Book Lovers Club
Comments
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jelson Thanks, another to add to the list, sounds like a good one.
Started a Gabriela Garcia Marquez book, Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Finishing the Rendell mystery, quite good.
Have not read Manchester's book on the Kennedy's, but I enjoyed Clint Hill's story of Jackie. I thought he was kind in re-telling history and leaving out sordid details. It was interesting that it was therapeutric for Clint Hill to write this book, and tell his story that he was unable to for a long time.
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Hightide, I highly recommend all of Tana French's novels-- Faithful Place, The Likeness, In the Woods and her most recent, Broken Harbour. All excellent!!!
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Marcy.....thank you thank you thank you!!!!!!!! I used to be an avid reader until BC came into my life and then I read nothing but BC BC BC!!!!!!!....I tried many times to start reading my beloved books again but just couldn't focus. I have been lurking here for a long time enjoying reading all your suggestions and reviews. What sparked my interest
was the fact that you mentioned Glasgow Scotland which is where I grew up. Reviewed
the book on line (The Death of Bees) downloaded it and can't put it down!!!!!! I am so excited to be reading something other than BC info!!!! Long may it continue....thank you again. ❤0 -
Gina... I loved reading Ruth Reichl's books! I read Garlic and Sapphires which describes her experience as The New York Times food critic. Quite hilarious and a true inside look at the restaurant industry. Her book, Tender as the Bone, about her childhood and descriptions of her earliest food awakenings is wonderful. I was mesmerized by the bookcover as well! As a child, I had the SAME kitchen as the one on the bookcover. If you get the book, you'll notice a cabinet door below the window. We had that. It's a compartment for fruit and vegetables found in older buildings.
Regarding Destiny of the Republic....I recall Ruth reading the book and I couldn't wait to get my hands on it! It's TERRIFIC! I went to a library discussion of the book and the history professor who discussed the book was just as terrific as the book itself! I didn't know until then the Sondheim's musical, Assassins, was based on Guiteau and Garfield. He even played some of the music from the play! The professor emphasized technology and arrogance and the roles they played in this tragedy. Likewise, the author pondered, just like O'Reilly, in Killing Kennedy, how history would have differed had the deaths of these great men had not occurred.
Right now, I am reading American Literature on Film and Screen: 525 Works and Their Adaptions.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0786468424
Please don't run out and buy this MAGNIFICENT book! It cost $150! I grabbed it off of the library shelf before flying this week and I am so glad I impulsively decided to bring this big book with me. With all of the flight delays, I barely noticed how long it took me to get to my destination because I was captivated by the book.....
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hightide1: A couple months ago I decided that this year I wanted to read all the Pulitzer Prize winners for fiction (at least those that won in my lifetime). I had already read quite a few, but there were so many I hadn't even heard of. A few weeks ago I read A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain. I really enjoyed it. Only 20 more to go!
ginadmc: I just started The Liar's Club last night and I have Let's Pretend This Never Happened next up on deck. I'll let you know what I think!
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I went into a local independent bookstore to browse around this afternoon. When I walked in the store I was warmly greeted by the owner who asked if she could help me find anything. I told her that I was just browsing. I probably stayed for close to a half an hour and on my way out I told her that I do most of my reading on a Kindle and that it's nice to actually see the books and their covers. She said "that's too bad" (referring to my reading on Kindle). As I was walking out the door, I said "thanks" and got no response. I thought she hadn't heard me, so I said "have a nice afternoon" also with no repsonse. I think she must have been offended when she found out that I'm an e-reader
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wenweb- That is horrible!! Poor taste and judgement from a proprietor. Now, if you ever wanted to purchase a book for yourself or as a gift I am sure you would go else where. Rude!!!
I too have been reading almost only on my kindle lately. I have been getting great deal on the e reader daily deal. I read Spirited Away by Maggie Plummer. It is a story about Irish slavery. It was good, but not a mazing. Also, The Freedom Star by Jeff Andrews. This story is about slavery and the Cival War. It is told from many points of view, the southern slave owner, the slaves, the Northerners. I enjoyed it and found it interesting. My next book will be Tollesbury Time Forever by Stuart Ayris. It was another e deal and goodreads gave it 4.5 stars.
Has anyone read Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia? A friend of mine said she couldn't put it down. It does not seem like my type of book. But I downloaded it for 1.99 so I thought I would give it a try?
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I just downloaded the latest Ken Follet novel for my cruise.Would not have wanted to lug a huge hardcover on a vacation.
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Mumito
This is when tablet viewing is best. If you get drowsy and drop the hardcover, you could fracture your nose!
This novel is on my 'to read' list. Let me know what you think.
I liked "Pillars of the Earth" but not the sequel.0 -
mumito- Let us know how it is!
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Has anyone read "The End of Your Life Book Club"?
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HighTide - The End of Your Life Bookclub - it's on my list. Are you reading it now? I'm looking forward to any comments.
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Trying to decide if I should bump it to the top of my list...which is about a year of reading non-stop.
It is getting good reviews and I want to see their lists.
Will you be starting it soon?
Trying to decide between 'Wolf Hall', 'Broken Harbor' or this one.
What are you reading?0 -
Hightide, I haven't read "end of your life..." yet but I'd put "broken Harbour" over "wolf hall.,"
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I am heading to B & N today for 'Broken Harbour' and 'End...' I am going to try reading both at the same time. I am not good at this but they are so different I think it will work.
I now have so many great suggestions and much better lists. I am starting one called: "I Can't Put It Down" with "The Death of Bees" as my first entry. Now I have 90 pages in this thread to review to capture these gems.0 -
Have to say how much I enjoyed "Astray" the book of short stories by Emma Donoghue. At the end of each story is a paragraph or two about its real-life inspiration (i.e. the people who went astray) and that added something special for me. I re-read each story after I knew its origins.
She's the author of "Room" which some of you read and discussed here last May. Not sure I'm up for that book, it looks quite intense.
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Fiction alert! Jennifer Haigh's News from Heaven. Can't put it down.
And Jami Attenberg's delicious, sad novel The Middlesteins, I see has been nominated by The LA Times for best fiction.
Going to throw in the mix a great foreign film... Do foreign films count here because you have to read the subtitles?
The Russian film Hipsters is amazing!!!!0 -
two very different books:
Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb. volume 1 of the Rain Wilds Chronicles - a fantasy with dragons - actually deformed -but highly intelligent! dragons that can't fly - have been made the responsibility of a people who obviously didn't know the extent of what they were taking on. By mutual consent (dragons/people) the dragons are moving to a more hospitable area. The people charged with helping the dragons - groom and feed them) are themselves misfits - mostly young people with cosmetic deformities (scales/claws) for which their parents, according to the mores of their people, should have allowed to die. It brings up all kinds of issues of infanticide. Anyway - many interesting characters who you meet separately and who eventually come together and interact in unexpected ways. I will eventually read the subsequent books in the series. Apparently Robin Hobb is a very prolific and well-respected fantasy writers. Reading the blurbs about her previous books, I see that she has a series The Liveship Traders Trilogy which gives background to this series and contains some of the same characters - so if you REAALLY want to immerse yourself, you might want to start there.
The Spellmans Strike Again by Lisa Lutz This is the 4th in a series which begins with The Spellman Files. The Spellmans are a family living in San Francisco - whose family business is private investigation - yet they seem to spend most of their energy meddling in and spying on each other. The voice is that of Isabel, who in the course of the 4 books so far ages from 28 to 32 though in actual maturity? not so old. She is a middle/problem child - real problems like arrests and alcohol - but she is incredibly lovable and tries very hard. I am fond of all the characters and laugh out loud at their antics. NO SEX SCENES Isabel is compared to Stephanie Plum - but there is real character development/emotions and issues in these books - not just wacky comedy. Glad there are more to come.
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VR - I was recently reading about this Jennifer Haigh book. I recently read Baker Towers and I think these stories take place in the same ficitional mining town. I have read her other books, Mrs. Kimble and The Condition, a few years ago but I remember liking them and her writing style.
Also, I am going back and reading the other Ruth Reichl books. I'm reading Tender at the Bone right now and loving it! I have Garlic and Sapphires on deck next.
Gina
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Gina....Yes..the characters and the town are the same. It's very light/heavy reading. Light...the kind of book you read while waiting for something....I don't think it's something that I'm going to remember reading. In fact, after I took out the book and read more about Jennifer Haigh, I realized I read Mrs. Kimble. You could see what an impression it left on me....Yikes! That fiction side of my brain misfires ALL.THE.TIME....
Regarding Ruth Reichl...I'm so happy to hear you're enjoying her books. She's terrific. And speaking of food writers...I'll be reading next Consider the Fork. I'm also going to take a peek at The City of Devi...another novel....VR is on a tear!
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ginadmc: So I read The Liar's Club and was really disappointed! I guess I was expecting another Glass Castle, but I really did not like Mary Karr's writing at all. She jumps around a lot and it was kind of bland or flat. Honestly, I found it a chore to read.
I also finished up Let's Pretend This Never Happened and absolutely loved it. I thought it was hilarious (in a strangely humored, borderline disturbing kind of way). It's definitely not a book for everyone, but it totally fit in with my sense of humor.
While I'm talking about memoirs, did you see that Jeanette Walls has a new book coming out? It's acutally a novel and not a memoir. It's called The Silver Star. Can't wait to read it!
Has anyone else read Bring Up the Bodies? It's this month's book club book, but I didn't read Wolf Hall. I'm wondering if I'll be lost or whether I'll still enjoy it...
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Since memoirs are being mentioned, has anyone read "Too Close to the Falls" by Catherine Gildiner? She tells about her upbringing in upstate NY close to Niagara Falls. At the age of 4 she was hyperactive and her mother couldn't deal with her, so she was put to work at her father's pharmacy. It's LOL funny.
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Hi Mcsushi! Sorry to hear you weren't entralled with The Liar's Club. Let's Pretend...was just wacky but endearing. I did have to read some passages out loud for my husband and he'd just shake his head. He did find the taxidermy funny. I thought most of it was hilarious. I agree that you can't really recommend it for everyone~~so what does that say about our senses of humor?!
I've heard that Bring Up the Bodies is good. Someone here also mentioned it. Let me know if you are going to read Wolf Hall first. Didn't know that Jeanette Walls has a novel coming out, I will certainly add it to my list.
Take care, Gina
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latimes.com
The Reading Life
The weight of books
By David L. Ulin
Los Angeles Times Book Critic
8:51 AM PST, February 25, 2013
My wife calls me the scavenger of shelves. It’s not necessarily a term of endearment, uttered more in the spirit of toleration, or exasperated love. We’ve been together for a long time, more than thirty years, and she’s had no choice but to come to a reckoning with my book absorption, with a library that grows and grows again.
“The books are taking over the house,” she told me, not for the first time, after I had completed a massive reshelving project, close to 4,000 volumes and more than 100 shelves, stretching from the living room into our bedroom, then down the hall to the dining room and my home office, everything alphabetized by author, David Aaronovitch to Stefan Zweig.
It’s the kind of project I take on every seven years or so, usually precipitated by a move. This time, though, the inciting incident was my 50th birthday, for which I gave myself the only gift I truly wanted: a set of built-in, floor-to-ceiling shelves.
She’s right, my wife — the books are taking over the house, as they have taken over every house in which I’ve ever lived. Since childhood, I’ve been both reader and collector, not just defining but, in the most tangible sense imaginable, framing my world through books.
Yes, books are about the interior journey, the fluid back-and-forth between writer and reader, reader and writer, the interplay upon which literature depends. This is one of the best things about them, their insistence that we can only be enlarged, illuminated, by entering the imagination of another, which, in turn, inhabits ours.
And yet, there is another side of books, their physical presence: the sheer weight of all those volumes, the space they occupy. When I look at my books, arrayed from room to room now in their pleasing order, what I see are not just the ideas or narratives they represent but themselves as manifestations of my life....
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That's great, VR! I keep seeing pictures on Pinterest of massive bookshelves or cozy reading nooks or creative shelving projects, and coveting all of them!
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Anne... What I imagined when I read the article was his poor wife getting lost in the sea of shelves...I can only imagine the arguments they had over the course of their marriage.... I wonder how much say she had in decorating! I recall when I was pregnant with my first born ( am I supposed to say, " When WE were pregnant?), the DH had a collection of electronics. Yes, I married a computer geek. This was BEFORE personal computers. Anyway, he used to tell me that we would eventually have computers in the house and I wailed, "But where will we put the kids!!!????" His hobbie and my love of books could have potentially made our child, an only child. Thankfully, they invented personal computers and I developed a love for the library! And, we raised three kids! End of story! /p>
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I just read Tollesbury Time Forever by Stuart Ayris. I do not even know how to begin to describe this book. It was interesting, heartening and confusing at times. I have never read anything like it. I really liked it though. It is the story of a man whom you do not realize at first is schizophrenic. He is very insightful and finds his own path through life. Trying to learn to be a better person and the meaning of life. Finding forgiveness with others and himself. It is so insightful at times it grips you. I recommend it. Somehow it brought me peace amongst the confusion of it all. It also has a Beatles theme to it that is soothing and sweet without being tacky or odd. Again- hard to describe, but good.
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AnneW https://www.facebook.com/ForReadingAddicts provides photos of lovely books in all sorts of configurations.....
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Sounds good, Laurie. I added it to the (ever-growing) list.
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mcsushi- I hear you on the list. I have been getting the e reader books- this was one of them and I don't seem to make it to the library much anymore. Also, the reason why I say you don't realize he is schizophrenic is because he is not depicted as hearing voices, other personalities or crazy. I would love to see what you think of it.
Picking another one of my free e reader books off the kindle tonight.
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