What are you reading the week of September 28, 2019?

Well, I have about 120 left in Molecular Biology of the Cell, so I should finish it next weekend. Yeah! And I'm about half way through Warfare in the Ancient Near East to 1600 B.C.. I'm looking forward to some reading that's not quite so strenuous.

Today was my day to turn 60. Boo! But I guess it's better than any of the alternative options. ;-)

Happy Birthday!

I'm coming down the home stretch of The Masters by C.P. Snow and enjoying it quite a bit.

Happy Birthday Fred! Hope you have a great day!

>1 fredbacon: What Jerry and Maureen said! I'm a whole few days ahead of you.

This was "Hijack Richard's Reading Plans" Day at the library. My hold on They Called Us Enemy came in, as did the ILL on Fall Back Down When I Die, already leaping into my "ZOMG THIS RAWKS" category.

Happy birthday, Fred!

Finished The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction November/December 2018 edited by C. C. Finlay. Overall, I enjoyed this issue. Still reading David Copperfield, The Black Company, and A Little Hatred.

Happy Birthday Fred!

Happy Banned Books Week everyone!

I'm reading The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas for Banned Books Week and so far it's sad but good.

>1 fredbacon: Happy birthday to you, Fred!

I finished Voices from Chernobyl, which was dreary and upsetting, but also interesting. I also devoured a really captivating Pride & Prejudice-inspired novel, Pride, Prejudice, and other Flavors by Sonali Dev, which was engrossing and fun. I'm now reading Knife by Jo Nesbo, which is very good.

The rest of the weekend I'll be reading the manual for TICO - the Travel Industry Council of Ontario - as I have to sit the licensing exam on Monday. When I have passed that, I will be a licensed travel agent.

I'm re-reading The Hunger Games, just because I find it so compelling and entertaining. It has an emotional depth to it, and I'm leaning how to fashion a dystopian political structure--something I'm not very good at. I like the action and intensity.

>1 fredbacon: Welcome to the 6O club. I joined earlied this year!

Cat's Eye
Margaret Atwood
5/5 stars
This is the fictional story of the artist Elaine Risley. Going back and forth through different time periods, Risley relates her life as a child in Canada during WWII and tells of her life as a mother, wife, sister, daughter, friend and artist through good and particularly bad times. Wonderfully written and relatable to most women, I had a hard time putting this down.

Thank you all for the kind wishes. The reason that I can remember your birthday Richard is because you are exactly one week older than I am.

Strange how some things stick in your mind. In the sixth grade, I had a crush on this little blond haired girl named Carol. She was born the day after me, and that somehow made her more attractive. :-)

>11 fredbacon: There's just that certain je ne sais quoi about us Septembrians, no? :-)

Happy birthday Fred!

Finishing up this Kindle-Audible combo ~

A Dark Lure by Loreth Anne White

(Dark Lure series/psych thriller/Watt Lake serial killer survivor/Broken Bar Ranch in Canada)

Happy Birthday Fred! I have actually found myself happier, healthier and more confident as Ive gotten older. Turned 62 this year, and am ready for more! Hope it works the same way for you!

Now reading Summer at Tiffany, based on comments here. I was thinking I may have read it before, since I read alot of books in that time period with similar characters. But this is brand new to me and I am really enjoying it.

I finished Margaret Renkl's Late Migrations. It's a wonderful book -- I can't recommend it enough; in fact, I just sent a copy to a dear friend.

Next up: A Quiet Life by Beryl Bainbridge

Mrs Jeffries and the Silent Knight – Emily Brightwell
2.5**

Number 20 in the Mrs Jeffries mystery series has the team venturing a bit outside London proper to investigate the murder of a baronet, who was found outdoors on the coldest night of the year. As the victim was a friend of the monarch, the pressure is on Inspector Witherspoon to solve the case before Christmas.

In general, I like this cozy series set in Victorian London and featuring the somewhat clueless Inspector Witherspoon and his house staff, who do much of the investigative work, while giving him the credit. However, I’m noticing how repetitious it is – not only from book to book, but within one book. I figured out the culprit far ahead of Mrs Jeffries, and there were still pages of clandestine meetings and cups of tea to drink before the end. Well, at least they did sometimes talk about Christmas decorations and shopping for presents.

This is a series that is probably best enjoyed if read in order, as the list of supporting characters grow, and their relationships develop over time.

I got my review of the powerfully moving graphic memoir They Called Us Enemy by George Takei up. Such a sad story to see replayed.

>18 richardderus: I have that on my list. He has written in his autobiography about his time in the camp. I believe it was in To The Stars: The Autobiography of George Takei, Star Trek's Mr. Sulu. Very powerful

>19 JulieLill: It is always worth the time to read about those whose lives intersected major moments in History...Sulu/Takei had several!

I posted my review of the very good Cthulhu-Mythos expansion, Deep Roots, and can honestly say it took over a year to write it.

Re-read The Restaurant at the End of the Universe over the week-end. And have just started The Z Murders - only a few chapters in but so far so good.

Finished Tiffany, sweet (but not twee) memoir, of a specifci time and place for two young people. There were some very funny stories like when she was delivering a set of pearls to the salesman. She took a peek while in the elevator, not realizing that the pearls needed to be restrung. Her method of gathering all the falling pearls was worth the read

The other was when the two young women (from Iowa) went to the beach and lay their towels in the foreshore, amazed that it wasn't crowded. They woke up caughing salt water, just in time to see their belongings sailing away. They were able to get them but the visual is pretty funny

Surprised the book is so recent; printed in 2007 when she was 85! And shes still kicking! (her partner in crime is also still alive; amazing to be friends like that for so long)

I have so many choices I have no idea what Ill go with next.

I finished A Quiet Life by Beryl Bainbridge. I've read quite a few Bainbridge books and as far as I can remember, I've always come away from them so impressed by this writer. This one is certainly no exception.

Next up: The Need by Helen Phillips

Enjoying this Library audiobook ~

The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali

(1950s, Tehran upheaval/love of a young couple/60-year separation/Iranian culture)

I'm now just over halfway through Orlando by Virginia Woolf. I thought the novel got off to a good start but before long I found myself skimming through paragraphs or reading them again. I'm sure I'll make it to the end, though with some relief.

No such problems with the Memoirs of Hector Berlioz which are both colourful and entertaining: I may try to obtain a copy of the composer's Evenings with the Orchestra to read after this. Nor with The People: The Rise and Fall of the Working Class 1910-2010 by Selina Todd.

Started Becoming Dr Seuss last night and liking it very much. My usual bio bugaboos are not appearing (making a saint, mudslinging, unfounded speculation, or just boring repetitious theme) happily. Very well written, with lots I didn't know about one of my favorite childrens' writers.

I finished the new book, The Accidental Homo Sapiens. This book presented 4 or 5 interesting and even important points but gave way more background than necessary, particularly since their presentation of the background science was not simple to follow (even for a science major). In the end I was glad I read it even though there were times I considered chucking it.

I finished The Masters, the fifth book in C.P. Snow's "Strangers and Brothers" series. I'd enjoyed the first four books of the series, though I was not expecting to find this one particularly compelling. The book is about the politics and personalities involved in the election of a new Master for an unnamed college within Cambridge University in the 1930s. Doesn't seem like an electrifying premise in this day and age. However, in Snow's hands, the individuals involved come alive, and I found the book to be much more enjoyable than I expected it to be. Although you might miss a reference or two, I think you could read this novel as a standalone. My more in-depth comments are here on CR: https://www.librarything.com/topic/309495.

I'm reading my way through a few of my "between books" right now. Not sure what full-length book is next for me yet.

Death at the Beggar's Opera was 3-1/2 stars worth of read, but I don't like the author's evident homophobia.

Second Honeymoon – James Patterson and Howard Roughan
Digital audio performed by Jay Snyder and Ellen Archer
1.5*

Book two in the “Honeymoon” series featuring FBI agent John O’Hara. This time there are two serial killers that he’s tracking. One is targeting honeymooners, and the other is killing men around the USA.

I’ll say this about Patterson (and his co-writers): He knows how to craft a thrilling plot that keeps the reader turning pages (or changing CDs). Sentences are short. Paragraphs are short. Chapters are short. It’s easy to say “just one more page / chapter” and before you know it you’ve been up all night reading.

On the other hand, the writing is simplistic, and the characters are straight out of central casting. The two serial killers didn’t really work for me. Seems that Patterson & Roughan couldn’t come up with enough material for either of these story lines, so they combined them to give us a sufficiently long book.

The audiobook was capably narrated by two talented voice artists: Jay Snyder and Ellen Archer. Unfortunately for them, the producers chose to add cheesy “mood music” that just drove me crazy. Lost a half-star there.

nvm

Autumn Light by one of my favorite travel writers. Its a sequel of sorts to Lady in the Monk Clicking on the touchstone leads to this review that is right on target, much better summary than I could write!

"From one of our most astute observers of human nature, a far-reaching exploration of Japanese history and culture and a moving meditation on impermanence, mortality, and grief. For years, Pico Iyer has split his time between California and Nara, Japan, where he and his Japanese wife Hiroko have a small home. But when his father-in-law dies suddenly, calling him back to Japan earlier than expected, Iyer begins to grapple with the question we all have to live with: how to hold onto the things we love, even though we know that we and they are dying. In a country whose calendar is marked with occasions honoring the dead, this question is more urgent than anywhere else. Iyer leads us through the year following his father-in-law's death, introducing us to the people who populate his days: his ailing mother-in-law, who often forgets that her husband has died; his absent brother-in-law, who severed ties with his family years ago but to whom Hiroko still writes letters; and the men and women in his ping pong club, who, many years his senior, traverse their autumn years in different ways. And as the maple leaves begin to redden and the heat begins to soften, Iyer offers us a singular view of Japan, in the season that reminds us to take nothing for granted"--

Finished Prince Albert: the Man Who Saved the Monarchy by A.N. Wilson

Next up: The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl by Theodora Goss
#3 and final installment of "The Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club" trilogy. It picks up from an event at the end of the previous novel.

I reviewed the excellent, if difficult-to-swallow, Night Boat to Tangier. This deserves the Booker. Can't win, not shortlisted, but it *deserves* the Booker.

I read through another round of my "between books"

* “Sham 69 is Innocent!” from Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung by Lester Bangs
* Excerpt from The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston from The Norton Book of Women's Lives edited by Phyllis Rose
* “The Axis in the Western Hemisphere” from The Secret History of the War, Volume 2 by Waverley Root
* “Steve Wong is Perfect” from Uncommon Type: Some Stories by Tom Hanks - Finished!
* “Old Junk and New Money” from Laugh with Leacock by Stephen Leacock
* “The Case of Doctor Ceccione” by Georges Simenon from Esquire Magazine - 40th Anniversary Celebration edited by Don Erickson
* “Angel’s Laundromat” from A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin - Newly added

As noted, I finished Uncommon Type: Some Stories by Tom Hanks. I bought this volume in an airport bookstore mainly out of curiosity. I would say that were Hanks not a famous personality, I doubt he would have been able to get this collection published. Not that the stories are terrible. They aren't. Most of them are mediocre, somewhat below real professional quality, though perhaps three or four of them I would call good short stories. All of the stories either include or at least mention type writers, which is where the collection's title comes from. Anyway, in general I would say that unless you are a particular fan of Hanks as an actor and personality (I think he's fine in both departments, though a bit of a schlockmeister at times), there's no point in seeking out this book. There are many better short story collections/anthologies out there to read. I gave the book 3 stars as sort of an E for Effort rating.

I was so excited when I heard this book was coming, and eagerly ordered it. I read through each one thinking, oh ok the next one will be better. Not. Like you I really enjoy him a an actor and think him a lovely person. But I was Very disappointed - think he shouldn't quit his day job!

Still reading Knife, the latest Harry Hole novel by Jo Nesbo. It's very good, but it's big, and I've had little time to read.

These split shifts that start at 4 a.m. are killing me, leaving me without energy or appetite. Thank goodness I'll be free of them on October 13 and onto a sane schedule that I chose myself (7 pm - 3:30 am).

>36 cindydavid4: Yes, as I mentioned above, if Hanks were not a famous movie personality, nobody would have published this collection. Most of the stories are on the level of competent graduate school seminar work that everybody else in the seminar would have had multiple suggestions for improving. He probably didn't have anyone willing to tell him the truth about the stories' so-so quality due to his celebrity status, and Penguin/Random House probably figured the stories were good enough to publish and sell, due also to Hanks' celebrity status. I wonder whether Hanks was fooled by praise into thinking the stories are better than they are or whether he's just used to getting his way in creative matters, due to his celebrity status.

I had to Pearl Rule Olive Kitteridge on p47. Not enough eyeblinks ahead to spend on this mediocre stuff. She's Updike with a uterus.

I finished another round of my "between books" thusly . . .

* “Edward R. Murrow of CBS Witnesses a Massive Blow of Retribution as the RAF Makes Berlin an ‘Orchestrated Hell’” from A Treasury of Great Reporting: "Literature Under Pressure" from the Sixteenth Century to Our Own Time edited by Louis L. Snyder
* “An Adventure in Check-Kiting” from Magazine Digest - August 1949 edited by Murray Simmons
* The chapter on the New York Mets from 1963 Official Baseball Almanac by Bill Wise
* “On a Comic Genius” from Leaves in the Wind by Alpha of the Plow (a.k.a. A. G. Gardiner)
* “Smoke and Mirrors” from Creek Walk and Other Stories by Molly Giles
* “Standards (Blues Poems before World War II)" from Blues Poems edited by Kevin Young - Newly added
* “The Potato Elf” by Vladimir Nabakov from Esquire Magazine - 40th Anniversary Celebration edited by Don Erickson

I've now started The Liberation of Mankind: The Story of Man's Struggle for the Right to Think by Hendrik Willem Van Loon. Van Loon was a very popular writer in his day, which was the 1920s through the 1940s, more or less. This book was originally published in 1926. It is a relatively light-hearted but still substantial historical survey, in Van Loon's words, "dedicated to the subject of 'tolerance.'" Over the first 30 pages, Van Loon more or less defines "tolerance" as a given society's willingness to allow individuals to think and speak outside of the dominant paradigm, cultural and/or religious, of that society. It will be interesting to see how Van Loon's early to mid-20th century perspectives on this subject coincide with or diverge from our own.

What is the Pearl Rule? I really like her work but ymmv

I think it was called "the Rule of Fifty" when Nancy Pearl popularized it in the Aughties. To make a fair assessment of a book, one should read no fewer than the first fifty pages until age 50; after that, a page comes off for each year one slithers and droops towards the grave. Fred and I are down to forty pages, being 60.

Finished reading The Great Fall. I haven't been impacted so deeply in a very long time! An existential masterpiece, in my humble opinion.

Next up for reading is Duty To Warn by Sara Kersting.

The new thread is up over here.

>43 hemlokgang: Hmm, The Great Fall sounds intriguing. I'm gonna have to look for that.

>22 cindydavid4: I'm really glad you liked Tiffany, I did too.

(I'm laughing at myself for having so much trouble responding to messages LT style rather than FB style!)