****Favorite Reads for Q3

Where has the time gone? Here we are beginning the final quarter of the year.

It is time to think about the books you've read during the past three months.

What were your favorite books during July through September? Did you have any five star reads, or unforgettable four stars?

Have you discovered any new authors that you want to share with the group?

Were there any books that you really disliked, or that you were unable to finish?

Best reads:
The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
Brighton Rock - Graham Greene
Human Acts - Han Kang
Agnes Grey - Anne Brontë
Rob Roy - Walter Scott

Newly discovered would be Han Kang, who is amazing.

Only book (which is really a short story imo) I really disliked was Oroonoko (Aphra Behn), while Candide and Kafka's The Castle were merely mediocre.

Here's the stuff I've rated 4.5 stars this quarter. (I didn't have any 5-star ones, but those are pretty rare for me, anyway):

Hogfather and Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett (both of which were re-reads)
The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz
City of Stairs and its sequel City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick
Let's Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir) by Jenny Lawson

Most disappointing book: Lightless by C. A. Higgins

I had a lot of great reading in this quarter but my favourites were:

Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers
Résistance: a woman's journal of struggle and defiance in occupied France by Agnès Humbert
Mr Mercedes by Stephen King
A house in the sky: a memoir by Amanda Lindhout
A beautiful place to die by Malla Nunn
Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky
Ten things I've learnt about love by Sarah Butler

I disliked Seabiscuit and Sweetness in the belly both of which get high ratings here at LT.

I've not read that many this quarter to choose from, but my favourite was Small Wars by Sadie Jones closely followed by Mrs Bridge and Enduring Love.

I enjoyed returning to Anita Brookner and Damon Galgut.

The much acclaimed The Dinner by Herman Koch didn't sit well with me for some reason.

>5 AlisonY: The much acclaimed The Dinner by Herman Koch didn't sit well with me for some reason. I suspect Koch is trying to unsettle his readers, so that might be it.

My top reads were:

NW, Zadie Smith
The Wife's Tale, Lori Lansens
Atlas of Remote Islands, Judith Schalansky
Swing Low: a Life, Miriam Toews

Also good:

Death of the Heart, Elizabeth Bowen (although I struggled with it)
So You've Been Publicly Shamed, Jon Ronson
Slade House, David Mitchell

I read far more than I expected to in Q3, so there's quite a lot to choose from.

Books I expected to enjoy and did:
several Thomas Bernhards (in particular Das Kalkwerk);
several Elizabeth Taylors, in particular A game of hide and seek, plus Nicola Beauman's excellent biography The other Elizabeth Taylor.

Books by writers new to me I especially enjoyed:
Salam Dalgat! by Alisa Ganieva, Red cavalry by Isaac Babel,
Kleist, Moos, Fasane by Ilse Aichinger,
Ein ganzes Leben by Robert Seethaler

Slight disappoitments (filed under "well-written but not for me"):
On ne s'endort jamais seul by René Frégni
Helden wie wir by Thomas Brussig

My favourites in Q3 are:
- In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
- My name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
- Hot Milk by Deborah Levy

The disappointment of the quarter was the much hyped The Girls by Emma Clime.