What are you reading the week of April 22, 2017?

I think that I'm going to give up the weekly biography aspect of this thread. Finding interesting authors with biographies of a suitable length turns out to be pretty challenging. Anyone who is truly interesting is either too new, and their bio is non-existent or too short; or, they have biography on Wikipedia that is far too long and would require significant editing. It ends up being a scavenger hunt each week.

How about, instead of a weekly biography, just share a couple of paragraphs from a recent book you enjoyed or one you're reading this week? :)

My reading this week:

-- Halfway through Junot Diaz' This Is How You Lose Her. I missed it when it came out and am trying to get caught up with my favorite short story writers.

-- Halfway through Joan Didion's The White Album. This is a reread. But it's been so long since my first read that it feels like new. And I'm still as impressed as before with her precise language and forthright opinions.

I've had multiple books going for the past couple of weeks, so I decided to focus on just one this week. I've finished Lost River: On the Trail of the Sarasvati, a book about the enigmatic Indus Valley Civilization. A significant portion of this ancient culture settled along a river in what is today northwest India and eastern Pakistan. Then 4000 years ago, the source waters of the river shifted, the river dried up and the civilization collapsed. But a memory of this lost civilization seems to have lived in on the Vedic literature of India which recounts a mighty river which vanished into the desert.

>3 fredbacon: Ooh. That sounds like something I would enjoy. Bookmarking to check it out later.

I finished up the very good The Black Echo, the first in Michael Connelly's "Harry Bosch" series. I'm also just about to finish up a project of several years' standing, my gradual reading of the excellent and fascinating collection, A Treasury of the World's Great Letters.

I'm going to be spending a little catch-up time with my "between books" (anthologies, collections and other books of short entries that I read one story/chapter at a time instead of straight through). After that, next up will be Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen's recently published autobiography.

>4 jennybhatt: It's an interesting book, but you should be warned that the first third of it can be tough going. It spends a lot of time covering the geology and climatology of the region. There are seemingly endless discussions of hydrological surveys of dry river beds, fossil water and the origins of different types of sediments. It is, not to put too fine a point on it, pretty dry reading. :-)

The second and third sections, which cover the archeology and the cultural connections between Indus Valley and Vedic India, are much more interesting. So you may want to skim the first part. You may also want to keep a copy of the Rig Veda near at hand as well. I think it's enlightening to check his references in the text. The author, Michel Danino, tends to downplay the Indo-European influences on the Vedas in an effort to show a continuity between the Indus Valley and later India. He is less convincing than he seems to believe. It's difficult to miss the influence of the horse centered culture of these steppe "invaders" in the Rig Veda. The Vedas seem to be the product of a new culture formed from the intermingling of these two social groups.

I'm reading Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman by Lindy West. It has made me laugh out loud several times, but it's also sad.

Still reading A Fatal Inversion, The Thousand Names, and Starfire.

I've just finished reading Celeste Ng's Everything I Never Told You, which I enjoyed quite a lot, and which was quite compulsive reading.

Next up, I think, is The Great Zoo of China by Matthew Reilly.

A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories
Lucia Berlin
5/5 stars
This is a compilation of short stories written by Lucia Berlin over the years. Berlin uses her experiences to frame her stories about living in hard times and hard places, working through addiction and the prejudices of others. If you are looking for some feel good stories, pick another book but if you are looking for great writing by an amazing author you are in the right place.

>1 fredbacon: Fred, you have done a nice job with the authors but it is okay to take a break. Maybe a entry where the other members of the group can highlight a favorite or new author.

I'm sure it was a chore doing this every week, Fred, and I appreciated your efforts. I like this thread even without the author information, so thanks for keeping it up.

I'm reading The Dark Horse by Craig Johnson. He does idiosyncracies very well.

>1 fredbacon: Thank you, Fred, for introducing us to so many authors. I've enjoyed reading about them. I appreciate the work you've done. Thank you.

As for where we go from here, the immediate need is for someone to start us off each Saturday, even if there is no "special feature" -- author bio, quotation, book excerpt, author birthdays for the week, book review, etc. What do the rest of you think?

>6 fredbacon:: Thanks, Fred. Will follow your suggestions. :)

I appreciate(d) the work you did each week, Fred. Thank you!

I finished Ann Cleeves' latest Shetland mystery, Cold Earth. It was good to be back in cold and rainy Shetland with Jimmy and Sandy. It's one of my favorite series and I'm looking forward to the next!

I've picked Crossing to Safety to read next. I've loved every Stegner book I've read and so I have high hopes for this one.

Finished Washington Square which was sad but good: Henry James really knew what makes people tick.

I'm up to the battle of Tannenberg in The Guns of August and have started to read Highway 61 Revisited by Mark Polizzotti.

Added Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! by Fannie Flagg to my reading rotation.

>16 cappybear: I've finished volume 4 of Leon Edel's biography of Henry James, The Treacherous Years. It was excellent, just as the others have been. Only one more to go, somewhere along the way. I've just started Louise Penny's Still Life, based on the many fans of her books here on LibraryThing.

Almost done with The Good Father which I started right after finishing Noah Hawley's Before the Fall. I have an idea how it's going to end and if I'm right, I will save myself the trouble of reading another of his books because while he is a good writer who spins an enthralling tale, the endings (at least of Before The Fall) are a supreme let-down.

>1 fredbacon: It's been lovely having the bios to start the thread but I am delighted just to have the thread started. No worries if you drop the bio!

I finished Do We Not Bleed, by Patricia Finney, a mystery set in Elizabethan times. It was surprisingly good although quite gory. Finney really captures the sense of how the regular and poor people of London lived. Shakespeare, small pox and the plague all make appearances! I took off stars because there were so many typos in the beginning. There is a second book and I'm probably going to have to read it. :)

Joan Didion's prose is... immaculate. -- Edit: sorry! I'm new here and just learning the ropes of the system. This was meant to be a comment on jennybhat's reference to Joan Didion's White Album. ...which I now too wish to re-read.

Halfway throughAriel Levy's memoir The Rules Do Not Apply which I started this morning and will finish tonight. I can tell already I would give it 5 stars. Excellent writing, quick pace, full of emotion from the highest highs to the lowest lows. After I finish, I plan on looking up her magazine articles from the New Yorker where she is a staff writer.

I am listening to The Woman on the Stairs and reading Aracoeli.

>2 jennybhatt: >21 mjanecolette: I discovered Joan Didion in the 60s in the magazine pieces that were anthologized in Slouching Towards Bethlehem. And then, in 1970, just as I was living in my first apartment and starting my teaching career, I read Play It As It Lays. Somewhere in there, her voice got inside my head. I think of it as one of the most significant voices of my life, the voice that wherever and wherever I have found it, is the easiest to fall or slip into.

>21 mjanecolette: and >24 mollygrace:: Yes, I am finding her voice gets right inside the head too. For me, she's getting close up there with Virginia Woolf, my all-time favorite writer. I have read the odd essay online too but, other than The White Album, I do not have any of her other collections. Something I intend to remedy shortly.

>1 fredbacon: fred bacon Thanks for all your work. We do appreciate your efforts.

Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam
Pope Brock
5/5 stars
In this fascinating and outrageous story set in the early 20th century, Pope Brock covers the true life story of Dr. John R. Brinkley, famous doctor, would be politician, businessman and radio innovator who is not all that he seems to be when in fact he is a fake and charlatan taking advantage of his patients and convincing them he could renew their sexual vigor. But instead of healing patients he causes pain and death while being pursued by Morris Fishbein, physician and editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, who is determined to see Brinkley be punished and removed from harming further patients. One of the best non-fiction books I have ever read.

Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks. Recently removed from my night time reading pile and began to read it for its own sake. What a lyrical book, despite its subject matter, and what descriptions of harrowing battles.
The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison. Much better night time reading. And it does the trick :)
Throne of Jade by Naomi Novik. It's my lunchtime reading, and since I'm not working right now I don't always get out of the house for lunch. But it is a good follow up to the Temeraire series.
Bleak House by Charles Dickens. Almost finished!

Finished reading Aracoeli. An emotionally intense Italian novel with absolutely amazing prose, even as a translation!

I am now going to read Natural Novel by Georgi Gospodinov. I continue listening to The Woman on the Stairs.

I've finished Junot Diaz' This Is How You Lose Her. I didn't like it as much as I thought I would.

Some of the stories are linked, which I do like, because we get to know the recurring characters well through different stories. Several stories are written in second-person point-of-view, which I am not always a huge fan of. And, of course, all the stories have, among other themes, love and/or lust in their varying forms as the dominant one. I daresay that if Diaz had not woven in other themes, I would have given this collection a wide miss despite it being so well-written. I also found the cultural depiction of gender dynamics rather depressing (though it is realistic, I know.)

I'm sure many of you here have had that with certain books you've read -- that you really like the author and his/her writing but, just sometimes, a particular book doesn't appeal to you because of its content. Please share which books and why. I'm always curious about such readerly things. :)

>10 JulieLill:: That Lucia Berlin collection has been on my list for a year or so now. Bumping it up my TBR pile with your review there. :)

Finished the marvelous Natural Novel and I am moving on to a book I have wanted to read for a long time, Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn.

Finished The Thousand Names by Django Wexler. Really enjoyed the book. Added A Taste of Honey by Kai Ashante Wilson into my reading rotation.

My Name is Lucy Barton – Elizabeth Strout
Book on CD performed by Kimberly Farr
5*****

Excerpt from the book jacket: Lucy Barton is recovering from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn’t spoken for many years, comes to see her. Gentle gossip about people from Lucy’s childhood seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every aspect ofr Lucy’s life.

My Reaction:
I love character-driven novels such as this one. Strout writes beautifully, with prose that reveals her characters to the reader with nuance and grace. Lucy’s recollections and probing questions lead her mother to reveal some of the “why” behind how Lucy came to be the woman she is; by exploring her family life as a child she comes to understand her desire to become a writer and her own relationship with her two daughters and her husband. But mostly Lucy reflects on mothers and daughters, the ways they communicate – both with and without words – and the love they feel even when they cannot openly express it.

When I finished listening to the audio, I picked up the text and read it again from the beginning.

Kimberly Farr does a fine job performing the audio book. Her tone and timber were perfect for this contemplative novel. I felt as if Lucy, herself, was confiding in me.

Long May She Reign by Rhiannon Thomas
Teen fantasy

I finished W. G. Sebald's profound and haunting The Emigrants today.

I also read this excellent article about Sebald and his book:

http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/w-g-sebald-and-the-emigrants

The article was written by Andre Aciman, and seeing his name reminded me I haven't read his latest novel, Enigma Variations, so that's what I'm reading now.

Thanks to everyone for the kind words. For some reason I enjoy reading the comments in this thread. I learned about a lot of good books from reading everyone's weekly reading list. It has lead me to a lot of books I never would have tried otherwise. I always look forward to setting up this thread. I may occasionally still add the odd biography, but right now I'm wicked busy at work.

I think that I've been living in New England too long. Wicked has become my go to intensifier. :-)

I've just finished, and been disappointed by Louise Penny's Still Life. The most striking thing about the book was Ms. Penny's comments in the Acknowledgements section in which spoke of her extreme loneliness at an earlier time in her life.

The book itself was full of characters discussing positive life strategies. Although her Quebec border village was not presented as an art colony, almost everyone seemed to be involved in the arts. None of this was believable. Three different characters were interested in W. H. Auden, but there didn't seem to be an Auden society in town. C. S. Lewis was cited along the way as part of the spiritual subtext.

There was a gay subplot that had nothing to do with the plot and involved uncomfortable caricatures. The author seemed to be spreading her personal philosophy among the characters without regard for its pertinence to her story or characters.

One character was a great, not good poet. One character created a sculpture, which we're assured would one day make her famous. The murder victim turns out to have been a painter of genius.

One young policewoman can't learn from the homilies of our wise detective because she has a restricted self-centered view of life and isn't a good team player, but nothing in the story makes this pertinent. The killer's problem is that he never learned to take an active, positive approach to his life!

I'm glad that the author found her way out of her unhappiness, but she should write a heartfelt non-fiction book on the subject. Obviously, my opinion is a minority one, but I was disheartened by the wholesale acceptance of Still Life as marvelous return to an older tradition of mystery writing. It must be a long time since fans have read the best of Dorothy Sayers and Josephine Tey to name two sterling examples of what the old style mystery can be.

I finished a excellent book which seems to be obscure based on the few people here who've read the book. Jacob's Well presents a love triangle against a backdrop of cave scuba diving with unique, complicated and intriguing characters.

I was just reading through this week's posts again. I'm delighted to see the names of so many favorite authors and books.

>35 BookConcierge: Elizabath Strout -- I treasure My Name is Lucy Barton and I'm eager to read her new one, Anything is Possible -- I understand Lucy Barton makes an appearance in this one?

>10 JulieLill: Lucia Berlin's wonderful stories. I've been slowly making my way through A Manual for Cleaning Women. I could have finished long ago but do not want this book to end. I happened upon the story "Bluebonnets" in the week after friends and I went for a drive to see the bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush and other Texas wildflowers in all their glory. So maybe I was exactly where I was supposed to be in that book. Timing is everything.

>15 Copperskye: Wallace Stegner -- Crossing to Safety. One of my best reading experiences. I think I read the entire book out loud just to savor the beautiful prose.

>16 cappybear: Henry James - I love Washington Square. The Wings of the Dove has been close to the top of my tbr pile for awhile now -- soon, soon.

>29 threadnsong: Sebastian Faulks -- Birdsong. Another treasure. I should start a tbrr (to be reread) pile right next to mount tbr. Soon I'd have twin peaks.

>40 snash: Jacob's Well - Stephen Harrigan wrote this book. I've enjoyed his writing for Texas Monthly for so many years. Thank you for recommending this novel.

And Dickens and Didion and Diaz and so many more, plus a clutch of new authors -- new to me anyway.

Thank you all for sharing your reading experiences here -- these books and authors are the source of so much inspiration and pleasure.

Finished the absolutely marvelous Ella Minnow Pea. Next up to read is Bright Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne by John Keats.

Finished A Taste of Honey by Kai Ashante Wilson. The edition was so badly formatted on the Kindle it was almost unreadable and definitely pushed enjoyment toward the negative side.

Next into the reading rotation is All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders.

I have just finished another good Longmire mystery called The Dark Horse. I'm not sure what I'll tackle next, perhaps Linwood Barclay or Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.

> 44 That's funny you mentioned The Handmaid's Tale; it's been a few years, but I love that book and just watched the first episode of the new series last night. I think it's a great adaptation so far. It was great to see Margaret Atwood make a cameo. Makes me want to reread it.

>39 lansingsexton: I couldn't agree with you more about Still Life. The author has a very loyal fan base for this series which is approaching ten books I believe. The stereotyping of the gay couple made me cringe, especially when, for no apparent reason, they are overheard singing "It's Raining Men"!

Currently reading Golden Hill by Francis Spufford, described as "the best 18th century novel since the 18th century". Written in the style of Fielding, it takes a bit to get used to the rhythm, but it's a good story with compelling characters.

The new thread is up over here.

The Yonahlossee Riding Camp For Girls – Anton DiSclafani
Book on CD read by Adina Verson
3***

In 1930, fifteen-year-old Thea Atwell is sent from her Florida home by her parents to a boarding school in the Blue Ridge Mountains, to remove her from a scandal that has rocked her family’s foundations. It’s the early part of the Great Depression, but the residents at Yonahlassee Riding Camp for Girls are from the kinds of wealthy families that will generally survive and even prosper during this time. Isolated from home, they form their own societal norms, and Thea struggles to find her place.

The story is told in alternating time frames: the events leading up to the scandal, and the events at the school during Thea’s year at Yonahlossee. The reader watches Thea grow from a tomboy to a curious pre-teen, to a sexually charged young woman. As she related what is happening and how she feels about everything, I found myself worried for this emotionally distant girl, who seemed unable to control her impulses or to recognize the potential consequences of her actions.

One thing that bothers me: Does no one recognize the predatory nature of the men/boys involved? Both Georgie and Henry take advantage of Thea. Even though she is an apparently willing partner, she is vulnerable due to her age, isolation and lack of experience.

Adina Verson does a fine job of voicing the audio book. Her detached, almost monotone, delivery really gives me a sense of Thea’s loneliness and struggle.

Epitaph – Mary Doria Russell
Audiobook performed by Hillary Huber
4****

From the book jacket: A deeply divided nation. Vicious politics. A shamelessly partisan media. A president scorned by half the populace. Smuggling and gang warfare along the Mexican border. Armed citizens willing to stand their ground and take law into their own hands … That was America in 1881.

My reactions

In a sequel to her earlier novel, Doc, Russell explores what REALLY happened at the OK Corral. The events and circumstances leading up to that fateful battle are disturbingly familiar. The gunfight itself lasted a mere 30 seconds, but the ramifications affected the survivors’ lives for the remainder of their days.

I love Russell’s writing. She does extensive research and is not content to give us only one side of the issues, or one facet of the characters involved: the three Earp brothers, Wyatt, Morgan, and Virgil, and their steadfast friend Doc Holliday. I particularly liked how she focused on the women who loved these men: Josephine, Alvira (Allie), Mattie, Bessie, Louisa, and Kate.

The chief characters in this novel are Josie Marcus and Wyatt Earp, and the last sixty pages, or so, relate Wyatt’s last years and Josie’s efforts to immortalize his role in the history of the American West. I found their story compelling, and it is made richer by Russell’s attention to all the other characters. From the blustering Johnny Behan to the drunken Ike Clanton, every character fairly leaps off the page. Yet, I must confess that what I really wanted was more of Doc.

Hillary Huber does a fine job performing the audio version. Her skill as a voice artist is put to the test with the many characters, but she is up to the task.