What Are We Currently Reading?

[Ohiopirate02]

1 hour ago, lasu said:

Great narration can make all the difference.  If I'm doing a reread of a book I know well, listening to an audiobook can truly give a fresh perspective, because the narrator may put different inflections on words or what-have-you, than how I have read it in the past.  Also, listening to Huck Finn forced me to HEAR the n-word.  I'd basically edited in my head when I read it, but you can't do that when it's being said outload.

Also, I've seen that a lot of people didn't like Daisy Jones and the Six, and I suspect it benefited as much as any ever had by being listened to.  They did a full cast production, and it comes across VERY much like the documentary it's meant to be.

I read Klara and The Sun over the weekend.  His writing is SO AMAZING and yet, I didn't feel this book was as strong as some of his others.  Certainly worth the time to read, but if you go in expecting Never Let Me Go, I think you'll be let down.

I just started Song of Achilles, and I think it will be fine, but not Circe level.

Daisy Jones was a great audiobook.  I got more out of it by listening than I would if I had read the print. Each voice actor really brought the characters to life in a way that cannot happen in print.

I also read Klara over the weekend, and was not impressed.  I really felt like there was not enough of a story for a full novel, and the material would have worked better as a short story.  I could see and feel the mastery of the prose and the restraint, but that left the book soulless.  

[Luckylyn]

I’m reading a romance called Romancing the Duke by Tessa Dare which is the first in her Castles Ever After Series.  A scarred Duke and an improvished women fall for each other while entangled in a property dispute.  I am intrigued by both their back stories and am enjoying their sparring flirtation.

[BlackberryJam]

On 7/8/2021 at 4:11 PM, Luckylyn said:

I started Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir.   I really liked The Martian so I was excited about o start another book with this author.   The premise of a man waking up with amnesia is a gripping start.  I like how I am slowly learning more as the character remembers more.    It’s a great read so far.  

Finished this one in just a couple of days. The audible was great.

I tried Daisy Jones and the Six on audiobook and couldn’t tolerate it at all. I’m not sure what the problem was there, and maybe it’s because I’m not a big fan of music, so I didn’t care about the band at all. 

Greenlights by Matthew McConnaughy was a nice listen, but I was like, “I get it, you’re an extremely attractive white male, of course you fall in crap and come up smelling like roses.” He seems like a nice enough man.

I’m on to The Last House Guest by Megan Miranda. It’s…fine so far. It really will depend on the ending.

Edited July 13, 2021 by BlackberryJam
Missing word

[Luckylyn]

I’m reading the nonfiction book Stephen Sondheim and the Reinvention of the American Musical by Robert L. McLaughlin which analyses the musicals Sondheim has worked on. I appreciated the musical theater history lesson it began with.   Some things I was already familiar with but there are some new info and shows I wasn’t familiar with that I liked learning about before the deep dive into Sondheim. Right now I am up to the part where Gypsy is being discussed.   It’s not a book to get a lot of biographical information about Sondheim.  This author sicks pretty closely to analysis of lyrics and structure of the shows.   I was disappointed by that but it’s still interesting to go so in depth in the shows meanings and impact.  I would recommend the documentary Six by Sondheim to get more biographical information which includes some wonderful musical interludes with some great performers.

[SusieQ]

3 hours ago, Luckylyn said:

I’m reading the nonfiction book Stephen Sondheim and the Reinvention of the American Musical by Robert L. McLaughlin which analyses the musicals Sondheim has worked on. I appreciated the musical theater history lesson it began with.   Some things I was already familiar with but there are some new info and shows I wasn’t familiar with that I liked learning about before the deep dive into Sondheim. Right now I am up to the part where Gypsy is being discussed.   It’s not a book to get a lot of biographical information about Sondheim.  This author sicks pretty closely to analysis of lyrics and structure of the shows.   I was disappointed by that but it’s still interesting to go so in depth in the shows meanings and impact.  I would recommend the documentary Six by Sondheim to get more biographical information which includes some wonderful musical interludes with some great performers.

"Finishing the Hat" and "Look I Made a Hat" both by Sondheim might give you more info. 

[Luckylyn]

56 minutes ago, SusieQ said:

"Finishing the Hat" and "Look I Made a Hat" both by Sondheim might give you more info. 

Unfortunately, there aren’t complete kindle versions of those books.  So I haven’t read them yet.  

[Spartan Girl]

I wound up reading Nightmare Scenario by Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta…it’s definitely a “rage read” book.

[Calvada]

I read The President's Daughter by Bill Clinton & James Patterson - very predictable in many ways, but a light read for summer.  In my usual pattern of alternating fiction and nonfiction, I'm now 70 pages into Mercury Rising by Jeff Shesol.  It's about the space program, focusing on John Glenn's Mercury flight in 1962 and the impact it had on America during the Cold War at a time when it seemed the Russians possibly had an insurmountable lead in the space race.  I was a kid during the 60's (although not old enough to remember Glenn's flight, one of my vivid childhood memories is watching the first moon landing) and I love reading anything about the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo space programs.

[Luckylyn]

I am currently reading the fantasy novel The Raven and The Dove by Kaitlyn Davis.  In a world where people live in the sky and have wings unexpected events occur before courtship trails bringing characters together and unknown dangers are eminent.  So far I am enjoying the world building and am intrigued to see where the story goes.

[dubbel zout]

Reading The Pale Blue Eye, by Louis Bayard, after hearing so many good things about it. So far, so good.

[peacheslatour]

4 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

Reading The Pale Blue Eye, by Louis Bayard, after hearing so many good things about it. So far, so good.

I'm glad you like it. I got it a while back and am thinking about reading it in the fall. Is it a good autumn read, do you think?

[sugarbaker design]

I just re-read The Pale Blue Eye after a poster mentioned picking it up a few weeks ago, it stands the test of time.

[dubbel zout]

1 hour ago, peacheslatour said:

Is it a good autumn read, do you think?

It's probably more of an autumn read than a summer one.

[peacheslatour]

7 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

It's probably more of an autumn read than a summer one.

That's what I was thinking. Thanks!

[blackwing]

I am in the midst of reading Jean-Luc Bannalec's Death in Britanny.  This is the first book in a series about Georges Dupin, a Parisian-born police commissioner who moves to Britanny.  The author is German and there are at least six books in the series, supposedly they are "international bestsellers".

Has anyone read these?  On paper it sounds like a slam dunk for me... detective who has some idiosyncracies who is investigating crime in a picturesque foreign land.  I thought it would be like Louise Penny's Inspector Gamache series, and it's just... not.  I am slogging through it and finding it a chore to read.  Only about 1/3 through.

Does it get better?  I hate to quit on a book... I think I have only quit two books before.  One of them was Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall.  I just couldn't get through it.  There was too much dialogue and not enough action.  I'm getting the same feeling with this one.

[MaggieG]

Currently reading Survive The Night by Riley Sagar. So far, I'm liking it. He's becoming one of my favorite authors. I've enjoyed each one of books

I also finished Malibu Rising and liked it.

Up next for me:
The Maidens by Alex Michaelides
Falling by TJ Newman

 

[Dani-Ellie]

On 7/6/2021 at 11:54 AM, blackwing said:

I finished Shiver.  I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it, after reading quite a number of very similar books within the past year or so.  I found it riveting.  The way the author alternated between present and past, with short chapters, most ending with some shock reveal or on a mini-cliffhanger, was very effective.  Kept me enthralled.

Thank you for mentioning this one. I borrowed it from my library after reading your description and just finished it tonight. I enjoyed the heck out of it!

[Black Knight]

I'm three-fourths of the way through Lauren Oyler's Fake Accounts. Has anyone read this? It's about a woman who learns early on that her boyfriend has a secret - and it's not any of the standard ones. It started off well enough. Instead of chapters it's split into "Beginning", "Middle (Something Happens)" and "Middle (Nothing Happens)" and is that last title ever accurate. I'm 100 pages into that section now, which happens to be more than the two first sections combined, and it's still not over. It is so boring, and the narrator acknowledges that it's boring but keeps rambling anyway. She also mentions at one point that she knows she's teetering on the border between likable and loathsome, and I don't need to like protagonists but unlikable and boring is the worst possible combination.

It takes a lot for me to DNF a book, and I also usually give a book a second try before I really give up on it forever, and I did not want to go back and re-read all this for the second try, so I'm slogging through. But I really do not see what the point of any of this is - it's just navel-gazing. And I don't see how Oyler is going to be able to pull out some amazing final section that makes this boring 100-pages-and-counting middle section all worth it.

[Danny Franks]

I just started The Empire of Gold by S.A Chakraborty, the third in her Daevabad Trilogy. It's a fantasy epic based on Middle Eastern djinn/genie mythology and it's got a lot of really cool ideas and an interesting world design - a magical, djinn world existing alongside the normal world, but being completely separate due to a curse that limited djinn powers and left them susceptible to being enslaved and bound to the whims of a master.

[Haleth]

3 hours ago, Danny Franks said:

I just started The Empire of Gold by S.A Chakraborty, the third in her Daevabad Trilogy. It's a fantasy epic based on Middle Eastern djinn/genie mythology and it's got a lot of really cool ideas and an interesting world design - a magical, djinn world existing alongside the normal world, but being completely separate due to a curse that limited djinn powers and left them susceptible to being enslaved and bound to the whims of a master.

I read this series and enjoyed it.  

[GHScorpiosRule]

Just finishing up Nora Roberts' Three Sisters trilogy (Dance Upon the Air/Heaven & Earth/Face the Fire). I don't care, I don't care how ryhmy the spells are. I love me some Sheriff Zachariah Todd and Sam Logan.

What?

[GaT]

I keep forgetting to post, which is probably a good thing or you would all be tired of seeing my name. 😁 Anyway, I'm just about to start Body on Baker Street by Vicki Delany. Book 2 in the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop Mysteries.

[sugarbaker design]

8 hours ago, GaT said:

I keep forgetting to post, which is probably a good thing or you would all be tired of seeing my name. 😁 Anyway, I'm just about to start Body on Baker Street by Vicki Delany. Book 2 in the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop Mysteries.

I read the first in the series and I enjoyed it.  I asked this thread for cozy suggestions that avoided certain cozy tropes.  This series was recommended, as well as Ellery Adams's Books by the Bay series and Alexia Gordon's Gethsemane Brown series.  The initial entry in both these series is in my TBR pile.  It's gonna be a cozy summer.

[Luckylyn]

I’m reading Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade.  When a fan’s cosplay photo goes viral leads to online harassment for her weight, the star of the show asks her out on Twitter.      Both are unaware that they have been friends online writing fan fiction about the show.  The fan fiction has been the actor’s way of expressing his disappointment with the show’s writing secretly.  When the actor realizes the fan he’s having the publicity stunt date with is his online friend who has no idea who he really is the situation gets more complicated.

[BlackberryJam]

5 hours ago, Luckylyn said:

I’m reading Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade.  When a fan’s cosplay photo goes viral leads to online harassment for her weight, the star of the show asks her out on Twitter.      Both are unaware that they have been friends online writing fan fiction about the show.  The fan fiction has been the actor’s way of expressing his disappointment with the show’s writing secretly.  When the actor realizes the fan he’s having the publicity stunt date with is his online friend who has no idea who he really is the situation gets more complicated.

I've read it..it's ...okay. It started as Jaime and Brienne (from Game of Thrones) fanfic. 

[Black Knight]

3 hours ago, BlackberryJam said:

It started as Jaime and Brienne (from Game of Thrones) fanfic. 

Interesting! How did it go from that to the plot described here? Or do you mean it was RPF fanfic with Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Gwendoline Christie?

[dubbel zout]

The Pale Blue Eye was enough of an autumn book that I've put it aside and started to read Elinor Lipman's Rachel to the Rescue instead.

[BlackberryJam]

1 hour ago, Black Knight said:

Interesting! How did it go from that to the plot described here? Or do you mean it was RPF fanfic with Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Gwendoline Christie?

It was a JB Alternative Universe Modern setting. Not RPF. The book is clearly NCW cast as the lead, but the female is changed to be short and overweight rather than tall, ugly and muscular. You can just feel how it was fanfic and then changed not to be fanfic. I read it thinking how much better the female lead would have been if she were more Brienne. 

[GaT]

2 hours ago, BlackberryJam said:

You can just feel how it was fanfic and then changed not to be fanfic.

Like "50 Shades of Gray"?

[Spartan Girl]

Reading Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates. I had no idea she wrote a novel about Marilyn Monroe. It’s…it’s a lot.

[BlackberryJam]

9 hours ago, GaT said:

Like "50 Shades of Gray"?

I never read it... Nor did I read that source material. Not my thing.

[isalicat]

Just finished Raven Black by Ann Cleeves. I have watched all the Shetland mysteries since subscribing to BritBox and really enjoyed them (as well as Vera, which she also originated) so thought I would try actually reading one of her books and it was really, really good! I was unspoiled as it is not the basis for any of the TV shows. Quite the page turner! If you like dark murder mysteries set in unusual locales, this is for you!

[peacheslatour]

15 hours ago, GaT said:

Like "50 Shades of Gray"?

I read the wretched Twilight books on my breaks at work. A coworker had finished them a left them lying around. Worthless trash. I had no interest in Fifty Shades.

[GaT]

13 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

I read the wretched Twilight books on my breaks at work. A coworker had finished them a left them lying around. Worthless trash. I had no interest in Fifty Shades.

I never read 50 shades, but I did happen to read the fanfic as it was being written. It was called "Master of the Universe"

[GHScorpiosRule]

I just started Nalini Singh’s The Last Guard, and it’s SO much better than the the last three of the Mercants. Though why I thought Canto was Silver and Arwen’s brother, confused me. He’s their cousin and no mention of him before now makes sense.

As someone who’s Indian, I’m loving all the descriptions of Old Delhi so far, as I remember them during my childhood visits.

Valentin is a delight, as always. I always get tickled at his “sneaky like a Cat!” whenever he talks about romancing his mate!🥰🥰🥰😍😍😍

What with him being a Bear.

[DearEvette]

23 hours ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

I just started Nalini Singh’s The Last Guard, and it’s SO much better than the the last three of the Mercants. Though why I thought Canto was Silver and Arwen’s brother, confused me. He’s their cousin and no mention of him before now makes sense.

Ha.  I just finished this one.  Of the Trinity series spin off, I think the odd numbered books are stronger than the even numbered ones.  So Silver Silence was the first and my favorite -- mainly because of all the time we get to spend with the bears.  But also because I like how she wrote Silver and the Mercant family.

As you know #2 Ocean Light was my very least favorite of the entire psy/changeling ouvre -- not just this spin off -- but all 17+ (?)books combined

#3 Wolf Rain was a good one.  I liked Memory and Singh managed to make Amara almost ...not likable... but more sympathetic. (I friggin' hated Amara from the moment we met her back in Dorian and Ashaya's book). 

#4 Alpha Night was kinda meh altho I liked the power struggle in Selenka's pack and her father was a piece of work.  And I like the idea of an Arrow who was an E-Psy.

Which brings us to this one, which I thought was very good. Especially the different personalities and learning more about the A-Psy.

I have this pie in the sky wish with this entire series in that I would love for her to someday give a visual of what the Psynet looks like.  I have a hard time really visualizing it other than some Tron-like place where the Psy got to hangout in their heads.  In this one she introduces yet another concept which I had a really hard time trying to "see."

[helenamonster]

Just finished: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. A fairly breezy read that I thought had some good merits and that I overall enjoyed, even if I wasn't particularly attached to any of the characters. I do like that

Spoiler

unequivocally queer stories are seeing such mainstream success, and I'm happy to have supported that.

I also like that things ended fairly messily, like a real life would. Issues weren't resolved, relationships fizzled without warning--even if Evelyn's life was tied up nicely with her taking her own life at the exact moment she wanted to, there was a sort of anticlimax to the story she told Monique that rang very true, especially for an actress.

I was sort of meh on the reveal that

Spoiler

Monique's dad was the man in the car when Harry crashed it. Like there was both too much foreshadowing and not enough. Reid kept stressing that something was coming up that would get Monique to hate Evelyn, and as soon as the crash happened I knew what was what. I think if there had instead been more focus on Monique's assumption that her father had died driving drunk and her unresolved feelings about that would have been more interesting, but I did appreciate how it tied into the larger theme of not knowing everything about people, even those closest to us, and how closeted queer people navigate relationships and manage to forge deep connections on other levels, especially in a time when being out was more dangerous.

Next up: The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

[GHScorpiosRule]

3 hours ago, DearEvette said:

Ha.  I just finished this one.  Of the Trinity series spin off, I think the odd numbered books are stronger than the even numbered ones.  So Silver Silence was the first and my favorite -- mainly because of all the time we get to spend with the bears.  But also because I like how she wrote Silver and the Mercant family.

As you know #2 Ocean Light was my very least favorite of the entire psy/changeling ouvre -- not just this spin off -- but all 17+ (?)books combined

#3 Wolf Rain was a good one.  I liked Memory and Singh managed to make Amara almost ...not likable... but more sympathetic. (I friggin' hated Amara from the moment we met her back in Dorian and Ashaya's book). 

#4 Alpha Night was kinda meh altho I liked the power struggle in Selenka's pack and her father was a piece of work.  And I like the idea of an Arrow who was an E-Psy.

Which brings us to this one, which I thought was very good. Especially the different personalities and learning more about the A-Psy.

I have this pie in the sky wish with this entire series in that I would love for her to someday give a visual of what the Psynet looks like.  I have a hard time really visualizing it other than some Tron-like place where the Psy got to hangout in their heads.  In this one she introduces yet another concept which I had a really hard time trying to "see."

Oh yeah, Wolf Rain was good, but seemed an aberration because we returned to the wolves. Bo’s story was so not needed and just a waste. You could lift it out of the series and still be able to follow it.

Now with the mention of India’s tigers and leopards, I wonder if we’ll see their stories!

I’m just glad that it wasn’t

those monsters at that “school” that caused Canto’s paralysis.

. I just don’t want any story where Paxton gets the hero edit.

[Luckylyn]

I’m reading Faithless in Death by JD Robb which is part if the In Death series. A murder reveals bigger secrets. I enjoy the series but sometimes it can be repetitive.  The running joke about Eve not getting idioms has been thoroughly beaten into the ground.  

[dubbel zout]

I agree that The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo had a bit of deus ex machina to it, but I really enjoyed everything else.

[blackwing]

On 7/21/2021 at 12:22 PM, blackwing said:

I am in the midst of reading Jean-Luc Bannalec's Death in Britanny.  This is the first book in a series about Georges Dupin, a Parisian-born police commissioner who moves to Britanny.  The author is German and there are at least six books in the series, supposedly they are "international bestsellers".

Has anyone read these?  On paper it sounds like a slam dunk for me... detective who has some idiosyncracies who is investigating crime in a picturesque foreign land.  I thought it would be like Louise Penny's Inspector Gamache series, and it's just... not.  I am slogging through it and finding it a chore to read.  Only about 1/3 through.

Does it get better?  I hate to quit on a book... I think I have only quit two books before.  One of them was Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall.  I just couldn't get through it.  There was too much dialogue and not enough action.  I'm getting the same feeling with this one.

I stuck with it and finished this book.  The mystery itself did get a lot better, even if the solution was completely predictable.  

I've determined that part of my issue with this book is that there are just way too many characters and way too many places.  I'm not familiar with Brittany at all, so am not sure if these are real places or not, but because all the names are French villages, I couldn't retain enough to remember what place was what.  If the names were English and he kept going from Greenwood to Hardy to Stockton, I think it would be easier for me to remember.  Every time I saw a French place name it was like I was seeing it for the first time and struggled to flip back to remember who/what was in that place.

Same thing with the characters... I never did manage to figure out who some of them were.

Not sure if I will continue the series, but I am at least proud of myself for sticking this one out to the end.

 

I'm now currently listening to the audiobook version of Daniel Silva's The Cellist.  I am very impressed that he is incorporating references to COVID 19 and the pandemic in his books.  And not just off-handed references that this is in their world.  But situations in which the characters actually talk about how they can't get too close because of COVID, or how they've spent six months in the countryside away from everyone, or how they don't want to shake hands.

I think there are two schools of mind, some authors that write series where the characters are supposed to be in a contemporary setting seem to just be avoiding it out of some "books are for escape, nobody wants to read about how COVID 19 affects their fictional world".  But Silva is embracing it, and I think it is working very well.  It might not make as much sense to someone who picks up this book 20 or 30 years from now, but for now, it seems highly relevant since we are still in the midst of it.

[dubbel zout]

I just finished Rachel to the Rescue, and Elinor Lipman incorporated Covid in that at the end. It felt very natural and wasn't used to make any sort of point except that it affected how a certain event happened. It was used in a very light way, which for this kind of book was completely right.

[grommit2]

Finished Patriots by James Wesley.  Fairly certain this group avoids post-apocalyptic stories of well-prepared, rugged individuals. I finished it because I have "gotta-fihish-what-I-started" syndrome. I actually find some post-apocalyptic novels interesting.  But, alas, not this one.  Too many recitations of equipment specs, patrolling techniques, government bad guys, etc. 

[GHScorpiosRule]

I have to admit that it’s disappointing that the  focus on the attraction, build up, and yes, even kisses between the main characters in the past few books in Nalini’s series has been sacrificed to tell the larger, overarching story.

Frankly, that’s not why I love reading these books. It’s the characters and watching them fall in love. Or finding their lives, like Kaleb did. Now it’s all about the stupid Architect and other stuff. Nearly half way through and Payal and Canto haven’t kissed yet!

What? I’ve always said that I still love reading my romances. 
 

There’s a reason why I keep rereading the stories with the leopards (except Clay’s) and wolves.

Sigh…

[Luckylyn]

I’m starting Last Guard tonight.  Overall I have enjoyed the Psy-Changling series.  I think she’s been good at having an ongoing story so that the series isn’t overly repetitive.  I do admit to liking some pairings more than others.

[blackwing]

I just finished Daniel Silva's The Cellist, the 21st installment of his long-running series about Israeli superspy / art restorer Gabriel Allon.  Ostensibly, the plot of the book sounds great.  A Russian dissident is assassinated.  Gabriel enlists the aid of a beautiful young German cellist to infiltrate Russia Inc. and bring down the corrupt Russian money laundering business that is funding the state goals and terrorism.

However, about 2/3 of the way through, the book completely derails into a clear agenda to express Daniel Silva's strong political views.  He's had off-handed brief references to Trump in the more recent books, but never anything more than a throwaway line that was enough to indicate how he felt about him.  I don't consider myself that political, and it didn't bother me before.

But here... extensive passages about the election and Trump's reaction and refusal to accept the results.  The January 6 insurrection.  Allon meeting with Biden.  Talk about Biden as a unifying force. 

No names are actually mentioned, but Silva doesn't even attempt to make these characters fictional versions of a real life figure.  It's them.  "The first female vice president, the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants."  "A highly unpopular poorly-groomed Senator from Texas."  There's also a "corrupt Republican congresswoman with QAnon views" who he does give an actual three name name but is obviously supposed to be Marjorie Taylor Greene.

The worst part is, and I'll put this in spoilers because it's so ridiculous...

Spoiler

Trump is clearly working with Russia Inc.  Russia Inc.'s agent in America is the Marjorie Taylor Greene character.  She is directed to assassinate Biden but at the last minute, the target is changed to Allon instead.  So it's obvious he gave this character an actual name because she is shot and killed and I guess Silva drew the line at depicting the death of an actual elected government official

Even before the book devolved into political propaganda, I felt like something was "off" about this book.  The plot seemed way too simple.  I always love the scenes in the Allon books where the Israeli team meets in a safe house and meticulously plans every last detail of each operation.  There was almost none of that here.  The Israeli team appears but hardly seems involved at all.  And then when Silva started going off the rails, it became obvious that this was indeed a different sort of Allon book.

I get that authors are people just like everyone else, and I think he's entitled to feel the way he feels, but I would rather not read about his political views in the context of a fictional book.  I don't feel strongly about either Biden or Trump but I would just rather not read about it in a place where I didn't expect to read about it. 

I've never been more disappointed in one of my go-to reliable authors.  I feel this was a huge disservice to his readers, especially the 50% who don't share his political views.

[isalicat]

8 minutes ago, blackwing said:

I get that authors are people just like everyone else, and I think he's entitled to feel the way he feels, but I would rather not read about his political views in the context of a fictional book.  I don't feel strongly about either Biden or Trump but I would just rather not read about it in a place where I didn't expect to read about it. 

I've never read any of the books by the author you are discussing, but I ran into this after reading 25 (yes, 25 or 26 written so far!) of what started out as super excellent murder mysteries by Peter Robinson (he is Canadian now but the books are all set in England). By the 25th book the intrusion of Robinson's political views had completely derailed my enjoyment of the actual plot so I gave up on him. I still recommend books 1 - 23 though :)

[sugarbaker design]

14 minutes ago, isalicat said:

I still recommend books 1 - 23 though :)

You're certainly more generous than I am.  I can heartily recommend 1-13, the last good Banks novel was All The Colors of Darkness back in 2008.  The remaining are so lackluster that I can barely remember the plots.  I keep wondering is the same author that wrote In A Dry Season, Aftermath and Friend of The Devil?

[proserpina65]

On 7/24/2021 at 2:16 PM, isalicat said:

Just finished Raven Black by Ann Cleeves. I have watched all the Shetland mysteries since subscribing to BritBox and really enjoyed them (as well as Vera, which she also originated) so thought I would try actually reading one of her books and it was really, really good! I was unspoiled as it is not the basis for any of the TV shows. Quite the page turner! If you like dark murder mysteries set in unusual locales, this is for you!

Isn't it at least partly the basis for one of the Shetland episodes?  I'd started to read it shortly after it came out, but had to return it to the library before getting very far, but the opening of the book matched up somewhat with the beginning of season 2 of the series, or so it seemed to me when I saw that episode.

[EtheltoTillie]

On 7/23/2021 at 8:33 PM, dubbel zout said:

The Pale Blue Eye was enough of an autumn book that I've put it aside and started to read Elinor Lipman's Rachel to the Rescue instead.

Thanks for the recommend. I’m enjoying the Elinor Lipman book.