What are you reading now: March 8, 2025.

Now I'm actually reading Ancient Worlds. Akizuki-Class Destroyers in the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II and The Immortality Thief will be next.

Starting Oil and the Great Powers.

Hello Beautiful – Ann Napolitano
Book on CD read by Maura Tierney
3.5*** (rounded up)

A contemporary family saga spanning decades.

William Waters had a lonely childhood lacking in love and affection. He meets Julia Padovano his freshman year of college and is embraced by her family. Julia and her three sisters are very close, and William seems to enjoy the loving chaos of the loud and boisterous family. But William’s buried darkness surfaces, threatening not only his and Julia’s plans for the future, but the sisters’ once unbreakable bond.

Gosh, but Napolitano can craft some beautiful sentences! While there were times when I thought the plot seemed somewhat contrived, and I could not understand, at all, the way in which the girls’ mother, Rose, behaved, I felt drawn into the relationships of the Padovano family. William, too, is not without some resources, including a group of friends who will do anything to help him; while he may not recognize it, he is rich in love despite the emotional damage caused by his parents.

I liked the way Napolitano reimagined Little Women, though I could have done without the constant reminders in the book about the classic novel. I was sorry that my F2F book club didn’t have a richer discussion (one member just dismissed the book as “a soap opera,” and basically cut off all efforts at further discourse with a variation of that statement).

Maura Tierney does a marvelous job of voicing the audiobook edition. She has a lot of characters to deal with and she is up to the task.

I'm almost done reading Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler and am guessing at this point I'll want to read the sequel. But with spring break ahead of me I have some other books I plan to read first.

The Expectant Detectives – Kat Ailes
2.5**

A debut mystery featuring a group of VERY pregnant women who bond during prenatal class. Alice and Joe have left the hustle and bustle of London for a quiet village in the English countryside. Feeling the need to make friends, they enroll in a local prenatal class that takes place above an herbalist’s shop. During one class a woman suddenly goes into labor and gives birth. In all the turmoil of that event, no one notices that the old man downstairs has died. At first, they think he had a heart attack, but then the police call it murder and suspect one woman’s partner. The ladies decide to investigate on their own.

Okay, there’s a reasonably cute premise here, but I hardly see the beginning of a series (and yet, there is a book two). I thought the plot was too convoluted; Ailes included a local hippie commune, a mysterious death decades ago, a lot of intrigue about who fathered whom, the stereotypical rich bad guy, a woman detective who seemed bent on investigating the wrong people, some serious personal tension between the pregnant women and their partners, and a cute (if chronically misbehaving) dog. The author was just trying too hard.

I never connected with any of the characters, and really didn’t care about their personal dramas, or, frankly, all that much about the murder. I didn’t even really warm up to Helen (the dog), despite her tendency to run off and return with an important clue.

enjoying this audio via Libby ~

The Kamogawa Food Detectives (Kamogawa Food Detectives Novel, #1)
by Hisashi Kashiwai (Author), Jesse Kirkwood (Translator)

Reading The Care and Management by Jacqueline Winspear for my library book club and Nostromo by Joseph Conrad.

I'm listening to Pursued by Death by Gunnar Staalesen; it's a Norwegian crime novel. I'd forgotten how much I adore Nordic crime fiction, so I've pulled out Camillla Lackberg's latest, The Cuckoo, and am about two chapters into that. I've also ordered another Nordic crime novel by a Finnish author with whom I am unfamiliar, and I'm excited about that!

I'm just past the halfway point of Part 2 (in itself 241 pages) - "Prosperity and Its Discontents: 1953-1971" of Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 by Tony Judt. The book is very well written and I'm finding it extremely interesting. But it is over 800 pages of pretty small print. Since it's broken up into four major parts, I've decided to read one part at a time with another book in between each. Just a note, though, that since the book is now 15 years old, we can say that a better subtitle would have been "A History of Europe from 1945 to 2005," which is what it really is.

Just finished Milkweed by J Spinelli.
Hist fic, WWII Poland, good but heart-breaking.

Now reading The Girl You Left Behind.
Hist fic, WWI France.

Currently reading a horror Lake Nutaqby Ron Ripley

Reading Summer by Ali Smith, the last book in her seasonal quartet. I am enjoying how the characters are intertwining . Very Dickensian. I finished yesterday. I enjoyed her seasonal quartet and plan to read more Ali Smith. I started Mona Acts Out but not sure it is what I want to read.

Sand in My Bra and Other Misadventures: Funny Women Write from the Road
Jennifer L. Leo
This is an anthology of women's true stories. Writers include Ellen DeGeneres and Annie Lamott. I enjoyed it and I believe there is a couple other books in the same genre. Books Off My Reading List

Last night I finished Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher. Great fairytale with fun chicken side characters.

The new thread is up over here.

Almost finished reading the first book of a fantasy series Dangerous Talents by Frankie Robertson

>5 Molly3028: That was a good audiobook. It was the perfect antidote to the swirl of the world.

Find a Way
Diana Nyad
4/5 stars
This was an amazing autobiography of Diana Nyad, a professional long-distance swimmer who would never give up on her goals. She swam from Cuba to Florida after several failures and was able at the age of 64 to secure her goal. Biography