WHAT ARE YOU READING? - Part 5

The beginning of the month is always a good time to start anew. And the old thread was getting long.

So - what are you reading? Stop by, bring your own drink and tell us what you are reading, what you had been reading and (if you would rather do that) what you are planning to be reading.

PS: Interesting fact of the thread: June 1 is Children's Day back home (Bulgaria if you are new to the club - that is also valid for (most of) the rest of Eastern Europe and the ex-communist block; most of the rest of the world has 20 November for that. Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Day ) has a handy table for other countries as well). Fun fact: long before the modern cars started having their lights turned on permanently (with some models in Europe not being able to switch them off at all), drivers in Bulgaria were expected to drive with their lights on through the whole day of June 1 (and if you forgot to, you would be reminded very quickly).

>1 AnnieMod:

June 1 is Children's Day back home (Bulgaria if you are new to the club - that is also valid for the rest of Eastern Europe and the ex-communist block

Actually, not true for all of Eastern Europe nor was it true for Yugoslavia, which was one of the co-signatories of the 1989 act. November 20th was the date commemorated as Children's Day. (Still is in the succession states of Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia; didn't check further.) That first year of the treaty I bought so many UNICEF cards and notebooks I still have one of those notebooks in use--34 years later!

>2 LolaWalser: "Most of" then. Happier?

They used to celebrate on June 1 at least pre-1989 and possibly a few years later -- or at least the kids coming to the summer camps on the Black Sea did.

>3 AnnieMod:

I don't know about the Black Sea; presumably--if you're talking about Yugoslav tourists--they just fell in with the local custom.

In Yugoslavia we had the Day of Youth, Dan mladosti, falling on May 25, Tito's birthday (not a coincidence :)).

It was an important and, in my memory at least, very festive day indeed.

https://rememberingyugoslavia.com/dan-mladosti/

Ooops, better get on topic... I'm reading, or intermittently reading, or maybe reading, at least a hundred books... judging by the inserted bookmarks (one sign of reading life).

One pile, selected at random:

The Showa anthology 2
Women & Fiction--the drafts of Woolf's A Room of one's own
The Hogarth Letters
Folktales of China
Women who love books too much
The myth of normal
I racconti--Italo Svevo
Der elfte Finger

Im reading two books together which I rarely do, but these two are so different that it’s working for me.
Georgi Gospodino Time Shelter starts with vignettes. That are almost game-like in their confronting of the inherent cognitive dissonances of time travel. DSo far it’s a great book to read in short spurts.

The other is The Lock-Uo by John Banville which is like a novel written by his other Benjamin Black persona.it start off well but I’ve a feeling it’s going to become more Black than Banville.

For the first time in forever I am actually reading a single book (not even a magazine on the side - finished the latest a couple of days ago): Dave Hutchinson's Europe at Dawn - the fourth in the Fractured Europe sequence (science fiction). Just as the first 3, very enjoyable (and definitely NOT a book to start with!).

I read more books in May than I think I have ever read in a single month, about 20 I think. This probably has to do with the fact that because of my newly diagnosed carpal tunnel syndrome, I have been unable to do any sewing/stitching, which is driving me nuts. I usually stitched during the day, read at night. Anyway, last night I finished my last book of May, Just a Mother by Roy Jacobsen, which turned the Barroy Trilogy into a Quartet. It was exquisite, and I highly recommend it to other fans of the Trilogy (even though I wasn't in love with the third in the series).
Today I've started The Hamlet for the Snopes Trilogy group read.

I just finished As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride by Cary Elwes. It was entertaining.

afterlives, elephants journey, fredrick the great* rereading soul music for the death in discworld challenge,and will soon start on the first woman by jennifer nansubuga makumbi for the African Challege

*Im enjoying this book but its chalked full of names and events that it makes for slow reading

I’ve most recently finished The Pursuit of Love and am about halfway through Geoffrey Chaucer: His Life, His Works, His World. I thoroughly enjoyed The Pursuit of Love, which is set during the ‘30’s and leads up to the war. The Chaucer is excellent, filled with information, and written in a clear, informal style that is easy to read. I’m reading slowly because I’m trying to retain information, hoping to finish this month. And today I began The Hamlet for the Snopes Trilogy group read.

Ended May with nine reads:

The Echo Wife, Sarah Gailey - 5 stars for this quietly horrifying book, in which the ethical complications of human cloning take center stage to chilling effect.

My Planet, Mary Roach - 4 stars for this collection of humor columns originally written for Reader's Digest (and it shows). They lack the zing of Roach's pop science work, but there are still some grins to be had.

3.5 stars each for The Baby Thief, Barbara Raymond; The Water Dancer, Ta-Nehisi Coates; The Long Rain, Peter Gadol; The Accidental Further Adventures of the Hundred-Year-Old Man, Jonas Jonasson; and The Butterfly Café, Diane Hawley Nagatoma (an LTER)

Bringing up the rear with 3 stars: Sunset Beach, Mary Kay Andrews, and The Tenth Gift, Jane Hohnson.

June is starting out with another LTER read, L. Ron Hubbard presents Writers of the Future, Volume 39, and then it's on to Soul Music for the Discworld group read.

>12 LyndaInOregon: The Echó Wife looks interesting. Adding it to my tbr. Thanks for drawing my attention to this.

I just finished The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within by Stephen Fry. I'm still working my way through 100 Creepy Little Creature Stories, and today I'll be finishing "The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge" as part of the Letters from Watson read-along.

Review for fredrick the great here

https://www.librarything.com/topic/349922#n8158066

Greetings, all! My wife and I (plus Rosie, the German shepherd) have just concluded our cross-country drive from Northern California to New York City, where we are going to live for a year. I have been making slow progress, but still enjoying, Mission to Moscow by Joseph Edward Davies. Davies was the U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1936 through 1938. The book is a collection of Davies' diary entries as well as official dispatches to the President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull, plus various letters to friends and family. He does get into the weeds a bit with details of official dinners, etc., but slowly a pattern comes together about Davies' time in Moscow. The book was published in 1941.

Also, during our drive, I got my first exposure to audio books (I'm so old, I almost said "books on tape"!), as my wife and I listened to the opening chapters of The Trackers by Charles Frazier, the author of Cold Mountain. My wife and I both very much enjoyed in particular Frazier's novel 13 Moons, so we thought we'd give this one a go. It takes place during the later stages of the Depression in Wyoming. We were enjoying it a lot, but now that the drive is over, we've decided to get a paper copy and finish the book in turns that way.

I'm reading Afterlives, a leftover from May, and Every Heart a Doorway, which I started last night.

>17 rocketjk: I love audiobooks when in the car. Unfortunately lately I have my nieces with me so Middlemarch is lagging. I am listening to lots of children's literature though. We are currently nearing the end of Stuart Little.

I’m reading Shift vol 2 of the Silo series. There is a tv show on apple tv loosely based on the Silo books. I’ve read this before but didn’t care for it then so sort of skimmed it. The first Silo book, Wool was great. The 2nd book went back in history to explain the origins of the silos. I wanted a continuation of the story in book 1 so I wasn’t much interested in pre-silo history. Now i’m caught up in the tv show so now I want to know the history.

I took all last week and all next week off work on vacation so I could work on the yard and house. I was lazy all winter and spring - lots of reading, but still have a garage and basement full of boxes to unpack and things to organize. I got out fountains last weekend and played with setting up the fairy garden, and have been pleased at what is showing up in the rest of the yard/garden - some very lovely iris and and large old-fashioned peony. I do have a few flowers to plant, and I have called the "do not dig" number (which is required by law, but not very helpful, because they won't mark anything electrical out from the meter on the house - it's "private." Okay, but *I* don't know where they are....I'll assume a straight line from the house to the electrical stake out in the back yard, and another straight line from the deck to the garden shed which has electricity.) Then it got too hot this week to work in the yard, so I called up a friend to come out this past weekend, and we got a lot of boxes unpacked. I found my dishes finally, after 7 months here! Ha ha. And my tea cozy, and some other important things. The basement is coming along nicely, and the garage (which obviously I haven't parked in all winter...) is down to a single layer of boxes. I hope to deal with that this next week - I have an electrician coming next weekend, to put a couple of outdoor outlets on the deck along the back of the garage, so he has to be able to get to that wall!

So obviously reading has not been happening. Can't even listen to books in the car, because the phone won't sync with the bluetooth again. I've tried resyncing several times and it just disconnects immediately. I'll get it to work eventually, but it always takes me a while to figure it out. So my checked out on Libby of The Book Woman's Daughter expired and its telling me a 6-week wait to get it again. My ILL (2nd request) of As Kingfishers Catch Fire: Birds and Books is due back tomorrow. I'm taking a much needed break today, so I hope to finish it this evening. If not, Amazon is telling me I purchased this book back in January on Kindle. I guess I forgot!! Then I have 4 days left on The Nutmeg's Curse. And I have another ILL book I'd better get to - Goth Girl and the Ghost of a Mouse. Yes, my reading choices are all over the place, being completely different from each other. Oh! I also have The Maid audiobook checked out on Libby due in 9 days. I waited forever for that hold, so if I can't the car audio to work, I shall have to listen to it in the house - perhaps while unwrapping lots of breakable things still unpacked....

>20 WelshBookworm: Ah, boxes. I finally sorted the last of mine after living here for two and a half years! I can't believe that almost all my books are finally on shelves.

>20 WelshBookworm: >21 labfs39: I've been living here for three years now, and while my books are all out of boxes, they're definitely not all on shelves. I need more shelves. :)

Currently in the ongoing saga of me trying to catch up on all the series (and especially fantasy series) that I am behind on: Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch.

>23 bragan: It's an never ending battle. :)

I finished Europe at Dawn, made a detour with OKPsyche and then went back to the Fractured Europe with Cold Water. Which means that I am up to date on that series (yey!). Thoughts about them in a week or so I guess - I have books ahead of them in the queue.

If you are interested in the Hutchinson series, don't even try to start with these 2 - I love the series but it needs to be read in order.

Now reading Asimov's, August 2016 (that stack of magazines won't read itself so I am making an effort with them) and thinking on what to read next. Not that there aren't enough Library books in the house (in addition to my own).

Just finished the LTER for Vol. 39 of Hubbard's Writers of the Future collection. Full review is over here, complete with typo in the title line!

review for liberation day is here
https://www.librarything.com/topic/349922#n8160167

>21 labfs39: and >22 Julie_in_the_Library: I have a ways to go yet. Everything is just put on a shelf higgledy piggledy. Sorting that will probably be next winter's task. It will be interesting to see how long it takes me to feel like I'm finally moved in. Two and half years sounds pretty good! Actually three or four sounds pretty good!

review of afterlives is here https://www.librarything.com/topic/351269#n8160450

I started reading the delightful Captaine Rosalie, thanks to a recommendation from ratonliseur. A gentle reentry point in my attempt to read in French again.

I'm reading The Hamlet by Faulkner and really enjoying all the info I'm getting from our group read members. I think Faulkner must be one of our best American writers.

And I'm reading the amusing Pandora's Jar by Natalie Haynes. She takes ten women present in Greek myths and talks about how they are treated in different retellings over the centuries. It's interesting and she has a fun writing style.

>26 cindydavid4: I really liked your review and went back to read the story about the house. I think it’s one of his best though the funniest is the one about the theme park in Tenth of December. Now I have to re-read the lot right now - so much for me getting immersed in the latest Benjamin Black .

I remember that story, forgot I read that collection ages ago

Now reading the first woman (No touch stone, but if you click on the us title, the orginal cover pops up wht the original title) which in the us is called A girl is a body of waterone of the worst titles Ive seen in a long time. But thats the only thing not to like, really enjoying all of the stories and loving the characters. still early yet, hope it continues to be a great read

Finished As Kingfishers Catch Fire and got it back to the library in time. Got my phone and car syncing again (yay!) so I started The Maid when I went looking to buy some solar lights for the backyard. Now I have two hours to clear out the back of garage for the electrician to put a couple outlets on my deck. Then I have until midnight to finish reading The Nutmeg's Curse. Well, actually, come to think of it, since it is an ebook I can keep reading it if I don't turn on the wifi on my IPad. It has a hold waiting on the ebook, so can't renew it, or I'll have to wait for it again. Still waiting to get The Book Woman's Daughter back.... but in the meantime, I'll listen to The Maid.

>30 japaul22: Pandora's Jar sounds very interesting. Guess I'll have to try to locate a copy.

All of her books are great. First one I read was a thousand ships, Homer as told by the women involved. probably one of the best takes on the poems at least since circe

I am all caught up with April in my thread if someone wants to go poke their head in there. Only 16 reviews left to do (13 in May and 3 in June).

All this talk about series upstream made me pick up the latest in the Alex Benedict series: Village in the Sky. So far, not my favorite in the series but it is still early.

I went back to read the short story “My House” after feeding >26 cindydavid4: ‘s review of Liberation Day and came across the short story “Ghoul” which I must have missed. It’s most odd. I can’t work out what it’s about. Cindy, did you “get it”?

I’m reading Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls. It’s about a woman who falls in love with a "sea monster."

>37 kjuliff: I thought it sounded like the lottery but it sounded like religion; everyone has one belief and when someone figures out the truth they must die. and those who discover and try to convince others are naive and also die Otherwise, I got nothing. (there were a few others that looked like it was trying to make a point but couldnt be sure)

I've been unable to concentrate on the headier books I had chosen to read, so I decided to finally try a Taylor Jenkins Reid book. I started Malibu Rising and it's just what I needed. Super easy to read, engaging, comfortably predictable, but not cheesy or badly written.

I'll get back to Faulkner and Pandora's Jar after this quick break.

I recently read Myra Breckinridge which was.... Something else and Corregidora. I'm now working on a 14 books in 14 weeks summer reading challenge for which I read My Year of Rest and Relaxation. (I thought it might be another weird COVID inspired ideal vacation, but The Magic Mountain is more appealing still.)

I'm on a two week low key family visit and expect to spend most of my time sitting in the back yard reading. 😁

my review of a girl is a body of water is here https://www.librarything.com/topic/349922#n8164277

I've started Bloody Scotland, a collection of crime short stories centered on landmarks and locations in Scotland. A friend bought it for me on their trip to Scotland late last year. I'm partway through the fourth story, and liking it so far.

I've been absent while traveling and now I'm back home, feeling a little jetlag and little sick, but not terrible. My travels were a family trip to Venice, Rome and Florence, and were terrific and ... I didn't read every day. I did read a little.

I've read:
Florence: The Biography of a City by Christopher Hibbert (reviewed)
A Brief History of Venice: A New History of the City and Its People by Elizabeth Horodowich
The Nymph of Fiesole by Giovanni Boccaccio (an old prose translation by Daniel J. Donno)
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

I have G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage going on audio. And I've finally started The Hamlet by William Faulkner (but haven't checked in the group thread yet)

>44 dchaikin: Glad you’re home safely after an enjoyable trip. Looking forward to your comments on The Hamlet.

Glad you had a safe journey ! We traveled to all of those plus Naples, what a great trip, welcome home!

>45 dianelouise100: >46 cindydavid4: thanks! Diane - I'm about 30 pages into the Hamlet. Just getting going. :)

Finally dragged myself through The Women's March, by Jennifer Chiaverini, which really didn't meet expectations. Full review is over here, if you're interested.

Had no trouble at all deciding to makeTori Carrington's Working Stiff a DNF after about a hundred pages. This insipid ripoff of the Stephanie Plum series features a female PI (but one of the two hunky guys she's torn between **is** a bounty hunter, so it all evens out again) working at an agency owned by a relative who's conveniently offstage for most of the time. There's a sassy office manager, a quirky family (including a feisty grandma) and lots of blue-collar ethnic background (in Queens rather than Trenton). The only thing missing is a Lula clone. And an original idea for a comedy/mystery series.

So I'm jumping into Alan Dean Foster's Quozl just for fun. Maybe that will cure me of my recent reading funk.

This month I've been reading Still Life by Sarah Winman. People with great taste in books raved about this, but I'm halfway through and completely bogged down. So far it's been disappointing. I'll stick with it though

I've finished Bloody Scotland. My reviews of the collection as a whole and of the individual stories are up on my thread.

I've now started the Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019 volume.

show boat which Im enjoying so far

I've been having a really hard time finding a book that interests me. I got three that were on my library's hold list. Started Hello Beautiful, but it just wasn't doing it for me, so I was thrilled when I Have Some Questions for You came in. I've loved everything I've read by Rebecca Makkai . . . which should tell you how disappointed I was to dump this one about 1/3 of the way in when The Covenant of Water became available. This one is great so far, but the question is whether I can finish it in the 17 days I have left. It's huge.

>48 LyndaInOregon: Glad I decided to skip The Women's March. I keep trying that author, but I've found most of her work rather simplistic and heavy handedly feminist.

>49 Nickelini: I really liked this one! It's long and sometimes digressive, but definitely worth it.

>53 Cariola: Yes, you're one of the people with great taste in books who gave Still Life 2 thumbs up. I will stick with it, but it's a bit of a slog. I prefer the bits about Evelyn

>52 Cariola: I was also disappointed in the Makkai, I loved her earlier books. Waiting to read Covenant of Water when I have a big chunk of time. I did notice how huge it was but was surprised that its not heavy I think they used different material for the covers? not sure I will get there

Oh, Ived moved Show Boat over and am now reading the girls also by Edna Ferber, for the montly author challenge. Ive only read two of her books before but since looking Im finding lots of gems to look forward to.Loving this one

review of the girls here https://www.librarything.com/topic/349922#n8164277

I've been on a bit of a post-apocalyptic kick recently and am now listening to John Birmingham's Fail State, which is #2 in the series. I read #1 right before this and enjoyed it FAR more - with this genre I'm mostly interested in how/why the world fell apart and how people recreate lives for themselves afterwards. The first book did a good job with that, but the second feels like it just moves from one gun battle between a**holes to another. (And I suspect that, if the apocalypse came, there would be a fair amount of that, but it always feels like a little bit of a cop-out on the part of the author.) Not sure I'll take on #3. I'm also reading A.G. Riddle's Quantum Radio which I'm finding pretty mediocre compared to a number of his other ones. He's got some very creative ideas which make for fascinating stories, but this one provokes too many eye rolls for me. About to start Anne Lamott's Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope & Repair, which has been on my TBR pile for a while, to knock out a TIOLI challenge for June, and Jenny Lawson's Broken (in the best possible way) is sitting on my bedside table to start as soon as I can stay awake long enough...

>58 PlatinumWarlock: you and I share 105 books. I see you Have the silo series. Have you see the Apple tv Silo series?

>59 dianeham: Hi Diane - I just started it last night, actually! I thought the first episode was very good and can’t wait to keep going. Are you watching it? What do you think?

>60 PlatinumWarlock: i’m loving it.

I’ve finished The Hamlet for the group read of the Snopes Trilogy, but will delay my response until July, when the group moves on to The Town. Have almost finished Donald Howard’s Geoffrey Chaucer: His Life, His Works, His World. I’ve gotten to his discussion of Chaucer’s last and greatest works, now reading about “Troilus and Criseyde.” And lastly, I’ve begun an ERC I was sent called The Black Angels, authored by Maria Smilios, It’s nonfiction, dealing with the African American nurses in the ‘30’s who came from all over to take on nursing positions at the TB Hospital on Staten Island, positions from which white nurses had resigned because of the danger. I’m finding it very interesting and informative, so far. Still a good bit of reading I’d like to do this month.

reading and absolutely loving showboat Given the number of books, ive a lot to catch up on!

Read Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus and thought it was thought-provoking and provided a realistic picture of how people thought the role of women should be in the early 1960's should be.

I'm really having a pokey reading year... a lot of evenings after I've been editing for hours, I get in bed to read and my eyes just roll up in my head and I fall asleep. It's not like I'm watching TV, either... just working and doing household stuff and for some reason that's expanding outward into my reading time. Oh well, I always say it's not a numbers game for me and I'll own that.

I finished up Brad Fox's The Bathysphere Book: Effects of the Luminous Ocean Depths, which was not at all what I—or I suspect most of the book's readers—expected. This is marginally a history of the deep sea exploration undertaken by William Beebe in the early 1930s, but it's also about that history, and Beebe's, adjacencies: his musings, philosophies, colleagues, the context of the time with regard to colonization and science, and a whole lot of other stuff. Gorgeous reproductions of watercolors of creatures of the deep. An oddball book, but I enjoyed it.

Now reading Lolly Willowes for my book club and ohh man it's good. Exactly what I needed after a long run of nonfiction.

I just (finally!) finished Mission to Moscow, Joseph E. Davies' memoir, sort of, of his two years (1936 through 1938) as U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union. I say "sort of" because the book is not a narrative but a series of journal and diary entries as well as many of Davies' official reports and correspondences with Secretary of State Cordell Hull, President Roosevelt, and other government officials. There is quite a bit of repetition, as sometimes, for example, a report to Hull is immediately followed by a very similar report to Roosevelt. That said, the accumulation of information and insights that Davies provides ends up being pretty interesting for someone (like me) with an interest in the events of this era. Davies was in Moscow, and part of the inner diplomatic circle, during the purge trials and the run-up to World War Two. Interestingly, this book was published in October 1941, just 6 weeks or so before Pearl Harbor.

I've posted a longer review on my Club Read thread.

Next up for me will be a baseball biography, Tom Seaver: A Terrific Life by Bill Madden.

I'm reading The Good Wife of Bath which is a fun, if a bit too long, historical fiction novel that imagines the "real life" of Chaucer's famous character.

I'm also reading Know My Name by Chanel Miller, a memoir about her experience as the survivor of a rape. It's obviously tough to read, but it's written beautifully.

I just started The Memory of Animals by Claire Fuller. So far it’s very kind of apocalyptic. People who were testing a virus cure in a hospital while the world outside dies.

>68 dianeham: Intriguing plot. I'll be interesting to hear what you think as you progress, Diane.

I am reading all the things -- almost a book a day while visiting family. So: Visitation, Amerika, The Mad and the Bad, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, The Years, The Romantics, After the Death of Don Juan, and The Tree of Man.

>70 ELiz_M: impressive. I have three of those, all unread (although i started Tree of Man once, and liked what i read)

review of show boat here

https://www.librarything.com/topic/349922#

>70 ELiz_M: gosh havent read any of those and several look interesting to me. Does this collection have a central theme or just really good reads you picked up

>73 cindydavid4: It's mostly books I've picked up over the years, all physically owned. Several are on the 1001 Books-to-Read-Before-You-Die list, several are international fiction, bought over the course of the pandemic (supporting local bookstores!) and an nyrb book from my collection. 😊

Im reading Honore Balzacks droll stories wasnt sure about it at the beginning but once I got his writing style, it was full steam ahead! Fantastic satire, just loving it. Hope this keeps up, im early yet

I've been reading some lighter books during a stressful work schedule, but I'm about to get back in to Faulkner's The Hamlet. And I really want to read a new book I just got - a biography of Barbara Pym called The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym, which doesn't seem to have a touchstone yet.

I've also gotten way behind on my Clarissa reading, so I need to catch up this week.

I zipped through two more books in the Wayward Children's series, then started The First Woman/A Girls is a Body of Water (US) by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi in a vain attempt to get back on track with the African Novel Challenge. So far I am enjoying 12-year-old Kirabo's perspective on the world, but I know nothing about Uganda, and worry that I am losing some of the nuances.

You will learn a lot about the people of Uganda, their stories and myths and riturals. Idi Amins reign of terror takes place during this time but for the most part that stays in the background (with one very important exception) So I don't think youll lose any nuance :)

I've just started a baseball biography: Tom Seaver: A Terrific Life by Bill Madden. Partly apropos of our recent move to New York (even though I'm a Yankees fan, not a Mets fan), and the fact that we're about halfway through baseball season. But also, a) the book is a gift from a buddy of mine and b) I wanted something a bit lighter after my recent crawl through Mission to Moscow.

While I do have one non-fiction and a poetry volume ongoing, I could not stop from picking up another volume this afternoon: Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden by Camille T. Dungy. (I'm a mood reader so often have several books ongoing but age is making it harder...)!

I finished The memory of Animals by Claire Fuller. 5 stars.

Finally! I finally finished Still Life by Sarah Winman. Most disappointing book I’ve read in years. I will have things to say when I review it in my thread

I’ve finished Chaucer: His Life His Works His World which I would recommend as an excellent choice for anyone interested in Chaucer’s life or generally in medieval literature. Would be very useful to anyone planning to read some of his works and needing a general introduction to the writer and his times or a review of same. Written in a clear and readable style.

I’m still reading The Black Angels, which I can give more attention to now, and will be starting a reread of Troilus and Criseyde, the subject of my dissertation many long years ago. A much loved book which has gone too long without a reread.

I finished listening to Salt to the Sea and my hold on The Book Woman's Daughter (which I'd had to send back and wait for again) came in. I was only on Chapter 4, so I have started it over.

I was reading two books off my kindle while we were on the coast, then I managed to leave it in my brothers van, and he lives on the other side of town. Going tomorrow to get it so I can finish droll stories in the meantime so I pulled up The Forerunner Factor that my sci fi/fan group are reading next month. Reading it on my laptop and liking it.

My reading time is down, but i finished William Faulkner’s The Hamlet yesterday. Today I started Edith Wharton’s A Son at the Front.

I'm enjoying Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan. A very summery book to read in summer

I have had a very busy month with little reading time, but today I picked up the next two books in the Wayward Children series and am already halfway through In an Absent Dream.

June Reads

Nine books read this month, with one DNF. Highlights included Unraveling, by Peggy Orenstein, and L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future, Vol. 39, which was an LTER. Dud of the month was Good and Mad, by Rebecca Traister.

Others included the LTER Stable, by Cam Torrens, which drew 4 stars; Quozl, by Alan Dean Foster, Hush Money, by Robert B. Parker, and A Fine and Private Place, by Peter S. Beagle, 3.5 stars each; The Women's March, by Jennifer Chiaverini, 3 stars; and Waiting for April, Scott Morris, 2.5 stars. The DNF was Working Stiff, by Toni Carrington.

Reviews of most are on my homepage here if you're interested.

I finished the baseball biography Tom Seaver: A Terrific Life by Bill Madden. It was fun, a good but not great biography, and a fine survey of Seaver's life and career for anyone not familiar with Seaver.

I'll next be finishing The Trackers by Charles Frazier. My wife and I listened to around the first third of this novel (by the author of Cold Mountain) during our recent drive across the U.S., but once we arrived in NYC decided to take a paper copy out of the library and read the rest in turn. She's already finished it so now it's my turn.

yeah, kindle returned! now back to reading droll stories, forerunner factor, and a line in the world which I was reading for another thread and for some reasong didn't finish.

The word of the day is ... synchronicity.

A couple of weeks ago, I grabbed a paperback biography of photographer Margaret Bourke-White off the 50-cent table at a yard sale. As it turns out, I was actually thinking of Dorothea Lange, the photographer who took the iconic "Migrant Mother" photograph -- this one -- from the Great Depression.

As it turns out, Bourke-White was also responsible for many images which have become implanted in the American consciousness, but who first came to the notice of the general public in her work for "Life" magazine.

This is where the synchronicity comes in.

Several years ago, someone gave us one of those coffee table books (which I am told are no longer stylish), this one celebrating ... Life 75 Years: The Very Best of Life, which includes a facsimile of the premier issue ... which is packed with photographs by Bourke-White. And the biography, Margaret Bourke-White: A Biography, describes how many of them came about.

So I have been spending the afternoon happily bouncing between book and magazine. Haven't accomplished anything else, but I've had a delightful day!

(And I'm still looking for that Dorothea Lange biography, too!)

"This is where the synchronicity comes in."

love when that happens. I knew about Dorothea but not Bourke White. My parents kept all their Life magazines in the hall closet. Id often sit there and browse thro looking for pictures. one I remember was the photo of Emmet Till, in his coffin, long before I knew about the story. I wonder if that was one of hers I know .

I do have a bio of Lange Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits You might be interested in reading Mary Coin.an excellent HF about that famous photo

Speaking of synchronicicty, or de ja vu, In an online book group many years ago we called this 'a plate of shrimp' from the movie Repo Man. appropo of nothing, just made me remember it

the elephants journey is a DNF for me. Man he is wordy. The book is not very long, perhaps that was his way of making into a novel. But the more I tried the more bored I got. Pity because the story is really interesting and would love if another writer could do a better job of it

>94 cindydavid4: Too bad it didn't work for you, Diane. I found it quite witty, and enjoyed the author/narrator's reflections on writing. Ah well, not every book is for every reader! Or vice versa.

>93 cindydavid4: "This is where the synchronicity comes in."

love when that happens.

Yes, that sort of thing is a lot of fun and often fascinating, especially when you pick up one book to read without any idea of the connection it has with the last one you just finished.

I recently read a short bio/history of the famous Lange "Migrant Mother" photo. The whole story of the photo and Lange's career are very interesting. I've heard of Bourke-White, but not done any reading about her. Now I'm inspired to do so.

>93 cindydavid4: Thanks for the reference to the Dorothea Lange bio. I put it on my PBS wishlist and eventually will get around to chasing it down.

As for the Emmett Till coffin photos, (TRIGGER WARNING: GRAPHIC) this link lists them as "uncredited". According to the article, Till's mother distributed prints to news outlets but most would not print them. They were reprinted and distributed in a booklet put out by African-American photojournalist Ernest C. Withers, but it's not clear whether Withers was claiming to have been the original photographer (although he did copyright the booklet).

thats interesting but not surprising I didn given the time I assumed the one i saw was touched up.

" (which I am told are no longer stylish' well I never claimed to be stylish so I have a ton and ahalf of these from musueums and such they take a long and strong shelf for them to sit on. come in handy now and again

>95 labfs39: lisa that was me not diane! and I agree with you!

>98 cindydavid4: "which I am told are no longer stylish"

Yeah. The fastest way to make me dig in my heels and (mentally) tell a self-styled "fashion arbitrator" to ... um ... go pound sand (?) ... is to be told that something I enjoy is "no longer stylish".

Lord knows there are trends that I will be delighted to see vanish -- I'm still waiting for pre-shredded jeans to go out of style, but they seem to be remarkably resilient -- but most of the time, I'm off in my own little world and don't much care what the influencers and arbitrators think I should own / wear / eat / watch / read / listen to.

I'm still waiting for pre-shredded jeans to go out of style, but they seem to be remarkably resilient

Oh I so agree with you! they look tacky and are outrageously expensive Tho I have to say at the mall yesterday wearing what I swear looked like those bra slip things from back in the 7os. it was white and left nothing hidden. she looked like she just woke up or was ready to go to a dance I just dont get it

and I am sure if anyone mentioned it shed say go pound sand. so what do I knp

>99 cindydavid4: whoops, sorry, I meant you but wrote Diane. I call the kids and the dog the wrong names all the time. Is that a thing? Lol

I'm reading A Map for the Missing, which I'm guessing I heard about from someone here. I'm really enjoying it. It's about a young man who returns to his village in China after emigrating to American when his father goes missing. When he goes back he finally starts to understand things that happened to his family during and after the Cultural Revolution.

I'm also reading a new-ish biography of one of my favorite authors, Barbara Pym. So far it is focused more on her love life than I care for, but it is reading quickly and it's interesting to see the experiences she had in her own life that she used in her novels. It's called The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym.

>103 japaul22: oh that does look good. Norah Lofts has always been my fav brit author from that time. wish I could find a bio of her

I got tired of the The Sullivanians. I’m surprised I hadn’t heard of them. I did hear of The Fourth Wall theatre but not the details. These people treated their children so badly. It’s really disturbing.

>103 japaul22: Map for the Missing looks good, though I'll wait to read your review before I add it to the wishlist.

I finished The Promise by Damon Galgut and Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan, both excellent, and I understand why The Promise won the Booker Prize in 2022. I’m currently reading Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde and One Hundred Years of Solitude for a global challenge that includes Colombia, enjoying both. I’ve put aside, maybe just for the moment, The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses who Helped Cure Tuberculosis, as it wasn’t holding my interest just now.

I'm reading Future Home of the Living God a novel by Louise Erdrich and I am also reading Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty

>108 ChristineCharles: Always on the lookout for good Native writers. Not familiar with Talty -- are you enjoying the stories?

June was a total bust for me. I was thrilled to download two books from my library that I had been looking forward to reading, Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano and I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai. I had a feeling that the first might not be for me; I'm not into sister stories, and this one sounded pretty typical and rather cliché. The main reason I wanted to read it was that I enjoyed the Apple TV+ series based on her book Dear Edward. Got about a third through it before sending it back. I was more unexpectedly disappointed in the Makkai, since she is a favorite of mine. I stuck with it for about half, thinking it had to get better. It didn't.

So after wasting almost the entire month, I started The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese, which is a wonderful book, truly stunning in every way. At almost 800 pages, it may end up being my only read this month, especially sine I am savoring every page. But I found my happy place with this one.

Like I need another book: was at the indie to trade in books and saw orwells roses Didn't know that he was a gardener and had a thing for roses. Ive read about how the song 'bread and roses' came to be and about the italian photographr Tina Modotti and her famous rose photo "Roses" As usual Solnik has got my attention, and enjoying reading about the Orwell connection. Still putting it down as I have a few books I need to finish (as always)

ETA If you are looking for a bio or history of the writer here, you'll need to look elsewhere, but she uses the roses connection to show a different side of him while noting his work.

review for droll stories is here https://www.librarything.com/topic/349922#n8182417

Once I read and like an author's writing style, characters plus the genre I will read others by the same author. Just read The Cuban Heiress by Chanel Cleeton and was not disappointed.

Just finished Margaret Bourke-White: A Biography, and am well into The Whistling Season, by Ivan Doig. Got a copy of On the Clock today, and am torn between it and Poverty, By America for my next read.

It has been a very long time since I sat down with a book and read through most of the day into the night to finish, but I happened now, evening chorusis about the war and what happens to POW and pilots, what happens to people left behind. As usual in her books Humphreys creates characters that you care about what happens to them. the following review puts my feelings perfectl into words

"the evening chorus serenades people brutaly marked by war, yet enduring to live and relish the tiny pleasures of another day"" Emma Donogue

I recently finished The Trackers by Charles Frazier, a good historical novel set during the later stages of the Great Drepression in Wyoming and elsewhere throughout the U.S. You can find my longer review on my Club Read thread.

Next, I'll be returning to my twice-yearly Isaac B. Singer novels read-through project. I'm up to his 1962 novel, The Slave.

That looks good, interested to see what you think.

I recently started Waiting for the Barbarians. I saw there was a film version - anyone see it?

I started a couple of CR BBs I got out from the library - The Good Wife of Bath and The Lost Village.

>115 cindydavid4: Evening Chorus is one I started last year, that ended up getting postponed, and then packed in a box of course. I hope to get back to it some time this year!

I just finished and reviewed A Map for the Missing and The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym.

I've started The Claverings by Trollope with a group read and I think I'm going to finally read 1491, which I recently picked up at a library sale.

I'm reading Empty Houses by Mexican author Brenda Navarro. The first half was a scathing look at motherhood, which I was finding both interesting and apt, but now it's taken an even more brutal turn. An incredibly compelling read.

Our book club just had a great discussion of The Memory Keepers Daughter by Kim Edwards. We included in the discussion how times have changed for the better for those with disabilities.

Giving up on Famished Road. Now reading Bandit Queen lessons in chemistry, mixed harvest and the bookshop book trying to juggle them all; lets see which falls first!

Have picked up Writing from Ukraine: Fiction, Poetry and Essays since 1965 edited by Mark Andryczyk. I bought this last year via the UK and it had got lost in the book pile...

I took four books back to the library yesterday and took three out and have already read The Boardwalk Bookshop and City of the Dead.

really enjoying the bookshop bookIf you need a read that makes you hopeful and optimistic about the future of reading, you must read this. The author covers bookshops around the world, large and small, popular or specialized. She interviews the owners for their stories and catches the magic each of these shops hold. Many owners talk about thier drive to introduce and encouraging reading and building communities. Not quite finished (didn't realize how large it was) but havent been bored once.Highly recommended (and thanks to whoever recommended this to me!)

Continuing in my mostly light reading phase I started Friday Barnes Last Chance which is the 11th in a middle-grade mystery series.

I’ve finished One Hundred Years of Solitude and next up is Faulkner’s The Town for the group read of the Snopes Trilogy.

Last night I finished The Slave by Isaac Bashevis Singer as part of my project of reading through Singer's novels at the rate of two per year. My review of what I found to be a thought-provoking and moving book can be found on the book's work page and on my own Club Read thread.

Next up for me will be Out of the Red, a collection of columns from the 1940s and 50s by the great American sports writer, Red Smith. The book was an anniversary gift from my wonderful wife.

Reading Harvest: stories from the human past for the RTT July thread Revolution, looking at the journey to the first agricultural revolution. Really interesting so far

>127 cindydavid4: Oh, this sounds lovely, Cindy. Thanks for the BB!

My pleasure.

I’m reading The Road to Roswell by Connie Willis.

Just finished The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese, which was truly wonderful. I just began The House Is on Fire by Rachel Beanland, about a historic theater fire in Richmond.

Covenant of Water is on my wishlist, but I hope it doesn't come in too soon! I just finished Girls Like Us, and it was a grind to finish it. I fell back with Cathy Guisewite's Fifty Things That Aren't My Fault, because I needed something light! Next up is probably The Virgin Suicides, which is certainly not bright & happy, but Eugenides is usually worth reading.

review of the bookshop book is here
https://www.librarything.com/topic/349922#n8187843

I've posted some more reviews from 100 Creepy Little Creature Stories on both my thread and the short fiction thread. I've now read 61 of the 100 stories included.

I started my remaining two library books Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops and Sleepwalk which are both CR BBs.

review of mixed harvest is here https://www.librarything.com/topic/349922#n8189825

Last weekend i finished A Son at the Front a 1923 novel on wwi by Edith Wharton. (She had wanted to publish it earlier, but her publisher wouldn’t allow it.)

This morning i finished Sixty years of American Poetry : Celebrating the Anniversary of the Academy of American Poets (Expanded Edition) - 368 pages of American poetry. I have been working my way through since early April (April 9), so it seems like a big deal to have finished it.

I’ve finished Faulkner’s The Town and will be making a trip to the library to look at a couple of WWII books. I’m thinking of Tales of the South Pacific by James Michener, which was written before he was into tomes and won him a Pulitzer Prize.

Finished The House Is on Fire by Rachel Beanland and just started The East Indian by Brinda Charry.

I've got 5 I'm trying to finish by the end of the month. It may be a losing battle...

Bel Canto audiobook
Vacationland - for Daytimers book club that meets on the 28th. Really liking it so far.
Miss Eliza's English Kitchen - for A Good Yarn, also meets on the 28th.
Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey - Daytimers for April that I need to finish.
The Forest Unseen - leftover Perspectives book club from March - not even started yet...

I finished The Virgin Suicides and spent the rest of the day asking myself why I bothered. Was much happier with Smoke and Mirrors, a collection of Neil Gaiman short pieces from the late '80s and '90s.

Just started Poverty, By America. So far, Desmond is still in the throwing-numbers-at-you phase. Hopefully, he will utilize all these statistics at some point to develop options for coping with the issue.

I just finished The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts, which I enjoyed for its big SF ideas. Now reading Cat on the Edge, which is a mystery novel told from the POV of a cat. A friend of mine gave it to me as a gift. I love cats, and enjoy the occasional mystery, but I don't know if I'm really a mysteries-with-cats kind of person, so we'll see whether he's right about it being something I'll enjoy or not.

I finished Out of the Red, a collection of columns published in the late 1940s by Red Smith, a very famous (Pulitzer Prize winning) American sportswriter over many years. The columns are often humorous and entertaining, although, providing as they do a snapshot of post-WW2 America, they sometimes often reflect that era's downsides, too, especially in the form of sexism and, occasionally, racism. My longer review can be found on my Club Read thread.

Next up for me will be Enigmas of Spring, a novel by Brazilian writer João Almino.

I’ve finished and reviewed 1491 and a Trollope novel called The Claverings. Now I’m reading a mystery called Moonflower Murders, the second in a series. It’s ok but not great. And I’m reading a nonfiction book about a hiking tragedy in the Soviet Union in the 1950s called Dead Mountain. I thought it would be one of those exploration/against the elements stories, but it’s turning into more of a true crime or conspiracy theory book. Not sure how I feel about that.

I'm reading A Clockwork Orange for bookclub and I'm hoping a week is enough time.

I am now reading two travel narratives

Reading this for the RTT quarterly theme The Black Sea.the border: a journey to the edge of EuropeThe author is from Bulgaria,her family emigrated to australia after the balkan wars,and later the US. She has returned to her homeland to look at the borders of Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece and the pain of forced migration (or ethnic cleansing)

an ottoman traveler Mentioned in the book above he was famous for his travel narratives in the 1600s. Like Ibn Battua, he visited many places in the known world and desribes what he has seen, in ten volumes. This book takes some from each volume as a way of introduction. Not sure if the volumes hav been translated into English

Just about finished The Djinn falls in love and other Stories

July wraps itself up tomorrow, and since I'm unlikely to finish the current read before then, I'll go ahead and post my monthly list now.

Ten books read and one DNF, with the most recent read the highlight of the month: The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry was a delight to read, as the story and the characters came into focus step by step, so to speak.

Other July standouts were Margaret Bourke-White, by Vicki Goldberg; The Whistling Season, by Ivan Doig; and Smoke and Mirrors, a collection of short pieces by Neil Gaiman.

Also-rans included The Hurricane Sisters, by Dorothea Benton Frank; Girls Like Us, by Sheila Weller, and the disappointing Poverty, By America, by Matthew Desmond.

Fifty Things That Aren't My Fault, by Cathy Guisewite was okay, The Virgin Suicides, by Jeffrey Eugenides was an utter waste of time, and The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh was DNF'd without regret.

The odd entry in the bunch for July was The Lost Soul, by Olga Takarczuk, which can only be classified as a picture book for grown-ups.

May you spend the rest of the summer relaxing with a cool drink and a warm book!

Not really a presence in this group, or my thread, or LT in general but I did read/finish four books this month.

Jules Verne : De la Terre à la Lune (From the Earth to the Moon)
Charlotte Bronte : Shirley
Emile Zola : La Curee (The Kill)
Amélie Nothomb : Premier Sang

Just finished Romain Gary’s The Kites, a gorgeous book about the German occupation of a small town in Normandy, 1941-44. 5*

Now turning to some other books about WWII for Reading through Time quarterly theme.

I just finished A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. I know, I'm late to the party, but WOW. So rich and complex - characters and settings and plot all support each other and and and...wow. I have another book I need to read quickly, and one just came out I've been looking forward to...but I could not stop reading this to divert to another book. Finished this and got the other three (of the trilogy? Hmmm) from the library - but I'm not starting the next one yet, I've got other things to do!

>154 jjmcgaffey: Are you planning to watch the TV adaptation?

The Booker Longlist came out this morning. I’ve started the longest book available on audio - In Ascension by Martin MacInnes.

I am going into August with 3 books:

Standing by the Wall: The Collected Slough House Novellas - I am reading the novellas in the proper order between the novels so this is waiting for me to catch up to the next novella

Revolutionary Spring: Europe Aflame and the Fight for a New World, 1848-1849 - the latest by Christopher Clark (very dense, very informative and very long)

Beyond the Burn Line by Paul McAuley - Science fiction by an author I usually enjoy.

The first 2 will be with me for most of the month I suspect :)

I've been flying through books so I decided to start something that will be a little slower - Salka Valka by Halldór Laxness.

>155 Julie_in_the_Library: Um...probably not. I have a very hard time these days with audiovisual works - I can't keep focus, and when I do I can't read faces very well which means a huge amount of information goes right over my head. I prefer the written word.

ETA but it's really cool it was picked up for that! Yay for good authors getting more known, and more money.

>159 jjmcgaffey: I loved A Discovery of Witches (and the two sequels) - so glad you're enjoying it! I watched season 1 of the TV adaptation, and it was good, but... I liked the book better. Often I prefer visuals after I've read the book, just to get a more complete experience, but I felt like I got everything I needed from the book.

Just about finished with broken road for the Black Sea theme. Its a re read and Im having more trouble with it then I did from the first read. Its the third of this authors books detailing his travels as a young man in 1936 from Amsterdam to Costantiople. It was published posthumously in 2011, following along with what he already wrote with additions from letters and diaries . I was so excited about the publication of this third book as were the fans of his earlier works, and read through it quickly, not really paying attention to the issues I know have . Wanting to finish it, but while I loved his descrriptions and attention to details Im slowing down alot, thinking he really needed an editor. But when you think of that time period just before WWII, the people and places and cultures he met that are no longer- it is a picture of that world so I cant complain to much. If you are interested in his travels, his first book a time of gifts is the place to start

I just finished Bel Canto and was going to start A Marvellous Light but since that is due back before I will finish it (holds waiting) I sent it back and put myself back on the waiting list. My hold on The Gates of Europe came in, so I decided to start that one on the way home. I think it is not going to work as an audiobook for me, but I also have the print book. So I need a new audiobook. Which shall it be? The Apothecary Rose or Death at La Fenice? I have both of those on Audible...

I finished The Fell, a short novel by Sarah Moss in which a woman stressed and depressed during COVID lockdown breaks free but ends up missing on the fell.

I'm reading two books at the moment, This Other Eden by Paul Harding and The East Indian by Brinda Charry.

I finished Enigmas of Spring, an interesting novel by Brazilian novelist Joao Almino about the dangers of living one's life too much inside one's own head and one's own computer. My full review can be found on my Club Read thread.

Next up, I'll be spending some time filling in one of the (very) many holes in my classics reading by tackling The Decameron.

>162 WelshBookworm: I’ve read and enjoyed both of these, and continued on with each series. I’d probably pick The Apothecary Rose because I love medieval mysteries, and this series was a favorite, but imo you can’t go wrong with either.

>165 dianelouise100: It's a favorite series of mine - one I've wanted to reread for awhile, so that's what I've picked. And it's an "A" title for my challenge.

August is not getting off to a very good start. I struggled through The Boleyn King, which I found very slow, only to end abruptly with a cliff-hanger -- a literary practice I utterly abhor, even in series books. I won't be continuing with this trilogy.

Next up was an LTER book, The Cry of Dry Bones, which might have been a reasonably good book if the author had sent it off somewhere to be copy-edited before self-publishing.

I will reward myself for finishing that one by diving into Hogfather tomorrow, for the Discworld Challenge August selection.

reading three books for the African Challenge in tandem:the civilized world which I finished (rated 4.5) so long a letter and co-wives, co-widows Its been fun reading these for they all are about how women live in the culture of Franophone Africa but can be confusing becase they are so similar

Down Among the Sticks and Bones was a nice quick read. I started A Woman in the Polar Night as my uni commute book, and today I started The Golden Enclaves as my weekend relaxing book.

Currently reading In the Garden of the Beasts by Erik Larson and A Spell of Good Things by Ayobami Adebayo

My reading time has dropped, but I enjoyed Kenneth Rexroth's 1955 translation of Japanese poetry, One Hundred Poems from the Japanese, a book I inherited from my grandmother (who loved all things Asian) in 2004. Looking for another poetry collection, I picked up Ahead of All Parting, a 600-page translation of Rainer Maria Rilke by Stephen Mitchell, a book I bought in 2006. My plan is to chip away in ten-minute sittings.

Finished Joyce Carol Oates' 170 page novella, Cardiff, By the Sea, A reliably creepy story set in my home state of Maine. Might, or might not, continue on to read the three shorter pieces in the collection....

I haven't been reading much, but I am several chapters into Fallout : the Hiroshima cover-up and the reporter who revealed it to the world and enjoying it. I'm also finishing up the audiobook of Middlemarch.

>173 labfs39: what? I had no idea of this, until I started reading reviews of the good. It shouldnt have surprised me, but honestly I think about what would have happened had Hersey not written that article. Would we have been ok with the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the increased number of countries who had it? I was involved in the anti nuke movement in college and had no inkling of how close our world was to a nuclear disaster because of this cover up. Thanks for posting about this book, i intend to read it, also want to read the original NYer article

makes me wonder as well what else if being kept secret

im now reading the shadow of the sun by the same author as travels with Herodutus I remember him mentioning is travels in Africa in that book didn't realize hed written this book decades ago. Liking it thus far tho I am noting some troubling generalizations here and there. But Im curious, so Ill continue

>174 cindydavid4: If you haven't read Hiroshima yet, I would suggest reading it first. Although you don't need to have read it to read Fallout, it heightened my understanding of just how much was being covered up in the early chapters of Fallout. Hiroshima was published as a short book shortly after the New Yorker ran his story. A WWII classic, IMO.

Ok thanks for that. Looked up the author, read two of his other books bell for Adano and the wall years ago, never thought to look further into his work

>177 cindydavid4: Hersey was young when he won the Pulitzer for Bell for Adano, 30? I have, but have not read, The Wall.

I’m starting Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy.

I’ve finished In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson and am focussing now on A Spell of Good Things by Ayobami Adebayo.

I'm reading Tom Lake, Ann Patchett's new novel. And I'm also starting The Town by William Faulkner for the *July* (whoops) group read.

>1 AnnieMod: Hi! I'm reading the Twilights

I’ve finished A Spell of Good Things, my first read on the 2023 Booker Long List. The novel grabbed me immediately and I found it to be thought-provoking and quite strong on plot. Hope I like all of the List this well! I’ll be trying to read a couple more candidates this month and The Mansion, by William Faulkner.

I got lucky this morning! Having finished The Apothecary Rose I needed a new audiobook to start. And my hold on The Island of Missing Trees came in. Libby had been telling me it was a 3-week wait yet. My book club is in 2 weeks.

I'm still making my way through Fallout, almost done, maybe today, and started The Color of Water on audio. Loving them both. The narrators for CoW do an excellent job (JD Jackson and Susan Denaker).

My hold for The Secret Book of Flora Lea came in so I started that today. While I was at the library I also picked up The Summer Getaway which I read in one sitting yesterday.

I'm restraining myself as I work through Barbara Kingsolver's Homeland and Other Stories. They are so beautifully crafted that I want each one to percolate a while before I move on to the next.

Alternating that with the August selection from my Wish-List Challenge. This one is He Was Some Kind of Man, which is a mish-mosh of nostalgia, armchair psychology, and media studies written in Olde High Academesian, and as such is pretty heavy going. I was (and am) a fan of Westerns, but this is not quite what I was expecting.

I gave up on Migrations after 81 pages (see >179 dchaikin: ). I'm now trying Fatelessness, the 1975 classic by Imre Kertész.

I may be off for a bit. My carpal tunnel has come back with a vengenc; havent been able to do any reviews. now reading hogfather and last night in montreal catch up later

>189 cindydavid4: "My carpal tunnel has come back with a vengenc"

So sorry you're dealing with that -- it is miserable. Give your hands a rest and follow your doctor's orders!

>189 cindydavid4: I'm sorry to hear about your hands, and I hope they start to improve.

Coincidentally I just started another Emily St John Mandel book today - Sea of Tranquility.

I am reading Faulkner's The Town, and despite the fact that I've always considered myself a Faulkner-devotee, I'm not really enjoying this Snopes trilogy (this is the second). So I'm sticking with it, but also started Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead which grabbed me right away.

For nonfiction, I'm reading Lab Girl, a memoir of a scientist focused on botany. The title threw me. Using "girl" in the title, I was expecting something young, light, and funny. Instead I find Jahren's writing dense, a bit formal, and highly intellectual. I like it, but wasn't ready for it. I think I'm settling in . . .

>192 japaul22: These later works were definitely not up to the excellent works Faulkner wrote when he first turned to Yoknapawtapha County as his setting.

I remember liking Drive your Plow over the Bones of the Dead.

>185 labfs39: yay, for Color of Water 🙂

>192 japaul22: I hope you enjoy Lab Girl. I listened to it (she reads it herself) and was really moved by it. As for The Town - I can only manage about 20 minutes before i tire out. But i’m getting close to finishing.

>193 dianelouise100: glad to know it's not just me, re the Snopes trilogy.

>194 dchaikin: I'm giving into the tone of Lab Girl and enjoying it.

Whoops, I haven't checked in on one of these threads in a while!

But I'm now reading The Greenlanders by Jane Smiley, which I'm enjoying, but which I suspect is going to take me a while.

After reading the translator's (Wayne A. Rebhorn) introduction, plus the stories in Day 1 and Day 2 of The Decameron, I've decided to read the rest of the stories (Days 3 through 10) gradually instead of straight through, which had been my plan. I've now started a fascinating coffee table book that I bought recently at a local Harlem gift shop: Unseen: Unpublished Black History from the New York Times Photo Archives.

good night Irene about the "donut dollies" during WWII supplying troops with donuts and coffee while they wait to be deployed. The author of Hummingbirds Daughter tells the story of his mother's experience in Europe.

so it looks like Im doing double reading; last night found the hands of my father at the bookstore. Ive read stories like these before in this sign when the hearing child must interpet for the deaf parents. (Yes I have seen CODA: Troy Kotsur who won the best acting emmy grew up in my town) This is a beautifully written memoir, and expect to finish it soon.

I’m listening to the audiobook of The Mansion, which has turned out to be very enjoyable. And I’ve just started This Other Eden by Paul Harding, another on the Booker list.

Finishing up Joyce Carol Oates collection of four novellas titled Cardiff, By the Sea. I'm fairly sure I had read the 3rd novella before....

I'm working through some of the Booker longlist books on audio. Yesterday I finished In Ascension by Scottish author Martin MacInness. It's a wonderful book on audio, scifi told with elegant, distant language. I loved it. I've now started A Spell of Good Things by Nigerian author Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀. I'm adjusting to a different tone - the first half hour feels like short stories with character subtleties (I think the stories tie together quickly, but I'm not very far in. Just a first impression.)

>202 dchaikin: I loved A Spell of Good Things, hope you’ll enjoy it too (reviewed on my thread). I’m now into This Other Eden which reads quickly and is very compelling, and based on a horrific episode in early 20th century Maine.

>203 dianelouise100: i have a hardcover of This Other Eden waiting for me. Tinkers, Paul Harding’s first novel, kind of stuck with me, so i’m looking forward to it. Good to know you enjoyed A Spell of Good Things.

I finished the very sad but very beautiful This Other Eden by Paul Harding a few days ago. I started Fellowship Point last night. It's just OK so far, but it had a hard act to follow.

Wow. I just read something so stunning that I'm cross-posting, so you may see this in more than one thread.

Just finished Emily Guendelsberger's On the Clock, and I am reeling. I have only one recommendation: READ. THIS. BOOK.

Right now. Buy it. Borrow it. I’m not sure I can even stop short of saying steal it if you can’t lay hands on it any other way.

If you’re a Boomer at or near retirement, and you can’t understand why certain job sectors complain that they can’t fill vacancies even as people are falling into homelessness – read this book.

If you’re a Gen Xer whose kids should be entering the labor market but are still living in your basement and you can’t figure out why – read this book.

If you’re in Gen Z and you’re struggling to comprehend why the older generations keep preaching the value (and rewards) of hard work but all you’re seeing are soul-crushing, spirit-destroying hell-holes that leave you sick, dispirited, and damaged – read this book.

Emily Guendelsberger has written an absolutely stunning, compelling, and deeply disturbing study of what low-wage work is doing to the blue-collar labor force “and how it drives America insane” – sometimes literally. It’s an update and an expansion on the same themes Barbara Ehrenreich tackled in Nickel and Dimed that goes beyond what it’s like to be caught in the low-wage maelstrom to look at why and how computerization, standardization, and megacorporations have combined to remove every last vestige of humanity from the 21st-century workplace.

After the small weekly newspaper for which she worked went out of business, Guendelsberger conceived a project that involved working for three of the 900-pound-gorillas of American industry – Amazon, AT&T, and McDonald’s, and reporting not just on the difficulty of managing to exist on what appears to be “market standard” (or higher) wages, but on the myriad ways in which corporate policy disrespects and abuses its workers. From Amazon’s restriction of bathroom breaks for its warehouse pickers (apparently ignoring the fact that Amnesty International considers denying or restricting excretory functions a form of torture) to AT&T call centers’ routine “adjustment” of employee timecards so that they are not paid for the minutes per day they may spend between the time they clock in and the time they actually take their first call (a practice which denies individual workers a few dollars per day but saves the corporation billions) to McDonald’s last-minute scheduling and general avoidance of giving employees a full 40-hour week (which gets the company off the hook for paid benefits), the author bucks up and does each job, but admits that the one thing that allowed her to survive was the knowledge that “I get to leave”.

She also looks at various scientific studies on the results of stress in lab animals, and extrapolates many of those same stress responses to contemporary issues and political movements, writing:

So why is America so crazy? It’s the inescapable chronic stress built into the way we work and live. It’s the insane idea that an honest day’s work means suppressing your humanity, dignity, family, and other nonwork priorities in exchange for low wages that make home life constantly stressful, too. Is it surprising that Americans have started exhibiting unhelpful physical, mental, and social adaptations to chronic stress en masse? Our bodies believe this is the apocalypse.

And on top of that, people with power seem totally blind to how dire life has gotten for much of the country. The state of the union is always strong. GDP is up. Unemployment is low. Everything’s fine. They’re so insulated from the real world that they don’t or can’t understand that, for most people, our current system is obviously broken. That’s why ‘Make America Great Again’ caught on while Clinton’s counter that ‘America Is Already Great’ didn’t – people aren’t stupid. They know something isn’t right.

>196 bragan: I've had The Greenlanders sitting weightily on my shelf for years... interested to hear what you think.

I'm having a pokey reading summer too. Too much work, and too much of it reading/editing, which tires out my eyes. Let's see...

* Loved Sylvia Townsend Warner's Lolly Willowes, and our book club discussion about it was really spirited. Just a good fun book that I want to push on all my girlfriends.
* I also really enjoyed Rebecca Makkai's I Have Some Questions for You—I know it didn't land for everyone here, but as a New England boarding school survivor, I thought it was fun.
* A friend gave me a beat-up copy of Douglas Stuart's Shuggie Bain for my birthday and I just jumped right into it as soon as I had it in my hand. Extremely sad but not in a misery porn way, and also very drily funny in parts, lovely writing throughout.
* I started Daniel Mason's North Woods, which looks like it's going to hit all my happy spots, but then a few chapters in my hold of
* Work Won't Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone, by Sarah Jaffe, came in, so I put it aside for that. Jaffe's book is very heavy on labor history with a feminist slant, which I of course like, and a lot of what she's writing about is stuff I've been musing on as I muscle through my workday. I got about halfway through but had to put it down for
* Leonora Carrington's The Hearing Trumpet, for book club this Tuesday.

>206 LyndaInOregon:

Thanks for that post.

The world is burning in every sense but good luck trying to rouse attention in settings like this one. Comfortable people don't like hearing about the plight of the masses who enable their comfort, or how the foundations of their righteous democracies are set exactly so to perpetuate inequality and exploitation.

You may be interested in The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture by Gabor Maté. Maybe because he's Canadian, he doesn't hesitate to call out the problem by its name: capitalism.

I just finished Unseen: Unpublished Black History from The New York Times Photo Archives by Darcy Eveleigh, Dana Canedy, Damien Cave, and Rachel L. Swarns. This is a beautiful coffee table book full of great photographs and fascinating back stories. In 2016, New York Times photo editor Darcy Eveleigh tumbled onto the fact that there were tens of thousands of photographs and negatives languishing, usually unseen for decades, in the Times photo archives. In many cases, Times photographers or freelancers would have shot several rolls of film (remember film?) while on assignment, and either only one of the photos would have been chosen for printing in the paper, or the editors would have ended up running the story without any photos, or the stories might never have been run at all. You can find a lengthy review/description on my Club Read thread.

I'm now reading through the pocket sized City Lights Publishing edition of Frank O'Hara's poems called Lunch Poems. I've been going through them very slowly, in many cases rereading two or three times. Next for me will be something lighter, Three Thirds of a Ghost, the third entry of the obscure but entertaining Jupiter Jones mystery series from the 1940s.

Sorry, wrong thread

>206 LyndaInOregon: thanks for this review - I've put the book in my wish list.

>206 LyndaInOregon: I very much second that recommendation, and I don't even fit in any of your categories, being a Gen X-er with no kids. :) It's an incredibly eye-opening (and incredibly depressing) book.

>207 lisapeet: I'm finally almost finished with The Greenlanders, and I'm actually really enjoying how much it's just forced me to slow down and enjoy reading in the moment, because it's just not something you can speed through in order to get to the next book on the shelf. And it is rewarding the leisurely attention.