What are you reading to the week of October 13, 2018?

Had a busy work week, but I found time to reread the the children's classic, The Forgotten Door. It's a lovely little book that was a particular favorite of mine as a child.

rocktejk, if you're interested in the topics covered by The Trouble with Physics, then you might be interested in Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray, by Sabine Hossenfelder. It just came out a couple of months ago, so I haven't read it myself. However, I read her blog on a regular basis, so I'm familiar with her ideas.

I"m reading The Waste Lands by Stephen King and furthering my Dark Tower journey.

>1 fredbacon: Thanks, Fred! I might take a look at her blog. I am interested in finding out a little about how things have progressed since The Trouble with Physics was published in 2007. As I mentioned somewhere or other, I poked around online a bit but couldn't find much that I thought directly answered that question. On the other hand, it will be quite a while before I tackle another whole book on that subject! From the title of Hossenfelder's book, it sounds like she more or less agrees with Smolin.

Yesterday I started The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot. Every once in a while I like to fill in one of my numerous gaps in classics reading. I pretty much whipped through the first 60 pages or so. Well after reading On Watch, Elmo Zumwalt's memoir featuring in-depth descriptions of military budgeting and procurement during the Nixon administration, and then The Trouble with Physics about the history of and problems with string theory, pretty much any narrative fiction was going to be a relief! Kind of like the old joke about the beauty of continually knocking yourself on the head is that it feels so good when you stop.

Seriously, though, I think this Eliot kid can write a little.

Still reading The Warlock in Spite of Himself, Evil is a Matter of Perspective, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction March/April 2018.

The Cider House Rules– John Irving
Digital audiobook performed by Grover Gardner
4****

From the book jacket: Irving’s sixth novel is set in rural Maine, in the first half of the 20th century. It tells the story of Dr Wilbur Larch – saint and obstetrician, founder and director of the orphanage in the town of St Cloud’s, ether addict and abortionist. It is also the story of Dr Larch’s favorite orphan, Homer Wells, who is never adopted.

My reactions
I love Irving’s writing, and don’t know why this one languished on my TBR for so long. I saw the movie back when it first came out (1999), but never read the book. The movie left out a lot and compressed the timeline.

The span of the novel is about 70 years, taking Dr Larch from a young man to his death in his 90s. Much changes in the world, and yet his little corner of the world sees little difference. Pregnant women come to give birth, their children coming into the care of the orphanage, with every effort made to place them in loving families. Other women come seeking an end to their pregnancies, and Dr Larch accommodates them with compassion and skill.

What I really like about the novel is how the characters are portrayed. The reader gets a clear idea of how Dr Larch came to his decision to perform abortions, the social and moral responsibility he felt he owed the women (and girls) who came to him for help. The reader also clearly understands why Homer makes a different decision, how he struggles to love this man who is like a father to him, once he makes that decision. And the reader watches the painful separation that all parents face when they send their offspring out into the world to make their own way. How a parent’s hopes and dreams may not always be embraced by that child.

Grover Gardner does a fine job narrating the audiobook. He sets a good pace and manages to differentiate the many characters.

Finished The Man Who Came Uptown by George Pelecanos. Now back to the second novel in Women Crime Writers Four Suspense Novels of the 1950s: The Blunderer by Patricia Highsmith.

I finished reading Night Blind, an Icelandic crime novel written by Ragnar Jónasson, which was very good. It was very dark, both in the sense that it was midwinter in Iceland when the days are six hours long, and in Jónasson's use of Scandinavian noir.

Now I have moved a few countries west and am reading the Swedish crime novel The Ice Beneath Her by Camilla Grebe. It is one of those books you don't want to put down.

So last week I actually surprised myself by finishing Tom Rachman's The Rise & Fall of Great Powers but not Karen Armstrong's much, well, shorter A Short History of Myth. That one gets finished tomorrow.

I'm also reading Iris Murdoch's The Sea, The Sea, and I'm not sure that's a great idea because it's immense and it's always difficult to tell you're getting somewhere that Murdoch wanted you to go or if you've missed the point completely and are just sticking around to enjoy all the good writing and delightful whimsical Englishness. Murdoch also has that weird talent of creating characters who seem both utterly, ridiculously artificial and oddly familiar and true. Let's see if I can finish this behemoth.

I'm also reading Red Flower of China by Zhai Zhenhua which is a memoir written by a woman who apparently participated in the Cultural Revolution in a not-so admirable way and her attempts to make peace with that afterward. I'm still reading about her childhood, but I expect it to get exceptionally grim pretty quickly.

>7 ahef1963: I just read your post from last week. I booked a trip to Iceland too, for Feb. My fave place in the world. Have you been before?

I've been in a reading slump. Halfway through the memoir White Like Her about a woman who learns he mother's lifelong secret that she passed as a white woman her entire adult life. Interesting story but some boring parts in between.

Good gravy...
What have I been reading since I last checked in?

Read Blanche among the talented tenth by Barbara Neely. Part of a mystery series, but not much of a mystery. Really all about race and class differences between light and dark skin African Americans. As a white guy, it's something I'm only vaguely aware of, so this one had some lessons.

Just about done with The hero's body: A memoir by William Giraldi - about body building, motorcycles, and grief for a lost father... all of particular interest to me.

More Shirley Jackson short stories from Come along with me

Jack London short stories and partway through White Fang from The call of the wild, White Fang, and other stories

More poetry these days... In and out of Boss Cupid by Thom Gunn and The poetry of Robert Frost

Oh and for pure campy pleasure... The bad seed by William March.
Scene for scene identical to the way overwrought 1956 film... stage cast reassembled and playing it to the balcony!

That enough?

Started on Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

>10 boulder_a_t: Very eclectic group of books- I love it. I didn't realize The Bad Seed was based on a book -will have to look for it.

I finished Spaceman, An Astronaut's Unlikely Journey to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe by Mike Massimino. I gave it a 5 star rating.

The Corpse Walker: Real Life Stories: China From the Bottom Up
by Liao Yiwu
3.5/5 stars
Liao Yiwu interviews the citizens of China about life in China following the rise of Mao and beyond. The chapters highlight the jobs these people held and the changes that the revolution had on their lives. It is a sad book about the way the people of China were treated by their government and their fellow citizens who were forced to turn in their neighbors for any offences perceived whether true or not. Disturbing content but well-written.

I'm reading Murakami's Killing Commendatore and enjoying it, and I also just started How to Be Safe by Tom Mcallister.

Stopped reading Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn it was not for me, I went across to Wiki to find out "who done it".

The Handsome Man’s Deluxe Café – Alexander McCall Smith
Audiobook performed by Lisette Lecat
3***

Book # 15 in the popular No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series has the ladies investigating a case of amnesia. In the meantime, Mma Grace Makutsi has decided to open a new restaurant, “The Handsome Man’s De Luxe Café” and she’s not inclined to take advice from anyone.

I love this series. I feel like I’m spending time with old friends when I open one of these books and become immersed in their lives in Gabarone, Botswana. Precious Ramotswe is ever the diplomat, gently steering her protégé (and now, “co-director”) towards solutions and tempering Mma Makutsi tendency to tactlessness. The supporting cast is a delight as well: Mr. J L B Matekoni, Phuti Radiphuti, Mma Potokwane, and Charlie.

The cases the agency works on are less important in this series than the relationships between the characters. While they are still sold in the mystery section of the bookstore, I don’t really classify them as mysteries. But who cares. They’re a delight in any case.

Lisette Lecat does a marvelous job of voicing these audiobooks. She really brings the characters to life. I read the first three books before discovering her marvelous audio interpretations. I imagine if I read a text version again, it would be Lecat’s voice I hear.

I finished The Inner Life of Empires dealt with a large Scottish family involved in the English Empire from India, to the Caribbean, to North America during the 1700's. Despite various faults, it does give a picture of the times and the nature of some lives during that time.

Finished The Warlock in Spite of Himself by Christopher Stasheff. Meh.

Adding In Harm's Way by Viveca Sten to my reading rotation.

I’m having a good time reading Michael Connelly’s The Black Box. It’s the 18th book in the Bosch series.

Murder at The Brightwell
By Ashley Weaver
4/5 stars
Amory Ames and her husband are on the outs and Amory decides to go to the Brightwell Hotel to get away for a while and help out an old flame. The only problem is her husband ends up following her to the hotel where they get involved in a double murder mystery. This is Weaver’s first novel and I found it quite well done and a fast read.

>10 boulder_a_t: I enjoyed the original Blanche book when it came out but I haven't thought of it in years. I met the author once and she was lovely!

I've just wrapped up Confessions of Young Nero by Margaret George. It flew along and I had a hard time putting it down, surprisingly. Sometimes Nero would have really great psychological insights into himself that seemed out of place for the time and attitudes but it was a truly fun and interesting read.

I received a Netgalley of the new Diane Setterfield, Once Upon a River. It's no Thirteenth Tale but it's miles better than her second effort, Bellman and Black. A little overwritten and too many adjectives but otherwise a fine novel and I'm anxious to see how all the stories play out and link to each other. Great characters!

I've gotten Madensky Square by Eva Ibbotson from the library. I read it years ago and remember being charmed by it.

Well, I guess that's it for the moment. I hope all are well on my favorite(and only) thread I follow! :)

>22 enaid: I bought a copy of Madensky Square while on vacation in Ireland this summer, read it and loved it. I just lent it to my neighbor, in fact.

I finished Fair Play by the Finnish author Tove Jansson. It was a series of short vignettes about two artist ladies, tersely describing the scenes and in the process making observations about life, work, and love.

>22 enaid: I've been waiting for a new book by her since The Thirteenth Tale came out! Thanks for the heads up.

I finished reading White Like Her. The story itself (of the author's mother passing as white her whole adult life) was interesting but the author bulks up the book with details of many other ancestors which was confusing and boring.

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café – Fannie Flagg
Abridged audiobook narrated by the author
Unabridged audio performed by Lorna Raver.
5*****

When Evelyn accompanies her husband to the nursing home to visit an ailing relative, she meets Mrs Threadgood. As their friendship progresses, Ninny tells Evelyn about Ruth and Idgie and the Whistle Stop Café, and the time Idgie was tried for murdering a man.

This is actually the third time I’ve read this book and I love just as much now as I did the first time. Flagg does a marvelous job of developing these characters, and the reader feels the love between them. I was hooked from the beginning and engaged throughout. And I was in tears at the end (which is VERY different from the movie).

I thought that this time out I’d enjoy Fannie Flagg reading the audio version. She’s marvelous; a trained actress, she can easily interpret the many characters. However, I realized after I’d gotten the book from the library that Flagg’s audio work is an abridged version. So, I managed to get the unabridged version as well … narrated by Lorna Raver. Raver does a fine job, but she’s not Fannie Flagg. Who could be?!

Love and Ruin by Paula McLain. About Hemingway's third wife Martha Gellhorn.

The new thread is up over here.