What are you reading the week of September 15, 2018?

I didn't read much this week. So I have nothing to report. I spent most of my free time watching a lecture series on the Black Death.

This week I started Miss Scarlet's School of Patternless Sewing by Kathy Cano-Murillo for my Monthly Key Word Reading Challenge. I have met the author a few times around town so I'm excited to finally read one of her books.

Still reading Engineering Infinity, The Stone Sky, and The Lions of Al-Rassan.

Reading Hank and Jim : The Fifty-Year Friendship of Henry Fonda and James Stewart by Scott Eyman... so good! And re-reading The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley.

The Ballroom by Anna Hope great reviews, so far great reading.

I finished listening to Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward.

Next up for listening is Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut.

Just finished Buried Angels by Camilla Lackberg. Good story but it dragged on about a hundred pages too long.

I think i'm going to read The Return of the Dancing Master by Henning Mankell, one of his novels that does not feature Kurt Wallander.

Just finished Mother Night, a very moving novel by Kurt Vonnegut.

Next up for listening is Keeper'n Me by Richard Wagamese.

Good gravy, I never checked in last week so I'm cheating.

First, I've been jumping in and out of short fiction.
From Jack London's Novels & stories... Going for one's I've never read including"A Piece of Steak" and "The Chinago"

From Shirley Jackson's Come along with me; part of a novel, sixteen stories, and three lectures, being from Mane, it's my tradition every fall to read "The Summer People". Published in 1948, it still perfectly describes the local wish to be rid of tourists by Labor Day... or face the consequences! And reading others of hers that I haven't tried before.

This morning I finished The land that time forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Old fashioned pulp adventures... falling in love with them.

Yesterday finished the best book I know I'll read this year:
Citizen : an American lyric. Claudia Rankine's book of poems and essays on race and so much more... Very short with most pages containing just one or two paragraphs, plus artwork too me three weeks to ready. Read lots of passages over and over until I understood them. Some sections so dense I only half understood them. Kept my laptop with me to wiki unfamiliar names and events. No way I can do it justice.

And finally getting back to Grant by Ron Chernow. I so need to beef up my knowledge of America history, plus it's just a fascinating read. That way I jump in and out of books, this will take me to the end of the year!

Hank & Jim: The Fifty-Year Friendship of Henry Fonda and James Stewart
Scott Eyman
4.5/5 stars
Being a huge movie fan, when I saw this at the bookstore, I knew I had to buy this book and I was not disappointed. The two met in New York as stage actors and became friendly and ended up as roommates. This book follows them through that period to the end of their lives even discussing their time in the military during WWII and their movie and stage careers. So interesting, this will be one of my top books this year.

Finished Engineering Infinity edited by Jonathan Strahan. Mostly OK read.

Next up is The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafón.

I'm reading the magnificent What it Means When a Man Falls From the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah. I don't always love short stories but this collection is truly wonderful.

I'm also reading The Carrying: Poems by Ada Limón, equally magnificent.

So far, it's a good reading week. :-)

This week, I’m reading Dancing at the Rascal Fair. A recent drive up through Wyoming and into Montana put me in a mood to read Ivan Doig.

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm – Kate Douglas Wiggin
4****

Rebecca Randall is the young girl at the center of this classic coming-of-age novel. Living on the idyllic Sunnybrook Farm with her six siblings and her widowed mother, she is sent at age nine to live with her two elderly aunts in Riverboro, Maine. In exchange for her help they will provide room and board, a suitable wardrobe and ensure she receives an education. Her mother hopes it will be “the making of Rebecca.” The novel follows Rebecca through young adulthood.

What a delight this classic is! Of course, I had seen the Shirley Temple movie several times when I was a child, but never read the book. While the novel is very different from Temple’s movie, Rebecca’s irrepressible character is the same. First published in 1903, it is set primarily in the late 19th century.

From the first introduction, as she boards the stagecoach as the lone passenger, Rebecca charms and entertains. She is ever curious, constantly moving, always exploring, and chattering away. She makes friends easily, whether it be with the elderly coach driver, or the girls and boys in her school. She makes mistakes and gets into mischief (what child doesn’t!), but she wins over even her irascible oldest aunt, Miranda.

I wish Wiggin had written a sequel; I sure would read more about Rebecca as a young woman. She’s every bit as engaging and interesting as Anne Shirley (of Green Gables) who was brought to life by L.M. Montgomery some five years after Rebecca Randall debuted.

Reading Georgette Heyer’s The Talisman Ring. Predictable but entertaining.

Working on She Was The Quiet One and Where The Crawdads Sing

Enjoying The Banker's Wife by Cristina Alger, an excellent international thriller.

I finished Gods, Voices and the Bicameral Mind: The Theories of Julian Jaynes. Having read the original book by Julian Jaynes, this series of essays was a very good refresher in that each essay summarized Jayne's theories in their own words. It also provided an update on research and information gathered since 1977. There were only a couple of essays that were more obtuse than I cared to plow through.

>16 cdyankeefan:
Waiting for Where the Crawdads Sing to come in at the library. How do you like it?

Finishing up Insidious Intent by Val McDermid - next up is Lethal White by Robert Galbraith

>jwrdn. Hi there. I’m liking it so far.

I finished the LTER book, Our Woman in Havana. It is a look at Cuban life from the mid-50's, prior to Castro, to now although the author only lived there for 3 years starting in 2011, visiting several times after 2014. Her descriptions of Cuba before her arrival are taken from Graham Greene and the reminisces of people she interviewed. The book gives a colorful picture of Cuba which even handedly presents both the good and the bad of country's history

I'm listening to O Jerusalem (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes). I stumbled into the Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series and its really pulled me in.

The Stowaway: A Young Man's Extraordinary Adventure to Antarctica
Laurie Gwen Shapiro
4/5 stars
This is the wonderful true story about William "Billy" Gawronski, a young man who longs to go to Antarctica with Admiral Byrd who had a soft spot in his heart for stowaways. After 3 attempts to hide on the boat, he has been allowed to stay and work on one of the ships on the trip doing odd jobs. Shapiro does a very nice job writing about Gawronksi through his life and highlighting the time period which included the beginning of the Great Depression that rocks Gawronski’s life and the lives of millions of people.

Just finished listening to the absolutely wonderful Keeper'n Me by Richard Wagamese.

Next up for listening is The Kill Room by Jeffrey Deaver, #11 in the Lincoln Rhyme series.

Finished The Banker's Wife. Starting Women Crime Writers: Four Suspense Novels of the 1950s. I read and enjoyed the first volume Women Crime Writers: Four Suspense Novels of the 1940s.

I have just finished reading the novel HHhH by Laurent Binet.

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The new thread is up over here.

>27 Erick_Tubil: What did you think of HHhH? I loved it when I read it, but it's probably not for everyone.