What are you reading the week of August 29, 2020?

Starting the new week off.

Still reading:
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction July/August 2019
Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 164
Winds of Marque
Ballistic
The Jungle Book

Tess of the Road by Rachel Hartman (YA)
It's the companion to the Seraphina duet.

I've just started Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery by Leon F. Litwack, a famous and well-regarded history of the Reconstruction Era. I'm only about 25 pages into this 556 page book, but already I can see why it's so well thought of. It's very well written and detailed.

Just finished The Devil and Webster, which was slow but interesting. Lincoln in the Bardo was actually at the top of my TBR stack, but I bumped it in favor of the Sally Field bio, In Pieces. Sue me. My brain is tired.

This week it's as if I've forgotten how to read for pleasure. I have about two minutes' worth of concentration and then I play games on my phone. I am 21 pages into Masters of the Planet: The Search for our Human Origins by Ian Tattersall, and I've been at 21 pages since Tuesday.

Two books by Haruki Murakami arrived this week. I've only ever read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and am looking forward to reading one of the two books very soon unless my brain has decided to erode on a permanent basis.

>5 ahef1963: Which 2 books? I love Murakami!

I"m reading my Early Reviewer, High Cotton by Kristie Robin Johnson. So far it's been a sober collection of essays sharing the author's life as a Black child growing up in the south, to her struggles as a woman. I appreciate the experiences she's shared.

>6 PaperbackPirate: I read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle years back and came away rather confused but fascinated. My new Murakamis are Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World and IQ84, which is huge and looks daunting. I'm going to start with Hard Boiled Wonderland.

Which are your favourite books by Murakami?

I'm reading The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson's latest. I'm finding it difficult to concentrate but I'm pretty sure it's not the book's fault.

>6 PaperbackPirate: >7 ahef1963: I've only read Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage but I remember liking it!

The Penguin Lessons: What I Learned From a Remarkable Bird
Tom Michell
4/5 stars
Tom Michell recalls his time in South America as a traveler, a teacher and an owner of a penguin. Tom is traveling in Uruguay when an oil spill occurs. He witnesses thousands of birds entrenched in oil, mostly dead except for one penguin who is still alive but coated with oil. He makes a decision to rescue him and clean him up. He christens him Juan Salvador and Michell takes him to his new assignment in Argentina, teaching at a boy’s school where all the students adore Juan. What a delightful story of survival and friendship!

Finished listening to the very good short story collection, The Heaven Of Animals: Stories by David James Poissant.

Next up for listening is Crime Scene by Jonathan Kellerman.

I am reading The Bondage Breaker®: Overcoming *Negative Thoughts *Irrational Feelings *Habitual Sins by Neil T. Anderson

Enjoying ~

The Romanov Empress: A Novel of Tsarina Maria Feodorovna
by C. W. Gortner
(OverDrive audio)

let nothing you dismay, happened to find on my tbr stack and even tho it takes place during christmas I knew it was just what i needed in this moment. Its been a record breaking summer here so the cold wintery feel is perfect, and the story is funny, with no politics or apocolypse to it at all. Will need to find another by this guy

eta just finished it . I so appreciate an author who can write a story esp at christmas without it becoming too sentimental or twee. Also appreciate one who knows how to end it. I wish there was more, but thats fine, just means I can think about what happens next.

Finished Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 164. Haven't added anything yet to replace it in my rotation.

Finished In Pieces and found it surprisingly introspective.

Just started Lincoln in the Bardo this morning and am already about halfway through it. What a ... strange piece of work.

Next up is The Mountains Sing, which is this month's F2F group read. I certainly hope it's better than some of the recent selections. Our group leader seems intent on ***improving*** our minds. Once in a while, I'd just like to read a GOOD BOOK with that group and have a satisfying discussion about it. (Looking for a new group once we can actually meet face-to-face again.)

Bizarre Romance
Audrey Niffenegger
3.5/5 stars
This is a compilation of odd, dark short stories by Audrey Niffenegger (author of The Time Traveler's Wife) and with illustrations by her husband Eddie Campbell. I enjoyed it. A fast read!

I loved TTW tho I had some problems with her time traveling rules. How do these stories compare?

>18 cindydavid4: They are nothing like the novel but still fun to read.
Here is the blurb from Goodreads -
"Internationally bestselling author Audrey Niffenegger and her husband, graphic artist Eddie Campbell, collaborate on this quirky, irreverent collection that celebrates and satirises love of all kinds. With thirteen different vignettes about love, loss, fairies, misbehaviour, regret, wanton wrongheadedness, cats, supernatural exterminators, spies, ghosts, more cats, more fairies, and a handful of ex-boyfriends, Bizarre Romance runs the gamut when it comes to relationships. It explores the good, the bad, the ugly and the just plain weird – with Niffenegger's sharp, imaginative prose and Campbell's diverse comic styles, always with a sense of humour and cosmic justice." https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35079708-bizarre-romance

>17 JulieLill:

Wait! Why didn't I know about that book? It's interesting that it doesn't use her own graphic work.

Added All the Devils Are Here by Louise Penny to my reading rotation.

Finished listening to the so-so novel, Crime Scene.

Next up for listening is the newest Inspector Gamache installment, #16, All The Devils Are Here by Louise Penny.

>18 cindydavid4: You can't compare the two. One is a novel and other short stories. Obviously IMO -The Time Traveler's Wife was the better. It is one of my favorite books!

>18 cindydavid4:
>20 lilithcat:
>23 JulieLill:
Have you read the night bookmobile? Another strange graphic novel by Niffenegger.

I'm reading golden poppies: a novel by Laila Ibrahim.
1890s historical fiction about the shared history and ties between an African American family and a white family.

>23 JulieLill: ok, thanks, think I'll try it

>24 nrmay: Oh wow that sounds like an amazing book! Never heard of it, need to check it out Have you read it?

>7 ahef1963: >8 Copperskye: My favorites were The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Norwegian Wood, with Kafka on the Shore and After Dark following closely.
I haven't read any of the ones you both mentioned.
I hope you like it, Allie!

New topic for the week posted here.

>24 nrmay: I have read The Night Bookmobile but that is a picture book. I liked it!

>25 cindydavid4:
yes, I read it and liked it. As a librarian who reads all the time how could I resist that one?!

Booked For Trouble – Eva Gates
Digital audiobook read by Elisa Arsenault
3***

Book two in the Lighthouse Library mystery series focuses on Lucy Richardson’s socialite mother, Suzanne, who has come for a visit and is behaving in a very unlikely manner. Suzanne is intent on getting Lucy back to Boston and properly married. But when a library book-club attendee is found murdered in the marsh near the Lighthouse, the police suspect Suzanne, and Lucy begins to investigate on her own to clear her mother.

I like this cozy mystery series, even if Lucy does go above and beyond inserting herself into the investigation. Gates seems to be taking a page from Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series, as well – giving Lucy two likely suitors in Mayor Connor McNeil and police officer Butch Greenblatt. How will she choose between these two gorgeous hunks?!

Gates fills out the cast with an assortment of charming library workers, book club enthusiasts, and Lucy’s cousin Josie (who runs a very successful bakery). The author includes many literary references to the delight of this bookworm. And the resident cat, Charles (Dickens), is a nice addition.

An enjoyable cozy mystery series, that I’ll continue reading.

Elisa Arsenault does a fine job of reading the audio version. She sets a good pace and has clear diction, so even when listening at a faster speed I could easily understand her.

Touchstones seem to NOT be working ... again ...

Death Of a Winter Shaker – Deborah Woodworth
3.5***

Book # 1 in the Sister Rose Callahan cozy mystery series, set in a Shaker community in 1930’s Kentucky. Their peaceful community is focused on hard work, worship and nonviolence, so they are shocked with a body is found in the herb house. The deceased was a “winter” Shaker – one of the many drifters who professed to be a Believer to escape the harshest season during the unsettled Great Depression.

Shaker Sister Rose Callahan begins to investigate when it becomes clear that the Sheriff has no intention of searching very far for the culprit. The villagers are suspicious of the Shakers, even going to far as to call them witches, and the murder has put them on edge, with some villagers resorting to violence.

I really enjoyed this mystery. Woodworth has given the reader some very interesting and complex characters. Rose is determined, clear-thinking, intelligent and tenacious. She’s also principled and will not hesitate to name a fellow Shaker as the murderer if that is where her investigation leads her. There are plenty of suspects; the Shaker way of life, with its requirement for celibacy and strict division of the sexes, means that the only way to grow the community is to take in outsiders. And the desperation of the times means that people are willing to say anything for the security of a warm bed and enough food to eat.

I look forward to reading more of this series, and from this author.