Markon reads, but doesn't talk so much

I can't seem to find as much time as I'd like for talking about the books I'm reading, but I still want to keep a list. Ready or not, here we go!

2015 thread is here.

Update August 2016

My friend Sally & I are trying to form a habit of water aerobics at the Y on Sunday afternoons.

Update February 2016
Took a friend to Sun in My Belly for brunch Saturday. Yummy food, long wait.

2016 Books

October
45. Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
46. First Impressions by Charlie Lovett
47. the kingdom of gods by N. K. Jemisin
48. Hillbilly elegy by J. D. Vance
49. All the light we cannot see by Anthony Doerr

September
39. The Chimes by Anna Small
40. The long way to a small angry planet by Becky Chambers
41. The fire next time by James Baldwin
42. The fire this time edited by Jesmyn Ward
43. The Race Beat by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff
44. Visitor by C. J. Cherryh

August
32. Prairie Silence by Melanie Hoffert (memoir)
33. Body Politic by Paul Johnston (mystery, dystopia)
34. The Bone yard by Paul Johnston (mystery, dystopia)
35. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (historical fiction)
36. Cultural Literacy for Religion: Everything the well-educated person should know (audiobook, lecturer is Mark Berkson)
37. I was there when it happened: My life with Johnny Cash by Marshall Grant
38. What is veiling? by Sahar Amer

July
24. Among Others by Jo Walton (fantasy?)
25. James Tiptree, Jr.: the double life of Alice B. Sheldon by Julie Phillips (biography)
26. The boys in the bunkhouse: servitude and salvation in the heartland by Dan Berry (non fiction)
27. Golden Scales by Parker Bilal (mystery)
28. Half-resurrection blues by Daniel Jose Older (urban fantasy)
29. My friend my father
30. My friend Muriel
31. My friends the Miss Boyds by Jane Duncan

March
15. The secret place by Tana French **** (mystery, reread (audio)
16. Dark reservations by John Fortunato (mystery)
17. Strange country by Deborah Coates *** (mystery/fantasy)
18. Tracker by C. J. Cherryh ***1/2 (science fiction)
19. Kingfisher by Patricia McKillip ***1/2 (Fantasy)
20. City of Bones by Martha Wells ***1/2 (fantasy)
21. The Shore by Sara Taylor*** (short stories)
22. Stories of the Raksura Vol. 1 by Martha Wells **** (novellas)
23. Stories of the Raksura vol. 2

February
5. Searching for Sunday by Rachel Held Evans *** 3/4 (spirituality, Christianity)
6. Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal *** 3/4
7. My grandmother asked me to tell you she's sorry by Fredrik Backman *** 3/4 (fiction)
8. The raven boys by Maggie Stiefvater **** (fantasy, reread)
9. The theory of death by Faye Kellerman *** (mystery)
10. The wolf wilder by Katherine Rundell *** (juvenile)
11. The king's justiceby Stephen R. Donaldson *** (fantasy)
12. Gods and beasts by Denise Mina **** (mystery)
13. Pukka: the pup after Merle by Ted Kerasote *** (eye candy)
14. The fifth season by N. K. Jemisin **** (fantasy)

January
1. Peace like a river by Leif Enger ****
2. In bitter chill by Sarah Ward *** (mystery)
3. Dreaming in Indian edited by Lisa Charleyboy & Maary Beth Leatherdale
4. Early Warning by Jane Smiley ****

Abandoned

March

At home: a short history of private life by Bill Bryson (March): on audio, too rambling; I expected something focused more on the house as buliding, rather than cultural history

Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban: I like this one, I just have too much on my reading plate.

Meursault investigation by Kamel Daoud: Again, too much on my plate & I'm not getting to it and it's due back at the library.

The river where blood is born by Sandra Jackson-Opokku: This one is really good! And I'm not getting it read!

October
must try again
Signs Preceding the end of the world by Yuri Herrera
The bones of Grace by Tahmima Anam

My two favorites so far are set in the Midwest US. Jane Smiley's century trilogy has grown on me. I'm not sure how she does character development with such a large cast and only one chapter to cover a whole year, but it works.




I'm not sure who mentioned Leif Enger's Peace like a river, but thanks!

Also:



In bitter chill is the first mystery by this author. Worth watching.

Welcome back! You may be leading the pack with four books finished already... :)

Hi Ardene! I'm not on LT much these days, but it's nice to check in with friends from time to time. Hope you are doing well. I have Peace Like a River, but haven't gotten to it yet. Glad to know it's worth taking up shelf space. :-)

>6 labfs39: Hi Lisa, good to see you!

Currently reading & enjoying


Searching for Sunday by Rachel Held Evans


Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta


My grandmother asked me to tell you she's sorry by Fredrik Backman


The river where blood is born by Sandra Jackson-Opoku

Favorites for February:


Searching for Sunday by Rachel Held Evans
For those of us with a love/hate relationship with the Christian church.

Also, a mystery by Denise Mina & the first novel in a new fantasy series by N. K. Jemisin.


Gods and Beasts by Denise Mina
I enjoyed this Alex Morrow mystery, though it seems others didn't. Mina's writing covers the interior lives of her characters as well as external events, and some of the connections made at the end of the novel are chilling. I'm curious about where we'll go next, and what the eventual revelation/confrontation between Alex & the police force, as well as her brother, will be.


The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin
Distopian fantasy. Eagerly awaiting her next Otherworldly column in the NYTimes Book Review.

I seem to be in a fantasy reading mood. Fantasy February? Muddling through March?

Currently reading Arcadia by Iain Pears & Strange Country by Deborah Coates


I finally got to sing with my threshold/specialty choir a week ago, and thoroughly enjoyed it! We sang at the assisted living facility where we rehearse.

Things I'm looking forward to in March:

Spending a Sunday afternoon on the streets of Atlanta with eighth graders from my church & Lazurus

My friend Sally's concert (DeKalb Choral Guild & Georgia Young Composers Festival) March 5th.

Chantlanta Sacred Music Festival the weekend of March 11-13.

Thanks for the book suggestion on my thread, Arlene, and also for the impetus to come find your thread. Somehow I missed it at the beginning of the year.

Hi Ronnie, good to see you.

Anyone read any of these? They jumped out of the return bin onto my stack of items-to-be-read-but-I -can't-check-them-out-yet-cause-I-have-too-many-at-home-already.

A little salvation by Judson Mitcham (poetry)

whose names are unknown by Sanora Babb (fiction about the dust bowl)

The last four days of Paddy Buckley by Jemey Massey (thriller, love story, black comedy; features an undertaker)

In the forest of forgetting by Theodora Goss (fantasy short stories, intro by Terri Windling)

Well, I enjoyed a 2nd listen to The secret place this weekend (Tana French), and am slowly reading The life of elves (Muriel Barbary) and Arcadia (Iain Pears), both very good.



Two new recipes tried this weekend - a vegan nacho dip, which I like a lot, and a spinach lentil main course that is good, but not great. (Oh she glows cookbook) by Angela Liddon

>12 markon: I look forward to your thoughts on The Life of Elves, which I have picked up a few times but have yet to purchase. I love the look and feel of the Europa Editions.

Love Oh She Glows! That nacho dip is the best!

Not sure I'm going to continue to post, but thought I'd list some highlights of my reading so far this year. Nothing absolutely outstanding, but I've enjoyed the following:

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts: a lovely novel set in India that ended to abruptly for me; I want more! Unfortunately, the sequel has gotten very poor reviews, so I'm going to give it a pass.

Jane Smiley's 20th century trilogy (Some luck, Early warning, Golden Age : I wasn't sure how she could write a chapter a year and develop her characters, but she did.

The life of elves by Muriel Barbery: An odd little pastoral that grew on me slowly.

The shore: an inter-related collection of short stories; my comments to self included "gothic, sex and violence, weird and compelling."

I've also loved Maggie Stiefvater's Raven Boys Chronicles for the characters (the plot fell apart). I love Blue, Ronan, Gansey, & Adam. And I continue to enjoy C. J. Cherryh's Foreigner series.

Stumbling through Summer; Top Ten Tuesdays



I looked at this meme, hosted by the the Broke and the Bookish, and thought, I haven't read many new releases this year! And then I looked at my list of reads and discovered I read more new books than I thought.

My favorite new releases so far:


Visitor

I enjoy the Foreigner series by C. J. Cherryh, (though I'm not thrilled with the covers) and I particularly liked this one because I've been waiting a long time for the shoe that drops towards the end of this book. Some people have been disappointed in Visitor because there isn't as much action as there is in many of the novels, but I enjoyed getting to know the kyo in Visitor, and getting better acquainted with the tensions between humans - ship personnel, station/rescued personnel, & Mospherians - in Tracker, also released this year. I like character development, and if the writing is good and the characters are interesting, a book doesn't have to have an action-packed plot to keep my interest.


The Life of Elves

Speaking of books with more character than plot, this was one that grew on me. The Life of Elves by Muriel Barberry was a slow build, and I particularly enjoyed the French characters and descriptions of the village. This was one I had to read a bit at a time, and I didn't care so much about the characters in the Italian city. I haven't read The Elegance of the Hedgehog, so I don't know how it compares.


The Raven King (the Raven Cycle, Book 4)

The fourth and final book of the Raven Boys cycle, The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater, was very good. I loved the characters in these books - Blue, Adam, Gansey, Noah. The plot was a bit thin by this time, but Stiefvater writes complex, believable characters.

Others I've read:

Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen by Lois McMaster Bujold (science fiction)
Tracker by C. J. Cherryh (science fiction)
Every heart a doorway, by Seanan McGuire (fantasy)
Kingfisher by Patricia McKillip (fantasy)
Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson (science fiction)
Early Warning by Jane Smiley (historical fiction)

And what's on my horizon?


Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (historical fiction, out this month but I'm 59 on the waiting list at the library)


The Underground Railroad by Colin Whitehead (alternate history, due September 2016)

edited to fix links

Good to see that two of your best are in series that I intend to read...someday. The Foreigner series for sure; I already have the first two or three in the series and I do like Cherryh. And The Raven Boys series has had a lot of good comment, too. I've also read the Bujold and the McGuire, and had the McKillip home from the library but didn't get to it in the time I had--still on my "later" list at the library. Glad to see you are getting some good reading in and hope all is well for you in RL.

Thanks Roni. It's hot here in Atlanta this summer, as usual. We are snowed under with end-of-the-summer book returns at the library, and looking forward to kids going back to school. A friend and I are trying to get into an exercise routine with a water aerobics class and went for the first time last night. It was a good workout!

Set in the late 1990s, Golden Scales is the first in a projected 10-book series about Makana, a exiled police inspector from Sudan, covering the 1990s up to the Egyptian revolution.

On the surface this is a mystery, with the main character, Makana, hired by a powerful businessman, Hanifi, to locate a missing soccer player, Adil. But life is rarely simple, and personal & political ramifications proliferate as Makana searches for Adil in Cairo. The story is laced with uncomfortable parallels of loss between Hanifi's & Makana's family, as well as between the British woman Liz & Makana.

Makana's integrity after the '90s coup in Sudan endangered his family. Now, living in exile in Egypt, he again attempts to balance integrity & survival where the practice of one attribute endangers the implementation of the other. I liked this novel. It can be read as a straight-up mystery, but following Makana, his friends (and his enemies) also gives a glimpse of some of the societal concerns shaping life in Egypt and Sudan.

The fifth book in the series, City of Jackals, was published in June 2016. For more information about the author, see his two websites: Parker Bilal (his pen name for mysteries) or Jamal Mahjob (his literary fiction). Thanks to Suzanne (chatterbox) for introducing me to this series!

Title: Golden Scales
Author:Parker Bilal
Genre: mystery
Copyright: 2012

Set in the late 1990s, Golden Scales is the first in a projected 10-book series about Makana, a exiled police inspector from Sudan, covering the 1990s up to the Egyptian revolution.

On the surface this is a mystery, with the main character, Makana, hired by a powerful businessman, Hanifi, to locate a missing soccer player, Adil. But life is rarely simple, and personal & political ramifications proliferate as Makana searches for Adil in Cairo. The story is laced with uncomfortable parallels of loss between Hanifi's & Makana's family, as well as between the British woman Liz & Makana.

Makana's integrity after the '90s coup in Sudan endangered his family. Now, living in exile in Egypt, he again attempts to balance integrity & survival where the practice of one attribute endangers the implementation of the other. I liked this novel. It can be read as a straight-up mystery, but following Makana, his friends (and his enemies) also gives a glimpse of some of the societal concerns shaping life in Egypt and Sudan.

The fifth book in the series, City of Jackals, was published in June 2016. For more information about the author, see his two websites: Parker Bilal (his pen name for mysteries) or Jamal Mahjob (his literary fiction) or his Wikipedia entry. Thanks to Suzanne (chatterbox) for introducing me to this series!

Title: Golden Scales
Copyright: 2012
Genre: mystery
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Author: Parker Bilal (pseudonym for Jamal Mahjob)

Hi Ardene! I found you! Like I said, as soon as Jim gets the new group up later this month I'll set up a Bible thread. There are, I think, around 4 people who expressed interest. Hopefully they're all still in. You can participate as much or as little as you want.

> 22 Hi Rachel! Looking forward to group reads next year!



It's time to think about endings and beginnings again, and since I've not been active here this year, I'm not sure what to do about next year. I would like to continue to catalog my reading, but don't think the 75ers groups is necessary for me to do that. I'll be mulling over ways to make book connections online and post my plan later in the month.

Hope everyone has a good holiday season!

Best of 2016?

My standout read this year (and one that I somehow missed listing in my thread) is Ta-Nehisi Coates Between the World and me. Far and away the best thing I read this year.

Also memorable: Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts and Lab Girl by Hope Jahren.

Things I haven’t finished but plan to (they had to go back to the library before I finished them)
• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
• The Bones of Grace by Tahmima Anam

And what I want to re-read before I rate it: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Currently Reading

I’m currently reading and enjoying the following:

Olio by Tyehimba Jess – poetry? music history? Wonderful so far!

Christmas Days: 12 stories and 12 feasts for 12 days by Jeannette Winterson (short stories and recipes)

Rolling Blackouts a non-fiction comic by Sarah Glidden

The Starlit Wood: new fairy tales, edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe

Other Reading Notes

This was the year I discovered that MacMillan has put out ebooks of the My Friend series by Jane Duncan, so I bought several. I also discovered the Makana mysteries by Parker Bilal. Maggie Stiefvater’s last Raven book was published, I found two new-to-me series by Anne Bishop & Paul Johnston and read Chinelo Okparanta’s first novel, Under the Udala Trees. I did not participate in MENA this year, but I did read two books to continue my learning about Islam and Islamic culture, Islamic Activists by Deina Ali Abdelkader and What is Veiling? by Sahar Amer.

Music and Water Aerobics

I failed miserably in attending chorus rehearsals the last half of this year, so I plan to prioritize that come January. What I am proud of is that I joined a wellness center and began attending water aerobics classes once a week starting in September! Exercise has never been something I’ve been able to prioritize or enjoy, so having 3-4 months of regular exercise under my belt is wonderful.

I should really read Between the World and Me. Glad you liked it

>25 The_Hibernator: Rachel, "should read" is a phrase I hate (though I feel it myself sometimes.) If you do pick it up, I hope you enjoy it - I thought the writing was wonderful, though of course the message is not what one would hope it was.

I think my goal next year is to be more intereactive about books than I have been this year. And to that end I'm planning to participate in some group reads/discussions and am not going to have a thread on the 75ers.

I plan to start a thread in the 2017 category challenge. Here's a link to my 2017 main page there.

I'm also planning to participate in Hibernator's two year-long reads: one I would describe as for "blues" living in "red" environments (see her post here), and one is a reading the Bible as literature read.

And finally, I plan to read a few books with the Goodreads group that reads Literary fiction by people of color. The read for January there is Swing Time by Zadie Smith, and I won a copy of that at work recently.

Whew! That sounds like a lot! We'll see how it goes.

For January that means

Genesis? in the Bible read (not sure what the schedule is yet)
Beginning Unwinding by George Packer (we're spending two months on this one)
Swing Time
something by Willa Cather for the Category Challange

Hi Ardene! I have the threads up!

Group Read for the Bible: https://www.librarything.com/topic/243886 The schedule is included in the post.

Group Read for Unwinding: https://www.librarything.com/topic/243872

We're also group reading Evicted in January, if you're interested. Though I know you probably don't want to dedicate your entire month of reading to my projects. ;) Here's the Evicted thread: https://www.librarything.com/topic/243885

Wouldn't it be nice if 2017 was a year of peace and goodwill.
A year where people set aside their religious and racial differences.
A year where intolerance is given short shrift.
A year where hatred is replaced by, at the very least, respect.
A year where those in need are not looked upon as a burden but as a blessing.
A year where the commonality of man and woman rises up against those who would seek to subvert and divide.
A year without bombs, or shootings, or beheadings, or rape, or abuse, or spite.

2017.

Festive Greetings and a few wishes from Malaysia!

>28 The_Hibernator: Thanks for the invite to Evicition; I'm going to pass on that one. I think the Bible & The Unwinding + other reads will keep me busy!

Hope the holiday season is treating you well.

>29 PaulCranswick: Thanks Paul! Don't I wish this would come true!

Since I'm not doing a 75ers thread this year, here is a link to my 2017 Category Challenge thread.

This is the Christmas tree at the end of the Pacific Beach Pier here in San Diego, a Christmas tradition.

To all my friends here at Library Thing, I want you to know how much I value you and how much I wish you a very happy holiday, whatever one you celebrate, and the very best of New Years!

Love this photo Roni! Merry Christmas!