Book Lovers Club
Comments
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I enjoyed reading Snow Falling on Cedars many years ago but have only a vague recollection of the content.
I finished a Karen Slaughter crime novel last night and was glad to finish it. The plot involved so much misery and evil that it was difficult to enjoy the well-written narrative. Perhaps a bit too much realism. The ending had some light at the end of the tunnel but not the happily ever after variety. I haven't decided whether to read another novel by Slaughter.
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minustwo - you made it successfully your first cataract surgery! Sounds like you did just fine. I had trouble adjusting to seeing better with one eye and never found glasses that worked in the interim weeks before the other one was done.
You won't regret doing it.
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Thanks Snickersmom.
Good news. I have shelves & shelves of beloved children's books (not to mention other books). My only son & DIL aren't having any children. At 50, he still doesn't want any of the children's books (sigh). I've been emailing with my niece about some of them. She has 3 & 5 year old boys and reads to them every night. She is ecstatic about getting 'hand me down' books. Her goal is to have a full wall of books that she can enjoy reading when she retires & has more time. In September, I gave her most of the 30 or so "little golden books". I sent "Little Toot" last month. This week I sent Mother West Wind's Animal Friends. If the boys like that book I have 10 more in the Burgess series. She's too old to have read Harry Potter when she was a kid, but I did read & enjoy the books as an adult and will send the set to her after I re-read them. It's such fun to have found someone who cares about these treasurers.
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That is awesome, Minus!
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yay! Minus!
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Finished Secrets of a charmed life by Susan Messnier - it was a delightful book, about 2 sisters in London during WWII, and how their lives progressed during and after the war - highly recommend. I've put other books by this author on my to read list, she has a nice way with words.
I too read snow Falling on Cedars years ago, and remember loving it at the time, but would be hardpressed to come up with any details now! Another excellent book about Japanese internment during WWII is Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jaime Ford.
Next up for me is Dark Places by Gillian Flynn. I've read a couple of her books and really enjoyed them, and lately I'm in the mood for fiction.
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pat - yes I liked Hotel on the Corner... I'm going to put Secrets of a Charmed Life on my list.
Makes me think of 42 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff, which I recently re-read. It's a charming 20 year correspondence between the chief buyer of antiquarian books in a London bookstore and Hanff in New York, starting in 1949 and continuing until Doel died in 1968.
I'm reading a J.P. Beaumont mystery by J.A. Jance. Easy on the eyes while my cataract surgery continues to heal.
And VR - here's a further update. Surgery was easy. No pain. The drops are a PITA - 3 different drops 4x a day for a week. Today I downgrade to 2 different drops 3x a day. And so on. Glad I got a little timer or I'd totally forget. Doc said it looks like I'm now 20/40 and may still have to wear some minor correction for distance. I've had no problem reading by putting 1.5 cheaters on top of my old glasses. So the 'new' eye with the clear lens reads perfectly. The previously progressive lens needed updating, so I can tilt my head down and the 1.5 correction on top of the mid line is perfect for reading. I can actually read the computer screen & the newspaper with my 'naked eye', although it's work & if I had to do it for too long w/o new glasses i expect I'd have a headache.
The amount of light coming in is amazing. Actually 'blinding' when the sun is bright or when I turn on the lights above the bathroom sink. My only "disappointment" in terms of what others had told me is that I expected revelatory & immediate improved distance vision. I still can't read street signs with the "new" eye & road signs are somewhat blurry. But in terms of what she originally predicted, I shouldn't be surprised. And I know what most of the signs say anyway. AND it's correctable.
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minus...to heck with the road signs as long as you know where you are going! Reading perfectly? KUDOS!
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So I was scared for nothing? Does that mean I won't be scared for the second eye on 12/9? Oh hell no. I have another post-opp on this eye the same day as pre-op on the other eye - the Friday before Thanksgiving.
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The Other Einstein by Marie Benedict is a historical fiction, telling the story of Albert Einstein's first wife, Mileva Maric, who was a brilliant physicist in her own right. I didn't know this before, but In the world of physics, there's a great deal of debate over how great a role she played in forming the theory of relativity (like was it mostly her idea). It is a quick and very interesting read.
I guess the author has written other books about the women behind influential men, which I will definitely check out.0 -
just finished reading, Olive Again....
i’m sorry dear book lovers...not my cup of tea. Kind of reminded me of my puzzlement reading Bridges of Madison County. What was I missing? Really?0 -
Olive never captured me either.
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ruth...
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Well I know one of my dear friends really didn't like the book at all. I still don't have it pulled out to re-read, but I'll read with a more "critical" eye when I do.
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VR, I don't know that we two necessarily have a particularly 'normal' taste in books!
I just read a book which I wouldn't recommend to anyone unless they had a passion for history, and an interest in learning more about how people viewed life, death, eternity etc. etc. in bygone days. It's This Republic of Suffering by Drew Gilpin Faust. It is pretty disturbing, so don't read it unless it sounds interesting AND you are prepared to be unsettled. Below is the book's description from Amazon:
More than 600,000 soldiers lost their lives in the American Civil War. An equivalent proportion of today's population would be six million. In This Republic of Suffering, Drew Gilpin Faust reveals the ways that death on such a scale changed not only individual lives but the life of the nation, describing how the survivors managed on a practical level and how a deeply religious culture struggled to reconcile the unprecedented carnage with its belief in a benevolent God. Throughout, the voices of soldiers and their families, of statesmen, generals, preachers, poets, surgeons, nurses, northerners and southerners come together to give us a vivid understanding of the Civil War's most fundamental and widely shared reality.0 -
Oh dear, I loved Olive, Again. The way the interactions between people are written is beautiful. Olive is so unsure of herself socially, yet she attempts to live in a small town where everyone knows everything. She finally comes to understand people support and love her. The part about the baby shower and childbirth in the car was funny yet showed you how difficult it was for Olive to really interact with people. I love books that appeal to your emotions and are character driven. They are not everyone’s cup of tea. I will start my next book today, The Price We Pay; What broke American health care - and how to fix it. At this moment in my life I find the healthcare system very interesting. On to more reading
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It is so much fun to find an old book that is new to you. Part of my haul from the used bookstore anticipating easy reading after cataract surgery. I literally couldn't put this one down Read until 4am. Chain of Custody by Harry Levy - 1998.
Park Ave. cardiologist becomes a white-shoe lawyer & now suing the city of NY (& two cops) for the wrongful death of an Hispanic man in Rikers Prison - medical failings. NY Law firm is pissed even though he's a rainmaker. Mayor is pissed. He's standing up for what he believes. Then his soon-to-be ex wife who is a district DA is murdered....and... Lots of medical twists & turns. Good courtroom scenes. "Not just a medical thriller or a legal thriller - it's both" detroit free press
Scroll down this amazon page for not only a description of the book, but a bio of Levy and several reviews.
https://www.amazon.com/Chain-Custody-Harry-Levy/dp/044900449X0 -
No one but fellow readers would appreciate this. So I've been putting 1.5 cheaters on top of my old glasses (to magnify the one plain glass lens). I'm comfortable reading for long periods with this arrangement since the corrected lens was already old & can use the slight magnification. I keep the cheaters in place with an old wooden clothes pin - clipping the two sets of glasses together.
Yesterday I went for my 3 week post-op. My doc saw me sitting in the waiting room reading and laughed her head off. Her only request was - please don't tell anyone the name of your eye surgeon. She was dying to take a picture, but said HIPPA regulators would go crazy.
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Minus! You deserve a medal!
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Oh Minus, I burst out laughing as I visualized you and your eye doctor's request!!
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https://slate.com/human-interest/2019/11/50-best-nonfiction-books.html
The 50 best non-fiction books of thr last 25 years...according to Slate... of course Geoff Dyer’s Out of Sheer Rage is on the list.....
VR has read a number of the books and can attest that the list is excellent. If one would like to read non-fiction, they can do no wrong choosing a book on the Slate list0 -
Thanks for the list VR. I'll enjoy perusing, remembering old things & finding new things I can't live without.
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....it is also worthwhile reading the comments that follow the article. Many, many more books are mentioned......and Ruth....Erik Larson is mentioned among the comments...and so is Michael Lewis. I wonder why no one mentioned Bill Bryson?...
if someone asked me what my favorite non-ficton book is, I would have to go back further in time and say, Robert Caro's The Powerbroker is my favorite. Perhaps because I have lived in NY my entire life and spent so much of my time in traffic, Robert Moses does come to my mind often.On the list, of course there is no greater book, IMHO, than Geoff Dyer's Out of Sheer Rage. Dyer's ability to find humor in what he sees can only be matched by his descriptions of things most of us cannot see. As funny as Out Of Sheer Rage is, Dyer's Missing of the Somme is equally somber.
Also on the list Columbine. Whatever you think you know about Columbine is probably wrong. The author sets out to find truth. Truth is very slippery. The author attempts to catch it...
One book, missing from the list and from the comments is For Laci: A Mother's Story of Love, Loss and Justice written by Sharon Rocha, mother of murdered, Laci Peterson. I have mentioned the book here before and it is worth mentioning again. Reading the book, I first weeped. Then, I cried. I have never gotten over reading the book, nor will I ever forget. As a mother of a daughter, I could feel her loss....losing a daughter to a psychopath is senseless...0 -
Speaking of Erik Larson, here is a synopsis of his new book which will be released February 25th:
On Winston Churchill's first day as prime minister, Adolf Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next twelve months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold his country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally—and willing to fight to the end.In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson shows, in cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people "the art of being fearless." It is a story of political brinkmanship, but it's also an intimate domestic drama, set against the backdrop of Churchill's prime-ministerial country home, Chequers; his wartime retreat, Ditchley, where he and his entourage go when the moon is brightest and the bombing threat is highest; and of course 10 Downing Street in London. Drawing on diaries, original archival documents, and once-secret intelligence reports—some released only recently—Larson provides a new lens on London's darkest year through the day-to-day experience of Churchill and his family: his wife, Clementine; their youngest daughter, Mary, who chafes against her parents' wartime protectiveness; their son, Randolph, and his beautiful, unhappy wife, Pamela; Pamela's illicit lover, a dashing American emissary; and the advisers in Churchill's "Secret Circle," to whom he turns in the hardest moments.
The Splendid and the Vile takes readers out of today's political dysfunction and back to a time of true leadership, when, in the face of unrelenting horror, Churchill's eloquence, courage, and perseverance bound a country, and a family, together.0 -
ruth...I.Can’t. Wait
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Me either. I marked it on my calendar!
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I just finished reading "The Unwinding of the Miracle" by Julie Yip-Williams, which tells of the life of the author from the very beginning of her life being born blind to a poor family in Vietnam until the end of her life when she dies at the age of 42 of colon cancer. She accomplished quite a bit during her time on earth, such as arriving in US, getting married, having children, attaining a high level of education.
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Celand, I loved that book. It certainly ended sadly but it was such an uplifting testament to what someone could accomplish, even in a short amount of time. And I admired her outlook so much! I'm currently reading The New Girl
(Daniel Silva) and really enjoying it. I really like the entire Gabriel Allon series ... such an interesting protaganist!0 -
I agree - I like Daniel Silva. My BFF is just now reading her first Silva and plans to go back & read them all.
I just finished The Maytrees by Anniie Dillard - 2007. Not sure why I had never read this Pulitzer Prize winning author before but liked her writing and the premise of the absolute forgiveness was enticing. Anyone read any other books of hers?
I liked what she said about the inhabitants of the Provincetown backwater. "...she agreed with many out here who like her,... found it prudent not to waste life's few years cultivating and displaying good taste. To whom? She could be reading." Ah yes - the way I would choose to spend my remaining years.
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minus! How wonderful! Isn't it a great feeling when you turn a friend on to an author and then they go on to read EVERYTHING by the author? AND, when it's your BEST friend? WOW!
last evening, my BFF told me how much she was enjoying reading How The Brain Lost its Mind. It made me feel so good! Likewise, earlier in the day, my daughter was telling me about Sunday's episode of 60 Minutes and she described one of the clips which was about the brain and mind. After explaining to me what she saw, she asked me what I thought. I told her I just finished reading a book about the subject and thought it was as absorbing as what she saw on the television. BUT...what I shall share with my beloved fellow readers is... I think what I read was probably much better than what she watched on television! That said...understanding the mind aspect of the brain is sooooo intriguing.....Here’s the link for the 60 Minutes..
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