What Are We Currently Reading?

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On 12/12/2020 at 5:49 PM, grommit2 said:

And now I'm done.  
Story drags for the first 180+ pages (wine, prescription drugs, and that bath robe she could never keep closed). 
And then the action picks up, the plot twists, until eventually all is explained.
If you can tolerate those first 180 pages, you will be treated to a rousing second half. 

There are also many allusions to noir novels and films, so if you're a fan, it's quite enjoyable.

[tres bien]

I'm reading Some Lie and Some Die by Ruth Rendell.  This is the first book I've read by her (but I like her writing as Barbara Vine).

This book is part of her Inspector Wexford series.  This is usually not the kind of book I read so the jury's out on how it's going.  The book is short only about 180 pages.

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1 hour ago, tres bien said:

I'm reading Some Lie and Some Die by Ruth Rendell.  This is the first book I've read by her (but I like her writing as Barbara Vine).

This book is part of her Inspector Wexford series.  This is usually not the kind of book I read so the jury's out on how it's going.  The book is short only about 180 pages.

Rendell certainly isn't for everybody, but she's my favorite crime fiction writer.  I wish I could say if you like the Vines you'll like this one, but the Wexfords and the Vines are very different kinds of books.  RR wrote once her Wexford novels were more male, analytical and straightforward, while the Vines are feminine, intuitive, more about the interior lives of the characters.

[BlackberryJam]

I'm listening to When We Left Cuba by by Chanel Cleeton. It's frustrating. The main character is so inconsistent. She goes from confident seductress on one page to innocent child the next. Ugh. I'm going to finish it. Does it get better? She's just met Fidel in New York. 

[Crs97]

I’m reading The Engineer’s Wife for book club.  I am not loving it.  It’s a story based on the woman who had a big part in the building of the Brooklyn Bridge.  I struggle with historical fiction that decides to make real people do fake things to “spice things up.”  

Edited December 16, 2020 by Crs97

[Starleigh]

I tried reading Ruth Rendell book years ago, but couldn't get into it. You guys are making me want to try her again, I just put in a request for 1 of the 2 Barbara Vine books at my local library system (sadly, they most just carry the latest books and get rid of books that don't circulate well rather quickly.) I also put in a request for the upcoming biography of Louise Fitzhugh, called Sometimes You Have to Lie. I read an excerpt online, and it intrigued me. It also inspired me to request Harriet the Spy-- haven't read it in years, so will be interesting to see how it holds up.

[Spartan Girl]

9 hours ago, Starleigh said:

It also inspired me to request Harriet the Spy-- haven't read it in years, so will be interesting to see how it holds up.

It holds up all right I guess, but looking at it from a modern standpoint it makes her “friends” (using that term loosely) look even more horrible, because it’s not like Harriet posted nasty things about them on social media for everyone to see; it was her private journal that had “DO NOT READ” on the cover, and they took it and read it anyway for kicks.

[Mindthinkr]

Yesterday I read The Cat of Yule Cottage by Lili Hayward for my book club. I really enjoyed how it began, but felt the writer dropped the ball at the ending. It had a spooky element that could have been explored so much more. 

[dubbel zout]

The sequel to Harriet the Spy, The Long Summer, is also well worth reading.

[lasu]

18 hours ago, Starleigh said:

It also inspired me to request Harriet the Spy-- haven't read it in years, so will be interesting to see how it holds up.

I'm probably in the minority, but while I love this book as a kid, I hated it as an adult.  I strongly disliked Harriet, which was disappointing.  I also found The Neverending Story to be rather...never ending, and the original Peter Pan is a horror show.  Some books are best left alone in my memory.

[Taryn74]

22 hours ago, Crs97 said:

I struggle with historical fiction that decides to make real people do fake things to “spice things up.”  

I swear, the day I found out that Christy (book by Catherine Marshall about her mother) actually didn't marry Dr. Neill McNeill at all but instead married David Grantland, the nice but boring minister, the book was just ruined for me. And I had read it at least a dozen times as a teen/young adult. To this day I cannot understand why Marshall would change her mother's actual life story that much. 

[Starleigh]

7 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

The sequel to Harriet the Spy, The Long Summer, is also well worth reading.

I would have requested it, too, but sadly as I said, my library gets rid of older books like crazy:(

Harriet the Spy was the only actual Fitzhugh book listed in their inventory...If Harriet holds up, I may try interlibrary loan for the sequel.

[Crs97]

4 hours ago, Taryn74 said:

 

On 12/15/2020 at 7:55 PM, Crs97 said:

I struggle with historical fiction that decides to make real people do fake things to “spice things up.”  

I swear, the day I found out that Christy (book by Catherine Marshall about her mother) actually didn't marry Dr. Neill McNeill at all but instead married David Grantland, the nice but boring minister, the book was just ruined for me. And I had read it at least a dozen times as a teen/young adult. To this day I cannot understand why Marshall would change her mother's actual life story that much. 

 

OMG, I was this many days old before I knew that about one of my favorite books!!  I had no idea Christy was based on a real person and was changed that much by her daughter.  Father issues much?!?

[Jeanne222]

I’m on the last 100 pages of Where The Crawdads Sing.  

I was browsing ‘Popular Books’ and this one came up.

Its one of Reese Witherspoon’s book club picks. 

It’s very different than what I usually read at my book club at the library. 
 

I get bored pretty easily if books don’t take off quickly. This one is good. 

[Taryn74]

1 hour ago, Crs97 said:

OMG, I was this many days old before I knew that about one of my favorite books!!  I had no idea Christy was based on a real person and was changed that much by her daughter. 

Right? I knew the story was based on her mother's experiences, and I knew they had to fictionalize the characters a little for the story and all (changing names, combining more than one real-life person into one character, that sort of thing) but to completely make up the man HER MOTHER married........whaaaa? Why?!!

[lasu]

13 hours ago, Jeanne222 said:

I’m on the last 100 pages of Where The Crawdads Sing.  

I have an irrational and disproportional hatred for this book, mostly due the author's complete and utter lack of knowledge of NC geography.  The way she has characters up and running from OBX to Asheville is nonsensical.  With today's highway system, that's a seven hour drive.  In the 1960s??  I'm guessing closer to a 10 hour drive.  Stupid.  Also, I'm about a 10 generation NC'ian and I have never once heard anyone use this "where the crawdads sing" phrase.  Never, ever.

[Darian]

I've been alternating twisty, easy-to-follow thrillers with books that have a bit more (puts nose in the air) literary merit. So, inhaled He Started It by Samantha Downing because a friend recommended it. It's a fast, fun read. I'm not reading Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi and it is excellent. I'm savoring it.   

[isalicat]

Last evening I finished Graham Swift's Waterland, which I acquired on a whim when it popped up as one of those "if you liked this, you will like that" recommendations. Published in the early 1980s, it is a real literary tour de force, very evocative of a Thomas Hardy novel and not at all "light reading". If you like to learn a lot of history while reading a novel (in this case, the history of the Fenlands in England) this book is for you - the story itself is extremely "fraught" and very much predicated on the place in which it is set (thus the title). Super amazing writing but now I am going to read some contemporary science fiction as a palate cleanser, as they say.

[DearEvette]

On 12/15/2020 at 7:55 PM, Crs97 said:

I’m reading The Engineer’s Wife for book club.  I am not loving it.  It’s a story based on the woman who had a big part in the building of the Brooklyn Bridge.  I struggle with historical fiction that decides to make real people do fake things to “spice things up.”  

This is a pet peeve of mine.  I don't mind so much if they put in royalty because honestly, most historical royalty are ripe for hist-fic shenanigans.  But other real people, not so much.  In Who Buries The Dead book 10 of the Sebastian St. Cyr mysteries by C.S. Harris, she introduces Jane Austen and her brother as characters/possible suspects in a murder.  And oh by the way, everyone is reading that popular new book about an English upper class family that feels so authentic but the author is mysterious, who could it possibly be?  I rolled my eyes.

[Minneapple]

Just finished The Lies You Told by Harriet Tyce, a slow-burn thriller about a woman who flees her marriage and goes back to London, enrolling her daughter in a snooty private school. The main character and her daughter are likable, and overall it was quite a good book, with some twists that were actually surprising (in this genre, it's become something of a surprise when the twists are surprising).

[Haleth]

On 12/5/2020 at 6:34 AM, Luckylyn said:

Starting The Husband Hunters: The American Heiresses who Married into the British Aristocracy  today.
 

 

I've read this.  It's interesting that the author says that young American women were valued for their superior education and worldliness.  I'm not sure I buy that.  

[Luckylyn]

5 hours ago, Haleth said:

I've read this.  It's interesting that the author says that young American women were valued for their superior education and worldliness.  I'm not sure I buy that.  

The book claims American girls got more of a liberal arts type of education and weren’t as isolated from the opposite sex as much the English girls which made social interactions more smooth for them.  I think she said English girls were raised with a more practical education geared to running an estate someday.    So when topics like literature and philosophy came up the American girls tended to be more knowledgeable in that area.

[grommit2]

I have to ask this:  Pride and Prejudice is supposed to be one of the best novels ever written.  
But  I just don't get it.
Yes, I understand the challenges faced by women in those times. 
Accompanied by the concerns parents had about getting their daughters married off to someone of means. 
But, there is just something about the characters that annoys me.
Now, I have to say that Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a humorous takeoff, was actually more entertaining.
But, then, what do I know?

[Taryn74]

4 hours ago, grommit2 said:

I have to ask this:  Pride and Prejudice is supposed to be one of the best novels ever written.  
But  I just don't get it.

I couldn't even make it past the first couple of pages. Do we need a secret handshake?

[tres bien]

6 hours ago, Taryn74 said:

I couldn't even make it past the first couple of pages. Do we need a secret handshake?

Same until I watched the BBC miniseries on PBS.  It follows the book very closely. It's now one of my all time favorite books.

The same goes for Emma. After giving up on that I saw the movie (with Gwyneth Paltrow, which also stays true to the book) so it was readable. 

BTW  PBS still runs the P & P miniseries occasionally as does the Ovation network. 

 

[Luckylyn]

I started In a Holidaze by Christina Lauren.  I’m enjoying it so far.   I am intrigued by the Christmas take of a Groundhog Day plot.

Edited December 19, 2020 by Luckylyn

[dubbel zout]

I'm reading Jacques Pépin's memoir, The Apprentice, and loving it. He's one of my fake TV chef boyfriends, so I'm predisposed to like anything he does. His knife skills are so soothing. Half the food he makes doesn't appeal to me, but he presents it and I think, "Oh, I'd eat that." I'm his fool, that's for sure.

[helenamonster]

Just finished: The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate. I don't read a lot of historical fiction, so I don't have much of a barometer to compare this to, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. The story is split between two timelines in the same Louisiana town, one in 1875 and the other in 1987, and the two stories weave together so seamlessly. Also, I appreciate that Wingate lets you make the connections on your own and doesn't spoonfeed you. I believe the lost friends letters interspersed between the chapters are real, which brings so much richness to the story. The concept wasn't something I'd heard of before (people who had been separated by slavery writing to newspapers after the Civil War to find each other), and in general I learned a lot from this book. My only major issue was

Spoiler

the reveal at the very very end that Benny had had a baby when she was fifteen that she gave up for adoption. The groundwork for everything else was laid so carefully, the payoff so earned, and that just felt so tacked on. We learn so much about her life and childhood, yet there was nothing that pointed to that being a possibility. It just felt unnecessary.

I also didn't understand the point of making Lavinia pregnant. Was it just a shorthand to help us understand what had happened to her and Juneau Jane? In general I found all the Lavinia stuff tedious and burdensome (just like Lavinia herself), but I understood her function as a character. The pregnancy was pointless, especially because she dies anyway.

Next up: Confessions on the 7:45 by Lisa Unger.

[aradia22]

Did anyone pick their free Amazon book this month? I'm down to Your Story, My Story and Lie, Lie Again.

Also, I'm FINALLY reading Lindy West's The Witches Are Coming and it's pretty damn good so far. Still chugging through the new Sam Irby which has some high points but is not as consistently funny as her past books which is weird because those dealt with heavy topics and so far this seems to be a majority humor book. 

[aradia22]

Quote

I have to ask this:  Pride and Prejudice is supposed to be one of the best novels ever written.  

Quote

I couldn't even make it past the first couple of pages. Do we need a secret handshake?

I will try again someday but I made it 100 pages in (my copy was 400 pages total) and gave up. Everyone was boring and no one was as compelling as it seemed like they should have been. And I like Jane Austen. I actually kept notes. Most of what you knew about Darcy was that he was tall and had brown hair and maybe that he was handsome. And Elizabeth wasn't the sparkling, witty feminist heroine I'd been promised. At the point I reached, she was just pretending to read a book or some nonsense. There were no rich details making any of the characters captivating or fleshed out at all. I also gave up on Sense and Sensibility so maybe I just can't read Austen books that follow that title format. 

[peacheslatour]

On 12/18/2020 at 4:01 PM, grommit2 said:

I have to ask this:  Pride and Prejudice is supposed to be one of the best novels ever written.  
But  I just don't get it.
Yes, I understand the challenges faced by women in those times. 
Accompanied by the concerns parents had about getting their daughters married off to someone of means. 
But, there is just something about the characters that annoys me.
Now, I have to say that Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a humorous takeoff, was actually more entertaining.
But, then, what do I know?

I've never read either one. I tried reading Emma once and decided that Jane Austen wasn't my thing.

[Crs97]

Hearing complaints about Jane Austen makes me want to cry.  I’m trying to remember that everyone’s tastes differ, but *sniff.

[BlackberryJam]

This is why I rarely discuss Jane Eyre. My comments can crush those who love it.

[Starleigh]

Pride and Prejudice grew on me after I watched the 2005 movie version. Somehow, it made the writing come alive,  I've read it several times since, and my Mr. Darcy literary crush is still going strong, lol. 

[GaT]

7 hours ago, peacheslatour said:

I tried reading Emma once and decided that Jane Austen wasn't my thing.

Try watching the movie "Clueless" it's based on "Emma" 😀

[Haleth]

12 hours ago, Crs97 said:

Hearing complaints about Jane Austen makes me want to cry.  I’m trying to remember that everyone’s tastes differ, but *sniff.

I know.  I love all things Jane Austen.

[Luckylyn]

I started A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens .   I have seen so many adaptations but I have never actually read it before.

[Haleth]

Yesterday I finished The Cold Millions by Jess Walters.  It's about a pair of brothers, basically drifters during a depression in 1910.  They travel to Spokane and get involved in labor riots in that city.  It's very Steinbeckesque.  Good story that weaves real people into the plot.  I liked that the author inserted chapters where minor characters the brothers meet tell their stories first person.  It gives added depth to the main narrative.

[grommit2]

Want a peek at the dark side?   Try Dark Towers by David Enrich.  This is an examination of Deutsche Bank, at one time the largest bank in the world with $2 trillion. The attractor is references to Donald Trump to whom Deutsche loaned billions, some of which was never paid back.

But the real story is how Deutsche flaunted most national and international financial restrictions, laundered money for Iran when it was (and still is) under international sanctions, processed loans to international scofflaws, and played fast and loose with all those cool instruments such as credit default swaps, etc. You don't need a degree in finance to follow the narrative.  You may even be fascinated by the and huge multi-million dollar bonuses, by the extreme greediness of the senior execs, and wonder where the international finance watchdogs were during their profligate years. And along the way, you may wonder what happened to all those folks who trusted Deutsche to not poop on their fiduciary responsibilities.

Not a fun story, more like watching a train wreck over and over.  

[GHScorpiosRule]

I am SO PEEVED. I wanted to read Obama's A Promised Land when it came out...last month! But work and life got in the way.

I'm on vacation next week, I'm unplugging. I'm going sit down and snuggle on my couch and read the thing without interruption!

[OtterMommy]

I just finished The Arctic Fury by Greer Macallister and really enjoyed it .  It was almost a 5 star read for me.  The only thing that marred it for me is that some of the things that happened in the courtroom scenes were just too unbelievable. 

I will say, though, it has been a long time since I read a book and immediately wished there was a movie of it.  This would be a fantastic choice for Hollywood!

[MargeGunderson]

8 hours ago, grommit2 said:

Want a peek at the dark side?   Try Dark Towers by David Enrich.  This is an examination of Deutsche Bank, at one time the largest bank in the world with $2 trillion. The attractor is references to Donald Trump to whom Deutsche loaned billions, some of which was never paid back.

But the real story is how Deutsche flaunted most national and international financial restrictions, laundered money for Iran when it was (and still is) under international sanctions, processed loans to international scofflaws, and played fast and loose with all those cool instruments such as credit default swaps, etc. You don't need a degree in finance to follow the narrative.  You may even be fascinated by the and huge multi-million dollar bonuses, by the extreme greediness of the senior execs, and wonder where the international finance watchdogs were during their profligate years. And along the way, you may wonder what happened to all those folks who trusted Deutsche to not poop on their fiduciary responsibilities.

Not a fun story, more like watching a train wreck over and over.  

Oh, I love a good financial story! Thanks for the recommendation.

I finished Billion Dollar Loser, about the rise and fall of WeWork and its founder, Adam Neumann. It was bonkers in the best possible way. What an overinflated ego, with a “vision” that even a snake oil salesman would be embarrassed to peddle. I don’t understand the employees who bought into it, much less the investors. Truly an example of the overhype of a company that couldn’t even really articulate what they were doing, much less make a profit, yet the owners made out like bandits while the company fails.

[OtterMommy]

13 hours ago, Haleth said:

Yesterday I finished The Cold Millions by Jess Walters.  It's about a pair of brothers, basically drifters during a depression in 1910.  They travel to Spokane and get involved in labor riots in that city.  It's very Steinbeckesque.  Good story that weaves real people into the plot.  I liked that the author inserted chapters where minor characters the brothers meet tell their stories first person.  It gives added depth to the main narrative.

I really enjoyed this one, even though the premise did not sound interesting to me.  Walter does a fabulous job of creating a sense of place, to the point that I started looking up real estate in Spokane once I finished the book!

[Spartan Girl]

On 12/22/2020 at 6:33 AM, Luckylyn said:

I started A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens .   I have seen so many adaptations but I have never actually read it before.

I know, I was surprised by how short it actually was!

[Mindthinkr]

I’m about to start The Reluctant Tuscan by Phil Doran. A neighbor who was stationed in Italy for 5 years thought it was hysterical and so true. 

[Luckylyn]

I started A Warm Heart in Winter by JR Ward.   This is another book of the Black Dagger Brotherhood series set at Christmas featuring Quinn and Blay and also with some focus on Zsadist.   One unique thing about this series that I really appreciate is that once a couple gets together it isn’t the end of their story.  Love doesn’t magically fix everything and sometimes the couples will have problems either as individuals or between each other that have to be worked through.  

[tres bien]

I've just started reading Centennial by James Michener.  I'm kind of suprised that I hadn't read it before now, being that I've read other Michener books. 

I recently bought it at a used bookstore and paid $1.40. However,  it's a book that was printed in 1974 and I had to tape it together. I hope it holds up (it's 1089 pages long).

[Haleth]

I loved Centennial when I read it decades ago.  I hope it isn't full of stereotypes that I was unaware of in my younger days.

Edited December 29, 2020 by Haleth

[Luckylyn]

I just started A Promised Land by Barack Obama today.  I’m really looking forward to reading about his perspective.

[Browncoat]

2 hours ago, Luckylyn said:

I just started A Promised Land by Barack Obama today.  I’m really looking forward to reading about his perspective.

I'm about halfway through.  It's very... educational (in a good way).  I do enjoy his writing style.