What Are We Currently Reading?

[GaT]

I'm reading Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett. I've heard so many people say how Neil Gaiman is their favorite author & that they worship him. I've never read any of his work, but I read the description of this book, it sounded like something I would want to read, & since Neil Gaiman was one of the authors, it sounded like a win to me. So far it's been kind of meh. It hasn't grabbed my attention much, & I honestly don't understand the Neil Gaiman love based on what I'm reading. The title doesn't even make sense to me, since according to the book the word "nice" also means "scrupulously exact" so "nice" & "accurate" mean the same thing. I'll finish it, I just hope it gets better.

[Athena]

I'm reading Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett. I've heard so many people say how Neil Gaiman is their favorite author & that they worship him. I've never read any of his work, but I read the description of this book, it sounded like something I would want to read, & since Neil Gaiman was one of the authors, it sounded like a win to me. So far it's been kind of meh. It hasn't grabbed my attention much, & I honestly don't understand the Neil Gaiman love based on what I'm reading. The title doesn't even make sense to me, since according to the book the word "nice" also means "scrupulously exact" so "nice" & "accurate" mean the same thing. I'll finish it, I just hope it gets better.

 

I'm a Neil Gaiman fan. I've read most of his works and adore him. However, *small voice* I do not care for this book. This not a popular opinion among Gaiman/Pratchett fans.

 

It really does not rank highly for me. It's probably one of the ones I like least. It's not that I hated it when I read or that it was without merit, but considering the authors, it didn't work for me. So if you don't like it either, I hope you give him another chance. It depends on what you like, but I like the Sandman series, Stardust, and The Graveyard Book to name a couple of others that I prefer.

[Jenniferbug]

My introduction to Neil Gaimon was Neverwhere, which is still my favorite by him (and one of my favorite books overall). I've actually never read Good Omens, but I would say give Neverwhere a shot if you want to give the author a second chance.

I finished The Short Drop by Fitzsimmons. It was ok. The mystery was interesting enough, but then there was a twist which (in my opinion) made the rest of the book and further twists very predictable. It was a quick read and entertaining enough, so I'd be open to reading future books by the author.

I'm not sure what I want to start next. Thanks to this thread I have a huge To Read list, but won't make it to the library for a while. I'm leaning towards The Forsyte Saga, which I downloaded for free to my Kindle. I've never read it, but always wanted to.

[GaT]

I'm a Neil Gaiman fan. I've read most of his works and adore him. However, *small voice* I do not care for this book. This not a popular opinion among Gaiman/Pratchett fans.

 

It really does not rank highly for me. It's probably one of the ones I like least. It's not that I hated it when I read or that it was without merit, but considering the authors, it didn't work for me. So if you don't like it either, I hope you give him another chance. It depends on what you like, but I like the Sandman series, Stardust, and The Graveyard Book to name a couple of others that I prefer.

 

 

My introduction to Neil Gaimon was Neverwhere, which is still my favorite by him (and one of my favorite books overall). I've actually never read Good Omens, but I would say give Neverwhere a shot if you want to give the author a second chance.

 

Huh. that's interesting, maybe I started on the wrong book. Since it's getting into the Barnes and Noble coupon season, maybe I'll try one of his other books.

[Danny Franks]

Good Omens always feels far more Pratchett to me than Gaiman. Which is fine, because I love Terry Pratchett. But I wouldn't say that Gaiman fans would necessarily love the book, because most of the stuff he's written since is quite a bit darker and less obviously comedic. I don't think he'd really found his 'voice' yet, when Good Omens was written. Neverwhere and American Gods are great, Anansi Boys and The Graveyard Book are good. I actually prefer the movie version of Stardust to the novel.

[Haleth]

Neverwhere and Stardust are two of my favorite books, but I enjoyed American Gods and Anansi Boys too.  I was disappointed to see the deal with HBO for an adaptation of American Gods fell through.  Hopefully he can find another network for it.

[cherrypj]

Has anyone read Gold Fame Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins? What did you think?
 
I'll be honest: I couldn't get into it. I don't know why: I love future dystopian stuff like that. Since Claire Vaye Watkins also wrote this eye-opening essay, On Pandering, I'm thinking it's me, I can't get into Gold Fame Citrus because I can't get beyond my own mind.

 

I've put her other book, Battleborn, on my hold list. 

[AuntiePam]

I just finished Birdsong, by Sebastian Faulks. A novel I've been meaning to read for years.

 

It's an odd one. The romance at the beginning feels cold, despite repeated insistence that it's hot and passionate. Something about Faulks' writing just feels detached and distant, and impossible to fall into completely.

 

The WWI sequences are much better, and while Stephen remains a remote and cold protagonist, life in the trenches is evoked very well, and the imagery is every bit as distressing as you'd expect. But the part of the book with the most emotional resonance was actually the 1978 set part, with Stephen's granddaughter finding out about the war, and Stephen's role in it. The little twist at the end required me to be way more invested in the romance than I was, so it fell flat and felt obvious.

 

That's exactly the way I felt about that book.

 

Have you read A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell?  It's the most emotional war novel I've ever read.  I keep meaning to re-read it but I'm not sure I could handle it.

 

I'm reading Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist.  It's a very depressing but unique take on vampires.   Seriously, don't read this if you're down in the dumps, it'll just make you feel worse.

[raezen]

Right now I'm reading 'Annabel' by Kathleen Winter for a book club and I'm loving it. It is about a child intersexed child born in Labrador in 1968 and the family 's decision to raise him as there son. Labrador is usually known as one of the more inhospitable places in Canada to try to eek out a living but the author does a wonderful job describing the setting and it's beauty and loneliness.

[alias1]

I just finished Birdsong, by Sebastian Faulks. A novel I've been meaning to read for years.

 

It's an odd one. The romance at the beginning feels cold, despite repeated insistence that it's hot and passionate. Something about Faulks' writing just feels detached and distant, and impossible to fall into completely.

 

The WWI sequences are much better, and while Stephen remains a remote and cold protagonist, life in the trenches is evoked very well, and the imagery is every bit as distressing as you'd expect. But the part of the book with the most emotional resonance was actually the 1978 set part, with Stephen's granddaughter finding out about the war, and Stephen's role in it. The little twist at the end required me to be way more invested in the romance than I was, so it fell flat and felt obvious.

I have the book on my kindle now, but I read a suggestion on another site to watch the DVD first.  I did that today (it's a Masterpiece Classic) and there is no way I want to read the book now.   I found it overlong and boring.  The romance was not even believable (a lot of gazing at each other and then some erotic sex). It looked more like lust than romance.  The War scenes were much more memorable, but it was too much of a tearjerker with somber music to boot.  Thanks for the review because I think I'm going to pass on the book.

[Qoass]

I find I like Neil Gaiman in theory more than in practice.

 

I'm reading Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman, the latest YA "It" book.  Fortunately it's living up to its press.  

[alias1]

I finished A Man Called Ove, a curmudgeon after my own heart.  Deceptively simple, the book is funny, sad, surprising, and most of all, very enjoyable.  As one reviewer said, if there is an award for Most Charming Book of the Year, this would be it.   I've put Fredrik Backman's next book on hold, My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She's Sorry.

 

I just started Slade House (David Mitchell).  It's described as a reality-warping version of the haunted house story.  I loved his book The Bone Clocks but it was very long.  I'm happy this one is much shorter.

 

I like some of Neil Gaiman's book.  Loved Neverwhere (my favorite) and also Stardust and The Graveyard Book.  I liked American Gods and Anansi Boys.  I was not a fan of The Ocean At The End Of The Lane.  It felt rushed and the story never really pulled me in.  I know he does a lot of short stories and I just don't read those.

[Haleth]

I loved The Bone Clocks too.  Great story.

[cherrypj]

Thirding The Bone Clocks and offering Cloud Atlas: one of my top 5 favorite books.

 

(I really should put out a list of my Top 5, but it'll probably have 50 books on it.)

[alias1]

Thirding The Bone Clocks and offering Cloud Atlas: one of my top 5 favorite books.

 

(I really should put out a list of my Top 5, but it'll probably have 50 books on it.)

I've never read Cloud Atlas.  It seems so intimidating to me (if that makes sense).  Is Cloud Atlas better than The Bone Clocks, or just different? 

[cherrypj]

I've never read Cloud Atlas.  It seems so intimidating to me (if that makes sense).  Is Cloud Atlas better than The Bone Clocks, or just different? 

 

I think Cloud Atlas is better (but I loved The Bone Clocks too!). I love the movie too. And I put Slade House on my list.

 

Cloud Atlas sounds hard, sure, but it's six stories, with a common thread. Keeping that in mind really helps.

[ilovethedark]

I just finished vacation and ended up reading two books; Wild by Cheryl Strayed and Rocket Girl by George Morgan.

 

I was really excited to read Wild, which is the author's account about her time hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. I love memoirs and outdoorsy/mountaineering accounts since as much as I'd like to hike a trail or climb mountains, that is something I'm not able to do due to health reasons. Parts are good, however she falls into a lot of cliches and too much "pretty prose". She bounces around a lot in the narrative between her time on the trail and back to her childhood to sleeping around with random guys and then to time with her ex-husband. I know her memories can cloud what happened, but some things seem like they didn't happen as written; she seemed to exaggerate some events to make herself seem more bad-ass. One of the things that got really irritating was talking about using heroin and how she used it daily for months, but she totes wasn't an addict since she never got the shakes. She talked about her using it enough that I was under the impression, yes she was, she just doesn't want to be known as a dirty junkie. There was a moment in the book I almost threw my Kindle since I got so angry, spoiler tagged because it's disturbing and if I'd read it before I bought the book, I wouldn't have read the book.

After her mom dies the author, her two siblings, and her stepdad need to put down her mother's horse. They are all "too poor" to get the money to pay a vet to put it down humanely; so Cheryl calls her grandfather who supposedly used to deal with horses and he tells them how to shoot the horse. They think it's their best idea instead of calling a vet to explain their situation. So she goes outside with her brother to shoot the horse since that's what people used to do before vets. When her brother does shoot the horse, it doesn't die and she starts screaming for him to shoot it again. He does for four or five times before it escapes the pen and then keels over and dies. There is an incredibly disturbing description of the blood coming from the animal and how it was suffering. She finishes the passage saying she thinks the horse forgives her.

I'm almost done so I'm going to slog it the rest of the way. I think I'd enjoy it more if it was just about her time on the trail.

 

Rocket Girl was an impulse purchase for me. It's about Mary Sherman Morgan who worked at North American Aviation in the late 40's to 50's designing rocket fuel and was instrumental in getting our first satellite into orbit. She was the only woman at the time among nine hundred men and was a brilliant chemist who only had a high school education. It's written by her son because the LA Times refused to publish her obituary since they couldn't verify his claims. He wanted the world to know what his mom accomplished. The book delves into her past as a farm girl in North Dakota and weaves her time at Plum Brook Ordinance Works testing T-N-T during World War 2 and eventually at North American Aviation. The author intermingles his mom's story with Wernher von Braun and Soviet scientists doing their works in rocketry while she does her own work to show how everything will eventually become interconnected during the space race. It gets weird when the author writes passages about himself about writing a play based on his mother. I understand for the most part since he admits struggling to find information on his mother's work. She was a deeply private person and all of her work was classified "top secret" so he uses the parts when he talks about himself writing a play to explain trying to find whatever information he can on her. Normally, this would be irritating, but he does it in a way that doesn't make me hate it and Mary Sherman Morgan's story needs to be told. He admits to creating dialogue for conversations he couldn't verify, especially when his mother was a child, and with von Braun working in Germany, but it works with the narrative. He cites a lot of information and admits if he found something contradictory, and freely admits that he is biased on the subject matter and that clouded his judgement on some issues. I wish there was more information available about her since she was a fascinating person.

[cherrypj]

Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed is an absolutely wonderful book. I couldn't get much into Wild (probably my fault and not the

horse

), but I loved loved Tiny Beautiful Things. Just one of those books that really opened my eyes on how to have empathy for others.

[Qoass]

I'm halfway through Stephen King's Bazaar of Bad Dreams.  I am sometimes disappointed with how he ends his novels but these are short stories so even if one has a lame finale, it's not like I invested hours and hours in the story.  That said, I haven't hit a dud yet.

[bmasters9]

 

[GaT]

I'm just finishing Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith. It's been good, but I think it drags on too much. We spend way too much time with the main characters on the same stakeouts, thinking the same thoughts, & plotting to catch the same people.

[Haleth]

Has anyone read Richard Flanagan's The Narrow Road to the Deep North?  It kept popping up on lists of the year's best so I finally picked it up.  My gosh, it is depressing.  It's very well written, vivid and uncompromising and very real.  It reminds me a bit of A Farewell to Arms but without the levity.  (<--joke)  The POW scenes are more disturbing than in Unbroken and there is no happy ending or closure for anyone.  (Not a spoiler, readers know this from page 1.  The main character is deeply flawed and he knows it.)  I'm glad I read it, but I really need to pick up something light and fluffy now to balance out the grimness.

[Danny Franks]

Has anyone read Richard Flanagan's The Narrow Road to the Deep North?  It kept popping up on lists of the year's best so I finally picked it up.  My gosh, it is depressing.  It's very well written, vivid and uncompromising and very real.  It reminds me a bit of A Farewell to Arms but without the levity.  (<--joke)  The POW scenes are more disturbing than in Unbroken and there is no happy ending or closure for anyone.  (Not a spoiler, readers know this from page 1.  The main character is deeply flawed and he knows it.)  I'm glad I read it, but I really need to pick up something light and fluffy now to balance out the grimness.

 

I got halfway through it and gave up. I didn't feel it was well written at all, with the author seemingly more interested in appearing 'literary' and worthy than actually offering an interesting plot with identifiable defined characters. I was unmoved because I felt nothing at all for any of the people experiencing those hardships. I felt like the narrative was too cold and detached to ever touch the characters.

 

I'd compare it unfavourably to Birdsong, which I recently read. Birdsong was a much better rounded book, despite its shortcomings, which ran along the same lines in terms of coldness. It touched on some similar themes, but I felt it better evoked the world it was taking place in.

[Hanahope]

Finally started X by Sue Grafton.  Got through half the book over the weekend. I like how she's integrating the story line from a prior one, plus finally giving us some long background on Kinsey's early PI days.  I just got to the place where she has taken the packet of materials she found in Pete's box that had come from the priest and moved it from her apparently very safe and overlooked carpet covered floor safe, to place in Henry's garage and I'm wondering wtf?  why move it?  Obviously it wasn't discovered before, why would it be later?  I'm now expecting it to be stolen by Ned or whoever.  And as much as Kinsey, who works because people lie, she seems to believe so many other people on their face.

 

Its getting so close to the end of the series, two more books.  Its really fun how when the series started, it was very contemporary with the times, but these days, I have to remind myself that Kinsey is still back in the 80s and doesn't have things like Google and a smart phone.

[Haleth]

Just finished David Mitchell's Slade House.  It was ok.  After two or three times of the same thing happening I kept waiting for a change up.  It's good that it's a quick read or else I may not have finished it.  I did like the way it tied into The Bone Clocks and undoubtedly we'll be seeing one of the characters again in another book.

[Rick Kitchen]

I just picked up a book called The Explorer's Guild Volume 1: A Passage to Shambhala by Jon Baird and Kevin Costner (yes, that Kevin Costner).  The book is a fantasy about a group of adventurers exploring hidden places at the time of World War I.  It's half text and half graphic novel (the illustrations are by Rick Ross).  The frontispiece says it's Volume 1 of 5.  All of the pages are brown, like they are aged, and the pictures are all sepia tone.

 

I can't wait to get a chance to get into it, but I have to finish the other book I'm reading, first.

[alias1]

Just finished David Mitchell's Slade House.  It was ok.  After two or three times of the same thing happening I kept waiting for a change up.  It's good that it's a quick read or else I may not have finished it.  I did like the way it tied into The Bone Clocks and undoubtedly we'll be seeing one of the characters again in another book.

I really loved Slade House, but I admit I'm partial to shorter books.  And yes, it didn't have the same depth as Bone Clocks.  Loved both books.  

[whatsatool]

The Residence, about the first families in the White House. It's a bit of a slog, but I learned that both Bushes were favorite employers.

[SeanC]

I just finished reading William Faulkner's Collected Stories.  I don't remember precisely when I started reading this (it would have been a year or two ago, I expect); I set it aside with 609 of its 900 pages read, and the prospect of returning to it was sufficiently daunting that it took a long while before I did so.  Faulkner is always work, whatever enjoyment you ultimately get out of him.  Amongst the last 300 pages, "Golden Land" was my favourite story of the bunch; "Mountain Victory" was also quite tense (sort of the like the arty forerunner of a backwoods brutality film), though marred by the one time I thought one of Faulkner's black characters crossed the line into basically minstrelsy.

 

I'm now reading Svetlana Alexievich's Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster.  I have a long-term project to read something by every Nobel Laureate, and she's this year's winner (once I finish this book, I'll be up to 69 out of 112; I haven't crossed anybody off the list since I read Günter Grass' The Tin Drum back in May).

[savannah1985]

If you like non-fiction I highly recommend "Nothing to Envy" by Barbara Demick. It's about North Korea in the 1990's and how the people were starving. It's better than it sounds. Also, I loved "Sybil Exposed" by Debbie Nathan. About Sybil and her " multiple personalities". Oh, and there's "Second-Chance Mother" by Debbie Roessle. About why looking for the child you relinquished at birth may not always be a good thing. I'm not reading anything right now, but those are among the last things I read. All really good.

[AuntiePam]

Burning Down George Orwell's House by Andrew Ervin.  Disillusioned ad man sells everything he owns and takes a six-month lease on the house where Orwell wrote 1984, hoping the isolation (an island in the Inner Hebrides) will help him refocus his life.  I expected lots of angst and there was some of that, but the story moved right along.  There were some unexpected twists, and some expected twists didn't happen.  I liked it a lot.

 

The Orenda by Joseph Boyden.  A Jesuit missionary, a Huron warrior, and a captive Iroquois girl in Ontario in the 1600's.  Each chapter is from the point of view of one of those three people.  Culture clash, understanding and misunderstanding, historical detail, insights into the intended and unintended results of conquest, colonization, exploration.  It sounds trite, but I feel like I'm there.  This is an excellent read.

[truthaboutluv]

I'm reading Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl and *sigh* it's kind of a tough one to get through. I know Eleanor & Park is probably her most popular and praised book and I do have that one on standby but I just thought Fangirl sounded like it would be a fun, goofy, easy read. But honestly, I'm finding the main character so painfully dull and uninteresting that it's making it really hard to get through the book. 

 

Also, full disclosure, I'm not a huge fan of fanfiction. I know it's fairly popular and I've read maybe a handful but it's not really my thing. So Cath's whole fanfiction life doesn't really interest me that much and I really do not want to read almost an entire chapter of her reading said lame fanfiction to the pseudo-love interest. I can't understand why Rowell would think readers would want to read page after page after page of "fanfiction" written on a fake character from a fake book series that is really so clearly based on Harry Potter.

 

I've honestly just started skipping over those parts and also if those parts are supposed to sell the reader on the great writer Cath supposedly is, then just no. The only times I find Cath interesting and slightly compelling is the stuff about her mom and her relationship with her dad and sister. Other than that, the only character I truly enjoy in the book is Reagan who is not around nearly enough in my opinion. 

 

Before this, I read Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman which was certainly much different than Fangirl. A really fascinating read. The sex scenes were a little more graphic than I expected (and hey, I am by no means a prude. It just wasn't the tone I expected based on the book's rating) but I loved the language and prose and how poetic and philosophical it was. 

Edited December 28, 2015 by truthaboutluv

[cherrypj]

Just finished Slade House, which I loved (loved The Bone Clocks too, of course!). It wasn't so much that the book(s) were short, but rather that each chapter is a short story/novella set within a larger whole. I love that. David Mitchell used the same method in Cloud Atlas, which is easily in my top 5 books of all time. 

 

I also just finished Station Eleven, a re-read, and it was as wonderful as I remembered. Why was I reading it again? I was supposed to do a book club for it, but ended up having to work that day. Since I had already started it, it was easy enough to finish it. Especially since my favorite bits, with Clark, are near the end.

 

What's up next? Ancillary Mercy (book 3 of Imperial Radch)? The Cartel (Dan Winslow)?

[GaT]

I also just finished Station Eleven, a re-read, and it was as wonderful as I remembered. Why was I reading it again? I was supposed to do a book club for it, but ended up having to work that day. Since I had already started it, it was easy enough to finish it. Especially since my favorite bits, with Clark, are near the end.

I really wish I knew what it was that I'm missing about this book. I keep reading raves about it, but when I read it I was just glad when it was finally over. I didn't like it at all. I feel like there's something about it I'm not getting.

[cherrypj]

I really wish I knew what it was that I'm missing about this book. I keep reading raves about it, but when I read it I was just glad when it was finally over. I didn't like it at all. I feel like there's something about it I'm not getting.

 

You're not alone: my wife felt the same way. I don't want to reduce her argument to a few sentences, but her basic issue was puzzlement that the airport survivors were still there 20 years later, with not much to show for it. Why hadn't they turned on the power plant? Or found solar cells? Or left the airport in search of others? I felt that they were too busy surviving, with daily chores taking all day (we definitely take electricity for granted, don't we!). Her issues just took her out of the story, and she couldn't get back into it.

[GaT]

You're not alone: my wife felt the same way. I don't want to reduce her argument to a few sentences, but her basic issue was puzzlement that the airport survivors were still there 20 years later, with not much to show for it. Why hadn't they turned on the power plant? Or found solar cells? Or left the airport in search of others? I felt that they were too busy surviving, with daily chores taking all day (we definitely take electricity for granted, don't we!). Her issues just took her out of the story, and she couldn't get back into it.

My big issue was that it was promoted like a story about a post apocalyptic world when it was actually about how some actor screwed up his life in the present. 

[Athena]

I'm currently reading the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik. I'm on Book 5 of 8. One of my friends recommended to me after I lamented I wanted more dragons in my reading life. I am enjoying the series so far, but the war in the books has been going on a long time. I wish there were more female characters and that one of the protagonists was less stuffy. Aside from these minor quibbles, the plots and world building are very engaging.

[Haleth]

My big issue was that it was promoted like a story about a post apocalyptic world when it was actually about how some actor screwed up his life in the present. 

That was one of the things I most enjoyed about it; how all the characters were tied to the actor in some way.

[Qoass]

Gee, truthaboutluv, it's a good thing we're not in the same book club:  I loved Fangirl (admittedly with reservations) while Call Me By Your Name left me cold.  Be sure to give Rowell's Carry On a pass since it's the whole Harry Potter rip-off story.  I guess it's too bad she wrote such a terrific first book as it's becoming apparent that she may never be able to surpass it.

 

I'm 100 pages into Kazuo Ishiguro's The Buried Giant and I just don't know what to make of it.  It takes place a generation after King Arthur with some Beowulf influences and maybe a dash of The Walking Dead.  It's just not what I was expecting.  I finished The Miniaturist over the weekend and wasn't wild about that either.  I read a couple of books a week and haven't had much to recommend lately so I'm hopeful that something from the stack on my bedside table turns out to be memorable.

[jenh526]

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. My mom gave it to me and I didn't think I'd read it because it takes place in WWII (not a fan of historical fiction) and one of the main characters has an interest in electronics/engineering (snore). But I'm really enjoying it. The writing is fantastic.

[Danny Franks]

My amazing girlfriend bought me a signed first edition of The Eye of the World, book one of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, for Christmas. So I'm reading that again. But sticking with my battered old paperback copy, rather than the pristine signed one.

 

I've also been revisiting my childhood with a couple of Tintin books. The Calculus Affair (one of my favourites) and Tintin and the Picaros. I love Hergé's art style.

[alias1]

 

I'm 100 pages into Kazuo Ishiguro's The Buried Giant and I just don't know what to make of it.  It takes place a generation after King Arthur with some Beowulf influences and maybe a dash of The Walking Dead.  It's just not what I was expecting.  I finished The Miniaturist over the weekend and wasn't wild about that either.  I read a couple of books a week and haven't had much to recommend lately so I'm hopeful that something from the stack on my bedside table turns out to be memorable.

I read The Buried Giant earlier this year and thought it's plot was a little too vague (not to mention tedious).  It's kind of an allegory where all memories are shrouded in a mist (and unreliable).  It was a chore for me to finish it.  I think I understood all the symbolism but, ultimately, the book was unsatisfying.

[Qoass]

Good to know:  I brought it back to the library unfinished.

 

I'm now at the beginning of My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman.  I really enjoyed A Man Called Ove and so far this one's fun.  I've got Heidi Julavits' The Folded Clock on deck.

[festivus]

I just finished Carry On and I quite enjoyed it.  This is coming from someone who has never read a Harry Potter fanfic. Next up is Just Kids. 

[radishcake]

I beat my Goodreads goal for the year! 107 under my belt. This was one of my most favorites. Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead I might read it again! 

[alias1]

I beat my Goodreads goal for the year! 107 under my belt. This was one of my most favorites. Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead I might read it again! 

Really.  I read this book and can barely remember it.  Maybe I need to read it again. Congrats on beating your goal!

 

I'm now at the beginning of My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman.  I really enjoyed A Man Called Ove and so far this one's fun.  I've got Heidi Julavits' The Folded Clock on deck.

I loved A Man Called Ove and have the one you're reading on waitlist.  I hope I like it too. 

[SmithW6079]

I just started Queen Victoria's Mysterious Daughter, about Princess Louise, who was very forward thinking and may have had an illegitimate baby; apparently, her records are still sealed and inaccessible to researchers. One thing I've gathered so far is that Queen Victoria was an absolute horror as a mother and basically hated having children.

[Deanie87]

I just started listening to the latest Agatha Raisin mystery, Dishing the Dirt on audiobook and I am not sure that I am going to make it through to even the next disc. Now this series is not high literature on its best days, but the books are usually light and charming and pretty funny, perfect for listening to while cleaning or driving. The most recent installments have been flimsier than usual, but this one is the worst yet.  The entire plot starts at like the second sentence, with no introductory atmosphere or anything.  Then the narrator sort of just explains the plot rather than have the characters "live" the story.  I know that Beaton is getting up there in years, but this is really bad so far.  She is always one of my go tos when I want something light and breezy (love the Hamish Macbeth's also), so I hate to give up on her.

 

I also got Joesphine Tey's The Daughter of Time Christmas which I am excited to start.  It is lauded as one of the best mysteries of all time, but it has been really hard to locate in any of the libraries in my entire state for some reason.

[SmithW6079]

That's sad to hear about MC Beaton. ^^

I loved the Hamish Macbeth mysteries. I read the Agatha Raisin ones, although she's not my favorite.

[Deanie87]

That's sad to hear about MC Beaton. ^^

I loved the Hamish Macbeth mysteries. I read the Agatha Raisin ones, although she's not my favorite.

 

She doesn't seem to write as many Hamish books as she does the Agatha Raisin for some reason, which is shame.  They are old-fashioned in the best sense.