Book Lovers Club
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Just finished reading Scott Bonn's, Why We Love Serial Killers. The book is extremely interesting. He believes from a society point of view, we NEED serial killers. It is a very provocative point of view. After reading the book, it is quite understandable. I highly recommend the book.
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Oh my goodness, I just found out that my favorite guy, Erik Larson, has a new book out; Dead Wake, about the sinking of the Lusitania. I just ordered it from Amazon. Be still my beating heart!
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Ruth - I'll be interested in your review of Dead Wake. I've read mixed reviews but I'd trust your more than the newspaper.
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I ordered the 'real book' instead of the Kindle.....so I will have to wait to get started, but will definitely give a review once I've read it.
On a side note, Tom Hanks has bought the film rights to In the Garden of the Beasts (with Tom playing U.S. Ambassador Dodd), and Leonardo DiCaprio has bought rights to The Devil in the White City, with DiCaprio wanting to play H.H. Holmes, the serial killer. Both movies are in development.
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Minus....IMHO Larson often gets criticism from high brow scholars. As far as I'm concerned, he has been successful at getting the masses to enjoy reading history. O'Reilly gets the same criticism and yet he and Larson are selling MILLIONS of books AND they are probably getting more books by other authors sold because they are bringing more readers into book stores.....AND dare I say, they're getting typical fiction readers into reading non-fiction. Amen.
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VR - I agree about getting people to read - ANYTHING but specifically history. I like Larson but two reviews I've read indicated maybe this one isn't up to the same caliber. Remains to be seen.
And thanks for the Harper Lee article. What a mess.
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Minus...Harper Lee...Yes. A mess. The only thing I can make out of all the controversy is that, like her childhood friend, Truman Capote, someone in Hollywood is watching this story unfold and we will,one day, be seeing her story told on the big screen...Only question that I have is will Meryl Street or Helen Mirren get the role of playing her?
On a more serious note, I see some very interesting parallels between Lee and Salinger. In Beller's book about Salinger he raises interesting questions about why Salinger chose not to publish following moving to New Hampshire. He even wonders, like most of us, if there are more manuscripts somewhere...
Two of our last century's greatest novelists, whose private lives have become almost as famous and as interesting as the stories they wrote about.....hmmmmm.....
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Reading "Dead Wake" now, and find it immensely engrossing and well-written. So many things I never knew about the beginnings of WW1. I'm a big fan of Larson's.
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Now I am really excited!
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I've just finished "The Zhivago Affair" and found it quite illuminating and worthwhile. I'd been vaguely aware of the controversy surrounding the novel but this was really eye-opening. The role of the CIA was quite interesting - for once, I'd have to say that they were on the right side. I'd recommend this for those interested in Soviet history, 20th c. history and literary history. Or simply something to transport to another time and place.
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My inter-library loan came thru and I got The Mountaintop School for Dogs and other Second Chances by Ellen Cooney. Good reading this weekend!0 -
Ruth, just finished 'Dead Wake." Outstanding. One of those books where you know the ending...and don't want to get there! So thoroughly rsearched. You will learn lots you never knew about President Wilson, British intelligence and U-boats. Get to it soon!
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I ordered the 'real' book from Amazon and it hasn't arrived yet
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Minustwo - I want to thank you for directing me to Louise Penny. I've just finished her first two and found them very good reads indeed. I'm looking forward to enjoying the rest as well.
We had the Left Coast Crime event here in town this week, with Vicky Delaney among others in attendance. Of course, I didn't realize it until yesterday...
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Hopeful, someone here -- probably Minus2 -- directed me also to Louise Penny, and I've read and enjoyed every single one!
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Hopeful - in return I thank you for recommending Vicky Delaney. I've only read one so far but a friend has charged through them all.
In spite of my prejudice against the fact that novelists seem to be in a competition to make their books longer & longer, not to mention larger in diameter so they will no longer fit in my purse or pocket, (even though I'm avidly awaiting Natchez Burning in paperback) - I somehow got started on an old Susan Howatch that I picked up at the used bookstore - The Wheel of Fortune from 1984. It's an old standard paperback size but 1171 pages. Eeks. I read all her C of E books as they came out and have read them again since. This is like a cross between all those books w/o so much 'church' & Downton Abby. It's a family saga from 1913 through the 60's with a wonderful mansion, lots of Brit 'stiff upper lip', and a bunch of guilt & envy & jealousy - "...a family legacy of madness, murder, and doomed (marriages)...".
Speaking of Downton & Maggie Smith, I saw the Second Best Marigold Hotel today. Sequels aren't usually as good, but I think Maggie Smith & Judi Dench are lovely. Hard to believe they're both 80.
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I want to be Maggie Smith when I grow up LOL.
Glennie, hope you like Mountaintop School for Dogs.
Really enjoyed Bittersweet by Colleen McCullough. Good story well-told and I loved the characters, four sisters coming of age in Australia after WWI. Learned a lot about the economics and politics of the time.
If you liked Dead Wake, try Blind Man's Bluff: the untold story of American submarine espionage.
"For decades American submarines have roamed the depths in a dangerous battle for information and advantage in missions known only to a select few. Now, after six years of research, those missions are told in Blind Man's Bluff, a magnificent achievement in investigative reporting. It reads like a spy thriller -- except everything in it is true. This is an epic of adventure, ingenuity, courage, and disaster beneath the sea, a story filled with unforgettable characters who engineered daring missions to tap the enemy's underwater communications cables and to shadow Soviet submarines. It is a story of heroes and spies, of bravery and tragedy." (amazon.com description). This was recently recommended to me and it looks like a good read.
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I love Maggie Smith and Judi Dench. They are awesome! Oh, and Helen Mirren!Badger: enjoying it so far!
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I haven't seen Suite Française, but LOVED the book!
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I just finished a book formydaughter had mentioned; Belle Cora: A Novel by Phillip Margulies
It is very loosely based on the life of a real prostitute who started out as an orphan, and through a series of unfortunate events becomes a call girl, then a Madam her, and ends life as a rich dowagers in San Francisco. I liked that it covered quite accurately some of the things going on at that time; the lot of the poor, the income inequality, the roles of women, some of the religious movements of the day, the California Gold Rush, the Civil War..... all were touched on in this book. Things I didn't like so much was that is was very long, and it did try to cover so much ground that it was sometimes hard to shift gears that fast. Plus I did not like the main character at all. At the beginning I felt sorry for her, but she soon developed into a really amoral person with the attitude that 'the ends justify the means'. No conscience what-so-ever......definitely was an interesting read.
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Finally finished Weathering, by Lucy Wood, a lovely, deeply atmospheric story of landscape, the river, the slow decay of a house and, as the title suggests, an awful lot of weather. It's a tale of belonging. Life in a remote rural location is quiet in pace but full of its own particular challenges. The single mother of a young daughter narrative was painful at times for me to read. The book is primarily about three generations, a grandmother, daughter, granddaughter and how they come to terms with their flawed lives and relationships and the transformative qualities of the elements. The ghost of the elderly grandmother added a different dimension the triad that worked rather well. A rich story that was worth my while to read.
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http://theclearingonline.org/2015/01/water-and-wea...
Lilac...While reading your post about Lucy Wood's book, I wondered if the style was based on "magic realism." The above article with the author mentions "magic realism." After reading The Luminous Heart of Jonah S, I became familiar with that novel style. It is an interesting genre.
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Sounds interesting! I will have to check it out.
My Dead Wake arrived today, along with another book I ordered called Mourning Lincoln. Dilemma, Dilemma.... I want to use one of them for my next Book Club choice, so I will probably read a couple chapters out of each & try to foresee which one they would enjoy the most .....and read the other one first just for myself.
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Ruth, without giving away too much, I'd highly recommend "Dead Wake" for your book club. Lots of questions about decisions made by the British, the shipping line, the U.S., even passengers. My husband and I have had quite a few discussions about the book. Some actions downright shocking. Not sure the first few chapters will give you a real taste of the controversies...
I don't know anything about "Mourning Lincoln," but, if you bought it, chances are I'll read it on my Kindle!
Either way, you'll have some good reading ahead!
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Here are some of the reviews that peaked my interest in Mourning Lincoln:
"Drawing on a remarkable range of diaries, letters, and other contemporary documents, Martha Hodes offers a compelling and moving account of how Americans, black and white, North and South, responded to Lincoln's assassination. The result is a portrait of a deeply divided country and a foreshadowing of the violent battles to come over reunion and Reconstruction."—Eric Foner, author of The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery and Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877
“There are many books on the Lincoln assassination and the public response to it. But Martha Hodes’s work is the first to focus in great detail on the responses of ordinary individuals, Northern and Southern, white and black, soldiers and civilians, women and men, in their diaries and personal correspondence, and to blend such response into the larger story of public events. The amount of research is simply staggering. This is a highly original, lucidly written, book.”—James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom
“Mourning Lincoln is an original and important book that traces various reactions to Lincoln’s assassination. Through extensive research, Martha Hodes has discovered voices that are both moving and surprising. The result is an illuminating work that allows us for the first time to understand fully the meaning of Lincoln’s death at the time.”—Louis P. Masur, author of Lincoln's Hundred Days
“Beautiful and terrible, Hodes's marvelously written story of the assassination fills the mind, heart and soul. People never forgot the event; this book is a page-turner that makes it all unforgettable again as it also explains how one shocking death illuminated so many others.”—David W. Blight, Yale University, author of forthcoming biography of Frederick Douglass (David W. Blight)
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And from the author, herself:
What led you to write a book about personal responses to Lincoln’s assassination?
I was in New York City on September 11, 2001, and I remember the moment of Kennedy's assassination from my childhood. As a historian of the Civil War era, and as someone who lived through those two modern-day transformative events, I wanted to know not only what happened in 1865 when people heard the news of Lincoln’s death but also what those responses meant.
Did anything surprise you during your research?
Almost everything. Not only did I find a much wider array of emotions and stories than I'd imagined, I also found that even those utterly devastated by the assassination easily interrupted their mourning to attend to the most mundane aspects of everyday life. I also found myself surprised by the unabated virulence of Lincoln's northern critics and the way Confederates simultaneously celebrated Lincoln's death and instantly—on the very day he died—cast him as a fallen friend to the white South.
Do personal responses to Lincoln's assassination tell a larger story about American history?
Very much so. The assassination provoked personal responses that were deeply intertwined with different and irreconcilable visions of the postwar and post-emancipation nation. Black freedom, the fate of former Confederates, and the future of the nation were at stake for all Americans, black and white, North and South, whether they grieved or rejoiced when they heard the news.0 -
Ruth, OK, I'm impressed and will order it asap.
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