What are you reading the week of July 21, 2018?

Hi, I'm back. Thank you PaperbackPirate for filling in for me last week.

I'm currently reading Monday Starts on Saturday, a comic novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. It's a pretty fun read, even though I didn't have much time--and wasn't in the mood--for reading the past couple of weeks. The novel's central concept is that all of the world's fairy tales about magical beings are true. It's set at a soviet era research institute--with all of it's attendant bureaucracy and academic infighting--where an odd assortment of researchers are investigating these phenomena. The story is told from the perspective of a newly hired computer scientist who finds himself thrust into a chaotic environment where virtually anything can happen. It's a great deal of fun.

I finished the entirely charming novel, Madensky Square, by Eve Ibbotson, about a perceptive and compassionate woman living in 1911 Vienna. My short review can be found on my 50-Book Challenge thread.

Halfway through Song of Achilles which Im loving almost as much as Circe. Glad I read that one first, it gave me a good review of the Homers actors.

Finished Red Bones by Ann Cleeves. Still liking the series, but have to take small break to read a book for review: Annex (The Violet Wars) by Rich Larson. Still reading Dragon Rider and Quicksilver.

Finished My Life With Bob today and started the YA book One of us is Lying.

Left Neglected – Lisa Genova
Digital Audiobook narrated by Sarah Paulson
3***

A high-powered, “Type A” professional woman is excellent at her job and at juggling the demands of her children, her husband and her career. That is right up until the moment that she suffers a major brain injury in an auto accident and wakes with “left neglect.” This is a real neurological condition brought on by stroke or trauma, that results in the patient’s inability to recognize anything on the left. Patients suffering hemispacial neglect can see, walk, talk, but their brains ignore any signals from the left.

As she has done for other neurological disorders, Genova crafts a compelling story that educates and entertains. I felt Sarah’s frustrations as she worked with occupational therapists to try to regain some of her lost functionality. I empathized with her inability to let go of the high expectations she set for herself. Her relationships with her husband, her mother, her children were all greatly affected by her changed circumstances. Something as “simple” as getting a Coke from the fridge became a complicated, frustrating and possibly dangerous adventure. I applaud Genova (and Sarah) for finding a little humor in some of these situations.

I know a person with some aspects of this (result of a stroke). His stroke was several years ago, and he has long since stopped any physical or occupational therapy. His wife (and now the caretakers at the assisted living facility he calls home) turns his plate around for him or he’ll eat only what is on the right side, totally ignoring the left side of the plate. When she was still alive, his wife frequently reminded him to use his left hand. Reading this book has helped me understand a bit more about his condition.

That being said, I thought the book was interesting and informative, but not as compelling as some of her other works.

Sarah Paulson did a fine job performing the audiobook. She has good pacing and enough skill as a voice artist to different the various characters. I particularly liked how she voiced Sarah and her mother; the emotions behind their words really came out in her performance.

I've started Canaries in the Mineshaft: Essays on Politics and Media by Renata Adler. She is a fierce critic of the state of journalism, circa 2000. I would doubt that she feels things have improved any in the time since. I'll be reading these essays gradually, between other books, rather than straight through.

>1 fredbacon: Welcome back! Happy to help!

This week I'm reading The Heretic's Daughter by Kathleen Kent for my book club. I've been having a bit of trouble focusing while reading it but I doubt it's the fault of the book. The story is quickly moving along so I think I'll be able to lose myself with a little more time.

I am reading Three Floors Up by Israeli author, Eshkol Nevo, and I am listening to My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh.

Started The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn. So far it is terrific. I am going to read some more right now!

I finished Gaybash last night. Excellent adult coming-of-age story, but the author hasn't quite got his legs under him yet. There's a bit of rookie awkwardness here and there.

This morning I started and finished Ginger Finds a Home. It's a good but not great children's picture book about a stray cat being taken in. Probably excellent for helping a child to understand the strange behavior of a newly rescued cat. Probably not great for inspiring children to try and bring home more cats. :) I also started and finished The Pied Piper of Hamelin, first of the Russell Brand's Trickster Tales. It was subversive and funny, but again good not great. The art for both was exceptional though.

I'll be starting Our Only Chance this week as well as reading through books 3 through 5 of the Amulet graphic novel series.

Ongoing reads: Anna Karenina, Vamos a Leer, Selected Poetry and Prose of Coleridge, A Brief History of Time, Second Spanish Reader: Bilingual for Speakers of English, Player's Handbook (Dungeons & Dragons), and the audio of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon.

I finished The Life Before Us which was a wonderful, slightly macabre, comedic, social commentary tale of a muslim orphan and a dying Jewish retired prostitute, complete with a bizarre cast of characters living on the fringe of society.

Totally absorbed by 1947: Where Now Begins by Elisabeth Asbrink.

I am reading "Barking Up the Wrong Tree" by Jenn McKinlay. It is a Bluff Point Romance that is very funny. The writer has a talent for making you laff from the very start.

Welcome back, Fred.

I'm reading Circe by Madeline Miller and Brief Cases by Jim Butcher.

>1 fredbacon: Welcome back Fred!

I'm having a bit of a reading slump and am still on last week's crime novel: The Disappeared by Kristina Ohlsson. It's very enjoyable, I just can't remember how to concentrate!

I am reading "Barking Up the Wrong" Tree by Jenn McKinlay. It is part of the Blue Point Romance series. This is my first book from this author. I am enjoying it very much. The author makes you laugh from the very beginning to the end.

Just finished the absolutely brilliant Three Floors Up by Eshkol Nevo. Now back to The Same Night Awaits Us All.

The Myth of Perpetual Summer; Dear Mrs Bird; Just Mercy; and The Angel of History

Hi, I'm a newbie. I just finished The Wonder by Emma Donohue and started The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas.

Welcome! Love Donohue! Slammerkin and Life mask are probably my fav, tho I have a special place in my heart for Kissing the Witch. Haven't read Wonder yet, should do so.

Finished Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke. Enjoyed it muchly. Very hopeful read.

Next into my rotation is Blue Lightning by Ann Cleeves.

>20 toastytoesthebear: Welcome!

>22 seitherin: Oh, Blue Lightning. One of my favorites. Let us know your thoughts when you’re done!

I finished Eric Larson’s In the Garden of Beasts. I thought it was just ok.

Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life
Ruth Franklin
5/5 stars
Franklin does a wonderful job delving into writer Shirley Jackson’s world. Jackson did not live a storybook life. She was raised by extremely critical parents and even her marriage had its problems including infidelity. She also suffered from depression yet she was so smart and intuitive and her stories were so amazingly complex and intricate. If you only read one biography this year-this has to be the one.

I finished Alexandrian Summer which the story of two Egyptian Jewish families summering in Alexandria in 1951 when it was a vibrant cosmopolitan city; tales of sexual hypocrisies, horse racing, and obsessions.

Finished Blue Lightning by Ann Cleeves. Enjoyed it muchly. Unfortunately, I was not surprised by the shocker since I'd watched the TV series. I just didn't know the shocker would be in this book.

Next into my reading rotation is Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers.

Finished One of Us is Lying, a new YA novel. Not sure what's next. I'm downloading a bunch of books to my kindle in preparation for my trip to South Africa in a couple of wks during which I have a 30 hr flight including a 9 hr layover! Wish me luck & good reads.

Finished A Woman in the Window. Terrific - kept me up at night. Started Women Crime Writers: Four Suspense Novels of the 1940s: Laura / The Horizontal Man / In a Lonely Place / The Blank Wall (Library of America). First one, Laura, is a little slow going, but I am not very far into it.

How About Never—Is Never Good for You?: My Life in Cartoons
Bob Mankoff
4/5 stars
Bob Mankoff does a wonderful job on this autobiography/nonfiction book about his life as a cartoonist, his job as former cartoon editor for The New Yorker (now at Esquire) and founder of the online Cartoon Bank. This book is not just about him but a short history of the cartooning business and helping other cartoonists get ahead in the business. Enjoyable and informative.

>28 jwrudn: I started The Blank Wall a few years ago and I had to put it down because it was too intense for me! I also really enjoyed The Woman in the Window.

I picked up Our Kind of Cruelty and it has immediately sucked me in. That's a really good thing because my reality involves a nasty plumbing/ sewage issue and movers coming next week for the big move.

Mrs Poe – Lynn Cullen
2**

Historical fiction that focuses on the relationship between Frances Osgood, a poetess, and Edgar Allan Poe, newly famous for “The Raven,” and complicated by the attempts at friendship between Poe’s wife and Frances.

Well, I wanted to like this. I enjoy historical fiction, and especially those works that explore a little-known coincidence or relationship. Cullen clearly did much research into her two main characters. There is more information available about Poe, as he was the more famous writer and his works are still taught in high school English classes today. But there is much misinformation about Poe; his first “biographer” was his rival Rufus Griswold, who wrote out-and-out lies in an effort to besmirch Poe’s reputation (and perhaps, elevate his own). Osgood’s story is less well-known, but her poetry remains, and in the author’s notes at the end of the novel, Cullen states that she tried to let Osgood’s and Poe’s own writings “speak for themselves.”

I just never really felt any love between them. I got tired of the longing and yearning and attempts to stay apart, only to be inextricably drawn together. I never could figure out the role of Virginia, Poe’s wife (and younger cousin). I think this is in part a result of Cullen’s doing down the path of “dark, mysterious, horror” that everyone associates with Poe. She states in her author’s notes that she never intended for this to be a dark tale, but that Poe’s story just naturally led in that direction. I wish she has found a way to resist that pull. The result is that this is neither a good “mystery / suspense” story nor a good love story.

I never knew about the connection between these two; heck, I didn’t know anything about Frances Osgood at all. I’m glad to have learned a little about it, though I learned much more from the author’s notes than from the novel itself.

The Road – Cormac McCarthy
Audiobook performed by Tom Stechschulte.
3***

A man and his son wander a desolate and destroyed American landscape after some unnamed world-wide disaster has pretty much killed off most of the earth’s population and destroyed the environment. Neither character is ever named, though the boy does call the man “Papa.”

I did rather like the relationship between these two central figures. How the father tried to explain and instruct his son, to impart some life skills that might help the boy in the future, and the efforts he made to provide some measure of safety and well-being for the boy. But this is a pretty bleak landscape and it’s hard to imagine any sort of “happy” (or even hopeful) ending.

I don’t need such an ending in order to appreciate and like a book. But I do need to feel some sense of purpose to the story, and I couldn’t figure out what McCarthy was trying to impart. Is this a cautionary tale about man’s inhumanity to man? Or a warning of environmental disaster? Is it simply a story of parental love?

And there were things that I found inconsistent. Maybe it’s because McCarthy never explains what happened, but how can the world be nothing but ash and burned cities, and there still be apples in an orchard? How come some houses are still standing, virtually pristine (except for the layers of dust)?

And then there’s the ending itself. I don’t want to give anything away, but it just left me shaking my head and wondering “what the hell?”

Still, there is something about McCarthy’s writing that captivates me. I like his spare style. I like the way he paints the landscape so that I feel I am living in the novel (even if it’s a horrible place to be). I think he’s one of those author’s whose works I appreciate, even when I don’t particularly like them.

I listened to the audiobook, performed by Tom Stechschulte. Stechschulte is a talented voice artist and actor and he really brings these characters to life. 5***** for his performance.

My Cousin Rachel – Daphne du Maurier
Digital audio performed by Jonathan Pryce
4****

Philip Ashley is the young heir to the great Cornwall estate owned by his cousin, Ambrose, who is his guardian and has been like a father to him. For health reasons, Ambrose goes to Italy in the winter months, but this time he does not return. He has married the lovely widowed Contessa and is staying for a time until her late husband’s affairs are fully settled. But then Ambrose dies suddenly, and Cousin Rachel shows up in Cornwall. Is she the bereaved widow? A temptress and gold-digger? Could she have poisoned Ambrose?

Oh, what a tangled web we weave …. Wonderfully atmospheric, gothic psychological suspense. Philip is a naïve young man who is seemingly easily manipulated by the worldly Rachel. Or is he? Is the mutual attraction a figment of his over-active imagination? Does he believe the cryptic notes cousin Ambrose sent him? Or should he shrug them off as the product of a diseased and fevered brain? Rachel, herself, is the soul of propriety one moment, and then seemingly giddy as a schoolgirl at her good fortune the next. She is flirtatious one moment, and standoffishly proper then next. She seems callously indifferent in one scene and then solicitous and concerned about Philip on the next page. She’s both captivating and infuriating!

I was second-guessing myself as often as Philip was. At the end I’m left wondering what really happened. And that’s a good thing.

Johnathan Pryce does a marvelous job narrating the audio book. He’s a talented actor and he gives all the characters, men and women, distinct voices that really bring them to life.

I just finish Commonality Games by Mark Rounds and I'm starting Fylgia by Birgitta Hjalmarson.

>31 BookConcierge: Oh I feel your pain. Ive been in love with Poe's work since his stories were assigned to us in 6th grade. So I was very excited about it and like you, was sadly disapointed. I don't think I even finished it.

>26 seitherin: I remember when I read Blue Lightning, desperately flipping the pages back and rereading, thinking to myself that that did not just happen.

I’m reading The Dead of Winter, Rennie Airth’s third John Madden book.

The new thread is up over here.