Book Lovers Club
Comments
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Great minds read alike
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Interesting VR, I'll read some reviews. The full title of the book: A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness, could certainly apply to DT.
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lilac....along the same line as A First Rate Madness is, Kevin Dutton's The Wisdom of Psychopaths. I LOVED reading both books!
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Was at Barnes & Nobles this week and I saw a couple of history books that looked interesting. Was giving hubby some ideas for me for birthday and Christmas. Nothing I love more in the winter than to curl up with a good book and a cup of tea before bed.
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Enjoying Neurotribes, which is a history (with extensive human stories) of autism spectrum disorder.
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ksusan, I enjoyed Neurotribes book as well because of the insights into the complexity of human thinking and behaviors as well as the policy issues surrounding cognitive/behavioral functioning. We learn something new each decade through meticulous research that moves thinking from one theory to another. Maybe it is because of all the fairly recent narratives on autism spectrum disorder that I realize that there has been a wealth of differences in the people I've known but did not have the language to understand and appreciate.
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I've been on a reading marathon. Discovered L.P. Hartley's The Go-Between written in 1953. Amazing first line: "The Past is a Foreign Country: They do things differently there."
A captivating book. Set in England before & during the 1st WW. The protagonist is a 13 year old boy absolutely set on the "traditional" values of the English upper class at the time, although he doesn't belong to that class. Sort of a coming of age book, but more... "yearning for lost times & childish innocence" (Ian McEwan). Apparently there was a Harold Pinter film staring Julie Christie & Alan Bates.Read Alice Hoffman's Here on Earth - 1997 - "a fictional exploration of family love and all those forces that threaten to undermine it." The Mother returns to a small Mass town after 19 years in CA. It truly paints a picture of how it's possible to survive a love that consumes you. The only other book of hers that I'd read is The Dovekeepers, a historical novel about the siege of Masada. I'll have to re-read it now.
In the YA category, just finished The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. It's told with story & cartoons about a boy who leaves the Rez by Spokane, WA determined to better himself. So another coming of age story but also exploring prejudice from both sides.
And two books by one of my favorites, Margaret Maron. Her series about Judge Knott in North Carolina is wonderful. The first book in the series is The Bootlegger's Daughter. The family has 12 grown children and Deborah Knott is the youngest (and only girl). The series goes from moonshine & tobacco fields to family dynamics to solving mysteries. I just read The Designated Daughters, about who becomes the care giver for aging parents & how the elderly get back at a shysters scam. And Long Upon the Land, when a long time family rival is found dead and Deborah finally learns something about her Mother who died when she was in HS. Her mother was upper class & college educated and her Dad had a grade school education & was a bootlegger. How did they meet & have such a lasting match?
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Just finished Girl Waits With Gun by Amy Stewart (2015). Several Indie book stores recommended it. Really fun story set in 1914. Three sisters live alone (read - without a man) out on a farm in 'rural' New Jersey. Well, Paterson/Hackensack were rural in 1914. A 'thug' runs into their buggy in town w/his new-fangled motor car and refuses to pay for the damages, then starts a 'war' with the girls. "Quick witted and full of madcap escapades...a story of one woman rallying the courage to stand up...for herself".
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Yup!!!
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Ruth: so perfect, my new mantra!
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A few more:
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ruth....thanks! Now I will have more time to read other books!
Here is my own excerpt for a non fiction book....
The Power Broker
Man doesn't know how to drive...builds more roads and bridges than anyone else in modern times. Ever.
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Here is another...
Devil in the White City
Maniac runs around world's fair and murders and murders and keeps murdering until...you all know how it ends, he FINALLY gets caught....
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here is another....
Truman
Salesman in a Missouri dry goods store becomes President of the US and drops THE Bomb.....Also establishes interstate highway system...(I guess in case some country drops THE bomb on us and we need to escape).
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Winter bloom by Tara Heavy
Gardening cures all. It's magic!
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Must be summer, everyone's out and about instead of reading books & posting about them. :-)
Just read my first and second David Baldacci thrillers. How did I miss this prolific writer?
Mom lent me a paperback of The Target which had an excerpt of The Escape so read that next.
The Target features two US gov't assassins (Will Robie and Jessica Reel) who take orders from a corrupt boss with suspect motivations. IMHO the most interesting character was Yie Chung-Cha, a young but accomplished assassin from North Korea.
The Escape features an Army investigator (John Puller) who has to hunt down his brother, who performed a seemingly-impossible escape from a military prison cell.
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We're watching the Olympics
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badger!!! How could you??? DH's favorites are Baldacci, Silva, Childs, Lescroat and Vince Flynn's successor. When their books are released, VR can read to her heart's content. He and she just blissfully sit together on the couch reading!😍
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VR, I know, right???
I will also read anything by Lincoln Child especially if co-authored with Douglas Preston. Have read all of Vince Flynn's books. His literary successor is doing it up right.
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i was referring to Lee Childs and his Jack Reacher character...
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DH agrees about Flynn's successor
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Ah, got it VR. Haven't read the Lee Childs but heard of Jack Reacher from the movie with Tom Cruise. If I read it now I'll have his face in my mind. I know the movie rarely lives up to the book but is it a pretty good depiction?
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there was a whole controversy with respect to Cruise playing the Reacher character. Childs, who is 6'6" tall, created the character with his height in mind. The character's name came from Childs' wife who told Childs, "If you don't succeed as a writer, you can always be a "reacher." The Childs are English and a "reacher" is a store aisle stocker and his height would come in handy if he needed to reach high shelves. I don't think the Jack Reacher character needed to look up to many people, whereas, I think the filmmakers would have to do some serious photoshopping to give Cruise the height he needed to play the character.
That said, the DH enjoyed the film...and there are more on the way.....
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I love Lee Childs' books but couldn't wrap my mind around Tom Cruz as Reacher so I won't see the movies. But yes Badger, you have lots of books in this series waiting for you. After I discovered him I went back & read them all. Long before I read any of the authors that VR lists as favorites of her DH, and that I never miss, I read Nelson DeMille. I give him some credit for enticing & enhancing my reading scope.
I am reading along. It's too hot to do much else. Sorry I have been remiss at posting.
Currently in the middle of A.S Byatt's 2009 The Children's Book. 879 pages. Why have authors gone crazy with longer & longer books? Maybe it's the publishers? Another good example is Greg Illes The Bone Tree at 860 pages in paperback. Even the paperbacks are getting to heavy to hold, and they sure don't fit in a purse, let along a pocket.
Back to Byatt - the book follows my recent reading pattern about the world before "the wars" or the time between the Great War and WWII. It was a bit hard to settle into because of the various families & children, but it's interesting to see the differences between the rich & the servants, as well as the difference between the artists and those who are in London with the making of 'gold' as their art, and the rise of the long struggle for women's rights. Some of the characters recently completed a trip to the Paris Exposition and Queen Victoria has just died. I'm only half way through so I will wait to review until the end.
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left the DH alone for a week or two...but VR doesn't have to worry about him being lonely. Found two "new" authors for him to enjoy....Keith Thompson and James Salter. Just finished reading Salter's The Art of Fiction. OMG...no clue why he was never before on my radar. A jewel.
Presently reading John Nici's Famous Works of Art. Wonderful!
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Badger, Baldacci has several series: The Camel Club,; Will Robie; John Puller; King and Maxwell, Amos Decker and A. Shaw (two books). Good to read them in order. Plus he has many more along the Sammie line. There are three books that are very different from the rest, Wish You Well, One Summer and The Christmas Train.
I enjoy John Grisham as well. He wrote several books that have nothing to do with a lawyer in them and I enjoyed them just as much.
Daniel Silva's early books I enjoyed the most. I find his Gabriel Allon series are too much alike, particularly when describing Allon's team. You can tell there is some copy and paste going on
Read Ruth's Journey by Donald McCraig. It's Mammy's story from Gone with the Wind. Very good read.
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Love the Reacher series but can't get past Tom Cruise playing him, as he is just too short for the role. I kept telling my friend that a young Clint Eastwood would have been perfect for the role.
Just finished Kathleen Flinn's The Kitchen Counter Cooking School. How a few simple lessons transformed nine culinary novices into fearless home cooks. I really enjoyed it. As someone who never really learned to cook, Mom didn't want me in the kitchen underfoot, I can say that I learned a few things from this book. Will be trying braising!!
And now I'm reading Prisoners of Geography. Ten maps that explain everything about the world. by Tim Marshall. "Why will America never be invaded? What does it mean that Russia must have a Navy, but also has frozen ports six months a year? How does this affect Putin's treatment of the Ukraine? How is China's future constrained by its geography? Why will Europe never be united? The answers are geographical."
I love looking at maps, and so far the chapter on Russia has been fascinating.
Then back to the Stephen White series.
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glennie.....that map book is my cup of tea. When my kids were kids, often, I would pull out a map to explain world history. I could never understand their teachers lack of enthusiasm for using maps when explaining history. When I began reading The First Nazi, I was quite interested in reading about the fact that it is almost IMPOSSIBLE to win a war when fighting on more than a single front.
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I'm still a map junkie. I gave my son a map when he was a pre-teen & told him to plot routes - like from Houston to New Mexico or Colorado. He was our navigator. Of course this was before cell phones.
I get a feel for my entire surroundings through maps, but it's getting very hard to find them in many cities. Everyone loves GPS. I want to see the big picture!! When I was in Honululu I finally found a good one at Barnes & Noble after 4 other attempts. Even airports & car rental places don't have maps of the city. Just a cheat sheet with major roads. Remember when every gas station gave maps away for free?? I know you can still get maps at AAA if you're a member, but not sure if they're detailed.
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