WHAT ARE YOU READING? - Part 7

With September here, it is time for a new thread. Back home they say that once the months start having an "r" in their names, you should not leave the house without a jacket. As the Bulgarian month names derive from the same roots as the English language ones, that saying still works in English (other languages are not as lucky). Of course, that is not exactly valid for down under or for Phoenix (I mean.... it is 100+ today again) but in the 4-seasonal Northern hemisphere world, autumn is coming slowly.

So how is your reading going? How are your plans going, now that 2/3rd of the year are gone? And what are you reading at the moment?

Come grab a (virtual) drink and let's talk about books again :)

I finished The Satanic Verses yesterday, which I unfortunately didn't enjoy as much as I expected to. That makes eight books for September, and 18 since July 1st, so I've had an excellent summer of reading so far.

Last night I began Wade in the Water: Poems by Tracy K. Smith, the former US Poet Laureate, and today I'll start Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo, which was chosen for this year's Booker Prize longlist. I'm also reading, and thoroughly liking Picasso's War: How Modern Art Came to America by Hugh Eakin.

"With September here, it is time for a new thread. Back home they say that once the months start having an "r" in their names, you should not leave the house without a jacket."

Funny. In New Orleans they say that you can eat raw oysters in any month with an "r" in it, which is to say that it's not a great idea to eat them during the hottest months of the summer. Thanks for setting up the new thread.

I'm about a third of the way through Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson. It's a very valuable book and I'm getting quite a lot from it.

>3 rocketjk: Funny. In New Orleans they say that you can eat raw oysters in any month with an "r" in it

Exactly!!

Only eat oysters in months with an ‘r’? Rule of thumb is at least 4,000 years old

Caste is absolutely superb.

>3 rocketjk: >4 kidzdoc: Not many oysters in Bulgaria but the two things have the same reason to be said I think... :)

I finished The Hero of Ages last night, then spent an unfruitful hour this morning before work trying to find my print copy of The Alloy of Law. I found all the other Mistborn novels, but not the one I need to read next. I'll do some more looking this evening. (Really, since I've been listening to the series this time around having the physical book isn't strictly necessary, but it's the principle of the thing. Also, I hate misplacing stuff.) My goal is to finish rereading the series before The Lost Metal releases in November.

Other reading...I'm just over 20% of the way through Trollope's Phineas Redux, and I'm nearing the halfway point in Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers.

Inexplicably wandering books aside, I'm feeling very good about my reading for the year. I haven't been doing the greatest job at sticking to schedule on all my myriad buddy reads, but I've been enjoying my reading and that's the important thing. I am currently making tentative plans for Victober; we'll see how actively I participate in that this year.

I did finish Case Histories and also The Paris Librarian by Mark Pryor; both were fast paced, enjoyable mysteries. I’ve had trouble the last 10 days or so settling in to another book. I read about 50 pages of The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson last night, and am thinking I’ll go with that one.

I’m reading Innocence; or, Murder on Steep Street by Heda Margolius Kovály.

>9 Bamf102: Do you have a topic where you introduced yourself. Just wanting to know more about you.

I opened September continuing All the Sonnets of Shakespeare, then The Man Without Qualities, and then on my commute listening to Glory. Also I have Anniversaries volume 3 on going. They’re all only just holding my attention.

In the last week or so I finished Booth, The File on H. by Ismail Kadare, and Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton. None are reviewed, and Booth has me hesitant to review. But the other two were fun novels.

>3 rocketjk:, >4 kidzdoc: Now that we have farmed oysters and refrigeration, that oyster rule no longer applies. Thank goodness.

Back on topic, I am still (and will be forever it seems) reading Quo Vadis.

>13 ELiz_M: Quo Vadis is a tome. Are you enjoying it though?

I am halfway through Grass by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim. Powerful graphic novel about a Korean woman forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military (otherwise known as a "comfort woman").

At some point I do plan to finish The House in the Cerulean Sea. I was enjoying it, but for some reason it's just not the right book for me right now. I've hit a block of some kind.

In the meantime, I've been reading the collected editions of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. I just finished the last volume of the main run, The Wake, last night.

Today I plan to start Neil Gaiman's short story collection Fragile Things.

Also on the docket is the first volume of Harrow County, which I picked up off the graphic novel shelves when I was picking up volumes of The Sandman because I thought it looked interesting, as well as Piranesi, which I've been meaning to read since people on here first started talking about it back in 2020.

I've been gone for a while, but I'm back now, and I'm looking forward to catching up with everyone's threads. I haven't updated my own thread yet, but I'll be doing that today. I'm glad that there's a new thread for September - it's made jumping back in much easier!

I haven't read Sandman, but love his writing. Thinking I may cheat by watching the upcoming series. ETA oh its started already. Ill go back and watch

Finished Curtis LeBlanc's upcoming Sunsetter—smalltown noir with teenagers, drugs, corrupt cops, and a great, grim county fair setting. Now reading Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel for my book club, which I'm loving... but remind me not to buy mass market paperbacks at my age, OK? That tiny type size tires my eyes right out (plus I need to finally break down and get reading glasses, but that's not happening for at least a couple more books).

>13 ELiz_M: Now that we have farmed oysters and refrigeration, that oyster rule no longer applies. Thank goodness.

Oh no, ma'am. If you're from or ever lived in New Orleans, as Jerry and I (and Deborah and Dan) did, you don't mess with tradition: crawfish boil with friends on Saturdays, crawfish étouffée (with leftover crawfish tails peeled by guests from Saturday after they have gone to church and recovered from their hangovers) on Sundays, Creole red beans & rice on Mondays, King Cake only during Carnival season (Twelfth Night until Mardi Gras), and oysters preferably from September through April. Don't impose your Midwestern values on us! 😎

>19 kidzdoc: Yeah, you rite!

My first read for the month was the great passage about a bookish solitary man who ends up working on a new dictionary. He ends up having a love interest, that the love letter he ends up writing would please any reader, I think. I had trouble in the beginning because his coworkers were rather mean to him, and I thought one of them was going to try to steal her away, but he didn't. Nice story with a happy ending. Read this for the august asian challenge, just under the wire! *5

Now reading we never talk about my brother for sept rtt Harvest moon theme, crying in H mart for the sept AC Korea. also the private lives of trees, paul mccartney the life just for my own self.

I've started Please Look After Mom by Kyung-sook Shin, but I'm not sure it's the book for me. Angsty domestic drama about adult child reexamining her relationship with her mother after the mother goes missing. Odd style that I don't think is the translation, but I'm not sure. Has anyone else read this?

Nine reads for September with nothing really outstanding.
The Unlocked Path and The Other Mother got 4 stars; The First Book of Calamity Leek, When Ghosts Come Home, Partner in Crime, and Tepper Isn't Going Out got 3.5; and A Handful of Pearls, Nurse, Come You Here!, and What Unites Us scored 3 stars each. So kind of a ~meh~ month.

September starts out with more of the same. Keeping the House was so-so, although reading the chapter-heading excerpts from women's magazines of the 50s alternated between funny and scary.

Currently about halfway through I Love Everybody. I find Notaro's collections really uneven. She can be very funny, but she is just as apt to be self-indulgent. This one is trending toward good. We'll see.

I'm afraid I am still not reading much. I did just buy a house after all. Picked out shingles for the new roof this week. Also got homeowner's insurance squared away and combined with auto. Now I have to take the 3-hour online homeowner's class required by Minnesota Housing. Also I have taken in 5 cats - the stray that has been hanging around all summer just had 4 kittens. The upstairs people were feeding her, and they moved out this week. I put them on my porch. The kittens are about 2 1/2 weeks old. They will JUST be old enough to separate from the mother by the time I move to my new house. I might even add a week. I did contact a moving company today - they thought they could pack and move me for about $1500. Sounds good to me. It would be half that to do my own packing, but I really don't want to! I'll be moving a lot of stuff gradually before then anyway, so it might not even be that much.

I am listening to The Warmth of Other Suns in the car. I expect I'll get more reading done after closing because I'll be going back and forth a lot - it's about 24 miles. I read Caste last year. Important book but I found it very grim. This one is less so. I suppose I should have finished Max and the Midknights by now, but I've been so busy and distracted. Hopefully things will slow down a little bit now. Though I still have to meet with someone (virtually) about Medicare, and I need to take a defensive driving class to get a discount on my auto insurance.

>25 WelshBookworm: . Now I have to take the 3-hour online homeowner's class required by Minnesota Housing

wow! given what happened in 2008, I can understand, and wonder if other states have the same requirement. Well it is exciting, along with the kittens. Might want to get the whole kittenkabbodle spayed and neutered before you leave. plenty of places do it for free.

Glad all that is going smoothly! Payback for being patient through all the proceeding stuff, maybe. Yay for kittens! And good of you to take them in. They won't be old enough to spay and neuter for 4-6 months, but you can definitely work on socializing and handling them so they're adoptable (unless you fall in love with them and keep them, says the woman with five cats because I'm a bad fosterer).

I had to take a homeowner's class in 2003 because my house was a middle income homeowner's incentive—since it was a city-run program, with down payments of only $5k required, they could mandate that. I don't remember much of what was in it, other than mortgage 101 basics and lots of admonitions not to get a balloon or sliding rate mortgage—I think everyone there might have been first-time homeowners—and stuff about dealing with tenants, leases, etc. since these were all two- and three-family homes. The main useful takeaway was advice to make enough of a down payment to avoid the extra $100 mortgage insurance they would tack on.

>17 cindydavid4: the series is very good! I wanted to read the comics first, so I looked up which volumes the show covers (all of volume one and the main storyline in volume 2), and then made sure to finish those two volumes before starting the show. I found that having read the comics enhanced my viewing experience, but you definitely don't need to have done so to understand and enjoy the show.

I finished All the Sonnets of Shakespeare. Unfortunately that was the most enjoyable thing I was reading. Soldiering on with The Man Without Qualities, which has gotten more compelling, but has not yet really captured me. I’m almost halfway through volume 1.

>23 labfs39: I also started this for a challenge that requires a Korean read, but didn’t get far. Unless I can see a good reason for it, narrating a story in the second person really annoys me and I have dnf’d it.

>31 dianelouise100: I might do the same, Diane.

>29 Bamf102: Have you read frank: sonnets by Diane Seuss? It won the Pulitzer for poetry this year. Best poetry I’ve read in ages.

>33 dianeham: any relation to the good doctor?

>35 cindydavid4: I don’t think so.

k, just curious

>26 cindydavid4: It's because it is a first-time homebuyer's program. The kittens will be about 8 weeks when I move - too young to be neutered then. But I'll have the mother spayed right after I move, unless I decide not to keep her. I guess that will depend on how it goes with my resident 16-year-old female cat.

>27 lisapeet: Well, I'm definitely wanting two of the kittens. One is spoken for, and the fourth is being considered by someone. I'd like to keep the mother, too, but I already have two cats, so that would make 5.... But Gwen is 16, so....

I decided after my obligatory 100 pages to dnf Ministry for the Future. The plot lines are engaging, but get buried in the informative/philosophic sections (in my brain at least). It’s just not the book for me.
Now reading Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks, which I had had on hold for some time. Also still on hold is Assassin’s Apprentice.

>41 dianelouise100: "I decided after my obligatory 100 pages to dnf Ministry for the Future."

I'm jealous. I had to read all the way through Ministry of the Future because it was a selection by one of the members my monthly book group.

I read My Name is Lucy Barton last night. It is really short. My second Lucy book and I really liked it.

>41 dianelouise100: KSR’s style tends to lean that way :) You either like it or not - there does not seem to be a middle ground.

>45 AnnieMod: thanks for heads-up—I had wondered about trying another of his novels.

>25 WelshBookworm: "I need to take a defensive driving class to get a discount on my auto insurance."

Check the cost of the defensive driving class vs the amount of the discount on your auto insurance first. Mine was pretty much a wash. (I think the AARP-sponsored class was $35 and my insurance discount was a one-time $25.)

And the class is ... well, it goes for the low-hanging fruit. (At least, the one I took did.) Gee, you mean older drivers have slower reaction times and we need to compensate for that? (Gasp!) You mean new cars have all kinds of bells and whistles you should familiarize yourself with before hitting the highway? (Never would have thought of that!)

"Your mileage may vary", as they say, but I was not personally impressed.

Finished Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel, which I thought was just a terrific piece of writing and character development. Now on to Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's Chain-Gang All Stars.

>23 labfs39:
I haven't read Please Look After Mom but I have it on my book shelves. I plan on reading it someday. :-)

I have had a busy August but managed to read 4 out of the 5 books in the running for the Kansas Authors Club science fiction/fantasy contest. I started book 5 today. I have to have them all read and my report and recommendation made by September 18. I think I can make that. In fact, I am so confident that I started Transient Desires by Donna Leon this morning and have read 100 pages in it. I also started book 5 for the contest. It is part of a series and not the first book in the series so it is hard to jump in and grasp what is going on, but I am going to try, so that I will be able to make a fair judgement.

I got my Inter-Library Loan request for the recorded version of Sky Beyond the Storm by Sabaa Tahir and started listening to it in my car. I could only get the Playaway version of this novel. It wasn't available on CD, so I had to go to Best Buy and purchase an auxiliary cord so that I could listen to it in my car. Got that and started the book. It is the last in the Ember in the Ashes series and the series has been great fun to listen to so far. I am sure that book 4 isn't going to disappoint me at this point.

>50 benitastrnad: I have only read the first book of Ember in the Ashes, but I loved it and mean to get back to that series.

>31 dianelouise100: >49 benitastrnad: Despite my difficultly getting into Please Look After Mom, I kept with it, in part because it won the Man Asian Literary Prize, the first book by a woman and a South Korean to do so. I am so glad I did! I finished it this morning and enjoyed it quite a bit. I'll review it later today.

Started Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard for a Litsy group read. I’ve started a couple other books, trying to find what works: The Book of Flights by J. M. G. Le Clézio, and Empires of the Indus by Alice Albinia (I’m really embarrassed for expecting a book on India…the Indus is mainly in Pakistan)

>47 LyndaInOregon: In Minnesota, it is something like 10% off for three years, then you have to retake it. So a $30 class for about $80 off a year for three years. Yes, it will be boring, but worth it.

Finished I Love Everybody, which was great fun. I've found her collections to be uneven, but if you line them up in the order of writing (not the random order in which I've read them), you can definitely see a change in Notaro's outlook as she matures. Her first book, The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club, had some funny pieces, but also included way too many "we went out and got drunk and I threw up" selections. Had that been my first Notaro read, there wouldn't have been a second.

Now flitting through Waltzing at the Piggly Wiggly, which I think I may have mistaken for a Fannie Flagg book due to the title... It is sort of Flaggian (is that a word?), but if it goes in the direction I think it's headed, there aren't going to be any surprises.

I'm about 75 pages from the end of Caste by Isabel Wilkerson. It's an excellent, depressing, enlightening book. I'm leaving this afternoon for a fun week with a couple of buddies in New York City, including tickets to one Mets game and one Yankees game, plus tickets to a set at my favorite jazz club in Manhattan, a place on relatively upper Broadway called Smoke. I'm trying to decided whether to bring my hardcover copy of Caste on the plane with me or to leave it home and finish it up upon my return home.

I have a fun (I hope!) old pulp science fiction book lined up for next, Falling Toward Forever by Gordon Eklund. I've never read anything by this author though I do see that he has quite a few books published.

I'm frustrated, though, that the copy I ordered online of Roger Kahn's modern classic of baseball memoir, The Boys of Summer, has not arrived. I need to get it read by the 18th for my book group. If it isn't in today's mail then I guess I'll have to find a copy in NYC and it that started. I was surprised that none of the stores I searched here in Mendocino County, CA, had a copy. I was actually surprised that I didn't already have a copy on my fairly extensive baseball shelf.

Anyway, I'll see you all in about a week's time. We are expecting temperatures up in the 110s around here this week, while NYC is projected to be cooler. I feel a bit sorry for my wife, who will still be here, but on the other hand, she's heading off in a few day's time for the country of Georgia with her famous author friend. I'll be back well before her, and the way the timing works out it's only two days in the kennel for Rosie, the German shepherd.

>57 rocketjk: As long as root against the Yankees, I’m sure Rosie will forgive you. Enjoy your trip.

>58 dchaikin: Ha! Root against the Yankees? Sorry, Dan. I'm a Jersey boy who grew up listening to Phil Rizzuto talking about Bobby Murcer and Mel Stottlemyre. It's one of the things I first bonded with my wife over.

Hope you still wish me a good trip. Cheers, and I'll "see" you on the flip side.

I read The Waiting another graphic novel by Korean author, Keum Suk Gendry-Kim. This one was based on interviews with her mother and two others who were separated from family by the Korean War. They wait in vain to be chosen for the reunification of families program.

Started the Hail Mary project last night

>59 rocketjk: I might not forgive you, but I still wish you a great trip.

I've finished the first short story in Fragile Things, "A Study in Emerald." It is very, very good, especially on a second reading. (I read it twice. As soon as I got to the end I knew I had to go back through. It's a whole different story once you know the ending.)

>63 Julie_in_the_Library: Love anything by Gaiman and this collection was great.Tho I still think smoke and mirrors is his best story collection, maybe because it was the first I read of him after he wrote Good Omens

Just about finished with we never talk about my brotherSeveral of these stories will be among my fav all time short stories. As usual, Beagle is so good about the atmosphere of place, and development of characters in such short work

I just finished Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone, edited by Jenni Ferrari-Adler, which I enjoyed despite being the exact opposite of a foodie.

I've now started A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas, in which posits that Sherlock Holmes was actually a woman working under an assumed name. I'm pretty sure I'm either going to find this one fun or irritating, but I haven't read enough of it yet to make my mind up which.

>64 Bamf102: i couldn’t get past the intro to Sapiens. I felt it was misleading.

>64 Bamf102: I had the same reaction, and also set it aside to try later but it did not improve, so I traded it back.

>61 dianeham: I loved Project Hail Mary.

>70 Bamf102: >68 cindydavid4: >67 dchaikin: >64 Bamf102:

About Sapiens: A lot of people around me had been enamored with that book and I just cannot get the appeal. I read a chapter and a half I think and decided that it is not for me - way too much "I disagree with everyone else and only I am right" kind of vibe for my taste - it felt almost like some arguments were there just for the sake of having more arguments. I think that he may have a good book (and some interesting ideas) somewhere under that writing style and all the bluster but I need to be in a lot better mood to try to read it again.

But then again, some people liked it a lot and consider it the best book in its topic so...

I usually read good omens once a year and feel the need right now. Enjoying it, smiling at my fav scenes. Might even watch the series again this time

Finished Waltzing at the Piggly Wiggly, and my initial hunch was right -- no surprises there.

Am currently about halfway through an LTER, They Whisper in My Blood. It's a "generational saga", but I'm nearly at the halfway point and we are still stuck with the set-up, which occurs in the 1880s.

And I just realized my F2F group meets Tuesday and I haven't even started the book, The Silent Patient. Yikes! Guess I better get to reading!

I've posted my review of Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott on my thread. I'm out of reading order, but I didn't notice until I'd already done the formatting for the cover pic and the summary and started writing the review, so I just kept going. I'll go back and review the Lani Diane Rich book next.

I'm reading Taras Bulba by Gogol. It's one of the books on rebeccanyc's TBR.

I’ve recently finished and reviewed on my thread As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner and Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths.

I've read further in Fragile Things. I've liked every piece I've read so far. Neil Gaiman is definitely a master.

I seem to have pushed the wrong button and lost my last post... Apologies if it turns up twice.

Just finished They Sing in My Blood for LTER. There were the bones of a good story in there, but the author never met an obscure word she didn't love, and seems to be determined to use them all. She also has a style that is somewhat more dense than osmium. Here's a direct quote which (I think) is referring to the POV character's state of mind: "She could not erase the prickle of some mental lurgy as the scaffold of behaviors buttressed by years of accretion was buckling in." (And, no, "mental lurgy" is NOT a typo.)

Now on to The Silent Patient, for my F2F group meeting on Tuesday.

>80 LyndaInOregon: "She could not erase the prickle of some mental lurgy as the scaffold of behaviors buttressed by years of accretion was buckling in." Wow. That's impressively obtuse.

>79 Julie_in_the_Library: yup!

Finished we never talk about my brother, a really excellent collection of stories that definitly fit the sept autumn feel. Think my fav story was the tale of junko and sayuri. My only complaint was that this edition's print is very small, esp on the introductions to each one. Needed a magnifying glass for heavens sakes.Just weird but worth it I guess

>80 LyndaInOregon: (And, no, "mental lurgy" is NOT a typo.)

oh dear.......what does she even mean in that quote, never mind don't want to know!

>80 LyndaInOregon: I am definitely feeling some mental lurgy today, which is a shame because I have to work. More coffee is needed.

>84 lisapeet: I do think "mental lurgy" is probably going to become a byword around here!

Meanwhile, I'm racing through The Silent Patient, which I'm enjoying immensely. Kind of a psychological thriller whodunnit (obviously not the person being blamed ... unless Michaelides is setting us up for a major gotcha).

I had to look up ‘lurgy’ - a British slang that I’ve never heard of. (It makes perfect sense now knowing the meaning.)
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Lurgy

Finished Project Hail Mary which I really enjoyed. Now reading A Man With One of Those Faces and Olive Kiteridge.

I finished Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo on audio -- a mixture of terrific and overly drawn-out satire on Zimbabwe. Next I'll start Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies, a first novel by Maddie Mortimer. Both are on the Booker 2022 long list. Glory made the shortlist, but Maps did not.

Treacle Walker arrived in the mail today so no I’m reading that too.

Started autumn this morning and just about finished Really liking it.

I have started work again and I don't have much time to read these days. Because of that and because I have several books going at once, I haven't finished anything in a while.

I am reading Tauben fliegen auf by Melinda Nadj Abonji for a course I am teaching this term - I should definitely have read it already, but several things, including covid, prevented it.
I also started a reread of The Chronicles of Narnia, which I have wanted to do for a long time. The first one is The Magician's Nephew, which is not at all my favourite, so it is taking me some time to get through, although it is short.
I also picked up 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea again, this time it works better than when I dropped it in June.
Then there is a terrible audiobook I am listening to: Das kleine Friesencafé by Janne Mommsen. It is really awful, but I only have a couple of hours left, so I am sticking to it.

There are a few more books - it is getting a bit out of hand at the moment. But I am getting there!

I'm now reading Unstoppable: Harnessing Science to Change the World by Bill Nye. Which is spending way more time on basic science lectures (as opposed to discussions of world-changing) than I was expecting or hoping for, but maybe I should have anticipated that.

I haven't posted here for ages, but I've now tied up a long list of titles emerging from my holiday in Suffolk with a re-read of The rings of Saturn, and I'm working my way through a pile of books brought back from a spur-of-the-moment visit to Gay's the Word in Bloomsbury two weeks ago. I'm currently reading Andrew Holleran's new (!!!) novel, The kingdom of sand out of that pile.

On audio, I've just finished the rather oddly-titled A history of water, which is actually about two 16th-century Portuguese intellectuals. More fun than it sounds!

But now I'm off on a short trip to Italy, which may have other book-pile consequences...

Last week was a very slow reading one, but this week is going much better so far. I'm absolutely loving The Colony by Audrey Magee, which was selected for this year's Booker Prize longlist, and is set in 1979 on a small remote island off the coast of Ireland whose tranquility is upset by two visitors, a boorish and arrogant English painter visiting for the first time, and a French linguist who has been studying Gaelic as a dying language that needs to be preserved, each of whom has his own misguided opinions about the islanders, and Ireland. I'm a little over halfway through, and I may finish it as early as today.

I put aside Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo, which was chosen for the Booker shortlist, for the time being, as I have to return The Colony to my local library by Saturday, and I can borrow Glory for two more weeks. Since it's a short novel I may read Treacle Walker by Alan Garner, another Booker shortlisted novel, this week, and resume Glory, which I had barely started, next week.

I'm also slowly but delightfully making my way through Picasso's War: How Modern Art Came to America by Hugh Eakin, which continues to be superb.

finished autumnI have underlined so much of this book with quotes I want to remember but I think what stopped me in my tracks

Its a question of how we regard our situations, dearest Dani, how we look and see where we are, and how we choose, if we can, when we are seeing undeceivedly, not to despair and at the same time, how best to act. Hope is exactly that, thats all it is, a matter of how we deal with the negative acts towards human beings by other human beings in the word,remembering that they are, we are all human, that nothing human is alien to us, the foul and the fair and that most important of all we;re here for a mere blink of the eyes, thats all.But in that blink theres either abenign wink or a willing blindness, and we have to know we're are equally capable of both. even when were up to our eyes in it. So its important, not to waste the time, our time, when we have it\

also love how she sneaks in Pauline Boty's life and all that pop stuff from the early 60s so seemlessly. This will be a book I will be rereading.

I’m reading Parade: a folktale. It is very short.

Now reading crying in H mart I can relate to the traditional foods that connect family together. I can also relate to my very critical and judgemental mother suddenly being her other self whne she was ill, and I was able to became the daugther that she needed as she was dying. There are still moments of guilt and anger, but we all realize our parents as people, and morn them when they leave us An excellent memoir,

Greetings all! I just got back from my week in NYC with friends. Couple of ballgames, couple of really good sets of music (one jazz, one blues) and a lot of walking around Manhattan and good times with friends. Also a sad, spiritual afternoon as a group of old friends gathered to spread the ashes of a dear friend (and the wife of one of us) in South Mountain Reservation in New Jersey, where we all hung out as teens.

Of course I also made it to the Strand Bookstore, and I have a question about one of my purchases. I picked up a copy of Sebastian Barry's Days Without End, which I'm very much looking forward to. When I added it to my LT library this afternoon, I realized that it is actually Book 6 in the McNulty Family series. Days Without End looks like it would do just fine as a standalone. Do any folks here have opinions either way as to whether a reading of the first five books in the series would make a reading of this one significantly more rewarding? Thanks!

>98 rocketjk: I’ve read that one and the two before it. I had no idea they were a series - probably different generations of a family? No need to read them in any order as far as I’m concerned.

>98 rocketjk: Just saw this: Award-winning author Sebastian Barry’s The Temporary Gentleman is the sixth book in his cycle of separate yet interconnected novels that brilliantly reimagine characters from Barry’s own family.

Back from vacation, read Gurnah's Dottie and Bonnie Jo Campbell's Q Road, both excellent reads. Started a volume of poetry also....

I'm back from nowhere (ha), but have finished Taras Bulba and started Between Shades of Gray: The Graphic Novel. It's about a Lithuanian teen who is deported to Siberia along with her mother and younger brother in 1941.

I’m reading the ebook sample of sleepwalk. Picking up the book from the library later today.

Hello,

I'm a late-comer to the group, and I put my short intro in the Introduction thread.

I am reading The Daughter of Time and Slouching Toward Bethlehem. Daughter of Time is very good -- I've read it a couple of times. Slouching is a collection of essays the journalist Joan Didion wrote in the 1960s.

Welcome, janoorani24!

--------
Have begun Canadian author Rachel Lebowitz's The Year of No Summer.

I've read two books from this year's Booker Prize longlist so far this week, The Colony by Audrey Magee, which is the best novel I've read this year, and Treacle Walker by Alan Garner, an odd work of fantasy that was far more appropriate for a YA short story award than the Booker Prize. Naturally, Treacle Walker was chosen for the Booker Prize shortlist, and The Colony wasn't.

I'll try to finish Picasso's War: How Modern Art Came to America this weekend, then start another Booker Prize shortlisted novel, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka; I'll put Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo on the back burner for now.

>104 janoorani24: Welcome to your new rabbit hole! Took a look at your library, we have many books in common. I love Daughter of Time Not a fan of mysteries but I tend to enjoy anything about medival history.

Now reading the impossible lives of Greta Wells This is the book Midnight Library wanted to be but failed. Just excellent time travel via a cure for depression. Hoping this continues to be great til the end; I have read his max tivoli and story of a marriage. Need to check out his other works

>106 kidzdoc: How did you get The Seven moons of Maali Almeida? I went to order it but ut isn’t available.

>109 dianeham: I am in Canada and had to order it through Book Depository. I think Darryl did the same thing.

Just finished The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, and really enjoyed it, despite having been misled by reviews indicated it was going to be a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy-type romp. I will be looking for more of Chambers' work in the future, starting with the other three books in the Wayfarer series, of which Long Way is the opener.

And just to keep things from getting stuck in a rut, I started A Tan and Sandy Silence, which is one of the later entries in John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series. I have a big fat hardback with three or four McGee novels in it, and will be dipping into it from time to time.

>110 Yells: I got mine from Book Depository as well - not yet published in Canada and USA but planned to be so you need a UK vendor for it.

Greetings, all! I'm back from my wonderful week in New York. Just before I left I made the executive decision to not bring my hardcover copy of Caste along, leaving the last 70 pages or so to finish up on my return. Instead I brought a long a fun science fiction novel from my pulp paperback shelves, Falling Toward Forever by Gordon Eklund. Now I have three days to finish the excellent but long The Boys of Summer, a modern classic of the memoir/baseball history genre, for my reading group meeting this Sunday. Then I'll get back to Caste. My review of Falling Toward Forever is up on my CR thread. Cheers!

I am starting By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolaño, a buddy read with Dan

>115 labfs39: yeah, that. 🙂

>109 dianeham: >110 Yells: >112 AnnieMod: hmm. I hadn’t considered acquiring The Seven Moons will take a little planning (ETA - my reading plans suggest I have till January)

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka is set to be released in the US on November 1.

>117 dchaikin: yes, I’ll wait for the ebook.

I really don’t care for Sleepwalk so skipping that.

I've been catching up on periodicals a bit, making pretty much no dent in the pile. And still reading Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's Chain Gang All-Stars, which is very good but absolutely harrowing—death penalty industry dystopia. I have great loathings for the American penal system, and this touches on pretty much all of them. Very well done and absolutely worth reading, but I'm finding I can't do more than 25 pages at a time before I have to put it down and think about what I just read.

Just finished The Bell in the Lake by Lars Mytting. I loved this book and would recommend it, especially to readers who enjoyed Setterfield’s Once upon a River.

Forgot to post Like a River from its Course by Kelli Stuart. I liked and recommend this World War II novel—a good story and very timely. It begins on the day when Hitler invades Russia and follows the fate of two Ukrainian families, one from Kiev and one from Vilitsnya, through the years of the war.

>109 dianeham: Danielle is right; I ordered The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida from The Book Depository.

>119 lisapeet: Ooh...is Chain Gang All Stars a new book, Lisa? I loved his short story collection Friday Black, so I'll definitely want to read this one. (ETA: I see that this novel will be published next April, so I answered my own question.)

>122 kidzdoc: Yes, my next round of reading is all books published either late this year or early next, for an author panel I'm moderating in October.

Finished A Tan and Sandy Silence, which was the first read in a planned re-visit to the Travis McGee series. (Not all of them -- just whatever I can pick up without a great deal of searching, over the next year or so.)

Am starting The Murder Gene, by Karen Spears Zacharias, tonight. (Can't seem to get the book to show up in Touchstones.) It has some local significance, since there's connection to Pendleton, Oregon (about 35 miles from here), and since Zacharias wrote for a local newspaper before publishing her first novel.

I’m reading The Break by Katherine Vermette - a Canadian author.

Hey everyone, I'm new here, but I am currently reading shadow and bone. I've prolonged it so much due to publishing my book, but I can finally sit back, relax, have a coffee, and absorb a book.

I have finally finished my terrible audiobook, Das kleine Friesencafé by Janne Mommsen, and gave it 1 1/2 stars.
I also finished The Magician's Nephew, the first of the Narnia books, yesterday.
Now I'm continuing with A Modest Independence, the second in the Parish Orphans of Devon series by Mimi Matthews. I started the audiobook several weeks ago, but switched to the ebook because the new narrator did such a bad job that it destroyed the story. I like reading the ebook much better.
And I'm also still reading Tauben fliegen auf which takes a lot of time because I am underlining and annotating and thinking about possible lessons simultaneously. It is a wonderful novel, but it makes me very emotional, and I wouldn't have chosen to read it right now if I didn't have to for work.

Although I had ordered Before the Coffee Gets Cold through interlibrary loan for last month (Japan in the Asian Book Challenge), it just arrived. Oh well, better late than never!

Was abit disappointed with Greta Wells. The concept was excellent, with a twist on time travel that has three of the same character in different time lines knowing each other. But it got convuluted as it went on and often forgot who was where when. If that makes sense. Still think his Max Tivoli is my fav. Giving this a 3

I have two books by Aminatta Forna the hired man and Ancestor stones that i was turned on to by Spiralsheep. She has not been around for a long time, and Ive been thinking of her so think these should be my next reads. hink those will be my next books.

I’m reading My Darling Detective. It’s a very strange book.There is a 1930s type radio show about a detective. There’s a woman who is a detective. Her fiancé who gets tricked into some weird scheme and loses his job.And an expensive photograph.

Yesterday I finally received a library copy of Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb, after several weeks wait, and read a good chunk of it last night. I think I’ll enjoy this series a lot!

I've just finished the wonderful baseball memoir, The Boys of Summer, by Roger Kahn. My friend picked it as his selection for the monthly reading group we're both members of. I was a bit surprised to realize I'd never read the book, as it is of course considered a classic of the genre and was, in fact, a trailblazing book when first published. The writing is wonderful and the insights into the lives of ballplayers during the 1950s, and of so many other aspects of human nature in general and the ways in which our perspectives about our own youths change with the passage of time, are outstanding and compassionately rendered. If by some wild chance you're interested in my longer review, you can find it on my CR thread.

I've also finished Isabel Wilkerson's compelling, depressing, eye-opening Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. I'll have a review of that one up within a few days.

I finished A Modest Independence yesterday and started Midnight in Austenland by Shannon Hale. More fluff, but it is all I can do right now and I did enjoy the beginning of this one.

Just finished The Murder Gene (which I still can't get to link in the Touchstones), and was a bit disappointed. Author Karen Spears Zacharias can't seem to decide whether she wants to write a true-crime story (two of them, actually, connected by a family relationship), or a pop-science examination of the role genetics plays in behavior -- including predisposition to violence. Neither is well-served by this work.

Not sure what the next read will be. I think possibly Dear Fahrenheit 451: Love and Heartbreak in the Stacks, by Annie Spence.

After attempting to start several books, I've settled into a crime novel, The Night of the Fire by Kjell Eriksson (Swedish).

My review of Caste is up now on my CR thread.

I've now returned to C.P. Snow's Strangers and Brothers series that follows a small set of characters though the middle parts of 20th century England. I'm reading the series' seventh entry, Homecoming. (Oddly, my 1956 Scribner paperback has the title "Homecoming." Just about every other cover image for the book on LT, as well as the series listing, has an "s" at the end of the title. So I guess the proper title is "Homecomings.")

>138 Bamf102: I like this novel very much! I’ve put the second installment on hold already. It’s the first fantasy series I’ve enjoyed so much since reading Alison Croggon’s Pellinor books.

>132 dianelouise100: been wanting to read that (can't believe I didn't back in the day when it was all sci fi/fantasy for me) Getting some nice comments hereabuts.

I am in a weird reading slump so having fun with Maigret novels. They are a nice palate cleaner.

so we are having a nice rain, this first day of autumn. Sitting outside watching the birds and reading my brilliant life which is quite lovely. Tomorrow I am having surgery; I shoulld be fine, but I am very anxious and wonder how things will be afterwards. But for the last few hours this book has calmed me. Just what I needed.

>144 cindydavid4: best wishes tomorrow.

>144 cindydavid4: Best wishes!!! Autumn has started here as well and I‘m enjoying the cold air and autumnal scents.

>144 cindydavid4: Hope your surgery is successful and your recovery quick.

Just finished Dear Fahrenheit 451 and found it delightful. Your reading tastes may not match Spence's, but you will probably find a smile or two. Highly recommended.

Now going back to true crime, because I just got Murder Out Yonder through an ILL and it has to go back soon. I've enjoyed Holbrook's other stuff, and hopefully he won't disappoint this time, either.

>149 LyndaInOregon: I loved your review on the book page for Dear Fahrenheit 451. Do you have a thread for comments?

>150 labfs39: I don't even know how to set one up! (I've been on LT for several years but don't know much beyond the very very basics!)

Thanks for your comment on the review, though!

>152 LyndaInOregon: Go to the main page of the group here: https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/23583/Club-Read-2022

Click on the “Post a New Topic Button”.

Add a title with your name in it (so we know whose thread it is) and add whatever you want in the message body (“Here is my thread” for example or copy your intro from the intro topic or anything else you want.

Press “Post Message”.

That’s it. If you post your reviews there or links to the books so someone can know to look for the reviews, conversations happen. :) Then next year you can get fancier and so on. But for an easy startup? That’s all that is needed.

Most of us like to post a few comments on our threads immediately after we create them so we can do statistics and lists which stay at the top and we edit the whole year. But that is not mandatory - your thread, your rules.

I finished a book.... I finished volume one of The Man Without Qualities, which contains the parts published in 1930 : A Sort of Introduction and Pseudo Reality Prevails. It took me two months. He would publish a second part and leave the 3rd and final part, including "A Sort of Conclusion", incomplete. The complete second part, with added chapters, and the incomplete third part are combined into volume 2, over 1000 pages. I'm thinking I may only read the second part he published. But not immediately. I also finished By Night in Chile. I'll move on to all the other stuff I have ongoing (>12 dchaikin:, >53 dchaikin: and, on audio, >88 dchaikin: ). I think I will try to get back into Anniversaries next.

thx guys, wan't as bad as I thought, but i think the meds havent worn off yet. so we'll see. Right now back home and trying to figure out all the meds I took home.....

reading My Brillant Life touchstone not working, written by Ae-ran Kim

I finished Helga Schubert’s Judasfrauen and the new Andrew Holleran novel (his fifth in just under half a century!) The kingdom of Sand — both excellent, if somewhat depressing.

On audio, I’ve started listening to Wolfgang Leonhard reading his memoir Die Revolution entlässt ihre Kinder (Child of the revolution) — recorded fifty years after he wrote it! Interesting so far, and ties in nicely with Eugen Ruge’s Metropol from a few weeks ago.

And I’ve embarked on a Ronald Firbank mini-project, starting with The early Firbank and Brigid Brophy’s recently reissued Prancing novelist.

Finished Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb last night. I’m hoping to get the second book in the series early next week. I love this new (to me) imaginary world and expect to read, or maybe listen to, more of its stories.

>160 Bamf102: just ordered this!

I started Canción by Eduardo Halfon. It's my second book this year by this Guatemalan author.

>161 cindydavid4: Should be great for post surgical reading! Moves your head to a different world entirely. Hope you enjoy.

>163 dianelouise100: yes it was; really equisite writing, even tho its sad. Intersting we are talking about male writers of woman charcters in the Avid Reader group. This was written by a woman who does an excellnt job portraying this young more who is turning old before his eye.

Now reading the marriage portrait Its a time period and place I always get confused by; hopefully she makes it smooth!

I’m reading too many books at once- Happiness, What is Left the Daughter and Shutter.

Oh and got a book in the mail today.

Happy New Year, l'shanah tova to all of you! may this new year bring you joy, good health, good reads, prosperity and peace!

>168 dianeham: gorgeous cover

>169 cindydavid4: Shana Tova

>169 cindydavid4: & >170 dchaikin: Shana Tova from Northern California.

Just finished Murder Out Yonder, which was a far superior book to The Murder Gene, being written with a combination of cynicism and wry humor. The lead story is probably the standout, dealing as it does with the trifecta of sex, religious mania, and murder. To wit: "If the prophet has a set of Old Testament whiskers and a chronic case of satyriasis, then the troubles are sure to be multiplied and likewise interesting."

Since I seem to be on a nonfiction kick at the moment, next up is Three Women.

>173 Bamf102: didn’t know that.

I’m now reading Haven by Emma Donohue, a fictitious account of the finding and settling of Skellig Michael by three monks seeking an isolated refuge from the sinful world. About a third of the way through, and enjoying it a great deal.

Oh I love her! not heard of this one; will have to check it out. Have you read any of her others? My favs arekissing the witch.slammerkin and the pull of the stars

I haven’t read other works by her—I saw this in the bookstore a couple days ago and succumbed to the cover! I’m a sucker for rugged Irish scenery, like the western coast and Skellig Michael, and for ancient Irish history. This book came out in August.

>176 cindydavid4: I loved Room but hated The Wonder so much that I didn’t read anything else by her. Although I think I read the one about the nurse? Maybe I should give her a second chance.

I didn't care for Wonder either, its not one of her best. And tbh, I could not read Room, because of the subject matter, Tho I am told its really well done. The one about the nurse, and the spanish flu, is the pull of the stars Lotsof parallels to the covid epidemic.

liking the marriage portrait) except for two bugaboos that might lose a star or two. No map, and no family tree I googled both, but I shouldn't have had to! But her writing hasn't changed and thats enough for me.

I picked up a mystery last week at the public library. Started it this morning and it is great fun - so far. Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill. This is a stand-alone novel and not part of the Rowland Sinclair series and it is an attention getter.

I listened to Eine Halligfahrt, a very short but wonderful audiobook. For my next one, I picked The Black Moth by Georgette Heyer. I have never read anything by Heyer before but decided to give her a go and to start with her very first work. I had some trouble getting into the story, but now I am hooked!
I also hope to finish both Midnight in Austenland and Tauben fliegen auf today.

Noticed another book on my shelves that I don't think I actually have read. keep the aspidistra flyng Have read several Orwells, 1984, animal farm, down and out in paris and london and burmese days. Not sure how I acquired this one - perhaps because its about a bookseller (love how he describes how hi catalogues his books) ? Curious abut the title, I had to loook up what aspidistra was, buy why would it be flying? looks like a quick read.

>179 cindydavid4: "I could not read Room, because of the subject matter,"

I had the same reluctance in approaching Room, but gave it a try when my F2F group chose it. One of the things that impressed me the most was how much of the book dwelt on what happened **after** they escaped from the room and needed to re-integrate (or, for the child, adapt to) the greater world.

Donoghue never once took the easy, comfortable, happy-ever-after path, and that impressed the heck out of me.

>23 labfs39: Yes, I read it and liked it. Also read another one by her called I'll Be Right There. My cousin recommended her work. He grew up in Korea.

I am currently reading the novella The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett, it's a funny book about Queen Elizabeth II that I heard about recently. On the non-fiction side, I'm listening to The Breathing Cure by Patrick McKeown and Speak Now Against the Day: The Generation Before the Civil Rights Movement in the South by John Egerton. That last one is 700 pages, so will be on my bedside table for a while!

Last week, I finished The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd, a pretty cool mystery about map makers. Some of the writing was a bit awkward, but a good story.

>186 PeanutNoir: love Allen Bennett and thats one of my favs of his. also loved the clothes they stood up in, the lady in the van and the madness of George III which was made into a most excellent movie a few years back. Might want to reread common reader in the queen's honor (welcome btw!)

>187 cindydavid4: The movie The Lady in the Van is fabulous as well (or is that the movie you were referring to?) Bennett is wonderful :)

>188 Yells: oops need to edit that. Yes thats the one!

So Ive read all of Maggie O'Farrells works and for the most part loved them. The Marriage Portrait is a different animal all together. First a major plot point is revealed very early, which is almost like whats the point here. And her endless descriptions of what the duchess sees and thinks, esp the journey after her wedding are a bit much. It is based on History (and I have learned that this Lucrezia is not the one known for poisoning peole, thats her great grand mother) Im barely half way though but Think I will take a break from it and read something else for a bit

>185 PeanutNoir: Welcome to LibraryThing and Club Read, Peanut. Thanks for chiming in on the Kyung-sook Shin book. I'm still thinking about it, so it's made more of an impression on me than I thought at first. I had read that she is very popular in Korea. I have The Uncommon Reader, maybe I'll get it out. I take it you are enjoying it?

Finally got my hands on I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy after being on the holds list for quite a few weeks. I'm listening to the audiobook and really enjoying it. It's really harrowing and gives a very personal look into the life of a child start with a mentally unstable parent. As someone who grew up watching iCarly as a child, it was difficult to hear how much pain the actress was going through while acting in the show. I'm so impressed at her bravery in sharing her story though and willingness to let folks see into her life on such a person level. I couldn't recommend it more, but will always warn that it could potentially be a very triggering book to some folks.

I'm slogging through Three Women, by Lisa Taddeo, though I'm not sure why. Possibly because I don't want to start anything else before our houseguests arrive.

There will be commentary in my thread. It will not be nice.

>184 LyndaInOregon: thanks for that; knowing that helps. I consider checking it out since I do love her stuff

I plan to put marriage portrait aside. First book of o'farrell I could not finished. This book was really bloated with way too many descriptions and a sense of why bother if you already it told us what happens. The historical character herself was interesting in her own right and deserves a good book written about her. This wasn't it

In the meantime I will start reading assasins apprentice

I'm finishing up a Swedish crime novel, The Night of the Fire by Kjell Eriksson and a lovely hardcover collection of New England poet Wesley McNair's fell on my doorstep yesterday. Even the hubby was caught nosing in it. Late Wonders: New & Selected Poems (no touchstone, apparently)

I've just finished Homecomings by C.P. Snow, the seventh book in Snow's Strangers and Brothers series that takes a reader through several layers of middle- and upper-class English society from the 1920s through the 1950s. All of the novels feature a man named Lewis Eliot, who over the series fights his way from a lower middle-class upbringing into the halls of administrative power, first in industry and then, during World War 2, in British Civil Service. Eliot has a job that is stressful with responsibility, but he is still attending to more powerful men. From his spot near but not at the top, Eliot is able to make sharply drawn observations about the nature of the bureaucracy--and the qualities of the people--both above and below him on the organization chart. At the same time, Eliot's private life, as his wife, Sheila's depression worsens. The book is filled with small but powerful observations about the nature of love and responsibility, and the handicaps inherent in a life pointed too much inward. This is not just a flaw of Sheila's as Eliot describes things for us, but also of Eliot himself. There is a varied and entertaining cast of characters attendant, as well, and Snow is adept at describing their personalities and actions, for good or ill. My longer review can be found on my CR thread.

Next up for me will be the history Ar'n't I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South by Deborah Gray White

I finished the third book of four in Anniversaries (the one published the year I was born). It's was a little odd - reading about the awkward Soviet takeover and running of Eastern Germany. Very messy history.

So, I now have four books to review.

um a problem with assassins apprentice I cant read the small print! any chance there is a large print or a hard back version?

I finished my Ronald Firbank read through yesterday. I really enjoyed rediscovering the novels in tandem with Brigid Brophy’s Prancing Novelist.

Also finished Alan Rusbringer’s News and how to use it — interesting, although it’s one of those books that’s mostly just confirming things you already think you know about journalism…

I’m still listening to Child of the revolution, which is very interesting, and I’ve just started Felicitas Hoppe’s new novel Die Nibelungen: Ein deutscher Stummfilm. Not quite sure what to make of that yet, but I’m not expecting anything conventional.

>203 Bamf102: Im still a dinosaur, but now, it might be a good time to do it. we'll see

I used to love Guy Gavriel Kay's books till they started sounding alike. But I am pleasantly surprised this book seems to be in a different world. Just started, so we will see

>195 cindydavid4: "I consider checking it out since I do love her stuff"

What else have you read by Lisa Taddeo? I just bailed out on Three Women. I thought "maybe I'm missing something here" and checked out some of the LT reviews, only to discover many reviewers had been able to express the dissatisfaction I was feeling with the work. Since I didn't finish it, and since I had nothing new to add to the reviews, I just tanked it.

Spent last night with Bad Cat, which is a fun photo book of kitties doing bad or silly things, with humorous captions.

Am playing around with Inside Star Trek, but there's an awful lot of nuts & bolts about the television industry in the mid-60s, and I may not finish that one, either.

>208 LyndaInOregon: I think I was responding to Alan Bennets work. I may have gotten mixed up. I dont know Lisa Taddeo

ok, I was responding to >186 PeanutNoir: and we were talking bennet. :)

Welcome Peanut ( >186 PeanutNoir: ) and Margeliza ( >192 Margeliza: ) - Margeliza, I find myself interested in I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy. My daughter watched iCarly occasionally...which means I did too.

I finished an audibook and picked up another to start. I finished Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer, which I really enjoyed spending time with. I picked up a copy of Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley, and I will start tomorrow. Both are first novels, and both on the Booker longlist, but neither made the shortlist. Mottley, age 20 from Oakland, CA, is the youngest author ever on the list. I was entertained by her interview by Trevor Noah on the Daily Show in July. ( link here https://youtu.be/eHg9M80GThA )... and also was surprised to learn Noah announced, only about an hour ago, that he is leaving that show.

yes I just found out! oh man he has been so amazing this seven years. I understand the need to do other things but he'll be hard to replace

ETA oh what an amazing interview! I love that author, and I want to read this book!

>211 cindydavid4: she is incredibly charming in that interview. I really hope I like her book! 🙂

I really loved Haven, which I finished last night. I would call it primarily a novel of character, though the plot is certainly adventurous, as two monks and the prior to whom they’ve vowed obedience set off in a small rowboat down the River Shannon and out into the Atlantic, seeking an island that will isolate them from the evils of the world. And their spiritual adventure is fraught with even more danger, as the story plays out in the remote, gorgeous setting of stark Skellig Michael.

Shana Tova everyone! And may everyone fasting for Yom Kippur have an easy and meaningful fast.

>181 benitastrnad: Well, that's a book bullet. Added to my TBR
>186 PeanutNoir: adding The Cartographers to my TBR as well. This is why it never gets any shorter. :)

I've finished another poem and short story in Fragile Things. I'm taking my time with this one, especially because I find I need to read each story and poem at least twice to fully appreciate it.

ahead of the asian october theme of "indochin', I have started reading the blue sky liking the writing so far. Reminds me of one of the khazakstan books, The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years
Novel by Chinghiz Aitmatov which I really loved.Interesting because this book deals with the natives of mongolia, and the neighboring soviet khazakstan.

>215 cindydavid4: I think that may be the wrong touchstone.

>214 Julie_in_the_Library: Shana tova!

>217 Julie_in_the_Library: thx, fixed

I’ve started The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry. About 50 pages in and enjoying it so far.

>220 dianelouise100: I love that book.

>221 dianeham: If you feel like revisiting Barry, he is our October author in the Author of the Month group :) https://www.librarything.com/topic/344625 - if anyone wants to come :)

>222 AnnieMod: thank you. Looking forward to it.

Anytime :) Meanwhile we are decamping to a new thread here because this one is getting long. So part 8 is here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/344808

As usual - feel free to finish started conversations here if you prefer.