What Fiction are you reading this week, May 27, 2018?

[hermetic]

In remembrance


Wishing everyone a peaceful Memorial day

Almost done with Julie Smith's House of Blues and I will next read Runaway by Peter May, just because it's the next one on top of my pile. Sounds good: "a tense crime thriller spanning a half-century of friendships solidified and severed, dreams shared and shattered, passions ignited and extinguished, all set against the backdrop of two unique cities at two unique and transformational periods of recent history."

Also still listening to Lincoln in the Bardo and I am amazed at its brilliance so far. What they have done with the audio version, where all the quotes are read by 166 different people, is a joy to listen to. I suspect the page layout for that might be off-putting to some readers, though. All those "op. cit,"s, right? But I am loving it, that's for sure.

So what's in your book pile this week?

[dhol82]

1. Just got 'The Essex Serpent'

My book club pick for this month.
Looks like it should be fun.

Just finished ‘Manhattan Beach.’
Really well written. The author has a lyrical way with her words.
Recommend it.

[hermetic]

7. Wow, The Essex Serpent

By Sarah Perry sounds like a must-read:
An NPR and Kirkus Review Best Book of 2017, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and a Washington Post Notable Work of Fiction. Winner of the British Book Awards Fiction Book of the Year and overall Book of the Year, selected as the Waterstones Book of the Year, and a Costa Book Award Finalist
"A novel of almost insolent ambition--lush and fantastical, a wild Eden behind a garden gate...it's part ghost story and part natural history."

Jennifer Egan authored Manhattan Beach, for those who might want to look for it.

[Squinch]

2. Dead Water from Ann Cleeve's Shetland series.

A light mystery, but she does nice characters and the setting is fabulous.

How about you?

[hermetic]

10. That series

really sounds enjoyable. Ms. Cleeves is quite the popular writer and I love reading books about Scotland.

Slainte!

[Squinch]

24. And to you!

[Ohiogal]

3. I love Peter May's books

I read Black House and Lewis Man and couldn't put them down. I think you will really enjoy them.

Reading "Among the Wicked" by Linda Castillo this week (I got tired of reading about Nazi Germany, lol). This is the next book in the gritty Kate Burkholder series. I've enjoyed all of them so far.

[hermetic]

11. Me too. I read

Black House and Entry Island and really enjoyed them.

I hear ya. There seem to be ever so many popular books about Nazis and I get a bit weary of them myself. Among the Wicked sounds good, though. We have a small Amish community here but I can't imagine any of them involved in a murder. They have a great restaurant with lots of their home grown veggies. Love it.

[SouthernLiberal]

4. Just finished a short work

The Flowers of Vashnoi by Lois McMaster Bujold. Next, I'm going to start my reading for the Hugo awards, probably with the shorter works. That's short stories, novellas and novelettes.

[hermetic]

12. Sounds like

some very enjoyable reading.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

5. Stewardess by Robert Serling.

Brother of Rod. Copyright 1982, about a young woman who becomes a stewardess for a fictional airline (quite similar to American or Eastern back then) and from the year dating of the sections, apparently stays in the job for at least 15 years. So far quite good.

[hermetic]

13. I never knew

Rod had a writer brother. Way back in my younger days I had a desire to be a stewardess. Funny, we don't even call them that anymore.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

18. They haven't been called that since the mid 70s,

and it makes me truly crazy when someone uses that word to refer to a flight attendant.

Oh, and the book is actually inscribed by the author to Elaine and John. Cool. I got it on Amazon.

[Arkansas Granny]

6. I'm listening to "Children of Dune".

I have a tendency to fall asleep when I try to read, but audio books work great for me.

[hermetic]

14. I am quite grateful for audio books

I listen to them all the time while I'm doing stuff around the house. Dune was such a great series. I haven't read all of them, but quite a few.

[MFM008]

8. The Alienist

By Caleb Carr.

[dhol82]

9. That is my next read

Have it on my bookshelf and looking forward to carving out some time for it.

[murielm99]

20. I liked that one!

[TexasProgresive]

15. Reading Robert Jordan (rip) & Brandon Sanderson's "The Gathering Storm"

This is the 12 of 14 volumes of the Wheel of Time series. I read all to book 11 plus a prequel New Spring and then Robert died of the same rare thing that killed my step mother. I was sad that this man who gave me so much pleasure with his writing had died and feeling miserable because the wheel had not made it full turn. He worked tirelessly compiling notes as he was drawing his final breaths. His wife who was also his editor found a writer who was also a Wheel of Time aficionado to finish the final novel. Well it expanded to 3, lucky me and I just got all 3.

I couldn't read them when published. I don't know why, but I am ready now. I will probably read #12 and read some other stuff while I digest it. As it is I have to resort to the internet to get myself up to speed in this other world.

The other thing that Mr. Jordan's death did was to give me a dislike for G.R.R. Martin of Songs of Ice and Fire or Game of Thrones if you will. He was very very very slow in publishing the 5 volume, 6 years in fact. 9 years have passed and the next has not been printed. If you see a pic of Mr. Martin he doesn't look like he is living a healthy life style. I think he is so enamoured with the TV show "Game of Thrones" that he has thrown in the towel on the books. I know it's a passive aggressive response but I don't think I will ever pick up The Winds of Winter & A Dream of Spring if they ever get printed. As for the TV show- too much gratuitous violence both blood and gore and sexual. That's in the books as well but there is more energy given to plot and characters.

[hermetic]

17. Well hell, darlin'

That is truly heartbreaking and I totally understand why you wouldn't want to read those for a while. Seems like he was a really great guy, from what I just read about him.

I have never read, or watched, GOT. Just no interest at all. My sister recently sent me the first 2 seasons on DVD and I have put them on the back of my shelf, for if I ever run out of absolutely everything else I want to watch.

[TexasProgresive]

21. Good place for them IMO

I told you about "The Rebels of Ireland " flew out of the shelf The same thing happened with "New Spring" to introduce me to Wheel of Time

[TexasProgresive]

16. And thank you for remembering, lest we forget.

My Father came home from Europe after the war uninjured in body but not in spirit. He was only begining to heal as he approached 80. My grandmother cried, "I sent them my sweet boy and they sent back a monster."
Fortunately the sweet boy wasn't completely taken over by the monster. I knew my father as a loving and generous man, but could be scary sometime. The fear was dispelled by his obvious love.

the sonnet-ballad
Gwendolyn Brooks, 1917 - 2000

Oh mother, mother, where is happiness?
They took my lover’s tallness off to war,
Left me lamenting. Now I cannot guess
What I can use an empty heart-cup for.
He won’t be coming back here any more.
Some day the war will end, but, oh, I knew
When he went walking grandly out that door
That my sweet love would have to be untrue.
Would have to be untrue. Would have to court
Coquettish death, whose impudent and strange
Possessive arms and beauty (of a sort)
Can make a hard man hesitate—and change.
And he will be the one to stammer, “Yes.”
Oh mother, mother, where is happiness?

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/sonnet-ballad

[murielm99]

19. I am reading A Canticle for Leibowitz.

I read it years ago in its original form. Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman is a sequel that was not well reviewed. I may read that, too.

I understand that Canticle has never been out of print. Yet, when I asked my daughter to get it for me for Christmas, she whined about how hard it was to find.

Do any of you ever read children's books? Have any of you read Loretta Mason Potts, by Mary Chase? She wrote plays, including "Harvey." I read Loretta in the sixth grade, and could never find the book again. I found it funny and ironic.

I described the plot online, to book sellers, librarians, etc. No one had a clue. Then, I remembered the title more exactly, and found it had come back into print. The amazon.com reviews included many by people who said their searches had ended like mine. Many people thought they were crazy, or describing a nonexistent book.

I bought the book and was rewarded with a good read. The years of searching were worth it.

[hermetic]

22. Canticle

has been on my must-read list for a long time. A true classic. I do like the title of the sequel.

Don't recall ever hearing of the Loretta Potts book, or Mary Chase. (Cute name) Sounds like she wrote some really fun stuff, though, like The Wicked, Wicked Ladies In The Haunted House. Thanks for sharing the cool story.

I remember reading some books about 2 boys and a guy who was visited by martians he called 'chrome domes' and I've always wanted to locate those again but that's been a dead end.

[murielm99]

23. Could it be this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wonderful_Flight_to_the_Mushroom_Planet

I enjoyed this and its sequel when I was in fifth grade.

Damn, librarians are born, not made.

[hermetic]

25. OMG!!!

That's it! And you read it, too!!


Thank you, thank you, thank you. You are clearly my sister from another mother.

[murielm99]

32. I always feel good when I can help connect

people with books. It makes my day. I am glad you are happy.

[Kilgore]

26. Red Sparrow trilogy

Can't put them down.

[hermetic]

29. Shocking thrillers

written with insider detail known only to a veteran CIA officer. Author Jason Matthews is a retired officer of the CIA’s Operations Directorate with an over thirty-three-year career. Being about Russian and Putin, this sounds well worth reading. Thanks.

[Kilgore]

33. The audio versions are spectacular

Very well done by Jeremy Bobb

[Corvo Bianco]

27. I'm reading Dostevsky's Demons

It's terrific.

[hermetic]

30. Not familiar with that one...

Inspired by the true story of a political murder that horrified Russians in 1869, Dostoevsky conceived of Demons as a novel-pamphlet in which he would say everything about the plague of materialist ideology that he saw infecting his native land. What emerged was a prophetic and ferociously funny masterpiece of ideology and murder in pre-revolutionary Russia. That does sound terrific.

[Polly Hennessey]

28. I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes

[hermetic]

31. Gruesome goings-on

in foreign lands. A breakneck race against time. A flawless plot to commit an appalling crime against humanity. Sounds like a real page-turner.

[PoorMonger]

34. Tomorrow And Tomorrow by Tom Sweterlitsch

In this “wild mash-up of Raymond Chandler, Philip K. Dick, and William S. Burroughs”*, a man who uses virtual reality to escape the horror of his dystopian world becomes obsessed with a mystery that could drive him mad.

Pittsburgh is John Dominic Blaxton’s home even though the city has been uninhabitable ruin and ash for the past decade. The Pittsburgh Dominic lives in is the Archive, an immersive virtual reconstruction of the city’s buildings, parks, and landmarks, as well as the people who once lived there. Including Dominic’s wife and unborn child.

When he’s not reliving every recorded moment with his wife in an endless cycle of desperation and despair, Dominic investigates mysterious deaths preserved in the Archive before Pittsburgh’s destruction. His latest cold case is the apparent murder of a woman whose every appearance is deliberately being deleted from the Archive.

Obsessed with uncovering this woman’s identity and what happened to her, Dominic follows a trail from the virtual world into reality. But finding the truth buried deep within an illusion means risking his sanity and his very existence...

[PoorMonger]

38. Musical Suggestion: ' Gouge Away '

https://m.

From the Pixies album Dolittle (1989)

[japple]

35. A Land Remembered by Patrick D. Smith

from amazon

In this best-selling novel, Patrick Smith tells the story of three generations of the MacIveys, a Florida family who battle the hardships of the frontier to rise from a dirt-poor Cracker life to the wealth and standing of real estate tycoons. The story opens in 1858, when Tobias MacIvey arrives in the Florida wilderness to start a new life with his wife and infant son, and ends two generations later in 1968 with Solomon MacIvey, who realizes that the land has been exploited far beyond human need. The sweeping story that emerges is a rich, rugged Florida history featuring a memorable cast of crusty, indomitable Crackers battling wild animals, rustlers, Confederate deserters, mosquitoes, starvation, hurricanes, and freezes to carve a kingdom out of the swamp. But their most formidable adversary turns out to be greed, including finally their own. Love and tenderness are here too: the hopes and passions of each new generation, friendships with the persecuted blacks and Indians, and respect for the land and its wildlife.

[KPN]

36. "The Night Bird" by Brian Freeman.

Just starting it. My wife's been reading him lately so thought I'd give it a try.

[PennyK]

37. Right now I'm in between

I just finished the final two Max Liebermann books by Frank Tallis -- great historical murder mysteries. And I've ordered the next Mary Russell by Laurie R. King, but that doesn't come out until the 12th...so I've got Julian Fellowes' Belgravia and a book of assorted short-story-form historical mysteries that seem to be lots of fun.