Book Lovers Club
Comments
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VR, I have a nephew with autism, so I can relate to what you said. Reading the books, I was trying to understand how the character could understand his missteps in socialization because most people who have Aspergers cannot do that, nor can they reflect on what it is that they are doing that causes pain to other loved ones.....
No, most cannot do that. I simply find the book amusing, picturing Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory in Don's role.
I tried and could not get into Olive Kitteridge either.
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Ruth...I couldn't get into Olive either...BUT the 2 part TV film was enjoyable...that's why I chose to read Lucy Barton....and the fact that writer cousin raved about both books...thanks for your critque...I feel better now...
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Hi to all of you. I am an avid reader of almost anything except non fiction - not my go to genre. Although I do make a point of reading one every year just to surprise myself. Finished 2016's selection and am back to my fiction.
I too read the Rosie project. It was easy to determine the character's challenge. And while I find some of his situations believable, I found the happy ending unrealistic. I would recommend the curious incident of the dog in the night as it explores the confusion a person with asd experiences, along with the overwhelming challenge experienced by family members. It empathetically explores the difficulty of building and maintaining positive relationships all around, while offering nuanced humour in the everyday.
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I found the TV adaptation of Olive Kitteridge extremely good, wonderfully acted by Frances McDormand and the whole cast including Bill Murray who was a treat to see in it. Haven't read the book so don't know what that's like. I agree with clairy that The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night is a superb representation of someone on the autism spectrum and a very entertaining book. I also enjoyed the two Rosie novels. I think it's quite a feat on the author's part to allow the reader to see both into Don's mind and show how others perceive him.
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Oh good - a couple of new voices. Welcome.
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Starting The Watcher in The Wall. Owen Laukkanen is the author of the Stevens/Windermere thriller series. This one is #5 and I've enjoyed the whole series so far.
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Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend by Matthew Dicks provided wonderful insight into the mind and world view of an autistic child.
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I just read a fantastic book with an equally fantastic title, The Greatest Books You'll Never Read by Bernard Richards. It addresses unfinished novels. Coincidentally, last week, I visited the Met's new exhibit, Unfinished. I guess there is a need to reflect on why things remain unfinished. With contemporary writers and artists, aside from premature and/ or unexpected death, we get an understanding why their works remain unfinished. With those who passed without an explanation why a work was unfinished, it seems we are only left to wonder... And I have to admit, there were a few paintings and sculptures in the Met exhibit that looked pretty finished from where I was standing...and Jackson Pollack? Give me a break! His drip paintings left unfinished? Hmmmm....
http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2016...
http://www.amazon.com/Greatest-Books-Youll-Never-R...0 -
Just finished Helen Simonson's The Summer Before the War since I had very much enjoyed her previous book, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand. It exceeded my expectations. It is set in the village of Rye, East Sussex (actually where Simonson grew up) in the summer of 1914. The main character is a 23 year old woman, Beatrice Nash, who had spent her life accompanying her professor father in different jobs with different universities around the world - she assumed a lot of responsibilities for her dad, from secretary, to travel agent to housekeeper and was thrown for a loop when, upon his diagnosis with cancer, he arranged for them to return to his wealthy family from whom he had been estranged and under whose guardianship she was left upon his death. You meet her a year after his death upon her escape from their control as she arrives in Rye to assume a position as a latin instructor in the village school. In addition to a very good plot and much atmospheric detail about village life - you meet wonderful characters and learn much about the role of women at that time - it is really the end of an era, of the empire, of the social system as it had been. Details about the war and preparations for the war, the impact of war on the people left behind and on refugees from the war and several chapters take place on the battlefields in France.
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Oh my, wouldn't we like to be let loose in there!!!
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Oh Ruth - my dream world. Thanks for posting.
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Jelson...thanks for the review, I enjoyed reading her last book....
Ahhhh! Ruth!!!😉😇👍
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Just finished The Martian by Andy Weir. I haven't seen the movie and the only other book about Mars that I have read (and remember!) is Packing for Mars by Mary Roach. I recommend both, but this is about The Martian. Highly entertaining, educational, funny and suspenseful. Full of good, highly intelligent people working together to achieve one goal - to bring Mark Watney, an astronaut mistakenly left for dead on Mars - home. I would also recommend it to anyone who questions why we are taught math and science - the book is mainly Mark explaining how he is using his knowledge to keep himself alive. fascinating - and now I understand why the space program is so expensive!!
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jelson..A year or two ago,.DH and younger DS read The Martian. Had no clue it was being made into a film. They LOVED the book! It was one of the few books that I randomly pulled for the library shelf! That is one of the best pleasures of finding a terrific book! All of us saw the film and love it! Matt Damon was a perfect choice for the character!
Mary Roach! Great writer too! Read all of her books! I love how each of them is so unique!
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Just wanted to say this is the BEST THREAD EVER!!! I'll have to come back and post my favorites, but I'm writing down all the goodies you have posted here.
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welcome Val!
I'm presently reading, A Man Called Ove. My friend gave it to me. She said, "It is a fast read and you will enjoy it." She was right and right! 👍😇
Also reading The Books that Changed My Life. I LOVE it!
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/bethann...
So....anyone care to share any books that changed their life?
I'll begin. Erich Fromm's The Art of Loving. Still resonates and I often quote his work from memory some 40 years after reading it! Love is a verb. It is an action word...to love. It requires work...hard work. And, there are many different kinds of love that require different kinds of work...
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the once and future king; 7 years in tibet; the rose of tibet; so many more
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VR: I love A Man Called Ove !
I'm currently reading Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure, which was recommended here. Loving it!
I must looked at Books that changed my life. Not sure what I would put, although I will mention a book that I have had since elementary school. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. It is one of those books that I can read over and over and still get something out of it.
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Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning ......which I read while in college, and has stayed with me ever since. Frankl was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, and a Holocaust survivor. In this book, he wrote about his experience in the Nazi Death Camps. Here are a few of the quotes from the book that have been very meaningful to me throughout the years:
"When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves."
"Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."
"But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer."
"We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."
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I just finished reading one of those books that I couldn't put down (a no work gets done, you stay up half the night to finish kind of book)......The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing by Mira Jacob (a first novel). The story-line follows an immigrant Indian American family dealing. It's told from the daughter, a 30-year-old professional photographer; and moves backward and forward in time from 1979, when the family is on a visit to India; to 1983, when tragedy first strikes the family; to 1998, when something is terribly amiss. I am going to quote the author's description of the book, "Reviewers has latched on to this as an immigrant story.....but in my mind, it's mostly a people-dealing-with-loss story. That was at the heart of this for me: how to move forward in a world that keeps erasing itself behind you, how do you find your footing in a slippery future when you haven't made peace with your past. It's also about relationships in families, those very specific dynamics that happen between people you can never get away from."
* there is a lot of swearing & cancer is a part of the theme.....just so you know.....
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Just finished Still Life With Bread Crumbs, Anna Quindken's latest novel. (Her work is just about split between fiction and non.) And according to her, the only one with a happy ending. I love how she writes and gobbled this up in short order, partly because it is less than 300 pages. Highly recommend.
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jack....I also read it. I thought it a touch too clichéd. Her non fiction, IMHO, a bit better.That said, I have a reserve for her new novel, Miller's Valley which was published earlier this month...
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hi all, back to reading after a marathon of moving. Just finished a Harry Bosch paperback, The Burning Room by Michael Connelly (2014). Now wanting to read The Crossing, also by Michael Connelly (2015). It's a thriller where Harry Bosch teams up with Lincoln Lawyer Mickey Haller.
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Badger - I like Michael Connelly. Also Greg Illes. Below is a post I sent to the food thread but I think it's probably just as relevant here.
>>>Below is a very interesting link from the Washington Post about 'ethnic' food. Which once was called 'foreign' food but now those foods have gone mainstream. It's kind of long but talks about how our "meat & potatoes" palates have caused some corruption in the current "ethnic" foods in the US (like over the top curry). And how we refuse to recognize that 'ethnic' food - done well - might be as good or better than what was originally foreign food - French & Italian & German - and to pay for it accordingly. It also mentions a book that sounds worthwhile by Krishnendu Ray called "The Ethnic Restaurater"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/22/the-great-ethnic-food-lie/
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Picked up Laurie R King's The Murder of Mary Russell, the latest in her series about Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes. The story is mainly about the background of Mrs. Clara/Clarissa Hudson - Sherlock's housekeeper with interludes in the past - and the current time which is about 1925. I was leery of the title, hate it when characters I like are bumped off, but that didn't really seem likely to occur since the series is in Mary's voice. So it was a good read and I would recommend it as a first book if you haven't and don't want to read the preceding 14 books in the series.
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LOL Jelson, you know how we are; I am one of those who likes to read a series in order.
The Crossing is in at the library, and they are searching for The Disappearance by Philip Wylie, a book that was rec here. It's an older (1951) sci-fi that sounded really interesting from a sociological perspective. What happens when everyone wakes up one day and finds that all members of the opposite sex are missing (all the men have to get along without women, and vice versa)?
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Badger - I'll be looking forward to your review about a world w/o the opposite sex if you find the book. All I can think of right now is the "pros".
Just finished Erik Larson's Dead Wake. Yeah, I know I'm a little slow reading 'new' books. I normally buy them instead of borrow or download so I usually wait for the paperback. Anyway, I was fascinated with all the Lusitania facts. I too thought the sinking precipitated the US entry into the war. Interesting follow up to Ken Follett's Fall of Giants. I seem to be on a WWI era kick.
I broke my arm 6 weeks ago and it's been totally immobilized in a sling for 6 weeks. I really couldn't do much but read. Horrible to be incapacitated. Wonderful to read a book a day. I only have 10 books left from the multiple bags I bought when my favorite used bookstore threw in the towel.
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minus! I wish you a full recovery!
Dead Wake was great! There are a few YouTube videos of him discussing the book. Also interesting!
Don't forget...his Devil in the White City is being filed with Dicaprio as leading character...
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Minus- so sorry about your arm! So glad you can read, though, and wishing you a speedy recovery!
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Minus2- sorry about your arm. any more reports on the 41 other books (besides Dead Wake) you read while recuperating? ( had to edit because I can't multiply!!)
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