What Are We Currently Reading?

[Zella]

4 minutes ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

Her God of Cake story will never not be funny.  It's one of those stories I read when I need a laugh and I also think about randomly.  Ditto the one in her second book involving Allie sneaking into her neighbor's house and steal random stuff.

Yes that's a great one! I often revisit her story about visiting Texas for a track meeting and her Kenny Loggins Christmas story. About 13 years ago, I introduced my coworkers to her web comic at a job, and all anyone had to do is say "Kenny Loggins!" without further context and we'd all absolutely lose it. 😂😂

I've not been posting about what I've been reading lately, but yesterday, I started Mick Houghton's bio of Sandy Denny called I've Always Kept a Unicorn. 

[EtheltoTillie]

19 hours ago, Zella said:

Yes that's a great one! I often revisit her story about visiting Texas for a track meeting and her Kenny Loggins Christmas story. About 13 years ago, I introduced my coworkers to her web comic at a job, and all anyone had to do is say "Kenny Loggins!" without further context and we'd all absolutely lose it. 😂😂

I've not been posting about what I've been reading lately, but yesterday, I started Mick Houghton's bio of Sandy Denny called I've Always Kept a Unicorn. 

I'd never heard of Sandy Denny.  I looked her up on Wikipedia.  What a sad story.  Don't know that I would read a whole book about her, but I now listened to her on YouTube, and she has a wonderful voice. 

[Zella]

8 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

I'd never heard of Sandy Denny.  I looked her up on Wikipedia.  What a sad story.  Don't know that I would read a whole book about her, but I now listened to her on YouTube, and she has a wonderful voice. 

Yeah I wasn't really familiar with her until a few years ago but have become a big fan since then. I'd been listening to her sing on Led Zeppelin's "The Battle of Evermore" since I was probably about 12 but hadn't registered who she was in her own right until I was in my 30s. She was apparently friends with Robert Plant and specifically invited by him to be the only guest vocalist on a Led Zeppelin album. (I'm not that far in the book yet!)

Edited September 27, 2023 by Zella

[tres bien]

Did someone here recommend The Train to Crystal City? Since I read more nonfiction lately I decided to read it. Excellent!

[Bookish Jen]

I just finished "Poverty, By America" by Matthew Desmond and "Strip Tees: A Memoir of a Millennial Los Angeles" by Kate Flannery (nope, not the actress from "The Office.") I liked both of them a lot, and I highly recommend it. 

Sadly, I can't highly recommend Curtis Sittenfeld's latest novel "Romantic Comedy." I've enjoyed her other books a lot, and it just feels like this one was phoned in. 

[Zella]

Curtis Sittenfeld is one of those writers who on paper seems like she'd be right up my alley, but the only book of hers I've ever read (Eligible) was incredibly underwhelming to me. 

[EtheltoTillie]

17 hours ago, Zella said:

Curtis Sittenfeld is one of those writers who on paper seems like she'd be right up my alley, but the only book of hers I've ever read (Eligible) was incredibly underwhelming to me. 

Her new book is awful. Returned to library after a couple of chapters. Romantic Comedy. About SNL writer and guest celebrity. 

[Ohiopirate02]

I actually liked Romantic Comedy.  It was an okay beach read that flowed the way I like my books to flow while sitting on the beach.  My ideal beach reads are the ones that keep me engrossed while having multiple clear stopping points because I like to read until I get too hot and then cool off in the ocean then read some more before deciding to take a walk, etc.  It was perfectly fine and enjoyable but not something I am going to remember for years to come.  

[blackwing]

I finished Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris.  Robert Harris writes historical fiction and he is a hit or miss with me.  This book is a fictional version of the hunt for two of the signers of the death warrant for King Charles I in the 1600s.  The two are real people, one is the cousin of Oliver Cromwell and the other is his son-in-law.  They had fled to New England and one (fictional) man is determined to capture them.

I thought this book was incredibly boring.  There's very little action.  I thought it was going to be an exciting cat and mouse game, but when it takes months to travel across the ocean, there's not a whole lot of suspense involved.  Instead, it's about them trudging from one hiding place to another, catching food, and generally doing nothing.  It was incredibly depressing to think that these two men couldn't even be seen in public and their lives were essentially over, unable to ever see their family.

The book was also told from the perspectives of both the hunter and the hunted.  This conceit seems to be used effectively sometimes, but for this book, I found it a poor choice because I never really could figure out who I was supposed to root for.

This book reminded me of another book of Harris' that I found endlessly boring, An Officer and a Spy.  I truly don't understand how either of these books got so many glowing reviews.

[Haleth]

I read that about a year ago and for the life of me I can't remember much about it.  I remember the father and SIL hiding in the colonies and the rest of the family scraping by in England, but can't even remember how it ends.

[blackwing]

On 10/5/2023 at 5:59 AM, Haleth said:

I read that about a year ago and for the life of me I can't remember much about it.  I remember the father and SIL hiding in the colonies and the rest of the family scraping by in England, but can't even remember how it ends.

There wasn't much to remember hahaha.  This is one of the few times where I actually wanted to quit a book, but I kept reading to see if it got better.  It never got better.

Pages and pages where nothing really happens then finally something happens.  But the ending felt rushed, like he got tired of writing and just wrapped things up quickly.

Ending:

Spoiler

The father has a stroke and basically becomes an invalid.  The SIL has to do everything for him.  He eventually dies.  The SIL is living alone in someone's attic.  He never goes outside during the day for years.  One day he is looking out the window and sees some Indians about to attack the town.  He runs out of the house in his English army coat and spurs the town residents to do something.  They band together and kill the Indians.  He runs back into the house and hides again.

The hunter (Naylor) is living in France with some random woman.  He buys a two week old English newspaper and reads a story about an Angel who saved a town in Connecticut from Indians but then disappeared.  It's been like 20 years but he automatically assumes that this is the SIL.  He goes back to England and pays someone to find out where the wife Frances is living.  He steals some correspondence to get a sample of the SIL's handwriting.  He forges a letter from SIL to wife telling her that all is clear now and she should travel to Hartford to meet him.  Wife falls for the story hook line and sinker and begins making arrangements.

Hunter "accidentally" meets wife and they start chatting.  Turns out he is going to America too to see his brother.  They become friends.  On the ship, she is still a little cautious about the hunter and talks to some other man about this.  The other man confronts hunter and determines that hunter is lying about his destination and reason as he has no idea who the people in the town are even though he claimed to have lived there before.  Hunter kills the other man and tells wife that other man committed suicide.  Wife buys it.

Wife travels to Hartford to meet SIL.  Hunter follows her.  SIL and Wife reunite.  SIL asks how she found him, she talks about his letter asking for her.  He realises that the hunter is on to him.  He leaves house with his gun determined to find hunter and tells Wife to stay in the attic.  Hunter finds him and is about to kill him.  But Wife kills Hunter first.  

Book ends with SIL rejoicing that he and Wife can go wherever they want.

 

[Bookish Jen]

I'm currently reading Rona Jaffe's classic novel "The Best of Everything." I saw the movie several years ago, and I really liked it. "The Best of Everything" was quite scandalous when in came out in 1958. It featured women wanting to have careers, having pre-marital sex, having affairs with married men, and having abortions. The book is pretty good. 

[Scatterbrained]

I recently read Book Lovers by Emily Henry.  I immediately recognized that the main character was based off of the spurned city girlfriend of the Hallmark/Lifetime small town romance movies.  It was funny.  The story then goes deeper (but not too deep) and fills out.  It was interesting as I found it not entirely predictable.  

I have also read Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren.  I expected the twist in this one to be different than what it was.  I was able to breeze through the book, so I found it enjoyable in that way, but I find the obsessiveness of teenage love carried into adulthood a bit much.

I also looked at (pictures only, I didn’t bother with the text) The Home Edit Stay Organized by Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin.  Sometimes, I just like to look at pretty pictures before falling asleep.  If the pictures can be inspiring in some way, even better.  I don’t recommend this book for its’ target audience.  Pretty much ALL the pictures are of things organized in rainbow order.  It looks like they went out and bought a bunch of stuff to “organize” in this manner vs. organizing what a person actually owns and uses in a useful way.  In some pics there are shelves full  of identical baskets, but it doesn’t show what is in the baskets, so it looks like they bought a bunch of baskets to put on a shelf and look neat, but, for all the reader knows, they are probably empty.  And so on, and so forth.

Edited October 11, 2023 by Scatterbrained

[BlackberryJam]

Finished Scorched Grace by Margot Douaihy. I recommend. It’s a Sister Holiday mystery, so looks like the start of a series. A tattoo-ed, smoking, gay nun in New Orleans.

No one in the book is particularly likable, but I still enjoyed it. 

[EtheltoTillie]

Someone recommended Mad Honey to me.  It's like a bad Law and Order episode about trans teens.

It's co-authored by Jodi Picoult, who always writes ripped-from-the-headlines thrillers (I don't read her usually), and Jennifer Finney Boylan, a writer/writing professor who is trans (I have appreciated her memoirs; have not read her fiction). 

FWIW, they did manage to convey some interesting ideas about gender and domestic abuse. 

Edited October 13, 2023 by EtheltoTillie

[Mindthinkr]

I just finished Murder in the Family 

I wasn’t a fan a first about the writing style (done as interviewing people as they tried to solve the case), but once I got used to it it flew by. Lots of twists and turns. 
 

 

[Irlandesa]

1 hour ago, Mindthinkr said:

I just finished Murder in the Family 

I wasn’t a fan a first about the writing style (done as interviewing people as they tried to solve the case), but once I got used to it it flew by. Lots of twists and turns. 

I have this book from the library.   I almost returned it when other books I want to read came in because of the style but I'll keep trying. 

[Mindthinkr]

39 minutes ago, Irlandesa said:

I have this book from the library.   I almost returned it when other books I want to read came in because of the style but I'll keep trying. 

It does get better once you get past the format and adapt how you read it. 

[sugarbaker design]

On 10/12/2023 at 1:11 PM, BlackberryJam said:

Finished Scorched Grace by Margot Douaihy. I recommend. It’s a Sister Holiday mystery, so looks like the start of a series. A tattoo-ed, smoking, gay nun in New Orleans.

I've been wanting to read that one!  I'll place the request at my library.

On 10/13/2023 at 12:51 PM, Mindthinkr said:

 

 

On 10/12/2023 at 1:11 PM, BlackberryJam said:

No one in the book is particularly likable, 

Sounds like my kind of book!

[blackwing]

I read The Dark Edge of Night by Mark Pryor.  This is the second book in a series set during World War 2 in German-occupied Paris.  Henri LeFort is a French police detective who is tasked by the German occupiers to solve the disappearance of a missing German doctor.  Along the way, he is also trying to solve a murder as well as the disappearance of some young children who his neighbor Mimi suspects have been taken by the Germans for nefarious purposes.

I enjoyed this book, it was a good follow up to the series debut.  I wish Pryor would get back to writing about Hugo Marston, but I'll read this series until he does, if ever.

I read The Vacation by John Marrs.  We meet various guests at a rundown backpacking hostel in Venice Beach, California.  Each of them seems to have some kind of secret and different reasons for being there.

The tagline on the cover promised "Sun. Sex. Murder."  While I'd say it was lacking in a great deal of all three, there is a murder, but it's not central to the plot.  This was an interesting book because usually books like these involve a murder and trying to determine who done it.  Instead, there are other mysteries that are captivating enough to have kept me going.

My biggest issue with this book is that there are too many characters.  There's several characters that don't add to the plot at all, they are just extra stories, and their stories abruptly stop at some point (not through death) and we don't hear about them again until the closing pages.  This was my first book by this author and I'll give him another chance.

I read Murder on the Christmas Express by Alexandra Benedict.  Last Christmas, I read her earlier book, "The Christmas Murder Game", and remember finding it kind of mediocre.  But I'm a sucker for "Murder on the Orient Express" and went into this book thinking it could be similar, and with a Christmas setting, how could it not be fun?

Alas, the Christmas setting barely comes into play.  There's a snowstorm and a fallen tree on the tracks and people start dying.  There's mentions of getting home in time for Christmas, and not much else Christmas.  This author tries her best to be like Christie, but who can?

As with many books of this genre, everyone has a secret.  I don't think this author is a very good writer.  She thought it would be edgy to give us brief chapters looking into the mind of the killer.  Unfortunately, she kept on referring to the killer as "they", I wasn't sure if she was dropping a hint that the killer was the nonbinary character or if she simply couldn't figure out to write these chapters without giving away whether the killer was a man or a woman.  She would have been better off cutting these chapters, they added nothing to the story.

My biggest problem with the book was the solution. 

Spoiler

One character confesses to the murders.  But the detective figures out that she was lying and covering up for someone else.  It turns out that the fake killer and the real killer were both raped by the same man who was one of the murder victims.  The fake killer felt pained for the real killer so decided to confess and give up her life for the real killer who she had never even met?  Made absolutely zero sense.

I don't think I should read next year's version of this author's Christmas book.

[Haleth]

I recently finished The God of Endings by Jacqueline Holland.  I picked it up at the library because it sounded similar to Addie LaRue; an immortal woman travels through history with an ancient deity as her nemesis.  In this novel she is a vampire.  I found the book fairly interesting for most of it; it time jumps between years that were significant in her existence and the present where she is a preschool teacher (!) in a posh NY town.  But I absolutely hated the ending and wanted to throw the book across the room.  (But didn't since the librarians would be mad at me.) 

Spoiler

In the end she turns a sickly, neglected child into a vampire too, purely for selfish reasons and because she thinks subjecting this child to an eternity of blood sucking would be better than letting him grow up with a drug addicted mother.

I haven't hated a book this much in a long time.

[isalicat]

For those of you who are both lovers of language and enjoy science fiction: one of the very best scifi novels I have ever read! Just finished "Embassytown" by China Mieville, published in 2011 (I am making my way through all his books now because every one has been so excellent - read "Perdido Street Station" first, which takes some dedication as it is very dense and the first third is all set up for when things really get going, then "City vs City" which is probably his most well known novel). "Embassytown" is about a human colony amidst a very, very alien species on a planet in the far reaches of a distant galaxy and an incredible meditation on the power of language itself. It is extraordinary!!

[Haleth]

I liked Embassytown a lot.  All of China Mieville's books are unique.  He has such a creative imagination.  The City and the City is my favorite though.  I remember my jaw dropping when I realized what was going on.

Edited October 19, 2023 by Haleth

[Scatterbrained]

I just finished Wreck the Halls by Tessa Bailey.  I zipped through t and thought it was sweet and funny.  It’s like a beach read for the holidays.  (Snowed in read?  Fireside read?)

[Bookish Jen]

The Favor turned out to be boring and slow so I returned it to the library without finishing it. I'm currently reading A Beautiful Rival by Gill Paul. It's a novelization of the rivalry between beauty business women Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden. I really like it.

[Haleth]

I'm about 1/3 into Ken Lafollette's new book in the Kingsbridge series, The Armor of Light.  So far no one has been raped.

[Anduin]

2 hours ago, Haleth said:

I'm about 1/3 into Ken Lafollette's new book in the Kingsbridge series, The Armor of Light.  So far no one has been raped.

I've never read his stuff. Is rape a common feature?

[Haleth]

6 hours ago, Anduin said:

I've never read his stuff. Is rape a common feature?

In the earlier books in the series.  I think he realized no one wants to read that. 

[Anduin]

27 minutes ago, Haleth said:

In the earlier books in the series.  I think he realized no one wants to read that. 

I think I'll wait for further reports before considering his stuff. THanks!

[Haleth]

1 hour ago, Anduin said:

I think I'll wait for further reports before considering his stuff. THanks!

I did like Pillars of the Earth despite several assaults.  The medieval history and details about building the cathedral are interesting. The mini series is even better. The good guys are Matthew McFadyen, Rufus Sewel, and Eddie Redmayne. The bad guys are Ian McShane and David Oakes. Does it get any better than that?

[Anduin]

17 minutes ago, Haleth said:

I did like Pillars of the Earth despite several assaults.  The medieval history and details about building the cathedral are interesting. The mini series is even better. The good guys are Matthew McFadyen, Rufus Sewel, and Eddie Redmayne. The bad guys are Ian McShane and David Oakes. Does it get any better than that?

One day I had this idea. A novel about the original excavation of Moria. Call it Pillars, or Caverns, of Middle-earth. So I looked at the Pillars book and it really didn't do anything for me. Also, as far as I read, at no point did anyone get started on building a cathedral. But the show is quicker to get to the point?

[Haleth]

The building of the cathedral is a major plot of Pillars (the book).

[Zella]

59 minutes ago, Haleth said:

The bad guys are Ian McShane and David Oakes. Does it get any better than that?

[Anduin]

13 hours ago, Haleth said:

The building of the cathedral is a major plot of Pillars (the book).

All things considered, I have enough to go go on for now. Reading, watching, writing. Maybe if I ever run out I'll consider circling back, but it's a pass for now thanks.

[blackwing]

On 10/22/2023 at 6:19 AM, Haleth said:

I'm about 1/3 into Ken Lafollette's new book in the Kingsbridge series, The Armor of Light.  So far no one has been raped.

 

1 hour ago, Anduin said:

All things considered, I have enough to go go on for now. Reading, watching, writing. Maybe if I ever run out I'll consider circling back, but it's a pass for now thanks.

"The Pillars of the Earth" is my favourite book ever.  The building of the cathedral is the central element of the book.  All of the characters' stories and the side-stories are connected in some way to the cathedral.

I love the entire series, each book is set in the same town, 200 years apart.  Some of the characters in each successive book are descended from the characters that appear in the prior books.  One of these days I will start with the prequel and re-read them all again.

Planning on starting "The Armour of Light" this week.  I'm wondering what his plans are after this one.  If he continues with the 200 years apart, the next book in the series will be set in the 20th century.  Then what?  Another prequel set in the 8th century?  Or he could try and insert books in between at the 100 year mark, but would have to make sure he has a good editor to make sure the addition of new people in between two existing books doesn't create any inconsistencies.

[GHScorpiosRule]

Yeesh! This should probably go in the unpopular thread, but here goes:

Just finished  Nalini Singh’s latest Psy-Changeling-Resonance Surge and was bored out of my frickin’ skull. I don’t CARE about any of the Marshalls or how evuhl Grandpappy Marshall Hyde was. And all that exposition dump. Don’t care.

Just gimme stories about the Cats and Wolves! So I’m re-reading Slave to Sensation again.

[BlackberryJam]

Just finished Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune by Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe. I listened to Anderson read it. He's a great narrator. This is stuffed with a lot of facts, but it was all really interesting. You can tell how much Cooper loves the topic.

I also read The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise by Colleen Oakley. Louise is 81 and recovering from a broken hip. Tanner had to leave college because of a knee injury ending her scholarship. They go on the run. It's fun. No great revelations. No stunning moments. Just a lot of fun.

I realize I'm in the minority, but I enjoyed Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfield. Certainly more than I enjoyed American Wife. RC was light-hearted and fun. I'm down with that.

 

 

Edited November 6, 2023 by BlackberryJam

[Laura Holt]

33 minutes ago, BlackberryJam said:

Just finished Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune by Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe. I listened to Anderson read it. He's a great narrator. This is stuffed with a lot of facts, but it was all really interesting. You can tell how much Cooper loves the topic.

I read this a few months ago.  Fascinating read and very well written.

Right now I am trying to read light fiction as a break from the crappy world situation, and decided to go with Christmas themed books in the run up to the holidays.  Mostly this has worked out well but I just finished the newest Debbie Macomber and, wow, not good.  I mean I wasn't expecting Great Literature,  but seriously this is an e-book that got deleted.  I know I'll never read it again.

[Constant Viewer]

The Astor book sounds interesting

Currently I am reading Doc by Mary Doria Russell. I like how it is written, but I keep hearing Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday in my head.

[Mindthinkr]

Since I’m watching The Gilded Age on tv the Astor book would be good extra background information. (It will probably make me angry that they played around with the facts on the series 😂)

I just finished The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods. It was about an enchanted elusive book store, and touched on a few issues including Charlotte Bronte, illegal Irish adoptions, and 1920’s France (Hemingway is a brief character). I’ll label it a a sweet magical story. It was a light and fast read. 

[Rushmoras]

Couple of days ago completed Christopher Paolini's "To Sleep in the Sea of Stars", which is a wholloping 800+ pages science fiction novel about a xenobiologist, who in a planet, which she is chartering, encounters an alien life form, which attaches to her. Unable to control the lifeform, she accidentally kills all of her team-members and then is being hunted down by an army, who wants to do experiments on her. Then, the whole book turns in to a science fiction war book, wherein humanity's forces are attacked by aliens in a form of squids... I guess I liked it more than Dune, but likewise as Dune, I ain't seeing myself rereading this book in any foreseeable future whatsoever. On top of it all, in the end it became a Mass Effect fan fiction.

Now, I don't know what to read, probably gonna continue with Stephen King books or buy "new" James Clavell's book, which was recently translated to my language.

Edited November 7, 2023 by Rushmoras

[BlackberryJam]

16 hours ago, Constant Viewer said:

The Astor book sounds interesting

Currently I am reading Doc by Mary Doria Russell. I like how it is written, but I keep hearing Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday in my head.

I've only read Dreamers of the Day by MDR. I really enjoyed it, but for some reason, I never picked up anything else of hers. I should give them a go. 

I am reading The Magpie Murders. Here's the thing though...I "read" it when it first came out and could have sworn that I had seen the Pund mystery as an episode of Midsomer Murders. To the point that I knew "whodunit", how and why. I was so frustrated with it being a ripoff of a MM show (and yes, I realize AH has written some MM episodes), that I refused to follow the Ryeland part of the story. Now that it's a PBS show, I thought I'd give it a try again. And I swear to Bob that the Pund part of the story is an episode of MM that I have seen. I can actually remember John Barnaby and Ben Jones

Spoiler

examining the sword and suit of armor, looking at the handprint, checking out the bicycle, standing by a pond and more.

I don't know what's going on in my brain.

 

[isalicat]

3 hours ago, Rushmoras said:

Couple of days ago completed Christopher Paolini's "To Sleep in the Sea of Stars", which is a wholloping 800+ pages science fiction novel about a xenobiologist, who in a planet, which she is chartering, encounters an alien life form, which attaches to her. Unable to control the lifeform, she accidentally kills all of her team-members and then is being hunted down by an army, who wants to do experiments on her. Then, the whole book turns in to a science fiction war book, wherein humanity's forces are attacked by aliens in a form of squids... I guess I liked it more than Dune, but likewise as Dune, I ain't seeing myself rereading this book in any foreseeable future whatsoever. On top of it all, in the end it became a Mass Effect fan fiction.

Now, I don't know what to read, probably gonna continue with Stephen King books or buy "new" James Clavell's book, which was recently translated to my language.

I know I am a "broken record" here...but if you like sci fi, try "Embassytown" by China Mieville. Its not 800 pages! and its a great sci fi story about a woman who returns to her home planet which is actually the planet of a alien species who have very specific "language requirements" (I won't say more for fear of spoiling it) and the humans are tolerated as guests...until. I thought it was brilliant, both as a great sci fi work and as a meditation on the nature of language itself.

[Anduin]

I found a copy of Quest for Fire at a second hand bookshop today! Gotta say though, someone has a nerve charging $8.80 for 140 pages. But yes, I did buy it. Whoever set that price knew my interest in prehistoric fiction. Grumble grumble. Anyway, I'm looking forward to getting cracking when I can find the right moment.

[DearEvette]

Well, I lied.  I ended up reading Payback in Death by JD Robb after deciding to press pause on her work after the last few installments felt rather meh.  But I am in a massive reading slump and she is reliable.  And she roared back with this one.  It was good and had a lot of callbacks to one of my favorite books in the series, Treachery In Death. 

One running joke amongst my In Death  book buddies is how slow time passes in this universe.  Robb has been writing these books since 1995.  This is book #57 in the series and yet only 3 years have passed in-universe.  In this book one character is moving to live with his significant other.  Eve, the main character of the series, wonders if they are moving too fast because they only met  'a few months ago.'  Hilariously, they met in book #35, the aforementioned Treachery In Death, which was published 13 years ago.  It feels like to me they've been together forever.  I had to chuckle at that.

[GHScorpiosRule]

On 11/9/2023 at 11:27 AM, DearEvette said:

Well, I lied.  I ended up reading Payback in Death by JD Robb after deciding to press pause on her work after the last few installments felt rather meh.  But I am in a massive reading slump and she is reliable.  And she roared back with this one.  It was good and had a lot of callbacks to one of my favorite books in the series, Treachery In Death. 

One running joke amongst my In Death  book buddies is how slow time passes in this universe.  Robb has been writing these books since 1995.  This is book #57 in the series and yet only 3 years have passed in-universe.  In this book one character is moving to live with his significant other.  Eve, the main character of the series, wonders if they are moving too fast because they only met  'a few months ago.'  Hilariously, they met in book #35, the aforementioned Treachery In Death, which was published 13 years ago.  It feels like to me they've been together forever.  I had to chuckle at that.

I'm feeling bittersweet because I will miss

Don and him showing up as IA, now that he's put in his papers and left to live off-planet

.

Never say Nora/JD doesn't shake things up! I'm still peeved and angry that Gloria got to destroy all of Seth's childhood drawings and nearly destroying the boathouse in Chesapeake Blue!

[EtheltoTillie]

I am here to report that sadly John Grisham's new book, The Exchange, the "sequel" to The FIrm, is a bust.  I am stopping reading a third of the way through.  I look forward to his books every year.  This is just terrible.  It's not a legal thriller.  It's about the kidnapping of a lawyer by the Libyan government (back in 2006).  Yes, you read that right. 

[Bookish Jen]

I'm currently reading Harker Jones' novel "Until September: A Gay Coming of Age Story." The author was kind enough to send me a copy.

[Brn2bwild]

On 9/22/2023 at 2:03 PM, Scatterbrained said:

I just finished The Breakaway by Jennifer Weiner.  I finished it, but I did not enjoy it.  There were too many “issues” for my liking.  Also, there was too much pointless description (technical bike stuff, barely there background people - I can’t really consider them characters, trail stuff).  It all seemed like word count bumps.

I liked it in the sense that it held my attention for the most part, but found it weak in several areas:

- We're supposed to accept that she's a fat person no one wants to date, and has no career prospects, but she has two hot men who are into her within the first few chapters.

- She mocks her fiance's food choices, suggesting he is giving up on life by avoiding desserts and fat, when that could be the only way he's found to avoid yo-you weight gain and to preserve his health.  Not everyone can afford to look at food the same way.

- Her mother was so critical of her growing up, but somehow got over it?  We're never told how she suddenly became so understanding.

And I do wonder, as someone who has been overweight her whole life and has a mother who, like the main character, struggled with obesity and was shamed for her weight, and who thus transferred some of her food issues onto me: Are there people who routinely bike at least 30 miles a few times a week who would be considered fat?  It seems like you'd be burning a ton of calories with so much exercise. 

 

[Anduin]

I just finished Timothy Zahn's Icarus Plot. He's probably best known for his Star Wars stuff, but he's got a lot of other things too. Anyway, this was a sequel I didn't even know existed two months ago. When I discovered it, I had to have it! The first one is the Icarus Hunt. Both are pretty good if you like space opera and/or twisty turny plots.

A couple of things stand out at me. Here we have someone impersonating someone else, only it turns out it's actually them the whole time. They're pretending to be an impostor! That was a good one, but not the only one. Also, the protagonist keeps quoting his father. I suspect that the father will appear in further books.

Anyway, strong recommendation if you like that sort of thing.