What Fiction are you reading this week, May 26, 2024?

[hermetic]

Reading Castle Shade by Laurie R. King. I was looking for something to lift the weight left on me by Extinction, the end of which was really disturbing. Couldn't stop thinking about it. This is helping. Holmes and Russell are at Castle Bran in Romania to investigate some odd incidents. Are they political or personal? Or just coincidental? The castle is fascinating and there's lots of photos on the internet. They even have their own website, bran-castle.com No vampires...so far.

Listening to Virgil Wander by Lief Enger. Virgil is "cruising along at medium altitude" when his car flies off the road into icy Lake Superior. He survives but his language and memory are altered and he emerges into a world no longer familiar to him. I'm finding it quite amusing,,,so far.

What books are not so far off on your reading list this week?
Hope you have an enjoyable holiday.

[ariadne0614]

1. Do audiobooks count?

I’m about halfway (7.5 hours) into this amazing book:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9712.Love_in_the_Time_of_Cholera

[hermetic]

2. Yes they do

I always have one on the player.

Yours is a long one, from 1988, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

[rsdsharp]

3. I'm almost done with Heretic, the third book in Bernard Corwell's four book Grail series.

It has nothing to do with the Arthurian grail legends. Instead, it’s set in the mid 14th century. The first book ends with the Battle of Crécy in 1346.

When I finish, I’ll read the fourth book, 1356. Then I plan to reread For Us, The Living, Robert Heinlein’s first novel, which he was unable to publish in his lifetime, and actually thought he had destroyed very late in life.

[hermetic]

5. Had never heard of that Heinlein book

It sounds absolutely fascinating.

[rsdsharp]

6. It's interesting, but there's a reason he couldn't sell it.

There’s also a reason the octogenarian, Libertarian, Heinlein tried to destroy a book written in his thirties when he was a socialist.

[Number9Dream]

10. I really like most of Mr. Cornwell's books

My favorite series is the "Saxon series" which is set in the time of Alfred the Great.

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

[NanaCat]

4. Up this week...

Anthony Doerr – Cloud Cuckoo Land
The title is a famous description of living in a dream world that’s ridiculously optimistic. I’m expecting a heavy dose of magical realism, a difficult genre to get right when absurdity comes into play. The plot, such as it is, seems to be three impoverished/imperiled characters, from three separate timelines (past, present, future), with one book binding them together. I’ll see if Doerr has the chops to walk that super-fine razor’s edge to keep the fanciful from becoming farce.

Still Life by Sarah Winman
Normally, I avoid WWII books because they tend to be ghosts of each other. This one caught my interest because it’s doesn’t do the annoying dual timeline device, and because it’s not about recounting wartime heroics. Instead, it’s a straightforward story of a young British soldier who finds himself trapped in what he thought was a deserted Tuscan wine cellar…only to find an elderly art collector seeking abandoned paintings to save them. He goes home after the war to his old life of drinking and carousing with his mates…until the day he learns that he’s inherited a Tuscan home. Somehow we’ll meet a Shakespeare-quoting parrot. The parrot sealed it for me.

[hermetic]

7. Let us know

What you think of Cloud Cuckoo Land. I plan to read it someday. I tried listening to it but found it too confusing as an audible. It's sooo long, almost 700 pages.

Oddly, I found 9 different books with that title, dating back to 2002.

A parrot who quotes Shakespeare sounds intriguing.

[NanaCat]

19. A return to report in on CCL

Loved it. I do think you make a point about the audiobook format being too confusing. CCL needs to be a print read because the multiple POVs and even time periods are constantly weaving into and out of each other.

In the print version, though, the chapter titles use the names of the characters, and that allows the reader to 'orient' to the associated viewpoint without much fuss.

Despite the book's span of multiple time periods, it has a linear time structure...for each character,'s POV. Doerr also employs a thematic time structure as well, with the chronological sections of the ancient book acting as a sort of foreshadowing of the theme of that particular time section for all of the characters.

So it has complicated time and POV layers that take a bit of adjusting to, and I have a feeling that makes far more sense in print than audio. I can't imagine trying to keep all of that straight without 'seeing' it.

[japple]

8. Hope you like Virgil Wander as much as I did. I'm about to start reading Leif Enger's

I Cheerfully Refuse.

After reading Jayne Anne Phillips' Night Watch, I am looking for something a little bit escapist. Hope this fits the bill. I'm a big fan of Leif Enger and his brother, Lin Enger. Their books always take me away!

[hermetic]

11. Well, that book is all about

escaping, so I think you'll be pleased. I liked it so much I decided to go right to Virgil next. Lief is a great writer. I saw there was a Lin Enger but didn't know they were related. So thanks for that info. More to read.

[Number9Dream]

9. I re-read "Dandelion Wine" by Ray Bradbury.

First, I hate winter and love summer, so any books or movies that help transport me to warm, sunny days are good. "Dandelion Wine" transports me back to boyhood and summer, even though mine was in the '60's rather than 1928. The feelings and emotions in it are timeless. These words appear very early in the book, "Summer had gathered in the weather, the wind had the proper touch, the breathing of the world was long and warm and slow. You had only to rise, lean from your window, and know that this indeed was the first real time of freedom and living, this was the first morning of summer."

The chapters are episodic, but flow with the passing of the season. Typical Ray Bradbury, many of the episodes have qualities of fantasy and magic. "Dandelion Wine" reminds me that Mr. Bradbury could describe the ordinary as amazing and meaningful. A completely wonderful book which I'm sure I'll re-read again in a couple years.

[hermetic]

12. Good to see you

That's lovely. Thank you.

Hope your summer is wonderful. Ever had dandelion wine? It kicks!

[rsdsharp]

13. You can buy dandelion wine in the Amanas in Iowa.

My brother described it as only being fit for cleaning grease stains on the garage floor.

[mentalsolstice]

14. Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate

It’s about Georgia Tann who bought poor children and sold them to wealthy families. I just started it, however, it has good ratings.

I wish everyone a calm and peaceful Memorial Day!

[yellowdogintexas]

16. I got that either in First Reads or PRIME selections on Amazon. It looks like a good read. nt

[NanaCat]

18. I got that for my Mum

She will read anything about women surviving against the odds. I try to expand her horizons some, but she rarely enjoys much beyond that.

[yellowdogintexas]

15. Not much, actually. I spent the week working hard at the Colonial Golf Tournament

so I came home and hit the hay every night. Three or four pages was all I could manage before conking out.

Tomorrow is an Election Day and I will be working at the polls so will have some reading time. It is a run off and the turnout will be low, so not much to do. Can't take the Kindle so checked out a book from the library.

[hermetic]

17. Good for you!

And thanks. Hope your day goes smoothly tomorrow and you get a chance to read. And I hope somebody good wins.