that I can add to my education!

I've read Mystic River by Dennis Lehane and absolutely loved it! :) Anyway, on Thursday, July 31st, I started to read Guilt by Association by Susan R. Sloan. I finished it on Monday, August 4th, and this was a reread for me from a year ago. I still liked the book, but found the plot just slightly far-fetched reading this book for the second time.

I started reading The Diary by Eileen Goudge on Monday, August 4th, and it only took me one day to read this book - I finished it at about 11:30 PM. Monday night! I love books about family, and mother-daughter relationships! :) I'm currently reading Kiss and Kill by Karen Young - I started reading this book on Tuesday. August 5th and am enjoying it so much at the moment! :)

Finished the stark interior monologue of a writer suffering from Hunger and mental illness.

Next up for listening at home is Phantom by Jo Nesbo.

Nearing the end of the very good Orphan Train, and also a ways into Lee Child's latest, Personal: a Jack Reacher Novel.

Finished the emotionally evocative collection of short stories, Godforsaken Idaho.

Next up to read is the collection of essays called The Undertaking: Life Studies From the Dismal Trade by the poet, Thomas Lynch.

I've begun The Silkworm - the second in J.K Rowling's mystery series. I quickly remembered how much I liked the first one. The main characters are wonderful and even the secondary characters spring off of the page.

>57 moonshineandrosefire: Funny how that works. I still liked the book, but found the plot just slightly far-fetched reading this book for the second time.
Many re reads are that way for me, and I'm always delighted when I like a book even more the second time around.

I am not far into A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick so far fascinating!!!

>63 hazeljune: I loved A Reliable Wife.

Well, after a week of not having enough time to read more than a page or two, I'm back in the swing of things and finished Champion by Marie Lu to polish off the trilogy that starts with Legend. While I don't like it as much as some other books in the genre, it's a solid teen dystopia and the ending left a smile on my face.

Now I'm reading an e-ARC of As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride by Cary Elwes with Joe Layden. I'm afraid I'm completely biased as a huge fan of the movie, so despite the extremely conversational tone leading to repetition and sentence fragments, I'm really enjoying his memoir of acting in The Princess Bride (for anyone who might not know, he was the main male lead, Westley), which also includes short reflections from Billy Chrystal, Robin Wright, Rob Reiner, and others who were a part of the movie. The e-book is a little hard to read because the italicized text (every movie title mentioned and more) is in a slightly different font and messes with the line breaks, and having the others' input in the middle of the text instead of boxes inset on the page is a bit distracting. Still, it's worthwhile reading for any fan of the movie, and I'll most likely finish it today.

I'm not quite sure what to pick up next, so I might spend some time browsing my "to read" bookshelves tonight.

#62 - Citizenjoyce - I'm not really sure what struck me as far-fetched about the plot during my reread, since it wasn't as noticeable to me the first time that I read Guilt by Association by Susan R. Sloan. She really is a good author and I have at least two other books by her on my bookshelf! :)

I had started reading Kiss and Kill by Karen Young on Tuesday, August 5th, and it only took me one day to read. I finished the book on Wednesday, August 6th. I really did enjoy reading the book, although in my opinion, the plot was just the slightest bit simplistic. :)

I started reading Sandcastles by Luanne Rice on Thursday, August 7th, and found it to be about one hundred pages longer than it actually needed to be. :)