What Fiction are you reading this week, March 24, 2024?
( postimage.com is dead. A real pisser as I have hundreds of photos stored there.)
Reading The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride. There seems to be something magical about this book. I started reading it and didn't want to put it down. Not because of any mystery but just because it was such a pleasure to read. It starts in a dilapidated PA neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. I have no connection to any of these things but the writing made me feel comfortably at home with them. Now I can't wait to get back to it. This book was one of Barack Obama's favorite books of 2023 and I can sure see why.
Listening to Before the Fall by Noah Hawley. I'm liking this, too. It's an intense tale of a small jet that crashes into the ocean and only 2 passengers survive. A painter and a little boy. The rest of the passengers were wealthy and well known so a major investigation ensues. Was it merely by dumb chance that so many influential people perished? Or was something far more sinister at work? Events soon threaten to spiral out of control in an escalating storm of media outrage and accusations. It gets pretty wild.
What books are you liking this week?
= new reply since forum marked as read
I'm about halfway thru Luis Alberto Urrea's, Into the Beautiful North
Here's a blurb from amazon:
Nineteen-year-old Nayeli works at a taco shop in her Mexican village and dreams about her father, who journeyed to the US to find work. Recently, it has dawned on her that he isn't the only man who has left town. In fact, there are almost no men in the village -- they've all gone north. While watching The Magnificent Seven, Nayeli decides to go north herself and recruit seven men -- her own "Siete Magnv?ficos" -- to repopulate her hometown and protect it from the bandidos who plan on taking it over.
This book has had me choking with laughter several nights in a row. Urrea's writing is clear and flows like water. His characters just jump right off the page. The only problem is that my high school Spanish is inadequate, so I know I'm missing out on more of the humor.
Urrea. I have another of his on my TBR list. 
Anastasia and read a wonderful book that sounds a lot like this one. But from a different century. 
I'll have to check this one out.
Happy reading!
I’m reading When the Jessamine Grows by Donna Everhart. I can’t put it down! A blurb from Goodreads:
From one of the most powerful and authentic voices in Southern fiction comes a historical novel with an unforgettable heroine—the extraordinary Joetta McBride, who defiantly opens her North Carolina home and farm to soldiers from both sides during the Civil War.
Have a great week everyone!
