WHAT ARE YOU READING? - Part 5

And time for a new topic - the old one is getting long.

How is your reading coming along? Are you getting ready for the summer/winter?

PS: In today's "random facts you learn from these threads", today is a Bulgarian holiday: Day of Slavonic Alphabet, Bulgarian Enlightenment and Culture (and a North Macedonian one as well: Saints Cyril and Methodius Day (which used to be the name of the holiday in Bulgaria in the past as well but they renamed it). A few other countries using the Cyrillic alphabet also celebrate or note it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_Slavonic_Alphabet,_Bulgarian_Enlightenment_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_and_Methodius#Saints_Cyril_and_Methodius'_Da...

An alphabet holiday? Huh. Cool.

I only have two books going. The Years by Ernaux which I should finish tomorrow. And The Books of Jacob on audio.

>2 dchaikin: How well does The Books of Jacob come across in audio?

>3 kjuliff: i was told it was a high special production, but maybe that the Polish language version. In English it’s very well read and works great (but it’s closer to a standard production).

I'm still reading The Door. And I've been reading Tales of King Arthur to the girls which is fun.

I'm in the middle of several books. I started The Mountain Sings for our book club, but my rotator-cuff surgery just got moved to the day of that discussion, so it's less of a priority. I was about 100 pages in and finding the story quite interesting but the style very flat.

I had started Moon Tiger, and was enjoying it, when I put it aside to read last month's book club book, Anxious People. I'll definitely get back to Moon Tiger fairly soon.

I've been reading It's OK to Die, reminded by my parents' situations that there is so much preparation to do, and resolving not to make things difficult for our kids when the time comes.

Tonight I'm starting What Could Possibly Go Wrong?, which I expect will be better for bedtime than any of the others.

I've just finished up The Three-Arched Bridge by Ismail Kadare, which I enjoyed. I'll have a review up over the next couple of days. I've got three books lined up to choose from and read soon. My wife and I leave for our drive across the country back to California in about a week. I've my eye out for a used copy pf either:

Balls by Graig Nettles: Still another baseball book, this one a memoir about the Yankees' 1983 season (the Steinbrenner/Billy Martin years).
Within Budding Grove, the second book in Marcel Proust's famous "In Search of Lost Time" series.

After I read those two I'll return to Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica by Zora Neale Hurston.

I just finished The Years by Annie Ernaux, thought it was terrific. Next, I'm eying Faulkner's As I Lay Dying.

I’ve really been enthusiastic about RT’s quarterly theme of Ancient/Classical time period. I finished The Iliad last month, and will be done with The Odyssey tomorrow, both in Emily Wilson’s translations, which read beautifully and are also wonderful in audio. For non fiction I’m enjoying Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea by Thomas Cahill. For June, I’ll read The Aeneid and am thinking about having a look at The Histories by Herodotus, which would be another book of non fiction. I’m also listening to a Great Courses series on the Iliad, taught by Elizabeth Vandiver, who is an excellent lecturer. I think I must have been missing this time period since it’s proving such a rewarding reading experience for me.

>9 dianelouise100: fantastic. I like Vandiver too. I found her very helpful.

reading the last list of Mabel Beaumont and liking it quite alot!

I’ve got various books on the go, all vying for my attention. I’m enjoying them all but they’re quite different so one of them always hits the spot. They are:

Emily Wilson’s fabulously accessible translation of The Odyssey, which I’d been looking forward to for months.
Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tulleken
And a novel, Arlington Park by Rachel Cusk.

I'm having trouble getting into Travelers to Unimaginable Lands: Stories of Dementia, the Caregiver, and the Human Brain by Dasha Kiper, so I've put it aside for the time being, and started My Father's Brain: Life in the Shadow of Alzheimer's by Dr Sandeep Jauhar. I'm also reading Yellowface by R.F. Kuang.

I did finish The Odyssey today and continue to listen to The Iliad of Homer from the Teaching Company and read The Wine-Dark Sea. And I’ll begin The Aeneid in a week or so. Meanwhile I’m also enjoying the first book in a new (for me) mystery series, Balshazzar’s Daughter by Barbara Nadel.

Just finished Jeremy Tiang's State of Emergency. It's already had great reviews from several people here and I concur.

>7 rocketjk: What do you think of Tell My Horse so far? I think that was the book by Hurston I tried reading a few years ago but stopped for some reason.

>17 icepatton: I've been enjoying it and I'm looking forward to getting back to it. It starts out with her time spent in the hills of Jamaica (this is the 1930s) learning about the local religious/folk customs. She is very straightforward about it all and simply describes what she sees and experiences. She is also willing to put herself into the action and take chances, such as when she convinces some of the men of the village she's staying at to take her along on a very dangerous wild boar hunt. I very much enjoy her writing and I also enjoy being told stories of the particular time and place(s) by such a famous individual. During our year renting in Harlem, we lived one block from Zora Neale Hurston Place, as for a while she lived in the beautiful and huge apartment building at St. Nicholas and W 116th Street. (We lived on W 117th between St. Nicholas and Frederick Douglas Ave (a.k.a. 8th Ave)).

I've only set the book aside for now due to my rather quirky and, I guess, OCD-like system for book selection. I did find a copy of the second book in Proust's In Search of Lost Time series, In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower (previously known in English as Within a Budding Grove) which I will be starting soon, and which, at 500+ pages, may well take me all the way across the country (we plan on hitting the road a week from today).

I started my book club book for Wednesday, The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, but it's not working for me. I hate to DNF a book club book, but I really want to get back to The Door.

I finished The Three-Arched Bridge by Ismail Kadare, set in a village in 14-century Albania. You can see my review on my Club Read thread.

Next up for me will be the second book in Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time series, In the Shadows of Young Girls in Flower, a.k.a. Within a Budding Grove.

I am just entralled with tales of the alhambra and the chronical of the conquest of Granada. I feel as if im on the journey with him and am seeing everythhing hes describing. I may need to read more of him

I finished As I Laying today, which is short. Reads really slow, but in a good way. But it's still short. I was really wowed by this novel that is doing so many things with voices and effects. I really am not ready to pick up another novel. So, I picked up a memoir - Knife by Salman Rushdie.

>22 dchaikin: I am so tempted to read Knife and can’t wait to read your review, Dan.

>23 kjuliff: it’s been making noise on that bedside table. Glad i can give it some attention.

>22 dchaikin: I'm very interested in your impressions of Knife too, Dan.

>22 dchaikin: Ditto. Unfortunately Head House Books in Philadelphia didn't have any copies of Knife when Liz and I went there last week; otherwise I might start reading it this week.

>25 labfs39: >26 kidzdoc: well, so far mainly I'm interested in that it took him walking into a glass door hard enough to almost knock himself out to meet his current wife... :)

Finished The Hands of the Emperor a couple of weeks ago (No LT, I do NOT mean a Robert Graves book about an emperor named Claudius, I mean just what I wrote which is the exact title of the book!), and after an interlude filled with a few shorter books, I started on The Return of Fitzroy Angursell.

speaking of irwing I started reading a history of new york and noticed it had another name knickerbockers History of New York I was curious about the name and read further in the summary Apparently he invented the term Knickerbocker in 1848, and that appears to be where the Knicks got his name. Incidental bit of trivia, popping up unexpectedly

for June

the fawn

the alhambra for RTT June theme "wonders of the world

a history of NY by Irving Washington

a court of thorns and rosesRLRG

>28 FlorenceArt: I'm rereading Hands of the Emperor for the fifth or sixth time (fifth, I checked my reading dates) - it's just so _good_! I was trying to read it as if it were the first time - not thinking about all the things we've learned about Kip and Tor and the worlds and the other characters and....- but that went by the wayside pretty fast. I'm just up to him going to dance the Fire Dance in the throne room. I'm sure I will go on to other books in the serieses when I finish this, I never can read just one.

Getting a bunch of reading done this week while contractors are working on my bathroom and I'm sitting around the house mostly trying to stay out of their way.

Currently reading The View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro. I'd like to say that it was not the recent news of her death that prompted me to finally get around to this one, because I was planning on reading it soon in any case. But if I'm completely honest, this is one of those books I've been "planning on reading soon" since I first got it in -- *checks* -- 2016. So it probably was.

>32 bragan: I didn’t know she had died. I still haven’t read any books by her, only a couple of stories that I was not crazy about. She is on my « read some day » list too.

>33 FlorenceArt: This is the third I've read by her, and I do like her stuff. Maybe her short stories can be a bit variable, but the best of them, I thought, were really good.

>34 bragan: Totally agree. I’ve only read one of her collections and I loved some of the stories but others were just so-so. I will be reading more of her work as the stories I did like were so good.

Alternating between two short story collections: Kaleidoscope by Meenakshi Kumar; We Live in Water by Jess Walter AND an oversized softcover ArabLit Quarterly: "Gaza! Gaza! Gaza!"

I finished Knife last night. This morning I started The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald - her last novel, but my 1st by her.

I don't know if this is the right thread for it, but V. V. Ganeshananthan's book, Brotherless Night - which several of us read this year, won the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction. In case you're thinking about it, check out kjuliff's excellent review on the book page.

https://www.npr.org/2024/05/13/1250945116/v-v-ganeshananthan-brotherless-night-w...

I just finished The Johnstown Flood - really interesting non-fiction from early in David McCullough's writing career (maybe his first book?).

I'm reading Happiness Falls by Angie Kim now. It's set in Northern Virginia (where I live) and is a story about a family in crisis when the father disappears and suddenly their understanding of the family dynamics begins to change as confusing details emerge about the father's life. I'm flying through it.

And I picked up Kon Tiki, that I just acquired at a library sale, but after reading the first chapter I think I'll just donate it right back to the library. All I knew was that it was about a Norwegian explorer and something about the Polynesian islands. While I'm sure it's a gripping tale, the ideas and approach to exploration just feels dated, having been written in the 1940s. I'll look for a different nonfiction book to start today. As always, I have plenty of other options!

>39 rasdhar: you also have a wonderful review on your thread. Yes, I’m thinking about it.

Finished tales of alhambra for RTT june wonder of the world challenge and what an excellent journey I had. Irving is a very good travel writer, I felt as if I was on the trip with him, with all the senses. This 1832 volume follows the American author's visit to and residence in the ruined Alhambra; a time long before the current legions of tourists, when he could ramble about and pick where he lodged! He's a good writer and combines a largely descriptive first third - picturing the palace, its environs and the colourful characters encountered there - with traditional fairy tales and a bit of history. The first half was about the building of the alhambra and the surrounding city of Granada. my only compliant would be the lack of a map, but suspect there is one in hardback. Np, I used google.

the last part contained the tales, I felt that they were too many (perhaps becaue they were somewhat repetitious), but nearly every individual story is well written and enjoyable. The framing narrative of the author's arrival and sojourn at the Alhambra is especially well done. I did not realize when it was written, and was pleasantly surprised how modern the writing was. so wish I could go there myself, but this is as good as any guide.

recommended to anyone who enjoys traveling vicariously though books

rating 5*

>42 cindydavid4: You might enjoy The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain. I read it on my Kindle in 2009 as part of the ThirdPlaceThingers book club back when we had a LibraryThing book club at Third Place Books in Seattle. I know I enjoyed most of the book a lot, and would have given it at leas 4.5 stars except for the last part of the book where he was in the Holy Land, and for the xenophobia and racism toward the populace of the Holy Land. The parts where he was in Italy were good.

This weekend I read roughly 50 pages of The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human by Siddharta Mukherjee, one of my favorite physician authors, which is a detailed history of cell biology, starting from the original descriptions of cells when the microscope was developed to the current day, when gene therapy and other advanced technologies hold the promise of eliminating previously incurable diseases.

Tomorrow I'll start Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics by the American Protestant thelogian Reinhold Niebuhr, which I'll read with Mary (@bell7) from the 75 Books group.

Started a 1977 verse translation of the Middle English Pearl poem, translated by Marie Borroff.

>43 janoorani24: oh Ive been a fan of Twain since 6th grade when my teacher treated us to a short story a day. Yes I read that one; might need to reread it at some point. thanks for the reminder

I'm on a very new biography of Margaret Cavendish, Pure Wit. Cavendish is the writer of the 1666 proto-science fiction book, The Blazing World, among other things. Where's her gorgeous period biographical mini-series is what I'm asking now.

Im planning to read that later in the year for the non fiction challenge. Ive been a fan of hers since college when i read the blazing world. Saw an article about this book in the new yorker and was hooked. curious how you like it. Depending, I might just say what the hell and read it earlier

now reading a court of thrones and roses started it feeling rather hoo hum but then bang! stuff starts happening! reading it for this months scifi/fan real life group.something tells me this is a keeper

>40 japaul22: I enjoyed Kon Tiki; not so much Heyerdahl's theory (overdone, especially the "white men taught them everything" part), but the actual descriptions of events and what they saw. I find myself able to make that distinction, which makes it a lot easier to read a good many older books - not all, but it worked for this one.

Since last checking in, I finished Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, which I did not like, read the last two books in the Swedish Faraway Island series, and Mooncop by the graphic artist Tom Gauld, who most of us know from his book and library comics. I am now back into The Door, which I like a lot, but is a slow read and easy for me to wander away from.

ETF typo

Having just finished Butter by Asako Yuzuki and a collection of short stories by Christine Sneed called Portraits of a Few of the People I've Made Cry, both of which were excellent, I've moved on to The Road to the Country by Chigozie Obioma, in which a naive young man has just been sucked into the Biafran War in Nigeria. It's harrowing stuff.

I'm also reading a mystery novel, Evergreen by Naomi Hirahara, set in the Japanese American community in Los Angeles immediately after the end of WWII, as they work to rebuild their lives after the trauma of the internment camps. And I'm reading James by Percival Everett, which is on track to be the best thing I've read this year.

>51 labfs39: I have just started A Faraway Island. It sounded good, and I need to read more translated authors.

>53 WelshBookworm: I hope you enjoy it, Laurel. The first was my favorite, channeling Anne as it was, but I found the whole series to be an interesting perspective on Sweden during the war.

Edited to fix typo

>52 RidgewayGirl: Your review of Butter was great - I just read it.

>47 mabith: sounds fantastic

I finished The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald. I had never heard of it, but it's a bit of a classic, being her last novel. It's a special book, fast, readable, provoking the reader to imagine. Fans of Wolf Hall will take to this.

And I've started Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange (most likely not named after our CRer). I'm reading it because there is a local sizable writers' organization called Inprint Houston that runs a book club. Later this month they will discuss WS through a zoom club meeting, and it's free, and I'm curious.

The Library at Night : really enjoying it at the moment. The chapters are divided by themes (so far read Myth, Order and Space). I know that I need time to digest what I read during a chapter but, at the same time, it's been really hard for me to put the book down.

Sophie's Misfortunes : short chapters (so far) with the many situations that Sophie ignores the adults warnings and does what she wants. Just found that theres a movie directed by Christophe Honoré, I'll have to watch it after I finish the book!

a court of thrones and roses was so good up to the mountain, then it was just pages and pages of literal torture over over again.I ended up skimming these pages. I dont know how others get through that section. giving it 3 stars because of the beginning, otherwise it was a horrible book . I finishedd it, wont be reading anymore of this series

I finished Janet Hobhouse's The Furies last week—I thought it was very sad, and very good, though it was a not-quite-finished novel published posthumously and the last part did have an unsatisfyingly unpolished feel to it—still, she was an amazing writer, and it was wonderful reading. Now I'm in the middle of Téa Obreht's The Morningside, which is really fun—urban dystopian and a little magical (or maybe not—the narrator is 11 years old so you're not sure how much is in her imagination). I like Obreht's voice and slightly dislocated sensibility.

>57 dchaikin: I read The Blue Flower for my book club last year and really enjoyed it. What an odd, atmospheric book.

Tonight I read The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland in one sitting. A heartwarming read although I'm not sure all Newfoundlanders have appreciated the book/documentary/musical.

Still unable to read 🙃

>60 lisapeet: yes! It’s so compressed and yet it flows so naturally. And leads to so many different things to think about…

>62 kjuliff: that stinks. Hugs

I recently started Clear by Carys Davies, which is quite wonderful so far. Previously, I read Night Watch by Jayne Ann Phillips, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, deservedly so. It's in my top five for the year so far.

Just started I Don't Expect Anyone to Believe Me

I finished Happiness Falls which I didn't end up liking very much. Now I'm reading Sarah Perry's new novel, Enlightenment. It's just what I've come to expect from her - slow and character driven, with a weird writing style that mixes modern with Victorian syntax. I like it.

For nonfiction I'm reading The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delany begins her life's work at 72. I am incredibly interested in the life of this woman from the 1700s who created beautiful and accurate pictures of flowers by cutting out hundreds of pieces of paper and pasting them into a sort of collage. They are really beautiful and unique, even 300 years later. But, but the author is doing that thing where she inserts herself and her life into the book in parallel with Mary Delany. This is really annoying. I'm trying to skip these parts, but sometimes they are woven in.

>61 labfs39: what do you think bothered them about it?

>66 japaul22: I reviewed Happiness Falls,last year. See here. It was a very strange book. I agree with your rating. I was over-generous and gave it a 3.

>68 kjuliff: I should have remembered your review and stayed away! Reading in print, I did skip quite a few of the footnotes, especially about half way through the book when I realized this was not going to be a book that I liked that much.

Finished The Lives They Left Behind by Darby Penney a very thought provoking non-fiction history of state mental hospitals.

I just finished Clear by Carys Davies, a lovely historical novel set in 1843 Scotland. A newlywed minister who was part of the revolt against the Church of Scotland and the formation of the Free Church of Scotland is left without a congregation and, desperate for money, agrees to go to an island in the far north Hebrides to remove the last human resident--part of The Clearance, in which landowners evicted longtime leaseholders and replace them with more profitable sheep.

And I just began All Our Yesterdays: A Novel of Lady Macbeth by Joel H. Morris.

I'm about a 120 pages into the 533-page In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, the second of Marcel Proust's 7-volume In Search of Lost Time. I'm enjoying it, but I'm going to be awhile.

I finally finished Extinction, which took so much longer to read than it should have. I've dipped into Bibliolepsy, They Who Do Not Grieve, Where the Wild Ladies Are, and have definitely paused Wilhelm Meister. I think I will try The Story of the Lost Child and hope it holds my attention.

the journal I did not keep which im enjoying quite a bit. Also starting Prague in Black and Gold for the Non fiction challenge "middle europe"

I finished Téa Obreht's The Morningside and enjoyed it—she crammed an awful lot of stuff in, subplots and questions of what reality looks like to a young person without enough personal or familial ballast, but I found them all engaging and enjoyed the book as a whole. Points also for the post-climate-change dystopia being very believable.

Not sure what I'll readi next—busy with work and houseguest, so I've just been dipping in and out of NYers and NYRB.

I just finished two books - Spice: The History of a Temptation and Organizing Information: Principles of Data Base and Retrieval Systems, both rather dry non-fiction, but I still liked them, though I'm glad to be done so I can move on to something new.

Next up is Thinking in Numbers: On Life, Love, Meaning, and Math, which I'm reading in conjunction with Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions for a book club I just joined.

I've put aside Moral Man and Immoral Society for the moment, and today I started reading The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride. I'm still working on The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human by Siddharta Mukherjee.

I have been thinking about it, and Elena Ferrante's Frantumaglia, which I read last month, is probably one of my top books of the year. Wonderful prose.

I'm now reading Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, which I'm enjoying a lot.

>67 cindydavid4: According to the author's afterward, written for the republishing of the book on the twentieth anniversary of 9/11, some people in Gander felt that the attention was undeserved (they were just doing what they should), others were upset that some were invited to openings of the musical and got free trips all over the world, while others were not invited.

>1 AnnieMod: I started Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries but I was finding it a bit boring, I'll give it a little more time since I didn't even get far. And this morning while I am working I am bouncing through my audiobooks because I can decide on what to read and it's getting frustrating. I also should be productive at my tasks but I am just not wanting to. lol

>78 rasdhar: I’m still thinking about the Neapolitan Quartet, which i read four years ago. Noting Frantumaglia. A memoir?

I just finished and reviewed Sarah Perry's brand new novel, Enlightenment. I loved it. And then my library hold for Long Island, the sequel to Colm Tóibín's novel Brooklyn, came in. So I've started that.

I’m reading a very strange book called Beautyland about a girl growing up in NE Philadelphia. She is an alien from another planet and communicates with her "people" via fax.

I've made it to the 1/4 point of In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower! Whoo hoo!

I'm reading Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree, which is aiming at sweet and cozy, but, as far as I'm concerned, is mostly hitting vaguely OK and relentlessly bland instead

I'm on Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World by Mary Beard.

>83 dianeham: Finished it already

>76 janoorani24: oh a roomate turned me on to flatland in college. Loved it then. Later reading had me cringing at the racial and misognist comments, but I finished it. (This is the same roomate who taught me what a mobius strip was. we had them all over the place by the time we were done)

>79 labfs39: ah ok. i can see that

>85 bragan: yeah I wasnt trilled with it tho it looked like it would be fun.

>81 dchaikin: A collection of essays, letters, and interviews in writing.

I started The White Lady, a standalone historical novel by Jacqueline Winspear, but it wasn't grabbing me. Then The Comfort of Ghosts came in at the library and I whipped through it. Goodbye, Maisie Dobbs!

>91 rasdhar: ah. And yet it’s that good? ( Frantumaglia by Elena Ferrante)

>93 dchaikin: The titular essay is excellent, and then a lot of the letters, interviews, and so on contain her thoughts on her major literary influences (particularly Elsa Morante) as well as some very interesting autobiographical sketches. I thought it was great.

happened upon Flight in the close out bin, and it looks like something Id want to read. anyone know anything about it?

I just finished Wandering Stars. Not a perfect book. I have a lot of complaints. But i like Orvil.

I gave in and started reading my copy of Wild Swans, even though the previous owner marked it up terribly. It's bad enough that they wrote in red pen, but the things they underlined are so random. Very distracting. I may have to purchase a copy.

Finished Still Life by Louise Penny. A little underwhelmed, but I can see the appeal if the series gets better. Next up is The Bertie Project checked out on Libby for my road trip this week. A favorite author and series.

>77 kidzdoc: How are you liking Song of the Cell, Darryl? It's on sale and I'm tempted, though I really need to just stop clicking on every discounted ebook I see.

I bypassed all the books on my immediate TBR pile and picked up Edan Lepucki's Time's Mouth, because I heard her talking about it on a podcast and it sounds pleasingly out there, which fits my mood today.

I just finished My Faraway One: Selected Letters of Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. I've been reading this giant 800 page book since the beginning of the year.

Now I need to decide if I want to start another "project" book . . .

I’m reading How to Speak Whale: A Voyage into the Future of Animal Communication while listening to whale songs.

>98 WelshBookworm: I enjoyed the first few books but then lost interest in the series pretty quick. The Bertie Project looks like fun!

I finished Ana Maria Matute's The Island and Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Silver Nitrate. I'm now about to start Sharlene Teo's Ponti.

>99 lisapeet: I'm greatly enjoying The Song of the Cell, Lisa. However, my undergraduate major was Microbiology, and I'm definitely a bio nerd, so I can't promise that you'll like it as much as I am so far. If it's on sale I would consider getting it, especially if you can't borrow it.

I'm still reading The Road to the Country by Chigozie Obioma, which is about the Biafran War in Nigeria in the late 1960s. It's a bit of a slog, as the main character isn't that interested in the reasons for the war or what is going on around him, which is an interesting choice for an author to make and I'm not sure it's working here. But I'm only halfway through.

I'm also reading The Torn Skirt, Rebecca Godfrey's debut novel. She later wrote Under the Bridge which became a very good mini-series and this novel fits right into the same world.

I've just started North Woods by Daniel Mason, since I have heard only good things about it, and Beware the Woman by Megan Abbott, an author I enjoy very much. It's turning out to be a very atmospheric gothic novel that feels very Joyce Carol Oates.

And finally, I'm reading Green Frog, a short story collection by Gina Chung and it is magnificent.

Reading Pet by Catherine Chidgey.

I finished Pearl yesterday. I’m reading Eric, a discworld book, and this morning I read Simon Armitage’s introduction to his translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It’s a really good introduction.

I'm in the final third of Spells for Forgetting finally. It's for my book club and I have not been enjoying it. It's not dreadful, and perhaps great for another reader, but very mediocre for me and the writing is rubbing me the wrong way (just trying too hard to be overly descriptive and atmospheric which leads to repetition and isn't beautiful enough to be adding much to the book).

Eric went by quick. I'll start Sanctuary by William Faulkner next, a 1931 novel.

I'm just about to finish The Thirteen Gun Salute by Patrick O'Brian, which I guess puts me more than two thirds of the way through the series. At this rate, I'll probably finish it sometime in the next decade!

Next up is The Puzzler: One Man's Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from Crosswords to Jigsaws to the Meaning of Life by A. J. Jacobs.

I finished Sharlene Teo's Ponti (which was good) and am now reading the first Murderbot book, which I'm really enjoying.

Big day: I finished three books!

Fourteen Days by The Authors Guild. I started listening to this on audio in February and have been chipping away at it occasionally since then. I probably would have enjoyed it more in print or on kindle. But then again, although the premise was a great one (tenants in an NYC apartment building meeting on the roof during COVID, one telling a story each night--a la The Decameron), the quality of the stories was mixed, and I think it suffered more than benefitted by the collaboration. 3 stars.

Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie. Another audio, but I whizzed through it in one day. 4.5 stars.

All Our Yesterdays: A Novel of Lady Macbeth by Joel H. Morris. The story of Lady Macbeth and her son in the early months of her marriage to Macbeth. Morris imagines what drove her to become the woman we know from the play. 4 stars.

Tonight I am starting James by Percival Everett.

Im reading Hunger. Looks like I’m almost back to my reading. I managed to write a review! It’s of a book I highly recommend - Homeland. It’s reviewed on my thread.

lords and ladies because I couldnt wait for July and the discworld challenge: witches. Ill wait to review it tho

I’m reading The Chrysalids by John Wyndham

I am rereading Martha Wells’ City of Bones in her new revised edition, and it suddenly struck me how much anger is a constant in her books. Her characters are all holding a lot of anger, and she works very well with the tensions that generates.

>115 dianeham: I can’t put this book down for a second. It’s so good.

Browsing through stories in various short fiction volumes ...some newer, some not...list is on our thread...

We Live in water:Stories by Jess Walters
The Hive and the Honey by Paul Yoon
The Granta Book of the African Short Story ed. Helon Habila
Normal Rules Don't Apply, Short Stories by Kate Atkinson
When Things Get Dark: Stories Inspired by Shirley Jackson, ed Ellen Datlow
Butter Novellas, Stories, and Fragments by Gayl Jones

Just acquired On Call: A Doctor's Journey in Public Service by Anthony Fauci M.D., and am distressed to see that Penguin Random House has put the endnotes online. The physical book isn't the entire book! No index either, suppose that's online too. Librarians will have fun cataloging this.

>119 dukedom_enough: what?????why bother with the book then? ridiculous

I am reading Lore Segal the journal I did not keep it starts with her life in austria , one of the chilren on the kindertransport to England, then her time in america. second part are essays;my favs a 'translating the olden times' about her translation of fairy tales and 'plots and manipulations' about the story of King David. Not finished yet tho; Ive liked her short stories, this book shows the range of her writing skills.

Still reading Time's Mouth and also Olivia Laing's The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise because I have gardening on my mind.

>119 dukedom_enough: Outrageous! I have strong feelings about endnotes vs footnotes as well, but to place them online entirely with a physical book is very odd.

I read Donatella di Pietrantonio's A Girl Returned, which is a short, bittersweet little novella translated from the original Italian by Ann Goldstein. I currently have a tottering tower of 12 books on my bedside table, which is really quite unreasonable even by my own silly standards. I would like to somehow read them all simultaneously.

I'm 400 pages into Wild Swans with only a 100 left to go. A fabulous overview of Chinese history in the twentieth century. My book club is discussing Braiding Sweetgrass tomorrow night, but I haven't even cracked it, as I can't put Wild Swans down.

Finished a lesser-known Trollope novel, The Belton Estate. For fiction, I want something light and easy. I think I'll pick 4-5 of the mysteries or light historical fiction books that I've picked up at library sales. Then I start all of them and if they don't grab me, they go back in a donation pile to return to the library sale.

For nonfiction, I'm reading The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson.

>124 labfs39: so glad you are loving it too!

>125 japaul22: the Daily poem from Paris Review today

Mary Ruefle

Trollope

What a sad day,
full of black, blue,
red, and yellow umbrellas.
Everyone in the world,
whatever their disposition,
seemed to be crying at once,
while I hit upon reading
Trollope, and so remained a week
among the grouse. That was my
disposition. Sometimes I
would get up and move about—
tea, Kleenex, cigarette,
a phone call—but always
I returned to my life
among the grouse. Can you
forgive me? I was about
to ask, but like some rose
that never opened.
Because I wish I were
a quiet voiceless plant
too full of love and joy
to move about and utter
words. Besides, there are
tears which happen in a day
that it would take
a lifetime to explain.

From issue no. 247 (Spring 2024)

>128 dianeham: thanks for sharing that! Clever!

>128 dianeham:
“ Besides, there are
tears which happen in a day
that it would take
a lifetime to explain.”

I like that!

>129 japaul22: is there a connection between Trollope and grouse?

>131 dianeham: not that I remember except that I took it as a hunting reference - there are a lot of hunting set pieces in Trollope. Also, Can you Forgive Her? is one of Trollope’s better known novels.

>132 japaul22: an 848 page novel! Yikes.

>133 dianeham: It was my favorite, from those I read.

I'm looking at Night Watch - the new Pulitzer winner by Jayne Anne Phillips. My library just lent it me. I haven't started yet.

I finished Wild Swans (excellent) and picked up Annie John because it's short and I haven't read anything from Antigua before.

>135 dchaikin: I'm curious about this one, so I'm glad I'll soon get to hear what you think about it.

I finally finished The Road to the Country by Chigozie Obioma, about the Biafran War, and I liked it more when I had finished it than I had expected to. Half of the book was a real effort.

I'm also still reading North Woods by Daniel Mason and I've started Roman Stories by Jhumpa Lahiri, and three stories in, I'm not sure what I think about it.

I started The Road from Belhaven by Margot Livesey and forgot I was reading for a bit there. It's very good. And for a change of pace, I'm reading Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe.

>137 RidgewayGirl: Kay, I quite liked Lahiri’s Roman Stories though they were a bit of a mix in both quality and theme. I read them earlier this year and you can read my review here. Overall the book is a good read though only a few have remained in my memory. I remember liking The Well-lit House and Steps.

>136 labfs39: I'll be eager to know how you find Annie John! I almost started that recently myself. I really liked Kincaid's book See Now Then.

>139 mabith: It's a small little book. Coming of age, which isn't my favorite genre, but the writing is good. So far I'm enjoying it, and should finish tomorrow. It's my first book by this author.

>138 kjuliff: Thanks for pointing to your review. I'm not not enjoying them, I'm just not as rapt as I was with Whereabouts or the short stories in Unaccustomed Earth.

>141 RidgewayGirl: Do you think that the fact that they were written in Italian made them very different than her other writings?

I finished Reine Arcache Melvin's The Betrayed, which I thought was mediocre in terms of plot, but very rich in contextual detail, being set in the 1980s in the Phillipines. Also, Mari Ahokoivu's Oksi, a beautiful graphic novel that draws from Finnish folktales about the forest.

Now reading Soundings by Doreen Cunningham, a memoir about her time whale-watching.

>142 kjuliff: Hmm, I'm not sure. I did love Whereabouts, which was also written in Italian, so I don't think it's the shift of language and resultant translation that is the issue.

>144 RidgewayGirl: Maybe she’s just not so hot on short stories. I tried reading Interpreter of Maladies last night and today and was unimpressed.

Currently listening to The Wild Inside by Christine Carbo. I've got two Libby holds that came this week which I checked out and want to get to. I could pause it, since it's an Audible Plus freebie, but I'm really tempted to DNF it. Anybody read it? Does it get better? Although it is billed as "suspense", so far it is just a plodding procedural with a detective wrestling with a grizzly bear encounter that killed his father as a boy while looking for whoever left a man tied to a tree that got eaten by a grizzly. And the guy was a druggie, and everyone involved with his life is also a druggie, or some other lowlife and thoroughly unlikeable. There's also possibly dog abuse involved. Is it worth continuing?

Last night I started The Assault by Harry Mulisch, and I had a hard time putting it down to go to sleep.

I'm now reading Swamp Story by Dave Barry, which so far is maybe only mildly amusing, but it's way too hot for anything more serious. :)

Plan for July
lord and ladies discworld witches theme (5)

a place of greater safety for RTT July theme France

July - Insect World - non fiction challenge tba

RTT Quarterly July-September 2024 Arthurian Britain tba

RG quarterly July-September 2024 Danube a cultural history

also reading green frog stories and go went gone

lst book of this quarter

I just finished this book lady to fox by David Garrett. What a treat! Written in 1928 takes place in 1880

Why did you choose this book?

we are reading books from Anitas list to read in her memory. This month we are reading her favorite books from the 20s and 30s. The title called to my love of fantasy, and fables

Synopsis without spoiler (taken from a review at The Literary Omnivore)

"Lady into Fox follows the mysterious case of Mrs. Silvia Tebrick, who, when watching a fox hunt with her husband, turns into a fox herself. Mr. Tebrick and Mrs. Tebrick are both astounded and horrified, but at first attempt to carry on as best they can; Mrs. Tebrick still wears her jackets, plays cards, and likes music. her husband goes to great lengths to maintain their marital bliss, but Mrs. Tebrick’s animal nature cannot be denied As time goes on, Mrs. Tebrick becomes wilder and wilder until, one day, the two part ways–until the day Mrs. Tebrick returns… with a litter of kits in tow."

this is a very dark story in many ways but at the same time filled plenty of chuckles, and as Mr Tebrick spins deeper into madness, the reader cant help but pity this man. Highly recommended 5*.

Thank you Anita for sharing this story with me

I'm going for Any Human Heart by William Boyd next I think.

>151 AlisonY: I read this a few months ago and loved it. Thanks for reminding me that I want to read more Boyd.

I'm reading Julia Phillips's new book, Bear, which I can't find a touchstone for. For nonfiction, I'm reading The Demon of Unrest, about the start of the Civil War in the U.S. It's interesting that it feels like we're still feeling repercussions from this time period, 160 years later.

>151 AlisonY: I'm interested in this Boyd. Hope you enjoy

>137 RidgewayGirl: So, Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips was not for me. It's interesting but also has aspects I don't like. I just finished and need to think about what to say about it.

>154 japaul22: Jennifer, I am very excited about Julia Phillip's new book!

>155 dchaikin: Dan, I have another book of hers on my shelf that I'll read first and see what I think.

I've finished The Road to the Country by Chigozie Obioma and I think it's an important addition to the literature about the Biafran War, but it wasn't an easy book to read.

I've also finished Roman Stories by Jumpa Lahiri and while there were a few very good stories, this wasn't a great collection overall.

I'm still reading North Woods by Daniel Mason and The Road from Belhaven by Margot Livesey and I've just started My Autobiography of Carson McCullers by Jenn Shapland and Catalina by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio.

I pushed myself to finish The Wild Inside. Normally I like books that delve into the psychological motivations of characters, but this was a bit too tedious. But the descriptions of Glacier National Park are glorious, and the grizzly bear is a very poignant character.

I've just started The Power Broker by Robert A. Caro. Which is approximately six thousand pages long, so I'll see you all next year, I guess. :)

Just started Escape from Shadow Physics: The Quest to End the Dark Ages of Quantum Theory by Adam Forrest Kay.

Also reading A Dram of Poison by Charlotte Armstrong.

I’m working on Not A River by Selva Almada - all of 87 or so pages.

I am cranking through Killers of a Certain Age. Making me think about how men are given a rite of passage when they retire and lots has been written about their angst at being put out to pasture, but I've never read about women who love their jobs and struggle with retirement.

my plan above has been hijacked by two shiny new covers go went gone and a chance meeting first ones for a real life book group, next is one I noticed i the New yorker and thought it looked very interestings. I may get back to the others some time in july

Finished my reread of Her Highness' First Murder and started on the sequel Poison, Your Grace. It was on my "next-to-read in series" random list, and fit a cover color challenge for April (pewter) which I am just getting to now. I'm really eager to give priority to my list of Ancient Times/Biblical theme which was also the RTT 2nd Quarter theme (haven't gotten to it yet). But if don't read Poison NOW, it will become one of those leftovers for next year and I really don't want that.... So we'll just plugging along and getting farther and farther behind with my monthly and quarterly goals....

>160 dchaikin: Ok, I finished. Didn't take long. I think next will be Possession by A.S. Byatt, at least I'll start it soon. I'm reading on a five-week plan with a group on Litsy.

>164 dchaikin: your Not a River needs fixing Dan. I think you’ll enjoy Possession. I lived it when I read it a few years back, but I’m not sure if I’d enjoy it so much today. It’s a bit too Engliishy for my current taste.

>165 kjuliff: thanks. Fixed. I really hope I enjoy Byatt.

I just finished Bear by Julia Phillips which I really loved. For fiction, I'm starting The Exiles by Christine Baker Kline, historical fiction that I picked up at a library sale.

New month, new books. Two easy reads to start with - Mind Games and Cheerfully Yours.

Hi all, I accidentally posted two new threads for 3rd quarter. One has disappeared, so you can go here to join in my thread if you desire! https://www.librarything.com/topic/361718#n8568087

A couple days ago, I finished The Club: Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age by Leo Damrosch, which I enjoyed enough to move on to James Boswell’s The Life of Samuel Johnson, a classic I’ve never even tried to read till now. That will probably keep me busy till the 2024 Booker Longlist is out on the 30th.

I've started Uproar!: Scandal, Satire and Printmakers in Georgian London by Alice Loxton

Yesterday I started The Radiant Way which, 5 pages in, feels like a book especially for me. The main character shares my name and the opening scene takes place on my birthday.

I finished Killers of a Certain Age, a fun read that had more to it than I expected. Restarted The White Lady, a Jacqueline Winspear standalone.

I'm reading The Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson. Starts a little slow, but I really getting into it now. I just finished The King of Lies by John Hart. Loved it.

I just started On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder.

I'm just beginning The Possibility of Life by Jaime Green - about exoplanets, and am about two hours into an audio book edition of That Will Never Work by Marc Randolph - about the founding of Netflix.

go went gone is a brilliant and scathing look at the refugee situation, and a man wanting to help, focusing on the insane kafta like laws that are designed to not allow any refugee assylum. This was written in 2017, dont think things have changed much since then.

btw I couldnt help but compare Richard in this book with Martin in the children both men see an injustice and want to help. good people do indeed exist; something I need to remember on this day

Some of us were talking about reading Ismail Kadare recently. He just passed away.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/jul/01/ismail-kadare-giant-of-alb...

My friend who introduced me to Kadare will be particularly upset. She was still waiting for him to be recognized with a Nobel prize and always afraid he'd die before it happened.

A Dram of Poison - this book is so strange. First it was about an older man who married a younger woman because he wanted to help her financially. Then he started falling in love with her. There’s a car accident- his sister comes to help out - the sister is a negative influence. The man does something crazy. Then suddenly six people who don’t all know each other are driving around in a car trying to fix the mistake the crazy man made.

now happily reading table for two, his short stories are as good as his novels

>178 rasdhar: >179 mabith: A really terrific voice was lost.

>180 dianeham: that book won the Edgar in 1956. I have no idea why.

>180 dianeham: Oh, I enjoyed A Dram of Poison. I like the plot twist that completely changes the nature of the mystery/crisis; I thought the characters were a fun mix (which they need to be, given that they spend a large chunk of the book riding around town together in a giant sedan); and the fact that the one really hateful bigot is called out for her attitudes by the rest of the group is really unexpected for 1957.

>184 KeithChaffee: it was pretty strange.

Currently reading Peter Wells 'Iridescence'. Finished Michael Cunninghams 'Flesh and Blood' - gosh, he's a very good writer.

Reading The Danube: a cultural history for the Reading Globally 3rd Quarter Theme, "the Danube'' (natch) come on over and join us!

Also Table for Two Didn't realize this was a short story collection and am enjoying them' And realized I bought the book censors library a while back, need to start it sometime

Now reading Bonavia by Velikic Dragan.

The novel's going nowhere but roughly it takes us on many character's journeys through their life between Vienna and what used to be Yugoslavia.

Personally I like it very much but since the plot doesn't have a goal it might not appeal to everyone.

Reading the German translation of a not simple text. Just to give you an idea, tried translating the translation to English. Take it with a grain of salt:

"Marko observed her beloved face, it had barely any wrinkles. The past would only gradually be written into the white void, he thought. The area around the eyes will become darker, vision blurred by thick glasses. Yet, he was filled with quiet anticipation. The wisdom of dusk(Dämmerung). No fear of morning. He had said something to her about accompanying oneself with oneself. She reacted with a bon mot and did not further comment on the incidentally mentioned fact that not only his father but also his five-year-old son lived in Vienna. He had left empty-handed. They built their game there at the table in the Café Miró in Buda, each with their own combinations."

Hopefully this gives you an idea of the tone and taste of the prose.

I finished Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie two days ago, which is a detailed account of his attempted assassination by a lone Islamic fundamentalist in August 2022 that nearly claimed his life, his road to incomplete recovery, and the love and support that gave him the strength to persevere. I reviewed it on my thread earlier this afternoon.

I'm nearly finished reading The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human by Siddharta Mukherjee, an oncologist at Columbia University, which is a detailed account of cell biology from the 17th century to the present day. I'm also working on The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride.

>189 kidzdoc: nice review darryl, He was a guest on both Late Night and The Daily show and was so moved by his conversations.I plan to read that at some point; looking forward to it

review of Lore Segals the journal I did not keep is here https://www.librarything.com/topic/361718#n8571790

Review of go went gone is here https://www.librarything.com/topic/361718#n8571790

I tried to start not one but two non-fiction books on Cassie Chadwick, a conwoman who claimed to be Andrew Carnegie's illegitimate daughter to get money from banks. The first (Greed in the Gilded Age) had a lot of imagined versions of interactions at the beginning that I wasn't feeling. Tried another (The Impostor Heiress), which was even worse for those scenes. The former might have been okay had I not just read a history book with imagined scenes that bugged me, so I'm keeping the library check out and reading something else first before trying again.

To guarantee that won't happen again I've started When the Earth had Two Moons: Cannibal Planets, Icy Giants, Dirty Comets, Dreadful Orbits, and the Origin of the Night Sky.

I finished Story of X and Y by Harshad Acharya - it was a romance novel dealing with themes of adultery, relationships, love and consequences with drama. The characters were quite grey and I liked that there was not one single happy ending that usually such books have. Anything similar that you guys have been reading? What is your take on realistic romances? I know many readers love their HEAs!
Take a peek at this if you are curious: https://www.amazon.com/Story-X-Y-Harshad-Acharya-ebook/dp/B0CYC6HQR7/

>193 mabith: that looks fascinating! will have to add it to the list

>177 cindydavid4:, I loved go went gone.

I finished the audio version of On Call: A Doctor's Journey in Public Service by Anthony S. Fauci. He had quite a life, and I've come to admire him as a person as well as a physician, researcher and public servant.

Almost done with James by Percival Everett, which is very good. Needed something light on audio as one of my cats is dying and I'm having trouble concentrating, so I decided on The Poison Bed by Elizabeth Fremantle. Her historical novels are usually quick reads.

>190 cindydavid4: Thanks, Cindy. I'll see if I can find clippings of Salman Rushdie's television interviews.

>192 cindydavid4: I also gave Go, Went, Gone 5 stars; nice review of it. I attended a talk Erpenbeck gave at the Edinburgh International Book Festival after this novel was published, but her English wasn't very good and she didn't seem all that comfortable speaking it in such a large setting.

I'll have to get to Kairos soon.

>196 Cariola: Deborah, my condolences on your cat. I hope it is a peaceful transition.

I need to read more of Fremantle's books. I've only read her debut novel, Queen's Gambit and was impressed by it. Now I see it is a trilogy and she has other books besides....

Does Fauci read his own book? I might have to get that. I've always admired him too.

>106 dianeham: Oh, Deborah, I'm so sorry.

>199 RidgewayGirl: think you mean >196 Cariola:

Dog Island by Philippe Claudel

let me know how that is. Read two of his books now and real;y enjoyed them

from the used store picked up

pillar of fire which I am reading now
men and cartoons
the sea queen

I'm rereading The Will To Battle, the third in the Terra Ignota series, in preparation for reading the fourth.

>158 bragan: I'm reading The Power Broker as well, and am only about halfway through! I've been reading along with an podcast In case you're interested, the details are here: https://99percentinvisible.org/club/. The podcast focuses on design and architecture, and they're releasing a discussion episode for every few chapters. They had Robert Caro himself in for the first episode to talk about the book.

I started two new books this weekend. Three Sisters by Bi Feiyu, a novel by a Chinese author that I picked up at a library sale. For nonfiction, We Die Alone by David Howarth, an account of the desperate escape from the Germans of a Norwegian man during WWII.

>198 WelshBookworm: >199 RidgewayGirl: Thank you. I miss Jasper so much, and so does his sister, but I know I did the right thing in having him put down at the ER. He was suffering.

Yes, Dr. Fauci reads his own memoir. You will admire him even more after reading/listening to On Call.

I finished James, which was a 4.5 star read for me. Very creative, entertaining and thought provoking.

Still working on The Poison Bed but may switch to The Painter's Daughters, a novel about the Gainsborough sisters.

>196 Cariola: I'm really sorry about your cat, Deborah. Wish you well.

Along with Possession, I'm reading Lost & Found, a personal essay by The New Yorker magazine writer Kathryn Schulz on losing her father and finding her partner. My own reading distraction is being stuck away from home still in the Hurricane Beryl aftermath.

Well dog my cats! I finally finished In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower (a.k.a Within a Budding Grove), the second book of Marcel Proust's famed 7-massive-book series, In Search of Lost Time. I'll have a review up on my CR thread within a couple of days.

My next book, for my old reading group, which I've been invited to drop in on while I'm here in California, will be American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West by Nate Blakeslee. It's narrative history about the reintroduction of the Wolf into Western U.S. ecosystem. I'm very much looking forward to it.

>208 rocketjk: that author rings a bell, Nate Blakeslee. He helped break the Tulia, tx story. The local white prosecutor coordinated with a white criminal to falsely frame a large percentage of Tulia's black population in drug trafficking, convicting some 30-odd people on knowingly-false evidence. He faced no consequences. The book he wrote is Tulia from 2005, and was one of my first entries into LT.

>209 dchaikin: Interesting. I will look into that book. Thanks! How are you holding up vis a vis the storm?

>210 rocketjk: I've been in better mental spaces. House is ok. Cat is ok. Dog is still boarded and they won't evict her.

>205 japaul22: I found We Die Alone fascinating. I kept fact checking because it seems so incredible.

>212 labfs39: I remembered that at least one LT person I follow had read this. Glad to know it was you. I've only read the first 80 pages and I agree - it's unbelievable!

>213 japaul22: >212 labfs39: I really liked We Die Alone and I realize a lot of the events have been substantiated, but I did feel I was reading fiction while I was reading it. It was a real page-turner. I know all the events happened but I couldn’t understand how the mc survived some of those experiences when he was stranded on a plateau between fjords.

I finished reading Rites of Passage: Death & Mourning in Victorian Britain by Judith Flanders, which is a very interesting nonfiction account of death and mourning practices. I learned a lot of interesting details about little things I'd never heard of, before. A bit of a random read, but I'm glad I tried it. Also two uninteresting detective novels by Lucy Foley. Now reading Parasol Against the Axe, by Helen Oyeyemi, which is largely going over my head.

>215 rasdhar: I’m often interested in your choice of books R, but your choice of Parasol Against the Axe really intrigues me. What lead you to read this book?

I'm reading Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia by Hadley Freeman. Harrowing at times but very informative.

>217 AlisonY: I'll be interested to get your take on Good Girls, Alison. When I was working I and the other members of my pediatric hospitalist group cared for dozens of patients who required hospitalization due to the effects of significant anorexia nervosa and other eating disorders.

>218 kidzdoc: I finished it tonight, Darryl, so will probably review it tomorrow.

>216 kjuliff: I've read a couple of other books by Helen Oyeyemi and I thought I'd give it a try!

I've started The Library: A Fragile History by Andrew Pettegree.

I started Station Eternity as my morning commute book.

I started Narrow Road to the Deep North today. A bit of a slow start with frequent time changes, but I'm starting to settle into it. I'm also reading The Tale of Despereaux with my nieces. I don't usually mention the kids books I'm reading, in part because there are so many, but this is a great story, well-written and illustrated.

>223 labfs39: I’ve been thinking about reading this too - TRttDN. It comes up occasionally in the Booker Prize fb group (and responses are mixed)

I'm starting The Dig by Cynan Jones, which started life in Granta as a first chapter. According to the jacket, it was winner of a Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Award in 2014 (new to me) and the Wales book of the Year Fiction Prize (2015). Let's go!

PS - Just Googled the Jerwood prize and it only seemed to last 4 years, from 2011 to 2015. Still, some interesting titles on the list - have very much enjoyed some of these so am now very hopeful about The Dig.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerwood_Fiction_Uncovered_Prize#:~:text=The%20Jerw....

>224 dchaikin: I joined that Booker fb group after reading you were a member. I noted that feelings were mixed on the Long Road and I think most of the negative posts were American, and the positive Australian. Which makes sense. We Australians are much more Asia-centric and more aware of the war on the Malay peninsula and beyond in the early 40s.

>224 dchaikin: >226 kjuliff: I'm getting into it more now, and I've started marking some passages I want to remember. He's a good wordsmith, although I wonder if fewer time changes at the beginning would have made for smoother reading. I read a memoir called The Burma-Siam railway : the secret diary of Dr Robert Hardie, 1942-45 a few years ago. Interestingly the protagonist of Narrow Road is also a doctor.

ETA: Dr. Hardie was British and the stiff-upper lip demeanor is something that Flanagan's Australian Dr. Evan's ridicules.

>226 kjuliff:

I might be an American, but it's actually because I've read so much about the Japanese in the Pacific that I really disliked that book. Flanagan made the event romantic and I just couldn't stand it. Also, it's been so long so I don't remember perfectly, but is plotting of the book I also found unremarkable. Typical Booker fare writing which is why I avoid that prize.

Just read Girl in Disguise

ok everything I thought I was reading ths month has been pushed aside The Black Count : glory, revolution, betrayal, and the real Count of Monte Cristowas passed on to me as a BB by atozgirl,and I took the hit. Reading it for the French RTT challenge. loving this

>228 lilisin: I thought I was quite alone in disliking it! Glad to see someone agrees. It felt like award-bait to me.

>230 cindydavid4: I’ve had that one on my wishlist for a while. Will be interested in your review.

I’m trying to read Kevin Barry’s A Heart in Winter but sadly, as I’ve loved some of his other books. I’m finding it annoying in its over-the-top Irishness. It’s so far reading more like a parody than a farce.

>204 rasdhar: I've been reading The Power Broker for what feels like forever now, and I've only just now passed the halfway point, myself! It's definitely worth the time, though.

As it happens, I've been a 99PI listener for ages, and it was actually the podcast that prompted me to pick up the book. Haven't listened to any of the discussions yet, though. I think I'd like to finish the whole thing myself, first, and then hear what other people think. But, man, that's going to be a whole lot of listening once I finish my whole lot of reading!

I think I might re-read all of Claire Keegan 's work again.

>226 kjuliff: >227 labfs39: >228 lilisin: I don’t want to try to capture the nuances of comments about a book i haven’t read, but these comments are interesting. Overly romanized was an impression was left to worry about

>226 kjuliff: do you post on the fb group? I’m trying to remember if i saw a Kate there. (I did seem one-time-CR-member amandameale - but she uses her real name, Arabella. She’s very active in the group.)

>236 dchaikin: I rarely post on the FB group. I joined when I read on LT that you referenced that group. I think I may have commented on a comment. I use my real name Kate Juliff.

Re The Narrow Road to the Deep North - I read this book about ten years ago when I still felt very Australian. Australians, coming from a country with such a small population (~26 million) tend to feel very proud when one of our people get international recognition. And so few books are written about Australia. Perhaps I was still suffering from the well-documented Australian Cringe.

>237 kjuliff: i found you there. 🙂 I’m under my real name too.

>239 dchaikin: I just posted on it. I don’t look at it much. It’s so not in to even be on FB now. My son would be horrified to know I actually posted on it.

>230 cindydavid4: >232 FlorenceArt: I loved The Black Count! I got it as an ARC way back when and couldn't put it down. Plus it seemed wild the original documents they still had around to draw from.

Im learning about France, but the the book is a master class on race in Europe pre French revolution. I just had no idea how Kaftian its laws were; I also understand now why Haiti has such a difficult time;they didnt get a very good start. I also was surprised how much docs they had;the way it was explained, he was only able to get a sampling of what was in the vault. Cant put the book down for long

I’m sort of switching periods now, thinking about the Booker Longlist coming out at end of the month. I’ve picked up several current novels from the library: The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, James, Martyr, and Clear. A couple of nights ago, I began reading a Libby sample of My Friends by Hisham Matar, which grabbed my attention quickly, so that I finished it last night. My Friends is obviously quite readable and I found it impressive. After turning it over in my mind for awhile, I’ll probably review it on my thread.

I’m still continuing my slow movement through Boswell’s massive biography of Samuel Johnson, finding some parts very tedious, but others interesting and satisfying, particularly discussions of literature and religion.

Visited the library today, and I again checked out Voix de femmes au Moyen Âge, and started reading Les évangiles des quenouilles. I also borrowed a Pléïades book on poets and novelists of the Middle ages, and Les mauvaises herbes (Grass), recommended by Lisa/labfs39, I think. All are hefty books but I don't have to return them until September, because it's summer 😎. I also picked up one of the showcased books, and this one is very slim: La chute infinie des soleils.

I've started Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner. I loved Angle of Repose, so I'm hoping this is excellent as well.

I'm still focused on finishing up some leftovers. Finished The Princes in the Tower, so now I'm prioritizing The Woman They Could Not Silence. On audio, I will be finishing up The House With the Golden Door - it is due in two days on Libby and has holds waiting... On my tablet, I am reading Poison, Your Grace at bedtime. Wish it was going faster, but it's almost 300 pages. After that it will be The Ice Swan which I started in January, but got paused. I'd like to finish it for the RTT France theme.

>246 japaul22: I hope you liked it as much as I did!

I had to put aside Kevin Barry’s The Heart in Winter - the audio version is narrated by the author and I couldn’t cope with the Irishness of it atm. Perhaps another time.

I’m now starting on Katalin Street by Magda Szabó. It’s set right on the Danube so fits well with Q3 of the RG group. Its opening paragraph was excellent. I read it several times for its beautifully-told truth.

Im hoping I can stick with Katalin Street. I’m still recovering from my rough June-July periods.

>244 dianelouise100: I’m anticipating the Booker longlist too. July 30

saw this and thought some here might be interested in listening

"The PBS Books Readers Club is hosting an author talk with the amazing Percival Everett on July 31! 🎉 He'll be discussing his latest book, James, a deep and compelling reimagining of Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the viewpoint of Jim, Huckleberry's friend and escaped slave. 📖 Don't miss this engaging and thought-provoking discussion! Stay tuned!"

Wonder if James will have just been nominated for the Booker. Great timing for PBS, and thanks, Cindy, for the info.

still on black count, getting a bit hung up on all the battles but am enjoying it. did not realize France helped Italy become independent

Finished table for two I really enjoyed the short stories,not so much the novella

still reading book censors library almost finished but keep getting distracted by othr books!

For Anita, reading a man in the zoo by the same author of lady in to fox which I liked.

and just received visitation and the end of days which might have to wait until next month....

Just finished Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner. Now I'm starting The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon, historical fiction based on my all-time favorite nonfiction book, A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard. I wanted to read something in a cold setting since we're likely hitting over 100 degrees F for the third day in a row today.

After what feels like multiple plans I've finally started The Woman in White.

I know I said I was going to focus on finishing up leftovers, but I started two more books yesterday...
The Door to Camelot - I need to read a fantasy book for my genre challenge for July. This one is one of my theme reads (door titles), it is short (under 200 pages), and it was cheap on Amazon. I should finish it in a week at the most and then get to The Ice Swan which fits the RTT theme for July. The other new one is Murder, Plain and Simple which I had on hold on Libby to read for A Good Yarn (theme is Q - setting in a quilt shop.) I've had it checked out while I finished The House With the Golden Door. Now it is due in 4 days with a hold waiting, so I can't put it off.

Diving head first into F. Paul Wilson's work. I Love how the Adversary Cycle and The Repairman Jack books twist into each other. Wilson has a great way of making stories connect without seeming like he is writing the same thing over and over. Both series are genuine fun.