What Fiction are you reading this week, September 10, 2023?

[hermetic]

Bookshop on wheels in Canada

I'm still reading A Visit from the Goon Squad, an unusual book. Sometimes it's great and sometimes it's grating. I'm at the final chapter that is supposedly taking place in our foreseeable future and not liking it at all. Earlier in the book there were mentions of major things being done to combat global warming but somewhere along the way, other important things seem to have somehow been lost.

Just finished listening to We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker. I had a hard time staying with this one. It just did not hold my interest. Sometimes it made me laugh, though, and it did have a surprise ending.
Now I'm listening to Robert B. Parker's The Devil Wins by Reed Farrel Coleman. Parker was the famous author of over 70 novels including the series which became the TV show Spencer: For Hire. Sadly, he died in 2010 but some of his series have been continued by other authors, like Coleman. The Devil Wins is a Jesse Stone crime thriller involving the discovery of a recently killed man along with the skeletons of 2 young girls who had disappeared 25 years earlier. Good so far.

What fiction are you reading and listening to these days?

[Easterncedar]

1. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

It’s wonderful. I read A God in Ruins, which is a later, related book, last month and it brought me completely to tears. Devastating. I didn’t want it to end, so was glad to learn that this story involves the same family and the same period and delighted to discover it at my favorite home town book store when I was back for a visit. (The Book Corner in Niagara Falls, NY. It’s a fabulous old palace/warren of books, and if Jeff Morrow doesn’t have a book he will find it for you and ship it right out. Everyone should buy their books from him, or someone like him.)

[hermetic]

4. Aww, that sounds

like a great place. Nice town, too. And good books.

[The King of Prussia]

2. "Grey Mask" by Patricia Wentworth

The first in her "Miss Silver" series of mysteries.

Earlier in the week I read "Death of a Partner" and "Death among the Dons" by Janet Neel. I shall be looking for the rest of the series - although I think they're out of print.

[hermetic]

5. Gosh, "Grey Mask"

is from 1928. I'm surprised you found that one. That dear lady went on to write around 60 more before she left us in 1961. Her "ALTER EGO, MISS MAUD SILVER, IS THE CLEVER CRIME-SOLVER OF DIABOLICAL CASES OF DECEIT, MURDER, AND MISTAKEN IDENTITY... A CAREFUL INVESTIGATOR WHO SEES DEEP INTO THE DARK SIDE OF THE HUMAN HEART." Sounds delightful.

Ms. Neel is more recent and her latest, published in 2005, Ticket to Ride, sounds quite good. "A remarkably prescient mystery, flagging up the exploitation of illegal immigrants tempted by the offer of work in agriculture in East Anglia and begins with the discovery of eight bodies in shallow graves on a beach near King's Lynn."

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

17. Not surprising to find it at all

Since I often read old school mysteries, Amazon inundates me with the Miss Silver books that are on sale. The Miss Silver series is always in the recommendation lists for me.

[txwhitedove]

3. Happy beautiful Sunday. Now reading The Appeal by John Grisham, who always tells

a great story that comes alive with colorful characters. This was written 15 years ago, but issues of big corporations, big money, political operatives and judicial corruption are very current.

Our local public library was destroyed by Hurricane Harvey in 2017. This week I found their current 1-room location in the arboretum next door, got a new replacement card, and found out they are finally in repair and restoration of original brick library. Yay! A true neighborhood library with computers, activities, movie night, etc. My project this week is online research of library ebooks and audible books. Did find these can be downloaded to my Kindle app. I still prefer real hardback books, but the library is always a cost saving alternative, especially for more newer titles.

[hermetic]

6. Great news

about your library coming back. Thanks for sharing that story, and your reading choice. Grisham always appeals.

[mentalsolstice]

7. Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell

It’s been awhile since I’ve enjoyed a good mystery/thriller. I picked this one up from Scribd, which I’m trying out for 30 days. So far, so good.

I finished Good Night, Irene by Luis Alberto Urrea. It was so, so good! Thanks japple for recommending it. I never knew about the ARC’s Donut Dollies and their clubmobiles during WWII. Interesting history, it’s too bad they are never depicted in the movies, etc.

[hermetic]

8. Sounds like a really good story

Jewell has written several over the past 15 years or so that have been award winners.

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

19. That was the last audiobook I listened to

When I was doing the cancer treatment thing. I had it for the interminable waiting room times, and the trip over in the car. When that all stopped, I didn't have a reason to listen to audiobooks anymore, and never got around to finishing it.

If you liked the book abut Donut Dollies, have you tried The Bookwoman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michelle Richardson? It's about a woman who was a "pack librarian" in Kentucky during the Depression. FDR set up the pack librarian program to provide books by horseback to people in areas so poor and isolated that they couldn't get to libraries at all. There's far more to the book than that, but I'll let you discover the rest on your own.

[mentalsolstice]

22. Troublesome Creek sounds really good

Most of my family are from and still live in KY, except for me the native Floridian. I’ll give it a look, and I see that she has written a follow up. Thank you!

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

23. She has written a follow up, about the Book woman's daughter.

And the title is... The Book Woman's Daughter, LOL.

https://www.kimmichelerichardson.com/thebookwomansdaughter

[yellowdogintexas]

24. This is one of those books that has stayed with me.

The sequel is also very good. The characters are so beautifully drawn - from the main characters all the way to those only mentioned briefly.

I am a native Kentuckian and knew about the Book Project but no details really, so I had a double reason to want to read about it.

There is a secondary plot line which I will not reveal, but is quite fascinating. It was genius for the author to pull it into the story.


By the way, what part of KY ? I grew up in the Pennyrile area north of Nashville.

[mentalsolstice]

28. My family are all from counties east of Lexington

Mom’s family is from Winchester, Dad’s was from Carlisle.

[yellowdogintexas]

30. Logan and Todd counties here. State line counties,

in the triangle of Bowling Green and Hopkinsville KY and Clarksville Tennessee.

Did you ever notice how Kentuckians nearly always identify what county they come from , not the town unless it is one of the (few) cities.

[mentalsolstice]

31. That's true, especially for my dad's family.

They’re from Carlisle, Nicholas County, it’s much more rural, and they lived all over the county. My mom is from Winchester (Clark County), which is part of the Lexington-Fayette MSA. Her family all lived in Winchester, with a few in Lexington. However, they all identified by county or say outside of Lexington, even when talking about other counties in KY.

It’s funny that you mentioned that, I never really thought about it. Every place I lived, we identified by town or city, no matter what size it was.

[Polly Hennessey]

9. I am just beginning, Desert Star, by Michael Connelly.

Nice to be with Bosch again.

[hermetic]

10. Always

Great story.

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

20. I've been a huge Connelly fan since the late 90s.

After reading Black Echo, I all but inhaled all of the series up to the point that I started reading, which was Angels Flight.

It's torture every year since then waiting for the new Bosch to come out, but always worth it.

[mike_c]

11. no fiction at the moment, but...

...since this seems to be the only currently active reading group on DU, I'll mention that I'm reading American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin. I'm almost finished.

This is a period in modern history that has long interested me, from the Great Depression through the Cold War. I've read other biographies of Oppenheimer and other accounts of that period, but Bird and Sherwin's account is less the story about atomic energy or of other people's lives with Oppenheimer and more about Oppenheimer himself. If you like biographies and twentieth century history, American Prometheus is excellent. If you have a particular interest in Oppenheimer and the dawn of the the atomic age that's just icing on the cake.

Edit: I'm not a movie goer, so I haven't seen the movie and probably never will.

[hermetic]

12. Any reading is good reading, IMO

I might see the movie after it comes out on DVD. Or not.

[Scrivener7]

13. Just cracked open "Small Mercies" by Dennis Lehane. Really looking forward to it.

[hermetic]

14. Oh, nice.

" bestselling writer returns with a masterpiece to rival Mystic River -- an all-consuming tale of revenge, family love, festering hate, and insidious power, set against one of the most tumultuous episodes in Boston's history."

Thanks for making us aware of this. "a superb thriller, a brutal depiction of criminality and power, and an unflinching portrait of the dark heart of American racism. It is a mesmerizing and wrenching work that only Dennis Lehane could write."

[mentalsolstice]

15. I have also been eyeing that book.

Love Dennis Lehane, Mystic River and Shutter Island are two of my favorites, books and movies. He is one of those authors who writes what he knows, and he knows the Boston area so well.

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

21. Weird

I've read all of his early books, the Kenzie & Gennaro mysteries. But I've never gotten around to his newer stuff.

Don't know why.

[Jilly_in_VA]

16. Stayed up too late Saturday night

finishing Midnight and Bex by Heather Van Fleet. It's billed as a dark YA romance, but quite honestly I am not entirely sure it's totally YA. Well, I do read YA and not ashamed to admit it, but this one handles a lot of pretty adult themes, including cults, dysfunctional families, alcoholism, psychological trauma, abuse of various kinds, etc., so maybe only older teens. Anyway, it was so good I stayed up way too late several nights reading!

Now starting Nefertiti's Sister by Felicia Roche. Not very far in, but it shows promise. Well written, to be sure. On the downstairs Kindle, Im sporadically reading Good Kings, Bad Kings by Susan Nussbaum. This one takes place in a youh home for the disabled and is told in multiple voices. It's kind of fragmented but interesting. It reminds me of the days I worked with disabled kids.

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

18. Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian

Normally, I can get through a book of this length in 2-3 days. But not this one. Sure, difficult literature or boring/silly subject matter often makes me sleepy and that always prolongs my reading time (hello, Moby Dick); however, this is neither difficult nor boring. At all.

Yet I find myself falling asleep when I read it, even when I'm not tired. I love the writing, I love the narrative... So why the sleepiness? I finally realized that the book is so introspective and the pace is so measured and leisurely that it's soothing and tranquil, and that lulls me right to sleep.

I'm now reading a few pages of Dean Koontz's Darkness Under the Sun if I start nodding off. My husband, a big Koontz fan, tells me that his work will keep me awake. I have a feeling he'll wind up right. I'm only a couple of chapters in, and I'm already getting creeped out. But if it keeps me awake...

[yellowdogintexas]

25. On Sunday I was reading Black Widow by Daniel Silva

It actually comes before House of Spies in the reading order and I wish I had realized they were connected before I read them. It was so good. I love this author

Now, our power went out on Friday (the 8th) and was out until Sunday afternoon. I could read. thanks to my fully charged Kindles. I ended up entangled in several books at once depending on which kindle I was using. We did not get internet until late Wednesday so I have been off DU since Friday the 8th!

[yellowdogintexas]

26. It's amazing what losing the internet can do. I read 6 books between the 8th and THursday

after Black Widow....
Pierced By The Sun Laura Esquivel she also wrote Like Water For Chocolate

Good Crime Alex King (Kat Makris Greek Mafia book)

These Silent Woods Kim Cunningham Grant

The Cult of Venus: Templars and the Ancient Goddess David Brody

Reborn: The Serendipitous Curse #1 by Aiden James and Lisa Collicutt
.
Aiden James does some great paranormal and scary writing.

This is just too long a list to put a big description of each one. It isn't often one can have a marathon such as this. Just glad my Kindles were charged so I got through the weekend.

[yellowdogintexas]

27. Currently reading Thief's Honor: A Dak Harper Adventure Relic Runner book #6 Ernest Dempsey

I love Ernest Dempsey's books. Lots of action and interesting stuff; great characters. Wonderful escape route from this insane world

THERE'S A TIME TO RUN, AND A TIME TO FIGHT.

On the run after his brothers-in-arms betrayed him in the Middle East, the former Delta Force commando has hidden in plain sight in, of all places, the art world. Turns out Dak’s particularly lethal set of skills translates well to hunting down stolen relics across the globe. The money he earns from his eccentric young benefactor means he can afford to lay low and keep moving.
Good thing, too, because his former commanding officer, Col. Cameron Tucker, still wants him dead. And has doubled his efforts to track Dak down.

In a last, desperate attempt to lure Dak from the shadows, Tucker somehow uncovers the only thing on earth Dak cares about, the one thing he’s worked so hard to hide, the one person whose memory has kept him alive so far—his ex, Nicole.
When Tucker and his mercs kidnap Nicole, Dak fears the worst. But Tucker is willing to make a trade: Nicole’s life in exchange for a priceless Renaissance painting from one of the world’s great masters.

Problem is that painting was stolen thirty years ago. And no one knows who took it or where they’ve stashed it. It could be anywhere in the world.

That’s bad news for Dak, who has only five days to track down the masterpiece, steal it back, and make the trade with Tucker—or Tucker swears he’ll kill her.

Dak knows he’s crazy to take these odds and that the old colonel has surely laid new hidden traps for him. He can almost feel himself in the crosshairs. But he’s got no choice. He knows he has to give his all, maybe even his life, to save the one person in this world he loves.

This is galloping along, just like every other Ernest Dempsey novel I have read.

I'll be finished by SUnday and can start over fresh!!

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

29. 6 books in a week is typical for me

I've always been a fast reader, and 400 pages in a day will fly by for me if a book is good enough. And as long as it's not too dry or abstruse. Or introspective/artsy.

Like this week. Soul Mountain was a tough read but not because it's bad or dry. The book is so peaceful that it's Zen (actually Dao), and that kept lulling me to sleep. I tend to be an insomniac, so I've caught up on my sleep this week--and feel better for it. Still, I have other books I want to get to, and needed to finish this one book to get to them.

That's why I have a back up plan to pick up something else to read for 15 or so minutes to give me a "break" from a difficult/sleep-inducing work. Sometimes it's been a chapter or two from another book on my TBR pile, but sometimes I'll tap a short story, essay, or some poetry. This summer, I decided to make the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe my primary tough-book-filler, and it turned out to be a brilliant choice for that purpose. However, he's so very weird that sometimes I need a break from him as much as I do from the tough books, LOL. Hence the random other works I read as fillers.