Book Lovers Club
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DH and I watched the first two episodes of REACHER last night on Prime. I think the actor playing Reacher is well cast.
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Thanks for the review Carole. I've been reading about his selection & he sure looks the part.
I discovered two authors last month. Frances Brody's Kate Shackleton mystery The Body On the Train (2019). WWII female detective out of London called on to help Scotland Yard (or to take the blame?). Rosemary Aubert's first Ellis Portal mystery Free Reign (1997). A lawyer & judge who is disgraced, cut off from his family and homeless - living in the woods out of Toronto. I will look for more books by both of these authors.
Also reading These Precious Days (2021) - a book of essays by Ann Patchett. One would think it would be easy to set this down since each essay is a different topic, but I'm so engrossed in the everyday things she's writing about that I'm starting the next one, and the next, and reading way past my bed time.
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Magic,
my favorite professor I had for English in college wrote a very public opinion piece about the banning of “Maus” by that particular Tennessee school system. I feel that if we start banning books or other subjects that make people uncomfortable, we are doomed to repeat what those subjects were trying to teach us.
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MO...we have already started with too many book topics. Another sad chapter of American history in the making.
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Found this quote today in a cartoon and thought it was appropriate to post here. " A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight." Robertson Davies
Personally I do not believe in banning books.
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Absolutely Betrayal. Check our VIvian Gornick's "Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic RE-Reader".
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Just discovered D.E. Stevenson - a prolific British author writing 1930's- 1960's. very popular - 7 million copies of her books were sold - and I think I heard about her because books are being reissued, though the ones I found in our library system were very old copies. I read Miss Buncle's Book and Mrs. Tim of the Regiment. I will look for more in these two series which take place in England and Scotland respectively between the wars. Village life - servants, country estates, small economies, vicars, cocktails, gloves and hats, both very amusing with amazing descriptions of the Scottish countryside in Mrs. Tim.
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Ann Tyler has a new novel out, French Braid. I will look forward to reading it when it's available at the library in kindle form. I read a little of the plot in a NYT review and it sounds very Ann Tyler. I have always enjoyed her books and characters.
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Carole - 2nd the Ann Tyler recommend. I too am looking forward to French Braid.
Read & enjoyed The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett. I understand she has a new book out. Also read Klara & the Sun. I wasn't sure if I would like it but I love Ishiguro. The book didn't disappoint. Polished off an old Marcia Muller this week. I always enjoy her Sharon McCone books because I was raised in the SF Bay Area.
Hi to all. My first time trying to post anywhere but the dinner thread since the "revised" format. URGH
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URGH is right!! With all the winter weather here, I've been doing some long delayed projects around the house. Reading some, but nothing interesting enough to report on.
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Got a new book from the little library by our community garden. Our Kinfolks by Ed Krause. I'm having trouble gettingn into it. Has anyone read it before?
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I have not read Our Kinfolks. I used to finish books I started, whether I liked them or not. Now I will go only so far into a book that doesn't draw me in, and not feel bad if I don't finish it.
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Good idea ruth. I'm going to give it a little longer. Good thing I got it from the free community library
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I don't force myself to finish books I don't like, either.
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I just finished Prairie Fires, a biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Very well researched & written, but depressing because real life was a lot harder and more depressing than the books portrayed.
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Oh Ruth - thanks for the review. Even if it is depressing I'm adding it to my list.
Anyone read Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad? I have not but read an interesting comment from an interview about her newest book The Candy House which is a quasi-sequel. "It also allows her to confront a central development of our time - the escalating integration of technology into our lives - and to explore what happens when social media and immersive tech are taken to their logical, invasive end. 'It's so incredible to think of how wrong George Orwell got it: It's not that anyone forces screens into every home,' Egan says. 'It's that we invite them.'"
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I watched a UTube interview with Ann Cleeves and Louise Penny yesterday. I enjoyed Ann Cleeves' dry wit. Later I managed to download several ebooks by both authors. I am so looking forward to reading them. I knew Cleeves wrote the Shetland books but I didn't realize she wrote the Vera books. DH and I are big Vera fans.
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We love Vera too!
Minus, if you read Prairie Fires, let me know what you think. I read it for my Book Club & I think it will generate a good discussion.
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I've been reading books a neighbor loaned me. Harlan Coben's Caught - REALLY caught my attention (pun intended). "Buckle up and prepare for whiplash" "He creates characters who do the things we would do and then spins those actions into wild feats of believability." " This novel is psychologically twisted, fascinating, and guaranteed to make you both look over your shoulder and sign up with the good guys."
Also read Kristin Hannah's Summer Island. Relationship drama about a Mother who walks out on her family (2 teen-age girls), how their lives play out & what happens when they finally try to re-unite much later in life.
Carole - I love Louise Penny but don't have much experience with Ann Cleeves. I'll put her on my list. Do you have a recommendation for where to start?
Ruth - I ordered Prairie Fires yesterday but it's unlikely I'll be able to sit down with a book before the end of the month.
(The italics & caps for the book names are a test to see if these still work with the BCO changes)
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Minustwo: Harlan Coben has been my favorite "go to" author for many years now. If Caught is the first/only book you've read of his, you have a whole treasure trove of books waiting for your reading pleasure...all guaranteed to please!
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minus, I’m with sundance - Harlan Coben is one of my favorites! If you haven’t read all of his books, you’re in for a real treat. I’m going to request Summer Island from the library; I’m a big fan of Kristen Hannah.
I’m currently reading all of Amanda Cross’s Kate Fansler novels and really enjoying them. Written by a professor of humanities at Columbia, they sure challenge me. (I love finding an author I haven’t read and reading her books in chronological order.) I’m also reading The Betrayal of Anne Frank. What an interesting “cold case” to consider. So many books, so little time!
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Oh jk - how I envy you finding the Amanda Cross' books for the first time. Must be about time for me to start re-reading from the first book. Over the years I've collected all the Fansler novels as well as everything else Carolyn Heilbrun wrote. I particularly loved "Writing a Woman's Life" and "The Last Gift of TIme - Life Beyond Sixty". "She was (truly) the first woman to receive tenure in a (college) English department (Columbia), and a prolific feminist author of academic studies." I was devastated when she committed suicide, just as she always said she would.
I've been reading Harlan Coben for some time and agree, I've liked all of his books. I actually got to see him speak one time and he was fascinating.
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Saw a great T-shirt today. "IT's not hoarding if it's Books".
Bought an Evanovitch and a Baldacci today at an overstock place. $3.99 for hard backs. And oh well, I have 4 or 5 more on the way from Amazon.
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Minus, you sent me to Google with your statement about Carolyn Heilbrun’s suicide. What a tragic loss. (And I have already ordered The Last Gift of Time - Life Beyond Sixty and am looking forward to reading it.)
I’m another Evanovitch fan; whenever life gets stressful, I reread her books and just lose myself in the humor!0 -
I'm on strike & doing nothing but reading this weekend. Friday I finished The Wife Upstairs by Rachael Hawkins. It's a contemporary re-telling of Jane Eyre. Great fun. The blurbs were correct. I didn't want to put it down. This morning I finished Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler. I like everything Anne Tyler has ever written. This is a liberal & current re-telling of The Taming of the Shrew.
Now reading The Girl Who Escaped From Auschwitz by Ellie Midwood. Always difficult to read the details of the camps but there are some amazing instances of people helping each other at any cost.
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Ruth - hope you have a save trip to your nephew's wedding.
Just finished "Better Off Dead" the latest Jack Reacher book by Lee Child & his son Andrew Child. Good story. I saw Lee Child speak a couple of years ago & he told everyone he was handing the series off to his son. Maybe they're just keeping both author's names for awhile.
VR - Is your DH still reading these or did he drop Reacher?
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Thank you minustwo, just purchased used The Last Gift of TIme - Life Beyond Sixty, for £2.60 inc. shipping.
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Lilac - I'll be interested to hear what you think.
Just finished another Harlan Coben - Just One Look. His books always hold my interest. I can never figure it all out until the end. And they are a nice easy read at 3am when I can't sleep or when it's over 100 degrees so I need to stay inside.
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