Book Lovers Club
Comments
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JCS - are you familiar with Bookmarks Magazine? I wait with baited breath for my copies all years long.
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No, but it looks interesting. I use Indiebound.org a lot when looking for book titles. It is a group of independent bookstores that post a monthly list of interesting titles. Found numerous great reads there. My next read is a title that was recommended here, Travellers in the Third Reich. Have other things on hold through the library, but I enjoy learning about new books here.
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JSC -I'm going to check out indiebound.org I get weekly e-newsletters from one of our local Indie bookstores. They do reviews of employee's favorites and list new titles in both hardback & paperback. They also have national authors speak & read from their works several times a month. I used to go regularly, but it's a "fur piece" and usually in the evening so I've been missing the readings.
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Sierra - GREAT poster. You have some good books liked up!!!
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I am “all in” on kindle reading and so is my dh. He recently forgot to bring his kindle on a trip and had to resort to buying a paperback. He didn’t like the different reading experience.
My one complaint is that my kindle with lighted screen requires frequent charging. If I ‘m not vigilant, a warning of low battery will appear in the middle of reading
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Just a trick I use on Kindle. Try turning on airplane mode when not downloading. It saves the battery.
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Even though I miss the feel of a real book, I don't miss having to store them all
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Dogmom… agree about storing books and then finding them new homes. On occasion I still want a hard copy so that I can mark favorite passages. I think there is something about those tiny strips sticking up that I use rather than underlying that make it easy for me to pick up that book again and rediscover a passage. For some reason I do not do that with sections highlighted in my Kindle.
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I read in night mode on my iPad. The white print on black background is easier on my eyes, no glare from so much white background. Seems to save my battery life.
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Magic - my BFF says she know when a book at her house belongs to me because of the little yellow sticky note strips. I also pick up books at random and read what I've 'noted'. Sometimes I still underline too, but I try to do that in pencil now a days. Not sure why I switched from pen.
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Got stuck waiting for someone yesterday and pulled out one of the used books I always keep in my trunk for such emergencies. It was Mosaic by John R. Maxim (1999).
It's about wealthy politician & CEO's who stick their wayward & embarrassing children & wives in (mental) institutions. (just like they did at the turn of the century before this one) The psych groups from NSA/CIA/Pentagon/Los Alamos Labs - are using them to test experimental drug combinations. "They" are hoping to: a) develop a drug so soldiers won't be "bothered" by fear, and b) research people who truly have multiple personalities for the spy industry. Ended up finishing before I slept. Scary premises.
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For those of you that like modern day murder mysteries I recommend Long Bright River by Liz Moore. A young woman from a troubled home becomes a police officer. She works in Philadelphia and sees a great deal of prostitution and drug addiction. Murdered prostitutes turn up about the time the officer’s drug addicted sister goes missing. Well written with many twists and turns. Not my usual genre, but glad I picked it up.
I agree about electronic reading. I swore I would never give up reading ‘real’ books. Once my cataracts started growing the large font on my IPad was the only thing that saved me. I love sitting on the couch downloading something to read. I am probably 60% EBook and 40% book book. I am sad about the fact that publishers are now limiting libraries to one ebook per title. It will make holds lists a great deal longer.
Enjoy your weekend
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I liked The Little Paris Bookshop. I thought about picking it for my Book Club selection (I wouldn't have considered that if I didn't think it was good).
For travel, or books I'm reading just to read, I like my Kindle. If it's a book that is meaningful, that I might want to revisit, I want my 'real' book so I can underline, jog notes in the margins, tag pages I want to quickly find. I've started books on Kindle, and if I realize they are a keeper, I've stopped & quickly got a hard copy. It's a special treat to make a book my own.
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Bestselling author Lee Child hands the future of Jack Reacher over to his younger brother Andrew Grant - as long as he changes his name
- Lee Child has announced he will not be writing another Jack Reacher book
- He has handed the rights of the multi-million pound franchise to his brother
- Considered different ways of killing Reacher but decided to keep him in family
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My-oh-my. Thanks for posting. Certainly news. Surprised at no comment VR. What did your DH say?
At least it's nice to know. I quit reading James Patterson when it became obvious he was doing nothing but lending (selling) his name.
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Minus....DH said...."If he plans on developing something for television, sounds ok." That said, I reminded him that I loved Jonathan Tropper's books, including This is Where I Leave You, which was subsequently made into a pretty good film. And....Tropper is now a screenwriter and wrote and directed TWO TV series which we loved watching as well. So, if Child follows Tropper's path, then WOW!
i had the pleasure of meeting Tropper twice. He is hilarious and so clever! And has Chutzpah too!Looking forward to Child's next act....
And Patterson? Booooo.
btw....since Vince Flynn's untimely passing, another writer has taken over writing his books and according to the DH, the books are pretty good....
sooooo...best of luck to Child's brother...and best of luck to Child0 -
VR - saw on another thread that yesterday was your B-day. Many returns slightly late.
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minus! Thank you! I never make a big deal about my birthday. But yesterday was one of my best birthdays! My entire family, excluding my grandson and me, were sick! So, he and I spent the entire day together and had the best time!
Today....everyone is STILL sick, so he and I got to spend even more time together. Among the highlights of the day was I read him a very, very, very short version of Moby Dick. He loved the story. I found this series of children picture books called 10 minute children’s classics. The vocabulary in the Moby Dick story was exceptional. While reading it to him (almost 4 years old), he asked if I was reading an “old” English. That was such a wonderful way of describing the words he was hearing.....i did have to be creative and change words and parts of the story...but in the end....he loved the book and so did I, and best of all,I loved spending every minute with him!0 -
VR, one of my fondest memories is being shipped off to my grandparents’ when I had chicken pox in hopes my sister wouldn’t get them too, plus both my folks were teachers. I got grandmother all to myself for days
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https://www.amazon.com/Moby-Dick-10-Minute-Classics/dp/1486712002
above....a link to Moby Dick. I highly recommend.
melissa...i have extremely wonderful memories of my maternal grandparents....I think I developed my love of reading while reading to my immigrant grandmother. In fact, reaching back to those memories is what boosted my desire to become a literacy volunteer once my own kids left the nest. Among my fondest childhood memories was reading to my grandmother from the Letters to the Editor in the local New York paper....those Letters helped develop my critical thinking skills and from that experience I had with her, I will always be grateful.0 -
Just finished A gentleman in Moscow. Took me a while to get into it, but once I did I rather enjoyed it. The ending confused me a bit, I won't give it away here for those who haven't read it, but I actually had to google a discussion on the ending to see what happened!
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For those of you who are Amazon Prime members, you can get 2 free ebooks during January from a preselected list. Google Amazon firstreads for details. Some of the books look pretty interesting.
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https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/25/book-clinic-what-postmodernist-novels-should-i-read
reading the above column regarding “postmodernist” authors.....it never occurred to me that my favorite author Geoff Dyer was a “postmodernist” author....not that I even know what the term means and I also wonder what section in a library or book store you would even find “postmodernist” authors....hmmmmm..0 -
I just completed CONSENT A Memoir of Unwanted Attention by Donna Freitas and was really affected by it. I think that it is an important subject for women to consider, especially at this time in American history. I'd love to hear what others thought of it, if anyone else here has read it.
And, like Pat and Sierra, I found A Gentleman in Moscow to be a wonderful book, but slow in the beginning. I actually stopped reading it the first time I had it but started it a second time (and was very glad I did) after so many people on this thread recommended it.
VR, your memories of reading to your grandmother reminded me of some of my favorite memories of reading to my grandchildren. My oldest granddaughter will graduate from college this year and I love to think about the times we read aloud to each other, alternating chapters of the Harry Potter books. I now have the same “reading bond" with my youngest granddaughter who is in kindergarten and just learning to read. Books are a wonderful thing to share, aren't they?
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Just finished Fatal by John Lescroart, his first standalone novel. I have not read him in a long time, but I remembered liking his Dismas Hardy series. While the story had some merit, and he is a good writer, it seemed that he crammed too much into this novel, without needing some of it. And for the 2nd book in a row, I had trouble with the ending, I must say I didn't like the way he finished this book.
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American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins is an emotional page turner, yet Cummins stopped my progress so many times with her clear, concise, graphic, heart rending descriptions of the experiences of Lydia and Luca (mother and son) as they face the seemingly impossible odds of traversing Mexico after the murder of their entire family by a cartel [those murders open on the first pages]. My empathy for them is as deep as for Eva Rosselli, the young Jewish girl/woman in Amy Harmons' Sand and Ash's story describing Italian laws that criminalize being Jewish.Seemingly small acts of kindness turn unnamed characters into heroines and heroes. Rarely do I buy a hard copy, but I had a feeling I'd want to share this book with friends.I plan to do that after I reread and copy memorable sections.
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Magiclight, I am reading American Dirt now. It is an interesting, well written book. I do not understand the hoopla associated with this title. The author had to cancel the book tour due to death threats. It is a work of fiction describing a terrible situation affecting a family in a foreign country. How is it any different from someone writing a book about the Holocaust that is neither German nor Jewish? I have not seen the negative characterizations, other than the criminals, that people have complained about. Not everyone has to like or enjoy every book written.I will start Joyce Carol Oates latest when I finish this one.
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Has anyone read Educated? I've been putting it off. Probably due too many controlling church issues in my youth that I don't want to trigger. My long distance BFF really wants me buy the book.
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C.S.Lewis, The Reading Life The Joy of Seeing New Worlds Through Others’ Lives...
O.M.G. PURE JOY!Early on, when I joined this thread, I mentioned my love for C.S Lewis’ writing. Reading The Reading Life, underscores that love. Every single page of this tiny book has a huge amount of wisdom. It describes us book lovers to a T! As you turn each page, you will marvel at what comes next...
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Oh VR - this will go immediately on my list. Not just the long list, not the regular list and not even the short list. I will make sure I get this book in February. The link below from the CS Lewis site confirms everything you hinted at. Plus I love "lewis" in his robe with the lion behind (different than lion rampant of course).
https://www.cslewis.com/a-reading-life/
I discovered in looking at my Lewis collection that I must have loaned "A Grief Observed" to someone at some time and it never came home. I can try to be charitable and say maybe they needed it more at the time than I did, but I don't like people who never return books. So I have two Lewis books to buy.
Went to see "The Fantastiks" this afternoon. I saw it at 19 in San Francisco and was certainly the dreaming princess to the "callow fellow". For those of you who know the story, you can imagine the philosophical difference seeing it again after more than 50 years, and after having "seen" the world. Especially since one of my habitual comments is - 'well, we're not 25 anymore'.
But even better for a reader - all the quotes from a myriad of books & plays were starkly clear, when I'm sure I missed most of the references as a youth. At one point an actor actually starts 'quoting' West Side Story when he forgets his lines. At another he was talking about how magnificent his Bottom was - and on & on about how no one who had ever seen his bottom would ever forget. If you weren't a reader, you would have no idea he was talking about "Midsummer Night's Dream". And the word play from "Don Quixote"... oh my.
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