What are you reading the week of December 8, 2018?

I slept in late, which was great. I should finish up my two reads today. This whole year has been a shambles for me reading wise. I've barely had time to devote to it. Looking forward to a better year in 2019.

Better, calmer year wishes, Fred. Life getting crazy can feel good, I suppose, but I myownself never experienced that.

My read today is a review-writing skim of Side Life by Steve Toutonghi. Lovely way to explore the inner life of a young tech superstar-turned-failure in a science-fictional adventure. Good stuff.

Becoming by Michelle Obama is tantalizing me from the coffee table (a birthday gift from my darling daughters who know their Mama well) but first I'll be finishing Penelope Fitzgerald's excellent short story collection The Means of Escape.

>3 NarratorLady: Anne, I'm #313 on the library list for Becoming and would just like to know if your daughters are available for adoption.

I'm just at the final pages of Roger Zelazny's hypnotic SF novel from 1966, The Dream Master. Next up I'll be reading the last essay in Joan Didion's classic collection, Slouching Toward Bethlehem and then diving into Field Gray, the 7th book in Philip Kerr's terrific "Bernie Gunther - Berlin Noir" series. That will bring my 50-Book Challenge list to 49! We'll see if I have time for 400 pages of Bernie Gunther and then another book besides before the year is out!

If anyone has a Tolkiener on their list, here's a special good today (12/8/18) only:
Kindle Tolkien books $3 today only

Hobbit & LotR: http://amzn.to/2L6uH3y
Silmarillion: http://amzn.to/2rqq2R1
Fall of Gondolin: http://amzn.to/2E67jSy
Beren & Lúthien: http://amzn.to/2Ekbfjq
Children of Húrin: http://amzn.to/2Qm8kgo
Unfinished Tales: http://amzn.to/2rpWX8B

Still reading Dreams of Distant Shores, Never Stop, and The Reality Dysfunction.

>4 richardderus: 😂 Sorry Richard, they're keepers. Wow though,#313! I hear it's a pretty quick read so I hope you get it sooner than it looks!

>8 NarratorLady: *sigh*

Well, maybe the fact that there are 66 copies in the system will work in my favor.

Oh, and I wrote my review of Steve Toutonghi's second novel Side Life. Good stuff.

Started on Twelve Red Herrings by Jeffrey Archer

A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe awaits me on the Kindle. I am hell bent for leather to finish The Dreaming Stars, too, and then I've got The Psychology of Time Travel to review for the publisher.

How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease by Michael Greger MD

Too late for me to die young!

The recent AMC TV series inspired me to re-read The Little Drummer Girl after many years. Good, rich in detail, but I am finding it a little slow moving.

I've been really struggling to read due to the annual appearance of seasonal depression. Last week I re-read The Rosie Project, which cheered me up for the third year in a row! Now I'm reading The Owl Always Hunts at Night by Samuel Bjork, which is excellent; Norwegian crime fiction and thoroughly absorbing.

For the past few years I've enjoyed reading Carol Goodman around Christmas. This year it's The Drowning Tree. I think I know whodunit but it's Carol Goodman so we'll see!

Shadow Weaver
MarcyKate Connolly
4/5 stars
This YA story revolves around Emmeline, a young girl who has a special gift of making shadows. She is also magically connected to Dar, her shadow companion. The noble family is determined to rid these special children of their gifts and so Emmeline and Dar leave their home. On their travels they find out that there are other children with special gifts that are also in hiding. I thoroughly enjoyed this first book in this YA series. The sequel to this book is coming out in 2019 and is called Comet Rising.

Dipping into Volume One of Collected Short Stories by Somerset Maugham the first story has already captured me Rain he is a wonderful writer, his character descriptions are superb.

Recently finished reading Wedding Wipeout by Jacob M. Appel.

I have just started The Songbird Girls by Richard Parker which is looking good, so far.

Started this library audiobook ~

Robert B. Parker's Blood Feud by Mike Lupica
(Sunny Randall series/in this update installment SR must deal with the Mob to help her mob-connected ex-husband and prevent a Mob war)

UPDATE: pulled the plug

>18 aussieh: Rain is one of my favourite stories of all time, and W. Somerset Maugham one of my favourite writers. You have a whole volume of wonderful tales ahead of you!

I just finished The Owl Always Hunts at Night by Samuel Bjork. It was pretty good, but not a patch on his first book.

I'm not finding it easy to concentrate at the moment, so I have three books on the go, and I dip into each one as my addled brain lets me. So I'm reading Njal's Saga, which is the great 13th century Icelandic saga; I'm reading Independent People by Halldor Laxness, and also Between Summer's Longing and Winter's End by Leif GW Persson. Hopefully I'll be able to finish at least one of them this week.

Just finished listening to Varina by Charles Frazier. Very good.

Next up for listening is My Own Words by Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Finished The darkness Icelandic crime novel by Jonasson, and it WAS dark.

Now reading 3 very different books - all good so far.
House of the scorpion Nancy Farmer. SciFic
A well-behaved woman: a novel of the Vanderbilts
by Therese Fowler. Hist Fic
Pieces of her Karin Slaughter. Suspense/thriller

>21 ahef1963:

I am sure you are right, looking forward to savoring the contents.

My 'home' book is Plain-Speaking Jane and my 'bus' book is The Calculating Stars. While the former is interesting enough I am thoroughly enjoying the latter and very much looking forward to the sequel.

Starting this Kindle/Audible combo ~

Bones Don't Lie (Morgan Dane Book 3) by Melinda Leigh

(Morgan and Lance/suspense/Lance has been wondering what happened to his father for over two decades)

I finished it! I finished it! My review of The Dreaming Stars is up at last. I liked it better than the first book, and like the first book better than I did before I read this one.

I'm trying to make my way out of a slump so I'm on The Crucifix Killer by Chris Carter.

I raced through Field Gray, the 7th book in Philip Kerr's ridiculously good "Bernie Gunther" Berlin Noir series. In this book, Bernie is forced to navigate the espionage minefield of early Cold War Berlin. Great pacing and very good writing, with lots of fascinating history mixed in. Happily, in this entry Kerr jettisoned most of the tough guy noir patter that had littered many of the earlier books.

Next up, I'm sticking with the crime genre, with Behind that Curtain, the third book in Earl Derr Biggers' "Charlie Chan" series, first published in the 1930s.

Hey, I forgot to mention last weekend that I'm going to be away this Saturday visiting family. I need someone to start the thread for me. Could someone here take care of that for me? Thanks.

Looking forward to hearing this OverDrive novel ~

Kennedy Debutante by Kerri Maher

(London & US, 1930s/Kennedy family saga ~ Kick Kennedy's life is center stage)
https://www.librarything.com/work/21448097/book/163294601

>30 fredbacon: I can do it. Have fun with your family!

I'm reading Goodnight sweet prince by Emma Blair

>30 fredbacon: Have a great time visiting family, Fred, and >32 PaperbackPirate: beat me to an offer. Oh dear, oh well, boo hoo!!

After finishing Michelle Obama’s fabulous Becoming, I picked up some Christmas books, Homer and the Holiday Miracle by Gwen Cooper, To Every Thing There is Season by Alistair MacLeod, and now, Rumpole Christmas by John Mortimer.

I finished Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire which was a terrifying look at the number of fantasies prevalent now and a look at where they came from as far back as the first American settlements. Assuredly not the single factor explaining where we now are but a significant one.

>36 snash: Well, that's a cheery little number! ;-)

New thread: http://www.librarything.com/topic/300256

Sutton – J R Moehringer
Book on CD narrated by Dylan Baker
3***

Everyone knows the Willie Sutton quote; asked why he robbed banks, Sutton purportedly said, “That’s where the money was.” Of course, this was later questioned, but it has remained part of the Sutton lore. In this historical fiction novel, Moehringer tries to explain why Willie robbed all those banks. In a brief author’s note Moehringer relates that after spending half his life in prison, Sutton was released from Attica on Christmas Eve 1969. He spent the entire day with a reporter and a photographer, retracing the steps of his personal history through the boroughs of New York City. The resulting article, however, was curiously sparse in detail. Moehringer writes: “Sadly, Sutton and the reporter and the photographer are all gone, so what happened among them that Christmas, and what happened to Sutton during the preceding sixty-eight years, is anyone’s guess. This book is my guess. But it’s also my wish.”

I wanted to like this. I remember the hoopla when Sutton was released in 1969, and I’ve always been fascinated by true crime works. I knew this was a novel, however, I expected something along the lines of other novels I’ve read that are “fictionalized biographies.”

The trouble I had here was Moehringer’s chosen device. Following Sutton, the reporter and the photographer throughout Christmas day 1969, and then having Sutton recall one event after another from his past. It just didn’t work for me. I would be involved in the past and then yanked to the back seat of the car while Willie’s scarfing down donuts provided by the photographer. I also didn’t like the author’s choice to call his characters not by name, but by their roles in Sutton’s life: Photographer, Reporter, Left Cop, Right Cop, etc. It annoyed me.

On the plus side, I really liked the sections where we were living in Sutton’s past. Moehringer brought the 1920s and 1930s to life in his descriptions and scenes on the streets of Brooklyn, or in the prison cells in which Sutton was held.

Dylan Baker does a credible job of narrating the audiobook. It’s difficult to follow at times because of the constant moving back and forth in time. The text version using different fonts to give the reader a clue, but the person listening to the audio version doesn’t get any such clue. That’s not the narrator’s fault, it’s the author’s.

Blind Descent – Nevada Barr
3***

Book six in the mystery series starring U.S. Park Ranger Anna Pigeon takes Anna to New Mexico’s Carlsbad Caverns, where one of her friends, and an avid caver, has been seriously injured while exploring a new (and not open to the public) cave system. Frieda has a serious head injury and is mostly unconscious, but she has asked for Anna. So, Anna swallows her claustrophobia to come to her friend’s aid. In a brief moment of lucidity, Frieda tells Anna that it was not an accident.

Much of the action in this book takes place in the confined spaces underground, and Barr spends a lot of time setting up the mystery and going into excruciating detail on the difficulties of exploring such a cave. I felt a little claustrophobic myself a few times.

I like Anna; she’s mentally and physically strong, intelligent, independent, and fiercely determined. Barr includes issues of corporate greed and environmental concerns, while extolling the majestic beauty of pristine caves, and praising the dedication of scientists and volunteers who try to map newly discovered underground treasures.

This is a totally satisfying mystery in a series with a strong female lead.