Book Lovers Club
Comments
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The Raj Quartet is worth the read - all four books - I've read them twice - once when they came out years ago and again a few years back - the whole four are the basis for the PBS series The Jewel In The Crown which is well worth watching over again - I was able to get the CDs from my public library years ago and the local PBS station here ran the series a few months ago. There is a new series based on the final day of the Raj called Indian Summers which was shown on PBS this winter and will return for another season.
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My reading has slowed painfully since all of this (*waves arm around generally*) so I'm adding this thread to my favorites as I try to get back up to speed.
I'm currently reading Robert Sapolsky's A Primate's Memoir: A Neuroscientist's Unconventional Life among the Baboons. I adore Sapolsky in the National Geographic special "Stress: The Portrait of a Killer" and also enjoyed the sections I've read of Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers.
I just finished Katherine Russell Rich's The Red Devil: To Hell with Cancer--And Back. I had read her Dreaming in Hindi: Coming Awake in Another Language in the middle of diagnosis, and The Red Devil was just gut-wrenching.
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loved it sandy read it twice at least also and the pbs series was delightful I fell in love with charles dance, did you? I think he was the hero in that series
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ksusan...I went to high school with Sapolsky. He was a book nerd! I remember him hanging out with our group of friends and was always carrying a book to read in his spare time. Years ago, he won a McArthur genius award. I was thrilled for him!
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Spike Lee was also a classmate!
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Fun!
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I gobbled up Unfamiliar Fishes in two sittings. Great read!
I had to take a break from the Raj. It's a 4 in one book from the library and I can't hold it to read it! Negotiating with the kind librarians to assemble the 4 individual books from across the system.
In the meantime, picked up a few more of Sarah Vowell's. So fun to read. Makes education painless!
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Oh yes Abigail - Charles Dance - he reminds me of Prince Phillip.
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Just read A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman. A sweet, sad, funny story of Ove; a very unflexible, stubborn, cranky man who feels like giving up after the death of his beloved wife......but life has other plans. My only complaint is that they depict Ove as very OLD.....and he is only 59 (as a young 63 year old, I was quite insulted by that!). If Ove had been 79 years old, I would have fallen for the story hook, link and sinker. A good read.
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ruth...I have to rant about My Name is Lucy Barton. I went to a library discussion of the book because I wanted to understand who could have possibly liked the book. Like you, there was one thing about the protagonist that I couldn't get past...and that was, why she allowed her mother to sit by her side for 5 days and never ask her to go to her home and have her help her husband take care of their children. Big deal that she, Lucy Barton, made it to the big city DESPITE her austere roots. So big deal she could see The Chrysler Building from her hospital room. Good for her! Her mysterious illness that, we the reader are not privy to? So what???!!!
When I asked a fellow book lover if she had read it and was interested in joining me at the library, her response, " You're kidding me that you, VR, actually read the book?" She gave up reading it after 50 pages and she LOVES fiction!
It is going to take a lot of convincing from this day forward to get VR to read fiction. The way this book was heralded is completely beyond VR's scope of emotion and imagination. It left VR annoyed and anxious. How ANYONE could like the book is beyond VR's reason....I beg my fellow book lovers to please not try to convince VR of the book's merits....End.Of.Rant. Thank you!👩❤️👩
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Ruth, I enjoyed A Man Called Ove. He reminded me of my hubby who can be very rigid. My husband read it and agreed that Ove reminded him of himself. As to him being referred to as old, particularly when he was "retired", I didn't think much of it as so many older workers are let go here in the states to bring in younger, cheaper labor. Can relate to the fact that growing up those middle aged neighbors who were grumpy were perceived as being much older.
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I don't think I will read Lucy unless forced to by my Book Club.
Ove was a Book Club book & other than the age thing, I enjoyed it a lot. Scandinavian writers have a dry-wit, rather sparse writing that I appreciate (perhaps because I am 5/8 Norwegian and 1/8 Swedish).0 -
I read My Name is Lucy Barton and I totally agree. I kept thinking that she was an unreliable narrator and that we were going to gain some wonderful insight about her at the end, so I kept on. Nuttin!
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me...nuttin? Amen.
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I liked A Man Called Ove too. ( would love to be retired at age 59 too!!)
Ruth: do you read Scandinavian mystery writers? Jussi Adler-Olsen's series is excellent! I've read my way thru Helene Tursten's series too and am excited that book 9 will be translated and out in English in December.
Have not read Lucy Barton, and I won't, based on your non-recommendations!
I just finished Harlan Coben's new book Fool Me Once and it was good. A twist that you don't see coming!! Fast-paced, page-turner.
I go back and forth between mysteries and WWII history. Right now I'm reading Ravensbruck: life and death in Hitler's concentration camp for women by Sarah Helm. Most of the papers concerning this camp were burned at the end of WWII and then the camp ended up behind the Iron Curtain and no information was released for decades. The author was able to find a few survivors and some papers and letters. It is a rough read. Women guards can be just as brutal as men. The population of the camp was only about 10% Jewish, the rest were Hitler's other undesirables: Gypsies, Communists, prostitutes, petty criminals. The author did a lot of research and this book is 600+ pages.
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Yes, I have read and enjoyed several of the Adler-Olsen's books.
My favorite 'Scandinavian book' is The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson. I read it out loud when driving back from Florida with a friend & we almost drove off the road a couple times because we were laughing so hard!
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Thanks for the suggestion, Ruth. I'll look for it at my library.
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i loved the 100 year old man. Saw the film too! Book was way better! Naturally!😇
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Then you may very possibly like Ove as well. Same dry sense of humor.
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check out the son by philipp meyer. a western for our century. texas and a bit beyond 1859 and 1915, 1945. boy 12 gets captured by comanches
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Mego: I too kept hoping for more with My name is Luck Barton She wanted so much more from her mother, but relished the little she gave her and maybe that is a lesson. It took until the end of the book to find out that she was hospitalized for appendix surgery.
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Has anyone read Louise Erdrich's La Rose?
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found this on reddit.com today, from the the books subreddit.
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jel! That quotation is a gem!!!!AND sooooo true!
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Jel, I just forwarded that quote to friends. Thanks
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Just finished The Invisible Ones by Stef Penny (previous book - The Tenderness of Wolves). It's about a Romany Gypsy family group in modern England - still living a roaming life style in "caravans", but they are trailers now. One of the young wives has been missing for 7 years before her birth father (from a different group) decides to hire a PI. The story is told in alternate chapters by the PI (who is half gypsy but never lived on the road), and a teen age boy within the family group. I found it slow at the start but really got caught up in the mystery. I was SURE what had happened to the girl, but I was wrong. Then I was sure what happened to the young husband but I was wrong again.
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Halfway through All the Light We Cannot See. Great read, I see why it won a Pulitzer Prize.
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reading king's latest. the mc guffin is a game boy type computer. I know these can be dangerous. my friend's autistic son had one and when it broke and my friend couldn't fix it, his son hit him. he'd never been violent towards his father before that.
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I recommend Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides - it has probably been mentioned here before (published 2002 and Pulitzer winner) but I just got around to it - and enjoyed it very much. Great characters - great descriptions of Detroit, its history and environs - a fascinating 20th C Greek family saga narrated by a young girl/boy who discovers that although raised as girl, at puberty presents as a boy. Such a short time ago - 1970's the concept of transgender was little known and although there was research in hermaphroditism - the common treatment was the parents decide and "appropriate" surgery and hormones provided. The next book was The LIttle Paris Bookshop by Nina George, a story about a bookseller who spends 20 years overwhelmed with grief over the loss of his lover and who embarks on a journey along the canals and rivers of France to find relief and healing and the ability to love again. I liked the fact that other than the original couple, the couples are all in their 50's, 60's and 70's!!! I wasn't much interested in the bookseller's book selling strategy - his was an apothocary book store - he prescribed the right books for what ails you. But other than that, the descriptions of France from a boat and especially Provence were awesome. There was one weird coincidence.....I had read on some news website about a book written by Edgar Feuchtwanger who, as a young Jewish boy, lived next door to Adolf Hitler in the 1930's. The article mentioned his uncle Lion who had written scathing criticism of Hitler. Well, the next day, I am reading in The Little Paris Bookshop that the bookseller/hero has taken up residence in a village where several exiled German writers survived the war years. The Manns, the Feuchtwangers, Brecht and a few more. How could I forget that name - which I had never heard before.
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I just read Wonder by R.J. Palacio. It is actually a book you might find in middle school library (and should.....I am going to recommend it to my middle school librarian friend!), but it is a book anyone can gain insight from reading. The main character was born with a severe facial deformity and other medical problems with caused him to be home schooled until 5th grade. The book begins with his point of view but switches to include his classmates, his sister, her boyfriend, and others. Their perspectives converge to show their struggle with empathy, compassion, and acceptance. A quick, wonderful book that will make you think, laugh, and cry......sometimes all on the same page!
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