What are you reading the week of May 12, 2018?

I'm so sorry. I had to go into work today. I forgot all about setting up this week's thread. I've read about half of Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East this week. It's a collection of fragments of tablets found at various archaeological digs in the Upper Mesopotamian regions. Most from Mari and Nineveh. An interesting sampling of prophetic scraps from various royal archives. Mostly warnings of danger to the king or predictions of victory for his armies. Nothing of any great interest except as an indication of the status of prophets in the Near East. The courts would hear them out. Then they would take a lock of hair and fragment of the hem of their garment to send to the royal diviners to see if their prophecy was reliable. It's always good to check these things. :-)

Thanks for taking care of things, Fred, we appreciate your efforts and it's always interesting.

A while ago I picked up a Jack Higgins book called Sheba because a customer recommended it. When the boss at the bookstore saw it, she said "YOU are reading Jack Higgins?!! When I started reading it at home, my hubby said "YOU'RE reading HIGGINS?!!"

Apparently they think I'm a snob. But I'm almost half way through it and so far there's been no swearing, no sex, no detailed violence, no pages and pages of descriptions of anything beyond what is needed to make it understood. It's a well written adventure in an interesting place and I think I'll buy some more of them.

>1 fredbacon: You do not need to apologize. You are much appreciated for starting us off each week. And I'm always interested in finding out what you're reading.

I am enjoying a book set in the Old West. It offers a different perspective on the usual tale of settlers headed west --in this one, a Swedish immigrant to America is actually headed east across the continent, but that gives him a chance to encounter all sorts of characters who are headed the other way. A very well-told tale, indeed -- so far at least. The book is by Hernan Diaz: In the Distance

I'm a little bit into The Orphan's Tale by Pam Jenoff which is interesting, well-written & enjoyable. Unfortunately, I haven't been much in a reading mood since the summer so have been reading in spurts when something really grabs my interest.

Fred you do a great job each week- no need to apologize

I've got the following going: Lawn Boy; Gehrig and the Babe; the Black Rock Murder and The Queen of Hearts

Greetings, all! I'm just past the one-third point of Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul: Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty by John M. Barry. Very interesting and well written. So far it's mostly been a history of the 17th Century arguments in England between Kings James and Charles and Parliament. (According to Barry, the translation of the Bible that came to be known as the King James Bible was commissioned by King James mostly to remove passages that could be interpreted as questioning or criticizing the absolute power of monarchs.) Anyway, the book moves on to a description of the Puritan movement in England, the reasons they became so reviled by the established Protestant church in England, and the establishment of the various Puritan settlements in Massachusetts. Along to Massachusetts comes young and promising minister Roger Williams, at one time a protege of a very prominent judge and Parliament member in England (who therefore got to see firsthand the debates between royalists and parliamentarians), who begins to question Puritan orthodoxy. Being questioned is not what the Puritan leaders had in mind when they spoke of religious freedom. That's the point of the history I'm have reached in the book.

Still reading The Girl Who Drank the Moon and City of Bones.

I finished Everything You Know. The snarky brilliant descriptions of people are great, although the characters are mostly either despicable or pathetic.

Thank you Fred for taking the time to do this.

>1 fredbacon: Thank you for starting us off this week. I appreciate it.

I finished reading my first-ever Finnish crime fiction novel yesterday. It was extremely good, and brought a new element into Scandinavian noir that I've never seen before. This book was The Hummingbird and was by Kati Hiekkapelto. I will definitely read more of her works.

Now I'm reading Silenced by Kristina Ohlsson, the second novel of this Swedish crime series.

I am still reading The White Queen by Philippa Gregory

>1 fredbacon: Who puts their job ahead of LibraryThing?! Ok, we'll let it slide this time.

I'm reading The Gunslinger by Stephen King. There's a one-chapter-per-week buddy read on Litsy so I thought I would try to read it again. The first time I tried to read it was in high school and I think it's my first ever DNF. So many people love the series that I decided to try again. So far I do not want to give up.

Reading Death at La Fenice by Donna Leon. I usually don't read series or mysteries (Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers have spoiled me for life) but this one might change my mind!

Thanks for getting us started Fred!

>13 NarratorLady: I plan on starting that series soon!

I finished Crusoe’s Daughter and absolutely loved it.

Now I’m reading Man of the Family by Ralph Moody and Daytripper by Gabriel Ba.

I'm on a four day road trip from California to Virginia. Great audiobook opportunity! I finished two marvelous books today, Straying by Molly McCloskeyp, and Chronicle in Stone by Ismail Kadare, an Albanian author.

Tomorrow I will start listening to Gorilla and the Bird: A Memoir of Madness and a Mother's Love by Zack McDermott.

The Rooster Bar – John Grisham
Audiobook read by Ari Fliakos
3***

Three third-year law students are stunned when their friend and fellow student commits suicide. They hadn’t known he was bi-polar, and they are simply unable to return to classes once they look into his paranoid conspiracy theory of “Satan” and how the billionaire has preyed on the hopes of marginal students by founding multiple for-profit law schools whose graduates can’t pass the bar or get a decent job. Drowning in debt, they decide to drop out of law school and find another way to make some money.

Grisham knows how to write a thrilling adventure tale. Here he imagines three students on a mission to turn the system on its head. Who needs a license? They figure that they can perform at least as well as the sleaziest courthouse- or police-station trolling attorney, picking up poor and uneducated clients for quick plea deals. Learning on the fly they make mistakes, but they also begin making some money. And then they turn their attention to the billionaire who started it all …

The three main characters – Mark, Todd and Zola – are reasonably bright, motivated, and quick on their feet. I found their friendship and loyalty to one another and to the memory of Gordy touching and genuine. Grisham also peoples the book with a variety of colorful minor characters, from a black teen with a speeding ticket, to a high-powered attorney specializing in medical malpractice, to the owner of a number of bars in the DC area, and a highly-sexed cute-as-a-button prosecuting attorney bored with her assignment in traffic court.

I did think that Grisham wrote himself into a hole and was struggling to get out. There’s a significant side plot focusing on one student’s parents – illegal immigrants who fled Senegal decades ago (Zola was born in the USA). For most of the book I thought this was a distraction, though their situation becomes a key to the final resolution. Kind of a cheap trick, in my opinion.

Ari Fliakos does a fine job performing the audio version of this book. I did sometimes get confused between Todd and Mark, since Fliakos doesn’t give them much difference in tone or inflection. Since they have many conversations together it’s somewhat important to know which of them is speaking which lines of dialogue. Still, overall, I thought he did a great job. He kept the pace at a steady speed and the action moving forward.

The Good Nurse – Charles Graeber
Digital audiobook read by Will Collyer
3***

Subtitle: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder

Charles Cullen was a registered nurse who worked in a number of New Jersey hospitals. He always volunteered to care for the sickest patients and was a seemingly dedicated nurse. But people began to notice that wherever Charlie worked, the death rates skyrocketed. When he was finally arrested, he was quickly dubbed “The Angel of Death.”

Graeber conducted many interviews, including with Cullen and with the friend and colleague who eventually cooperated with police to capture him. It’s a fascinating story and points out flaws in the administration of drugs in hospitals … at least in the early 2000s. My own experiences in more recent years shows a vigilance that was not apparent in Graeber’s account.

I really applaud the efforts of nurse Amy Loughren. It was she who put the pieces together and who took the time to study records of drug use in the hospital to discover the patterns that pointed to Cullen’s guilt. Her courage and tenacity as a police confidential informant was instrumental in Cullen’s conviction.

I’ve always been interested in medicine, and I love the true crime genre, though I don’t read much of it these days. This didn’t quite capture my attention the way other true crime works have done. It was interesting and Graeber clearly did his homework, but it wasn’t very compelling.

Will Collyer did a fine job reading the audio book. He has good pacing and clear diction.

I've got a bunch of books going -The Little Clanby Iris Martin ; The Queen of Hearts by Kimmery Martin; Lawn Boy by Jonathan Ensore; Gehrig and the Babe by Tony Castro and I should finish The Black Rock Murder by Mona Maple at some point today

I'm reading Sing, Unburied, Sing, Jane Austen at Home, and the poetry book The Book of Endings.

Finished Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I've Loved by Kate Bowler. Bowler was 35 when diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer and did not want to hear "everything happens for a reason" and other lies. A thought-provoking, candid account of living with cancer.

Day two of four day road trip. I finished Gorilla and The Bird: A Memoir of Madness and A Mother's Love. Very good!

Next up is Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi.

I've finished up Sheba by Jack Higgins , a fast read, and now I'm starting Conversations with My Gardener by Henri Cueco.

This evening I finished Silenced by Swedish crime writer Kristina Ohlsson, and I think that next I will read Nightblind by Icelandic crime writer Ragnar Jonasson.

Origin – Dan Brown
Book on CD performed by Paul Michael
3***

Brown certainly knows how to craft a page-turning thriller. Sentences are short. Characters are circumspect. Action moves from scene to scene. Red herrings abound. All this keeps the reader in suspense and turning pages, guessing right up to the reveal.

But …

I’m tired of Robert Langdon (or Dan Brown) lecturing about “symbology.” And I’m tired of religion, and the Catholic church, in particular, being portrayed as the bad guy. In this episode, I’m also somewhat stunned at the way Spain and the royal family are portrayed. I know this is fiction, but I’m still uncomfortable with some of the depictions.

This one also went rather far afield, plot wise. It was almost as if Brown wrote himself into a corner and couldn’t easily work his way out. I was disappointed in the reveal and was left feeling cheated.

Paul Michael did a fine job narrating the book, however. I loved his voice for Winston, and he does a credible job of voicing Ambra as well.

Day 3 of 4 day road trip, I finished the phenomenal Frankenstein in Baghdad.

Next up, for the 4th and final day of my road trip, is Gun Love by Jennifer Clement.

Rereading Anne Boleyn: a King's Obsession by Alison Weir ("Six Tudor Queens" #2)
I bought the paperback edition which includes an excerpt for her new novel on Jane Seymour.

Fourth and final day of the road trip, and I finished the excellent Gun Love.

Next up for listening is The Which Way Tree by Elizabeth Crook.

Finished The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill. Wonderful, wonderful story about hope and love.

Next up is an uncorrected proof of A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe by Alex White.

I liked The Girl Who Drank the Moon a lot, too.

Still reading Jane Austen at Home (very good, but reading it will take a while), A Dying Fall, which is a Ruth Galloway mystery, and the Selected Poems of Gwendolyn Brooks.

Slade House
By David Mitchell
4/5 stars
Mitchell weaves an interesting and eerie tale of a home in England whose occupants live there only every nine years to lure unsuspecting guests who have something that the owners desperately need. This is a companion book to The Bone Clocks though you do not need to read it to enjoy the story. Mitchell is always a delight to read.

I have finished Conversations with My Gardener which is a lovely little book about conversations between an artist in France, who likes to paint small things like potatoes and pebbles, and his gardener, who cannot understand why the artist paints any such things when he can simply sit and look at them any time. I think I'll send this book to my sister, who liked to paint that way as well.

Next I will read In the Face of Jinn by Cheryl Howard Crew.

Reading and loving That's Not English: Britishisms, Americanisms and What Our English Says About Us. Highly recommended for Anglophiles and anyone interested in linguistics and the differences between British and American culture. Written by an American woman married to an English man and raising English kids in London.

The new thread is up over here.