What Fiction are you reading this week, February 26, 2023?

[hermetic]

Reading The IT Girl by Ruth Ware, pub 2022. This is a murder mystery and has nothing to do with computer repair. It is all about being a student at Oxford, though, and I find that quite interesting. I've read all the previous Ware books, two of which I refused to finish due to boredom. This one has some unlikable characters but it is a love song to libraries and book stores so I am really enjoying that.
Each chapter is a "Before" or "After" the murder. Back and forth, back and forth. I recently read another book that did that and remember wishing I could somehow read all the Befores and then the Afters.

My library just got Phaedra Patrick's The Messy Lives of Book People for me. An audible, it's supposed to be quite funny so I am really looking forward to listening to it.

What books will you be marching to get this week? (Hey, it's not easy coming up with something pertinent every week. )

My calendar says Wednesday is Zero Discrimination Day. Sounds like a plan to me.

[Diamond_Dog]

1. I'm reading "The Light We Carry" by Michelle Obama this week.

Enough said. I just love her!

I have read exactly one Ruth Ware book, “The Woman in Cabin 10” and thought it wasn’t bad. Not great, but not bad …

That “Book People” book sounds interesting. I can always use something funny to read!

[SheltieLover]

2. Voodoo River, Crais - another Cole & Pike

Great read, set so far in rural Louisiana. Cole is seeking to unearth family info on a sealed adoption for a celeb. As always, a superb read!

Others I've finished in the past few days:

The Cat, the Lady and the Liar, Sweeney.

The Cat, the Collector, and the Killer, Sweeney.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Bach

The Cat, the Vagabond, and the Victim, Sweeney.

The Two  Minute Rule, Crais

The Promise, Crais

Elvis Cole & Joe Pike, Crais. Great read as he is both explaining his creation of these two great characters and  conversing with each of them. Lol  very short -76 pgs on phone. Well worth the read!

Stalking the Angel, Crais. Superb!

The Last Detective, Crais

I've been reading Phaedra Patrick of late as well.

"The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper is on this week's tbr list.

Thx for the thread.

Enjoy!

[wnylib]

17. How do you have time to post here and

do any other activities in between so many books?

I am impressed.

[SheltieLover]

19. I've not been online a lot.

Nothing else to do.

Sick of the news.

[bhikkhu]

3. Wheel of Time, book six

Bundled up with a cup of tea, watching the snow come down outside. Yesterday it was sunny for a bit and I got a chilly bike ride in, but now it looks like another few days of snow. Nothing like a good book though.

[hermetic]

4. Robert Jordan's?

"Wheel of Time is the massively popular and massively huge epic fantasy by Robert Jordan. With over a dozen titles in the series, and thousands of pages."

Great way to while away these snowy days. Stay warm.

[cbabe]

5. Craig Johnson: Hell and Back/Walt Longmire series

Follow up to Daughter of the Morning Star.

A confusing sloppy stew of series characters, time travel, and native religion.

Disappointing.

The series may have run its course and Johnson threw in all his leftover ideas to wrap it up in a embarrassing mishmash.

On the other hand, I always enjoy Robert Crais Elvis/Joe series. Good clean writing, plots, characters.

[hermetic]

6. Sorry to hear that

I enjoyed the earlier Longmires. Haven't read one for a long time, though.

Yeah, Crais is good.

[RSherman]

7. "Once"

A friend gave me her signed copy of "Once" by Mary Brookman. I think the author is local. The story is about the plight of small family farmers.

Just finished "Ducks", graphic novel by Kate Beaton about her time working in the Canadian oil sands. (so not fiction)

Listening to Erik Larson "No One Goes Alone". I have loved every Larson book.

[hermetic]

8. ONCE is well-liked by readers

"Journalist Valerie Jacobs investigates a perceived conspiracy to take over farmlands, water supplies, and energy sources in the US. As the probe intensifies, her search for the truth takes her across the country and beyond while her family and friends are put at increasing risk of harm."

The Larson tale is a ghost story thoroughly grounded in history. Pioneering psychologist William James leads an expedition to a remote isle in search of answers after a family inexplicably vanishes. Was the cause rooted in the physical world . . . or were there forces more paranormal and sinister at work? Available only on audio, because as Larson says, ghost stories are best told aloud." I've put that one on my list. Thanks.

[cbabe]

9. What did you think about 'Ducks'?

I’m not a big graphic book fan but I gave it a try. Not sure why it became so popular.

You?

[RSherman]

21. First graphic

It was my first graphic novel.
I heard an interview with the author which was so interesting.
I thought it would be part narrative, part graphics. So, yes. A little disappointed. Not as much substance.

Just finished a house in the pines
Nor thrilled
Repeated and wandered alot.

[japple]

10. Finally finished Michelle Huneven's book, SEARCH and

recommend it, esp. for those of you who have ever served on any kind of search committee. It has a great cast of characters and the group dynamics are very similar to some that I have experienced in my lifetime. In addition there are a few surprises in the plot line and the ending AND there are recipes.

I've started reading Ilyon Woo's book (non-fiction)Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom.

from amazon:

In 1848, a year of international democratic revolt, a young, enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one of the boldest feats of self-emancipation in American history. Posing as master and slave, while sustained by their love as husband and wife, they made their escape together across more than 1,000 miles, riding out in the open on steamboats, carriages, and trains that took them from bondage in Georgia to the free states of the North.

Thanks for the weekly thread, hermetic. Hope everyone has a good week, marching or not!!!! I'll just on outta here.

[hermetic]

11. LOL

[The King of Prussia]

12. "Out of the Past" by Patricia Wentworth

A whodunit in the "Miss Silver" series. The detective seems similar to Miss Marple. Although these are old books - this one is 1953 - I don't think I've read them before. Really jolly good.
Away from reading, much time is taken up with entertaining cats. Especially Russo, who was a kitten not so long ago, but is now massive.

[hermetic]

13. Happy to hear

from you and that Russo is doing well. Speaking of cats, my little black orphan, Thor, is sitting here by my keyboard, trying to catch the cursor as I type. Quite amusing. Meanwhile I am listening to old radio shows, from around 1950, that are quite entertaining. Just goes to show that 70 year old things can still be worthwhile. Books, shows, us. Cheers!

[The King of Prussia]

14. When I can't sleep

I sometimes listen to radio shows from the 70s and 80s.

[hermetic]

15. So grateful for the internet

On Saturday afternoons I listen to a radio show from Chicago's WBEZ called "Those Were The Days" which has radio shows from the 40s and 50s. Before television. Everything from comedy to drama. Jack Benny, Burns and Allen, Suspense and all sorts of stuff I never knew about. It's really a great way to escape into the good old days.

[yellowdogintexas]

16. I finished Night Train to Berlin which was very good

It is one of those "heart wrenching" WW II novels. Have you noticed that WW II novels are always Heart Wrenching, heart breaking or compelling? But this on is the MOST heartbreakiing and gripping ....

synopsis:
Paddington Station, present day

A young woman boards the sleeper train to Cornwall with only a beautiful emerald silk evening dress and an old, well-read diary full of sketches. Ellie Nightingale is a shy violinist who plays like her heart is broken. But when she meets fellow passenger Joe she feels like she has been given that rarest of gifts…a second chance.

Paddington Station, 1944

Beneath the shadow of the war which rages across Europe, Alex and Eliza meet by chance. She is a gutsy painter desperate to get to the frontline as a war artist and he is a wounded RAF pilot now commissioned as a war correspondent. With time slipping away they make only one promise: to meet in Berlin when this is all over. But this is a time when promises are hard to keep, and hope is all you can hold in your heart.

From a hidden Cornish cove to the blood-soaked beaches of Normandy in June 1944, this is an epic love story like no other.

I also read Circle of Eight another in the James Acton Thriller series. This is #7 but there are 37 in the series so far. I have read these out of order which is something I don't do normally, but these are pretty much stand alones.

I love these Books! Action from page one all the way through
ABANDONED BY THEIR GOVERNMENT, THE DELTA FORCE'S BRAVO TEAM FIGHTS TO NOT ONLY SAVE THEMSELVES AND THEIR FAMILIES, BUT HUMANITY AS WELL.

Bravo Team is targeted by a madman after one of their own intervenes in a rape. Little do they know this internationally well-respected banker is also a senior member of an organization long thought extinct, whose stated goals for a reshaped world are not only terrifying, but with today's technology, achievable.

As Bravo Team fights for its very survival, they are suspended and left adrift without their support network. To save themselves and their families, markers are called in, former members volunteer their services, and the expertise of two professors, James Acton and his fiancée Laura Palmer, is requested.

It is a race around the globe to save what remains of Bravo Team, as an organization over six centuries old works in the background to destroy them and all who help them, while it moves forward with plans that could see the world's population decimated in an attempt to recreate Eden.

The action never stops in these books. Kennedy has several other series as well.

Now I am reading The Commandant's Daughter
another gripping heart wrenching WWII novel Synopsis:

Hanni flattens herself against the platform wall, looking for a gap in the chaos around her. She can see her father coming, slashing a path to her through the passengers who have realised too late where these trains are taking them…

Germany 1945. Her heart thundering, Hannelore Foss runs out of the station and into the first car she sees. For long, brutal years, she has fought against her father, a high-ranking Nazi. But her final attempt to help the families being bundled onto the trains has been discovered. Heartbroken, she escapes to Berlin, to pick up the fight for justice once more…

One year later. Hanni has a new name and a tiny, lonely apartment on the outskirts of the city. In stolen moments, she collects evidence to expose her father’s crimes to the British. But her plan is threatened when she discovers a body hidden in a bombed-out building and meets Freddy, the tortured young detective in charge of the case.

As Hanni and Freddy piece together the shocking truth of Hanni’s discovery, their hearts become hopelessly connected. But both are hiding secrets about the choices they made during the war, and Hanni knows that any future together is impossible unless she can confront the past that haunts her. For a chance of happiness, what will she have to sacrifice, and can it ever be enough?

A heartbreaking novel about the incredible courage of ordinary people during the Second World War. Fans of The Alice Network, The Nightingale and The Tattooist of Auschwitz will never forget this powerful story of hope found in the darkest days.

This is book one of a series....

[wnylib]

18. Anne Hillerman - The Sacred Bridge

This is a Leaphorn, Chee, Manuelito novel set in Navajo country.

For those familiar with Tony Hillerman's series about Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo police, this is a continuation of the series by his daughter, Anne. I just picked up this book while out shopping and have not started it yet. But I've read all of Tony's books and Anne's previous books that carry on where her father left off, so I am sure that I will like it.

Anne's writing style is different from Tony's of course, but she keeps the characters true to the personalities and traits that Tony established. She spends more time on the female character of Bernadette Manuelito that Tony created and fleshes out her character more, but at heart, it is the same Bernadette.

According to the back cover (paperback) description, Sargeant Jim Chee and his wife, Officer Bernadette Manuelito, both get involved in separate murder cases miles apart from each other. Chee is at Antelope Canyon and Lake Powell following up on an old mystery that Joe Leaphorn discovered years earlier.

Meanwhile, back home at Shiprock, Manuelito witnesses a murder and goes under cover to investigate further.

Both Chee and Manuelito end up in life threatening situations.

[hermetic]

20. Sounds like a good one

i am a big fan of this series. Thanks!