What are you reading now?: May 10, 2025

First up, I'll probably not be able to get online this coming Friday evening to post the new thread, so if someone else wants to do it, feel free to take the lead.

As for the next week, I'll be reading Who Killed Sherlock Holmes?, The Puritans: A Transatlantic History, and The First Day of the Blitz.

In the wee small hours of this morning, I finished Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor and it was so good! I will definitely be reading more by this author.
Not sure what I'll read next...

I am in the middle of my book Excavation by James Rollins

I am reading four different things, an e-book, two paper books and one audiobook.

The audiobook is Caste: The Origins of our Discontent. It's brutal. Incredibly emotionally difficult reading.

Paper books:
Greta and Valdin - New Zealandic novel, chaotic and weird. It's queer fiction, set mainly in Auckland, and has the oddest characters I've met since A Confederacy of Dunces.

Mao: The Unknown Story - slow giong but informative.

E-book: The Late Mrs. Willoughby - not my favourite Austen fan-fic. Too many characters from too many of Jane's novels, and it's difficult to keep track.

I'm more than partway through Bringing Home the Rain by Bob McGough, Guinevere by Sharon Newman, and The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff.

>4 ahef1963:

I sped through that Mao biography; I thought it fascinating. It was also eye-opening to see in today's political environment many similarities to Mao's rise in power.

started this audio via hoopla ~

Butter: A Novel of Food and Murder
by Asako Yuzuki (Author), Polly Barton (Translator)

>6 lilisin: I'm glad you liked the Mao biography so much! It gives me hope. I can get through a novel at top speed, but with history my brain does not absorb or retain historical facts, so it's an uphill climb to finish a work of history.

I decided on The Sea of Lost Girls by Carol Goodman. I need something easy for this busy time of year, and Carol Goodman never fails me.

During my recently concluded vacation in Albania, I read and very much enjoyed The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay. My review can be found on my 50-Book Challenge thread.

I'm now almost finished reading The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel, and enjoying that, too.

Starting to read The Clementine Complex by Bob Mortimer

And now I am finished reading The Glass Hotel, which I liked a lot after a dubious start. My review is posted on my 50-Book Challenge thread.

Next up I'll finally be finishing Tony Judt's voluminous but excellent history Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, which I left with only about 45 pages to go when I left on vacation in April.

Mrs Nash’s Ashes – Sarah Adler
Digital Audiobook narrated by Mara Wilson
3***

Millicent is on a mission to deliver some of her friend’s ashes to her friend’s former lover in Florida. But a major computer SNAFU grounds all flights, so she winds up on a road trip with a virtual stranger, Hollis Hollenbeck. Over the course of their trip from Washington DC to Key West (complete with several detours and delays), they learn more about each other and about Mrs Nash, the 80-something-year-old friend whose ashes Millie is carrying.

This was a contemporary rom com, a road trip, and an historical F/F love story all wrapped in one novel. I was much more interested in Mrs Nash’s story than in the push / pull attraction between Millie and Hollis. I wish Adler had just told the story of Rose and Elsie who met and loved one another while serving as WAVES during WW2. Still, it held my attention and I enjoyed it.

Mara Wilson does a fine job of reading the audiobook. Several times when the story skipped back to WW2 era, I felt a little lost for a moment or two, but that’s a minor quibble.

Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes
Chris Crutcher
3/5 stars
Sara and Eric have been friends for years. Unfortunately, Sarah is now in the hospital. Eric is determined to find out what is wrong and what her secret is. Well-written. 1993

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The new thread is here.

>16 PaperbackPirate: Thanks...