WHAT ARE YOU READING? - Part 3

A new month, a new thread.

I wanted until it is March everywhere to start the new thread - February was such a lousy month (both personally and for the world)...

How is everyone doing? Do you look forward to the spring (or autumn/fall if you are down under)?

In case someone is on the "learning a new fact every day" bend, today is a Bulgarian non-holiday holiday: Baba Marta Day: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baba_Marta_Day (aka Grandma March Day). Today and in the next few days, you can recognize (almost) any Bulgarian anywhere in the world - we all will be sporting the red and white martenitsas at least for a few days. :)

>1 AnnieMod: heh, Im going to international folk dancing tonight, and Bulgarian dancing is often included. should be fun! thanks for the info!

I like March in Vancouver because spring takes hold, and spring is my favourite season. It's a new month and I'm ready for new books. March is also Irish Readathon, so for that I'll be doing Frank O'Connor's My Oedipus Complex (short stories), and Troubles by JG Farrell. My at-work book is The Woefield Poultry Collective by Susan Juby

Well, Happy Mardi Gras too. I haven’t finished much. So my list should look a lot like it did on Feb 1.

Main books:
Decameron - using McWilliam translation and reading essays in a Norton edition
Boccaccio by Thomas G Bergin
Anniversaries by Uwe Johnson
The Fruit of the Tree by Edith Wharton
Coriolanus by Shakespeare
audio: The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honoreé Fanonne Jeffers

I have two others ongoing, but I’ve put them aside to focus on the books above - David Copperfield and Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition.

I didn't read as much in February as I hoped, so I'm still working on The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict and A Tale of Love and Darkness. Both are very good, but I now feel behind with the Asian Book Challenge.

Headed up to see my father this week. Hope to take along the following:
Anniversaries by Uwe Johson
The blue between sky and water by Susan Abulhawa
Son of the storm by Suyi Davies Okungbowa
Lobizona by Romina Garber

Happy No More F-Month! My spirits are always lifted a bit when it's no longer February.

I just finished The Long Ships, which I adored with all my heart. Now I'm reading Maud Newton's upcoming Ancestor Trouble: A Reckoning and a Reconciliation, plus dipping in and out of The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020, which I checked out of the library for one story but it's fun to jump around a bit while I'm there.

Should this topic be pinned?

>8 dianeham: Done

Just started Turtles All the Way Down

>10 dianeham: I want to know what you think of that one. I think there's a copy around my house somewhere and I mean to get to it. Turtles All the Way Down is a great title (yes, I know what it means)

>11 Nickelini: will do.

>10 dianeham: I think my daughter enjoyed it. It makes me think of Discworld - the title and backstory behind the title.

Soon to finish The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, about 2/3 through The Five Wounds by Kirstin Valdez Quade, and about halfway through No Light to Land On for the Asian Reading Challenge this month (the Arab world).

I've finished The books of Jacob, which was great once I got the bit between my teeth, but did take quite a while (around six weeks!) to get into. Now started Walter Kempowski's Mark und Bein.

>10 dianeham: oh I loved that book! Also read the fault in our stars and watched the wonderful movie of the same name

Finishing up Celestial Bodies and trying to get into memories of eden not sure why Im struggling with it. Ill get there.

I have finally read The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander twelve years after its initial publication. The New Jim Crow is an excellent, essential, infuriating, heartbreaking examination of the harms done to the black community, and by extension to America as a whole, by the War on Drugs. Alexander's writing is clear and direct, and her points well supported. It is only the subject matter that makes this book extremely difficult, but extremely important, to read. My somewhat more in-depth comments can be found on my CR thread.

Right now I'm reading the novella, The Circus of Dr. Lao by Charles G. Finney, the first entry in the collection The Circus of Dr. Lao and Other Improbable Stories, edited by Ray Bradbury and first published in 1956. After that I'll be treating myself (I hope!) to a Graham Greene novel, The Tenth Man.

>15 thorold: I'm very much looking forward to your review of the Kempowski novel. I found All for Nothing to be excellent and unforgettable.

Just as March started, the gloomy weather that had taken hold of northern Germany for many months passed - we have had sunshine for a few days now. It's still below zero during the night, but it becomes much warmer during the day, it's dry and the sun gains more and more power! It lifts my spirits so much and I feel like I have energy for the first time since September or thereabouts.

Accordingly, I have decided to pause some books that aren't working for me right now, and look for other books that fit my mood.
My main read is now Still Life by Louise Penny which I had put on pause in October when we started our move to the new apartment. I am excited because this series has so many fans, both on LT and in my family.
I think I will also pause the poetry collection by Annette von Droste-Hülshoff that I am slowly working my way through - I like her poems a lot, but they are very gloomy and I think I will pick them up in autumn again. I have not decided which poems to read instead, though.

I have also started a new nonfiction book, Mit Fairgnügen reisen, about ways to make travel fairer and greener, and the limits of that.

Reading Anniversaries in small portions is absolutely not working for me, so I might take some time in the summer and read a huge portion instead.

I am still listening to my audiobook, Morgenröte by Hanna Caspian, the third installment of the historical Gut Greifenau series taking place on an estate in eastern Germany.

>19 MissBrangwen: Sunshine makes such a difference, doesn't it? It was sunny here the other day, and I took my toddler niece for a walk, because although it was only 16F, it was a "nice day."

Good for you for swapping out books that weren't working. I should do that as I was reading several depressing books when the war in Ukraine broke out, and I haven't had the emotional fortitude to stick with them.

After our hottest summer on record I think even those of us that love this time of year are ready for the temperature to drop.

I've torn through The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, not quite in one sitting though only because I've had other things to do. I felt quite bereft when I finished.

I finished Graham Greene's short, absorbing novel, The Tenth Man. I've posted a review on my CR thread. Next up for me will be the month's selection for my reading group, The Reluctant Mr. Darwin: An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of his Theory of Evolution by David Quammen. Happily for me, this is not the doorstop-size book that my group-mates have been in the habit of selecting lately, so I'll be able to take it along on the short vacation my wife and I are about to leave on.

I'm working my way through Frank O'Connor's short story collection My Oedipus Complex for Irish Readathon, and also reading the short novel Last Night in Nuuk by Niviaq Korneliussen, which is translated from Greenlandic.

Choosing a few books to take with me tomorrow; will be getting my knee implant. Very excited and a lil scared. Celestial Bodies (if I don't finish tonight)The Witch's Heart Also taking the new Smithsonian, Antropology Today and New Yorker if those dont take (Im only staying a night but I need to be prepared for what I feel like reading, ya know?)

>24 cindydavid4: I do know! Good luck!

I just started another Louise Penny - Bury your Dead.

I’m reading Wordsworth and Coleridge: the friendship by Adam Sisman, and reflecting that “Pantisocracy” would be a great name for one of those franchise chains that sell underwear on railway stations…

I just finished A Season of Secrets by Elizabeth Adams and The Library by Bella Osborne. Still reading Love Overboard by Janet Evanovich, which already contains elements of Stephanie Plum.

>24 cindydavid4: Good luck, will be hoping for good recovery.

I finished New Grub Street and am not sure how I feel about it. Now back to My Struggle: Book 1 and occasionally remembering to read a chapter of The 1619 Project.

I am finishing Love Overboard by Janet Evanovich and just finished The Library by Bella Osborne.

As soon as I can settle down, I will start Sweet Darusya: A Tale Of Two Villages by Ukrainian author Maria Matios.

I just finished The Tuscan Secret by Angela Petch.

Looking to start a fictional novel set in book Portugal as I will be visiting in May. any suggestions?

>34 Beachgirl55: i enjoyed 300 Days of Sun by Lawrenson

I started Widow's Welcome yesterday as my new commute book.

Enjoying Project Hail Mary as an escape from Earth's problems

I put aside Rizzio to read today because it's a novella set on March 9, 1566. But on March 9, 2022 I was busy traveling to several hours to spend the day with my daughter because it's her 22nd birthday, so I only read half of it. We did have a spectacular sunny day in Victoria which included two excellent meals, a good browse at Munros, one of the world's most beautiful bookstores, and a lovely afternoon walk on a beach looking at driftwood sculptures.

Earlier this week I finished The Ones Who Don't Say They Love You, a very good short story collection about people on the margins of society in post-Katrina New Orleans by Maurice Carlos Ruffin, the first book I've read this month. I'm now reading Ella Baker & the Black Freedom Movement by Barbara Ransby, Anniversaries by Uwe Johnson, and The Actual, a poetry collection by Inua Ellams.

I finished two books yesterday, Boccaccio by Thomas Goddard Bergin, and The Decameron : A New Translation, Contexts, Criticism (Norton Critical Edition) translated and edited by Wayne A. Rebhorn (I only read the introduction, context and criticism). It's only books 8 & 9 for the year for me, so feels worth a post here. I'll review them after I finish the Decameron.

Zipped through A Study in Scarlet with Sherlock Holmes

I am reading Cork Dork by Bianca Bosker, which is about a journalist who decides to become a sommelier. I started and stopped this novel some months back, so trying it again. Also reading An Amish Garden which is a beautifully illustrated coffee table sized book about an Amish family's gardens through the year.

I raced through Patrick Gale’s lovely new novel Mother’s boy, which is all about the early life of the Cornish poet Charles Causley (and oddly coincides with a new memoir by Howard Jacobson with the same title, which should lead to some amusing mix-ups…).

Now reading Prisoners of geography, which I would obviously have started two weeks earlier had I known it was going to go out of date so fast.

Finally getting to the last in Kent Haruf's trilogy - Benediction. Looking forward to it, but sad that I've left such a gap between the novels as I can't remember much about the second one.

>41 dianeham: that sounds very much like my kinda book. Looking forward to readiing what you think

>43 LadyoftheLodge: Oh my goodness that title immediatly think of the dork of cork which isnt about food at all,but a wonderful novel of an outsider (he is a midget) who has always wanted to know about space. One of my fav reads that year

Now rereading Day of Honey about a young journalist who writes with her husbnd during the Iraqui war number two, about life there, and a lot about food. bringing people together.

>41 dianeham: The few I had checked from this series had been too popular-y - Wikipedia has more and better details (and is written better) than they do. They are not bad introductions I guess but... I probably need to look at that one while I am on the Sumerians anyway although I don't expect much. I'd be interested to see what you think about it.

>48 AnnieMod: >46 cindydavid4: yes, it a very short book in a series of 5 very short books. No need to read it if you know anything about the Sumerians which I didn’t. So it was a good intro for me. Now I want to know more. Going to try The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character next.

>49 dianeham: Kramer is much better - at a certain time he was the best out there for the Sumerians. The only problem with him is that he is also much more dead than the writers of the other book and that book has quite a few things that are not true anymore because they keep finding things and they keep changing the story as we know it. Still worth reading it though IMO - even where he is wrong, he is more right than most of the scholars at the time so have fun :) And there is no better book out there which is not either very scholarly or which does not use the Sumerians just as a springboard to talk about Babylonia anyway.

I finished The Perpetual Curate by Margaret Oliphant with a Virago group read yesterday. I'll try to update with my review and in the Victorian Tavern later today.

For nonfiction I'm reading The Nineties, a collection of essays about the 1990s, which is sometimes really fun and sometimes dwells on a topic I'm uninterested in, so I skip ahead. It's very long for this topic, I feel.

So I needed a "candy" book and picked up another of Ruth Ware's mysteries, One by One which I can tell will be just what I want as a break before I start something a little heavier.

My new lunch-at-home book is The Snow Child and my new commute-to-uni book is The Hair-Carpet Weavers.

Finished The Property by Rutu Modan and am opening In This Grave Hour, the next in the Maisie Dobbs series.

>54 dianeham: Oh I'll be interested in what you think of Trick of the Light, Diane. I generally very much like Jill Dawson's writing, but this one felt like the weakest of hers I've read to date.

I'm getting very close to finishing The Arab Mind, which became a bit of a slog halfway through but I'm now back to a more interesting section.

I'm also reading Out of Thin Air: Running Wisdom and Magic From Above the Clouds in Ethiopia which is an account of what makes Ethopian runners excel at a global level (written by an anthropologist elite runner who spent over a year training with them).

>55 AlisonY: A Trick of the light by Louise Penny. I’m not familiar with Jill Dawson

Halfway through The House of Rust by Khadija Abdalla Bajaber which started with talking crows and cats and is getting weirder from there (in a good way though).

>55 AlisonY: I just ordered a Jill Dawson book - The Language of Birds.

Greetings all! My wife and I were away for a spur-of-the-moment week's-plus beach vacation in the south of Baja and just returned home last night. During the time away, I finished my reading group's selection for this month, The Reluctant Mr. Darwin: An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution by David Quammen. I found it to be quite an excellent book. I'll have a review up on my CR thread within the next few days.

I am now, at age of 66, finally reading Sense and Sensibility, only the second Jane Austen novel I've read. (Emma is the other.)

I'm somewhere in the middle of Henry de Monfreid's politically incorrect Red Sea memoirs at the moment, but took a break yesterday for some German absurdism with the late Ror Wolf's Zwei oder drei Jahre später, which was fun, in a confusing sort of way.

>57 dianeham: Oh! Right title, wrong author!

>59 dianeham: Will be interested in what you think of The Language of Birds - I've not read that one, but it's subject matter (the Lord Lucan affair) sounds really interesting.

Stilll reading Day of Honey, thought after my surgery Id be reading a lot, but between meds and wanting to fall asleep at odd hours, Im just not focused. Still liking the book. Frankenstein in Bagdhad os up next, hopefully I can finish it by the end of March for the Asian challenge

Someone here a while back suggested reading Damnificados. I bought it and decided to try this moring Spent the day reading outside. What a magnificent story! thank you whoever turned me on to it! Easily a 5 star for me

ETA I never thought to compare this to Steinbeck but this reviewer make an excellent case

"The characters have a certain flavor to them that remind me of those in Steinbeck's Cannery Row or Tortilla Flat, allowing them to appear not only 'in living color' for the reader, but also to be larger than life, with elements of myth and magic and archetypes woven into their words and actions. Around every corner is a little bit of the unexpected, and yet these epic uncommon elements - a massive flood, ghosts, a pack of vengeful wolves - fuse perfectly with the very human "everyman" experiences common to all of us, such as love and loss and longing and belonging, which really forms the heart of the book."

Between basketball games i finished The Fruit of the Tree. It’s a book doing a lot of stuff on 1907 culture - women in the leisure class, factory morality, euthanasia, divorce. I’ve now wound down to actively reading only four books (plus two on hold).

>65 dchaikin: Between basketball games

I'm glad that you have your priorities in proper order, Dan. I assume that you'll have a "Do Not Disturb!" sign nearby when Creighton plays Kansas this afternoon.

Yesterday I started reading Travelers, the latest novel by Helon Habila, which came highly recommended by avaland, Caroline_McElwee and markon. I'm also slowly working my way through Ella Baker & the Black Freedom Movement by Barbara Ransby, and Anniversaries: From a Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl by Uwe Johnson.

Finishing The Fashion Orphans which is turning out to be better than I at first thought.

>65 dchaikin: I have not been keep track, is Arizona in the lineup? I remember they were in the playoffs for years I think only once or twice coming home with the prize

I've started reading An Unnecessary Woman and am loving it.

I finished The Fashion Orphans which was a five star read for me, which is unusual, as i rarely give a book 5 stars. Just started Her Amish Springtime Miracle.

>66 kidzdoc: watching my son play waterpolo instead. 🙂 (ETA - I managed to catch the end)

>68 cindydavid4: Arizona is exciting this year. New coach. They are favored to make the final 4.

>70 LadyoftheLodge: I was already to give this a go when I noticed one of the author names M.J. Rose! What a blast from the past. Several of us were on Table Talk and Readerville together with her; never kept in touch. Ok then must read!

>71 dchaikin: !!!!!!!!! Ok what is the playoff status right now, final 8, 16? May need to put my books aside for a bit I knew the old coach Lute Olsen, used to do all the camps with the kids in the summer back in the day. Glad they have someone just as good leading the way.

ETA never mind they are in the begiining round. UofA game tonight!

I've recently finished a couple of books, the gossipy and rambling The Daughter which I interspersed with the short stories from The Trusting and the Maimed.

>72 cindydavid4: It was a fun and touching read. I think you would enjoy it.

I finished today Out of Thin Air, an enjoyable first-hand account of training with elite marathon runners in Ethiopia.

Next up is Real Life by Brandon Taylor - I took a few BBs from folks in CR on this, so looking forward to it.

>76 AlisonY: I've been thinking about Real Life recently, especially how well he captures life in American graduate school.

>73 cindydavid4: :) Arizona plays a good TCU team in about 45 minutes.

I keep not posting here...

I spent some time this Sunday (and earlier in the week) actually attempting to catch up with some of my reviews and I am to the end of February. If anyone is interested:

- on the Speculative fiction side: A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers (novella, too sweet for its own good), Divine Right by C. J. Cherryh (the 5th Merovingen anthology - and probably the best one yet), Jekyll & Hyde Inc. by Simon R. Green (urban fantasy with a great premise and ending up not the novel I expected it to be - and not in a good way), Exile's Gate by C. J. Cherryh - the 4th Morgaine novel (if you read the first 3 and liked them, you will like this one).
- Two issues of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine - one from 2022, one from 1981. I liked the older one more...
- Summer Light, and Then Comes the Night by Jón Kalman Stefánsson - a non-crime Icelandic novel (apparently they have these) which was very weird but in a good way and I think I liked it.
- History of the Ancient World: A Global Perspective by Gregory S. Aldrete - a Great Courses course which was a lot better than I expected and which fits with my history project
- Life of Merlin by Geoffrey of Monmouth - and Morgaine le Fey shows up for the first time (among other things) - as usual not exactly under this name or as we know her but she is here.
- The Celts: A Very Short Introduction by Barry Cunliffe - which was interesting (and does not fit anywhere but is a tangent from the Arthur project).
- plus a course on the history of Modern Israel.

Currently reading: The Calendar Man by Christoffer Petersen (plus the usual long reads I am in the middle of).

>78 dchaikin: Yes I know!!!!! and the Suns won big as well!

Finished Day of Honey a reread for the Asian challenge (but doesn't count because the author isnt Arabic) about a young journalist who falls in love with a journalist from Iraq, and they end up going there for their honeymoon. Her descriptions of life there before and during the Iraui war were were maddening, frustrating and yet show the resilince of the people to keep their life as normal as possible. This book is also about food, she spends lots of time comparing dishes and cooking. Im not a foodie, but I didn't mind these sections at all - reminded me of my own culture and how much food brings us together.

Starting for a book group The Midnight Library and just for me because I love the author After Alice He's the one who wrote Wicked and he has put other fairytales into historic settings Confession of an Ugly Stepsisterand Mirror Mirror

I finished Her Amish Springtime Miracle (Hope's Haven Book 2) which was another five-star read for me. I rarely assign five stars so this was another anomaly. Not sure what to read next, thinking about The White Stone by Esther de Waal.

Just started Strange Flowers.

Well, bummed that Midnight Library and After Alice turned out bad (dnf) but today I got my copy of My Uncle Napoleon picked it for the April Iran theme of the Asian Challenge but I am not waiting! Loved the introduction by translatore, very helpful,and now I am quite taken by it.

Strange Flowers was awful. I finished it - sort of. Then I returned it to amazon kindle and got my money back. Trying to talk about it just makes me sputter.

Finished What Strange Paradise, working on The Hummingbird's Daughter, started Trout Fishing in America.

Just finished The Maid by Nita Prose, still reading The White Stone by Esther de Waal.

My Uncle Napoleon reads like the tv series it became. I can practically hear that laugh lines. I wonder if this had been translated without reference to the series, if this would read better. Only up to pg 100 and want to know what happenes to our young narrator, but I need some encouragement to keep reading this

I’m struggling a bit with Goytisolo’s Reivindicación del Conde don Julián — for once grateful to have an edition with copious notes — and alternating it with James Wood’s How fiction works, which seems much more serious than the title suggests, but at least doesn’t change direction in mid-phrase quite as often as Goytisolo does.

My Uncle Napoleon reads like the tv series it became. I can practically hear that laugh tracks. I wonder if this had been translated without reference to the series, if this would read better. Only up to pg 100 and want to know what happenes to our young narrator, but I need some encouragement to keep reading thos

Taking a break from Persia and reading A Thousand Ships Forgot she also wrote Children of Jucasta which is another book I wanted to read. Love how she does her family tree, very easy to keep track of, and liking it so far.

Taking a break from Persia and reading A Thousand Ships Forgot she also wrote The Children of Jocasta which is another book I wanted to read. Love how she does her family tree, very easy to keep track of, and liking it so far.

Yesterday I finished listening to The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, which I thought was good, but not amazing. And I finished The Decameron, which was an experience and big 2022 goal.

Searching for a new audiobook, I stumbled on Clarice Lispector's The Complete Stories - 85 stories over 23 hours. Maybe I'll space them out, but I started that today. I haven't read Clarice before.

>94 dchaikin: I always mean to read her but never have either.

I’m trying to pick my next read and not settling on anything. First I thought The Library at the Edge of the world would be a nice light read but it’s a little too light for me. Now I’m consider a Jo Walton book, The Just City. There are just too many to choose from.

I've finally finished Library: An Unquiet History (review to come) and have moved on to the next book in the Rivers of London series, Broken Homes.

Quickly gave up on the Jo Walton book when I realized it is fantasy. Now trying the kindle sample of Murder on the Oxford Canal

Just finished The Maid and currently reading Amish by Accident.

Re a thousand ships just came up for air, not quite finished. But if you like circe, you may like this one.

>1 AnnieMod: "I wanted until it is March everywhere to start the new thread - February was such a lousy month (both personally and for the world)... How is everyone doing?"

Yes, February was lousy. March has been a bit better, but not without stress. In February, I took some time off to do MAJOR spring cleaning. Lots of stuff got put into boxes and taken to my sister's house temporarily. Or hidden. I got rid of two bookcases in one hallway, and took 8 or so boxes of books to the library. BUT I got rid of all my piles of papers and stuff, so that it looks pretty darn nice for showing the house. That was all prompted because there had been an offer, and now they wanted to see the "downstairs" where I live. And presumably they would have me stay. I had to do A LOT in a very short time, and it was very stressful. And then nothing came of it. Apparently the offer wasn't very good. There have been two showings since then, but I am still in limbo as far as my future housing situation. Now there is a third one coming tomorrow. This one definitely wants a tenant. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Then, my mother (91) began to seem very confused and anxious. She was having to decide about moving to assisted living. But having conversations with her was becoming quite alarming. I wondered if she was having some TIAs. Anyway, she did decide to take the apartment in assisted living, but continued to seem very confused and forgetful. She didn't know if she had taken her insulin. She would fall asleep at the kitchen table and miss dinner. My sister was able to get time off and go out to help her move. That was last week. Well, once she got moved, and the stress was gone, she made a dramatic recovery. Now she was eating and sleeping better, and her blood sugar was normal, so they skipped the insulin four days in a row. Turns out she had probably been hypoglycemic. Well. So that is a big relief, and she is loving it there.

As for reading, I am woefully behind on my annual goal, which admittedly was a tad ambitious. I am REALLY hoping for life to ease up now and let me relax. I did just finish The Vanishing Half for my bookclub which met today. For my other book club with the alphabet geography challenge (D) I am reading The Hound of the Baskervilles (Devon) and in the car I am listening to The Book of Unknown Americans (Delaware). I am still reading Moby Dick and Ahab's Wife and working on finishing the other "A" titles I'm working on. Awayland, and Anglesey Blue. So of course I started another one last night. To be honest I just had to have something new, and something short that I could maybe finish this weekend. So I started Aunt Bessie Assumes. That will be the last of my "A" titles, and then I'll focus on "B". I've already started with The Book of Unknown Americans.

I also hope to be better at keeping up here!

>100 WelshBookworm: Wow, lots going on for you. I get the bit about house selling, as we went through it last year and I hope never to do that again. Moving and etc was very stressful, and I still miss my "other" house, although we love the smaller domain we now inhabit, as do our cats. Good luck!

Just finished Amish by Accident and Almost Amish (I would give it a miss--read my review on my thread.

Now reading The Murder of Twelve which is a Murder She Wrote mystery novel.

I finished Broken Homes and have now moved on to The Jewish Book of Horror, an anthology put out by the Denver Horror Collective in 2021, and which I heard about at a zoom event featuring Richard Dansky.

I have read the forward, the introduction, and the first short story, which was, appropriately enough, Richard Dansky's contribution, On Seas of Blood and Salt. (Jewish pirates!)

I will wait to review the stories all together when I've finished the whole thing, as well as the collection as a whole.

I’ve read 14 books this month.

Finished the incomparable Unnecessary Woman and started the graphic novel American Born Chinese.

>104 dianeham: Wow! Have you slept at all???

>106 Julie_in_the_Library: 2 of them were tiny books about ancient civilizations. I only read in the middle of the night. In the day time I play farmville among other things.

Plus there are 5 days left to this month…

I started reading The Nickel Boys yesterday as my new handbag book. I nearly missed my train stop. Twice.

>105 labfs39: so glad you liked Unnecessary Woman, If you haven't already, be sure to check his newest one wrong end of the telescope Just as brilliant

Finishing up Sweet Darusya: A Tale Of Two Villages by Ukrainian author Maria Matios and am leisurely enjoying an excellent poetry collection from US poet Ed Bok Lee titled Mitochondrial Night. With spring making an appearance (on some level) there is a host of chores that take away from reading time....

>109 cindydavid4: Thank you, Cindy. I will look for it.

>108 rhian_of_oz: books are such dangerous things. 🙂

Last night I finished Sense and Sensibility, which I enjoyed, more for Austen's use of language and razor wit than for the story itself. I've got a review up on my CR thread.

Next up for me will be a recent impulse purchase from my local independent bookstore: Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes. The published reviews I've read have been mixed, mostly due to the authors' evidently frequently use of italics to insert their own conjectures regarding what people were thinking at critical junctures. None of the criticisms have imputed the accuracy of the reporting otherwise, however.

I have read three fairly solemn books in a row (The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed, Days Without End by Sebastian Barry and Death is Hard by Khaled Khalifa), so I am currently reading The Black Moth by Georgette Heyer as a little light relief. My audible book is North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell and my kindle (bedtime) book is The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers.

>115 SandDune: Have you read other books by Sebastian Barry?

Ive read several books that are takes on Homers classics: Circe, Song of Achilles, Penelopiad The Silence of the Girls with all this do we really need another? As wonderful as these books are, they are part and partial of of women's stories. But I thinkA Thousand Ships encompasses them all. Incredibly well researched and well written, This book held me captive for a day and a half, and I don't think I will forget a moment of it. what strikes me is the newness of these old stories , how fresh they feel and how at the end the actions of the women made the story whole. 5*

>116 dianeham: No this is the first one, but I would certainly be prepared to try another. I found some of violent scenes a little difficult, but it didn't seem gratuitous violence, more a reflection of what actually happened. I struggle with violence in a thriller or crime novel - I actually find I'm more prepared to address it in a book such as this which is more thoughtful.

Finished Christmas in Paradise which is 3rd in the Amish by Accident series by Jennifer Spredemann, now reading the first book in the series which is Englisch on Purpose. Also reading The Murder of Twelve in the Murder She Wrote series, which is sort of slow right now, but the cover is really cool.

I finished Reivindicación del Conde don Julián, which remained hard work to the end, but was also great fun, if not always in the very best of taste…
Since It’s the end of the quarter and I’m going to be doing TBR pile stats any day now, I plucked something short off the long-stay end of the pile, which turns out to be William Saroyan’s The human comedy. I’m having trouble coping with all that niceness…
Naughtily, I’ve also started on one of the Q2 Victorian reads, The law and the lady, a.k.a. Duke Wilkie’s Castle but I’m trying to resist the temptation to race through it and find out what’s behind the last locked door.

>118 SandDune: I had trouble with the violence in it also. I liked The Secret Scripture very much. A friend at work at the time said it was depressing which I didn’t even notice. Maybe the sadness in that one was like the violence in this one.

I finished Coriolanus today. Feeling a little free. I could pick up anything next (although I'll probably pick up one of the three unfinished books that I started in December/January)

I finished the Ukrainian novel and am now going to read a quick crime novel The Creak on the Stairs by Icelandic author Eva Bjorg Aegisdottir.

Trying to finish another book for the Asian Book Challenge before the end of the month. I picked up a book of short stories at the library called Santa Claus in Baghdad.

I finished Abdulrazak Gurnah's Desertion, which will probably be my last "official" read for the Q1 RG theme, although I still have a few more lined up that could be relevant for that.
Now back to the German Romantics with Die profanen Stunden des Glücks by Renate Feyl, an historical novel about Sophie von La Roche (novelist, editor of a pioneering women's magazine, mentor/muse to Goethe and Schiller, grandma to the Brentano clan, etc.).

Just started a collection of stories by Natalie Hynes, pandoras jar.

>126 cindydavid4: I just saw an ad for that.

Finished Trout Fishing in America, halfway through Cold Enough for Snow, and about a quarter of the way into Beirut Hellfire Society. Soon to start a book by an Iranian author for next month's location in the Asian Book Challenge.

>128 ursula: actually they arent stories per se but a look at origin stories of each one Not what I expected, but liking it nonetheless

ETA
um, each 'story' reads like a mini dissertation. Pandora's was interesting at first and then it just got way too long and convuluted. Might try it again sometime, but its just too much right now.

I've been in a weird indecisive reading place since I finished Decameron. I've also picked up several library books, it seems I'm now reading one. I've gotten into a prose translation of The Lais of Marie de France.

After you finish you might want to read matrix,a fictional accout of Marie.

Book club is on Tuesday so I thought it was time to start Riot Baby.

Buzzed through Passport, a fictionalized memoir about a girl who grows up moving around the world, the daughter of CIA intelligence agents.

Currently reading The Scarlet Imperial by Dorothy Hughes and Fatal Booking by Victoria Gilbert.

>131 cindydavid4: not sure, actually. : )

Starting Reading Lolita in Tehran for the Asian Book Challenge: Iran.

Trying to make headway thro city of brass selection for this month's Sci fi fa book group. Also reading blood of flowers for our Asian challenge this month, iran

Halfway through Tightrope. It is excellent, but really depressing.

heh, understood

>137 cindydavid4: they sound interesting.

I picked David Copperfield back up yesterday. I’m halfway through but hadn’t touched it since Valentine’s Day.

I read The Adventures of Rembrandt the Tuxedo Cat for NetGalley, which was a cute and delightful read, a picture book for kids.

I started but did not continue with Lessons in Chemistry which featured a violent rape scene right at the start of the book. I just don't read that kind of material, so it was a DNF. Lots of other reviewers liked it though and gave it five stars.

I also read Death of a Laird by M.C. Beaton, which was part of the Hamish Macbeth mystery series, which I love. This one was a short story in the tradition of the "house party" murder scene during a huge storm. This one was enjoyable.

I finished The Scarlet Imperial by Dorothy B. Hughes, which I read for the MysteryKIT challenge. This is not my usual kind of mystery novel, since I don't read noir/hardboiled, but I enjoyed it once I got used to the writing style. It sure kept me reading, and I never saw the twist at the end coming! Our library has a bunch of Dorothy B. Hughes on hoopla and Libby, so I will probably read some more of them.

Now I should settle down to something a bit less intense than locked room mysteries and international jewel thievery.

Wow, I haven't been on this thread in a while. I finished Maud Newton's Ancestor Trouble, which was a great memoir/inquiry/longform essay combination about genealogy, what we inherit, and how we investigate our own histories (among a number of other things). I interviewed Maud for Bloom, and if I'm good and get some work done tonight that'll be up Tuesday morning 4/5.

Currently reading for another one of those author panels I do for work, so all of them are forthcoming: Jamie Ford's The Many Daughters of Afong Moy, a sprawling intergenerational story about a matrilineal line of Chinese women through the ages—which, in a weird serendipity, dealt with a bunch of the ancestral topics that I first heard of in Maud Newton's book—a little bit Cloud Atlas-y, lots of fun; Otessa Mosfegh's Lapvona, which is a dark, dark medieval fable about religion and morality and power and baseness... but fun! And now am reading Anthony Marra's Mercury Pictures Presents, which is big and splashy and also fun, though in an entirely different way.

In between all that I read Karen Russell's novella Sleep Donation, about an insomnia epidemic (and medical and other ethics).

I started Mina Seckin's The Four Humors, and though I like it well enough I put it down to make sure I get my work reading done first. It's a library book but I can check it out another time.

>94 dchaikin: I read Clarice's The Hour of the Star for my book group in February. It was an interesting and challenging read, but I'd definitely be game for her short stories sometime. Interested to hear what you think.

>143 lisapeet: i posted this on Goodreads 17% through the Lispector collection:

"I'm really enjoying this on audio so far. These stories. Each one the narrator is looking you straight in the eye, speaking in full confidence, clear, rebellious and defiant, no matter how crazy they get. It's a wonderful series of studies of the desire for rebellion against the confines of life, the intent and act, and the inevitable compromises."

>144 dchaikin: Excellent—that certainly sounds Clarice-like. I'll have to check them out.

I'm reading Elena Knows by the Argentinian author Claudia Piñeiro, which was selected for this year's International Booker Prize longlist. It's set in contemporary Buenos Aires, and its main character is a late middle aged woman with Parkinson's disease who takes it upon herself, despite her infirmity, to investigate her daughter's mysterious death. It's very good so far, and I should finish it in the next day or two.

I've also just started reading Listen: How to Find the Words for Tender Conversations, the latest book by Dr Kathryn Mannix, the British palliative care physician and author of With the End in Mind: Dying, Death, and Wisdom in an Age of Denial, which was shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize in 2017.

Finished my reread of Blood of Flowers (for the asian challenge) which I liked just as much as before, and picked up on some things that I missed the first time. I missed her author notes and interview last time, that explained parts of the story. She she has another book written during the same time period equal of the sun which looks interesting

Now reading City of Brass for my sci fi/fan book group next weekand loving it. It also happens to take place in the middle east so also perfect for last months asian theme.

I am currently reading The Bookseller's Promise by Beth Wiseman, which seems to be the first in a new series. Just finished Don McClean's American Pie which is a picture book and not worth reading, give it a miss, thin storyline but nice illustrations.

I finished Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes. This is a somewhat flawed but mostly well-written and interesting bit of reportage about how Joe Biden managed to navigate the turbulent currents of a wild Democratic Party primary season and batten down the hatches during the general election to prevail as the Democratic nominee and defeat Donald Trump to become President of the United States. This is a mostly "inside baseball" report. That is, a lot of time is spent on describing the political machinations and the processes from inside the various campaigns, and those sections are often quite fascinating, though we learn a lot more about, for example, the rivalries and personal conflicts within the Biden, Sanders and Trump campaigns than we do about the candidates themselves. Nevertheless, it's interesting to learn that sort of history, the undercurrents of the election season that were mostly not on view to the general public. I've included a more detailed account of the book on my own CR thread.

Next up for me, courtesy of my monthly reading group, is the doorstop Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. It's not a book I'm likely have ever read on my own, which I guess is one major point of reading groups.

Over the last few days I've finished the longest resident on the TBR pile, De gevarendriehoek (acquired June 2011!) by A F Th van der Heijden, as well as the more recent arrival Anil's Ghost and a random archive.org gem, A yachting cruise in the Baltic (1863), by the Irish/Liverpudlian oligarch(*) S R Graves.

I've now started the other 2011 acquisition that's still on the TBR pile, Birds without wings.

--
(*) I'm not sure if being a recent Mayor of Liverpool really qualifies you as an oligarch, but these days the term seems to go automatically with owning a large and expensive yacht, so he probably was one by our standards.

>150 thorold: I'm looking forward to reading your reactions to Birds Without Wings. My wife read it several years ago and liked it a lot. I keep meaning to get to it, too.

Just finished up Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope, and while my next book club read is Caste, I really need something light and comforting now. Heading to Rapid City to visit my mom tomorrow, and I have Crocodile on the Sandbank lined up for the 8-hour drive. It's a reread for me, but it's been years, and I need an "E" location for A Good Yarn book club. For the trip home, I have Bertie's Guide to Life and Mothers, another "E" location.

I just finished the superb and inventive novel Elena Knows by the Argentinian author Claudia Piñeiro, which was just chosen for this year's International Booker Prize longlist and is centered on an older woman afflicted with Parkinson's disease who refuses to accept the police report that her daughter's death was a suicide and, despite her severe physical limitations, takes it upon herself to investigate her daughter's death and enlist the help of the one person she believes can help her find her daughter's killer.

Next up is The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr., a highly regarded novel about the love between two enslaved men in Mississippi.

I’m reading Elena Knows

I'm a few days into The Bass Rock. I'm finding it a touch moody which I'm not sure I'm in the mood for, but I'll persevere.

Wasn't in the mood for moody today so I started A Man of Shadows.

Just started Im writing you from Tehran about a young journalist fromIran who grew up in Paris, who journes back in 1998 to find her roots. So far really lliking it. touchstone not working, by Delphine Minoui

and since I just received Caspian Rains which is a fiction account about same time period will read that as well

I’m reading Heaven

I'm reading the Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben and I've just started The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen.

I've been on a contemporary fiction spree, having read in the past few weeks The Death of Vivek Oji, Detransition, Baby, In the Company of Men, and Subdivision. Now I'm having trouble focusing on The Expedition to the Baobab Tree.

I just finished The White Stone: the art of letting go by Esther de Waal, Under the Maui Sky by Kellie Coates Gilbert, and Winter and Rough Weather by D. E. Stevenson. All of these were good selections but different from each other. I am currently reading one of the Oxford Teashop Mysteries by H.Y. Hanna.

Stumbling through the last 200 pages of David Copperfield. And I’ve started Shakespeare’s Henry VIII (which has difficult act i, but also an act i Hilary Mantel likely appreciates.)

Finished Je vous écris de Téhéran which was very good, and scrolled through The city of brass way too long. Now reading The children of Jocasta and Caspian Rain

I also started what is a special graphic nonfiction book Cyrel had reviewed: When I Grow Up: The Lost Autobiographies of Six Yiddish Teenagers

The story behind this book: A late-1930’s biography competition for Yiddish teenagers across Europe accumulated several hundred entries in Vilna (now Lithuania). Of course there are no more Yiddish teenagers in Europe. These were first hidden from Nazi occupation and then hidden from Soviet Russia (in organ pipes in a church) and only recently discovered. Krimstein selected and illustrates six of them.

I popped into my favourite bookshop this afternoon to pick up Cain's Jawbone and he had the latest Jack Reacher Better Off Dead in mass market paperback. I couldn't help myself and started reading it on the way home.

I finished Otessa Mosfegh's upcoming Lapvona a while back—a dark but wholly entertaining portrait of power and craven religiosity in a medieval fiefdom. Recommended for those not easily squicked out by what you'd expect to find there (violence, abuse, nonconsensual sex, tyranny, and cannibalism come to mind). I liked it. Now deep into another upcoming book, Anthony Marra's Mercury Pictures Presents—very wordy-clever but he pulls it off well, and I the plot is a good one: early days of WWII bouncing between Italy and a second-rate Hollywood film studio.

I read The Test by Sylvain Neuvel. Excellent.

just finished Caspian Rain - despite the very well done look at a young Iranian girl losing her hearing, I gave it 3 stars. Was looking for more about Iranian society pre revolution, and for the Jewish community living there, but much of that was missing. Well written tho

Just finished the crowd favourite The Other Bennet Sister and thrilled to move along to almost anything else

Hee, I read the other one that came out about the same time, Mary B Really liked that one,. Ill skip the other, thanks for the warning :)

I’m about halfway through Hella S Haasse’s De Ingewijden, racing to finish it before it gets to the magic ten years on the TBR.
And I’ve started listening to Shirley, which I’m enjoying very much. (I accidentally downloaded some kind of community edition, read by a relay of well-meaning volunteers with an interesting range of speech impediments and with the microphone at the bottom of a fish-tank, but then switched to a version read by Anna Bentinck, who immediately won my heart by being able to do a convincing impersonation of someone speaking French with a Yorkshire accent.)

I finished David Copperfield last night. I've picked up Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, which I had started in December, and, except one day in February where I read six pages, haven't picked up since January 31.

I am loving by the sea will have to read more by him

I've got a good half-dozen+ books I am actively reading through at present (plus a dozen or so others that I've paused on). On the plus side, I've always got something to read. Downside is my focus is fractured, so everything is taking longer. And I still find myself wanting to start new things....

Current active reads:
At Large and At Small by Anne Fadiman - essays; I'll read one when I'm in the mood for something self-contained
Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens - this week is part 15 (chapters 46-48)
Wicked Autumn by G. M. Malliet - an enjoyable mystery and the start of a series
Perelandra by C. S. Lewis - continuing my read of the trilogy, plus I needed another audiobook
Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus: Revelations by Lydia Sherrer - cozy urban fantasy with a snarky cat, second in the series
Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde - one of many buddy reads I'm doing, and delightfully zany
The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson - I needed more non-fiction in my diet, and this is proving to be quite a fun read

I started a just published book Woman, Eating. It’s about a vampire - not the kind of thig I usually read.

>174 shadrach_anki: your list reminds me of my January.

I have been on a reading streak lately. I read Bel Canto by Ann Patchett for my community book group. It was quite an interesting read overall and I finished in one evening. The discussion was also a good one.

I also read Dinner with a Perfect Stranger which is a parable about a man who has dinner with Jesus. This was a quick read and provided food for thought.

I just finished Tea with Milk and Murder in the Oxford Tearoom series, and loved the descriptions of Oxford.

Now reading The Amish Farmer's Proposal and Maigret in Vichy.

After finally catching up with my reviews (phew), maybe it is time to post here.

Reading The Life and Letters of John Keats by Joanna Richardson (which is... curious) and Black Narcissus by Rumer Godden plus making some significant progress with Anniversaries: From a Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl (which managed to kick out almost everything else from my schedule this week so it needs to go back on the back burner now - the library wants some books back next weekend!) :)

just finishe Children of Jocasta and liked it quite a bit. Haynes tells the story of Oedipus through the eyes of Jocasta and Ismene. Like her thousand ships she uses the myth as a base and works her way through it using different versions. I liked the latter better, but still think this one works well. 4.5*

My monthly reading group assignment this month was The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson, speculative fiction set in the near future about the evolving and worsening issues surrounding global warming. I thought the novel did a pretty good job of providing a plausible look at how climate matters may well progress, and of individual components of the problem that many of us may not be specifically aware of, followed by a speculative and mostly hopeful view of how things might get turned around. Not all of the latter elements felt particularly likely to me, sad to say. The characters themselves are mostly razor thin, though Robinson does make some attempt to deepen the characterization of his main character somewhat, giving her a personal side issue that at first is quite interesting but which eventually becomes (or at least became for me) mostly extraneous. A lot of this novel is quite good, although Robinson's scattershot approach can become wearing. You can find my more in-depth (or at least longer) comments on my CR thread.

Next up for me will be the mystery Turning Angel, the second book in Greg Iles' Penn Cage series. It's been years since I read the first one, but I think I remember enough of the general gist to just dive back into the series now.

I finished Reading Lolita in Tehran (review here) and have started a novel by another Iranian author. The Colonel by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi. It's been on my wish list forever, first as a book bullet from rebeccanyc then Darryl.

I’m back to reading The Man Who Saw Everything.

I just finished The Copenhagen Trilogy. I'm almost done with The Hidden Life of Trees.

I've just started one of the second quarter Victorian group reads - The Law and the Lady. And I'm back to Anniversaries, which I've started the second of four parts.

Starting...Friends: Understanding the Power of our Most Important Relationships by Robin Dunbar which showed up in the mailbox a week or so ago. I will be interested if he addresses or includes "on-line" friends. It wasn't mentioned in a recent interview I read.

interesting experince with online friends. Got an call from a HS classmate of mine who is on our alumni group. She found a wallet, saw where the owner worked, and called me on the off chance I recognized the name. Well I did, emailed her, gave her my friends number, and wallet was returned. Love the connections that are made that way!

I finished two books this weekend. The first was Travels in Vermeer: A Memoir by Michael White. This was a very melancholy book, but a lovely one. A chance visit to the Rijksmuseum caused the author to pause, and then be mesmerized by Vermeer's painting of the Milkmaid. He was at a low point in his life and he became fascinated with Vermeer's take on women as depicted in his paintings. The author then set out on a two year quest to see all of the Vermeer's that are available to the viewing public. He traveled to four museums and three countries to do so and along the way found some peace with his situation. This book was longlisted for the National Book Award for Nonfiction back in 2015. I read it for the Nonfiction Challenge over on the 75'ers Group. The April category was Armchair Travel. This book was a travel book, but it was also a memoir, and a book about art and the role it can play in our lives. Recommended.

The second book I finished this weekend was Betel Nut Tree Mystery by Ovidia Yu. This title is book two in a cozy mystery series titled Crown Colony. They are set in Singapore in the run up to WWII. The first book in the series was set in 1936 and book two in 1937. The mystery wasn't much of a mystery, but I like the way the author writes about Singapore as a small town and a colonial outpost of the British Empire. This was just plain relaxing reading. It put me in another time and place and that was what I was looking for. I do like this series and so would recommend this book, as well as the first one in the series.

Starting to read the inhabited island and realized it will fit nicely with the reading globally outcasts and castaway theme. Read road side picnic ages ago and liked it..

>182 dianeham: I really enjoyed this (The Man Who Saw Everything). I had to listen to it twice to get it.

edited to delete a repetition....

I've just finished Auslöschung, my 20th Thomas Bernhard book and my 2000th review on LT.

I'm still listening to Shirley with a lot of enjoyment. I'm also part way through 1000 jaar Amsterdam and Timothy Garton Ash's The file. Looking through the touchstone list for that last one I'm really rather surprised to find that Henry Petroski doesn't seem to have written a book with that title (yet!)...

My copy of Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea yesterday, about half way through; loving it

I am currently reading another in the Oxford Tea Room mysteries by H.Y. Hanna Two Down, Bun to Go and several books about Julian of Norwich.

Two weeks until bookclub so I thought it would be a good idea to start Borne because if it's anything like his Southern Reach trilogy I'm going to need the time to try and understand it.

I recently started both The City & the City by China Miéville and Sea of Tranquility, the new one by Emily St. John Mandel.

Very much enjoyed the first volume of Anniversaries. On now to a N. Irish writer for my RLBC - Poets Are Eaten as a Delicacy in Japan by Tara West.

World Book Day today! Ten free ebooks on Amazon.

Currently listening to Caste for bookclub. Very disturbing, but frankly it should be a must read for all white Americans.
Looking forward to Behind the Scenes with Burt which I ordered as soon as I heard about it. LOVE that comic strip.
Also just started Here We Go Again by Betty White. I need something fun to go along with Caste, and I am laughing myself silly every night watching The Golden Girls.

Still reading, and need to finish:
The Hound of the Baskervilles
Moby Dick
Ahab's Wife
and several other things that have gotten paused...

I finished Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition which was very slow going but ultimately excellent and inspiring. I’ve picked up Anniversaries again. I had set it aside mid-March. I’m still on volume 1. ( i was in Manhattan one day last weekend and was very close to where the book takes place.)

>192 cindydavid4: just finished this incredible book Teffi manages to tell her journey from her home in moscow to paris with sometimes moving and sometimes ironic stories. She meets many characters alont the way and I notice how often she show people helping people,as well as respect for all she meets. Mad me think of the Ukrainians, Syrians, Afgani refuges and how hard itis to leave home and start new. 5*

I’ve finished The file: a personal history, 1000 jaar Amsterdam and Shirley in the last two or three days: I enjoyed all of them. I had my doubts about keeping track of a long Victorian novel on audio, but it seemed to work well.

I’m now reading Antonio Muñoz Molina’s Madrid lockdown diary, Volver a dónde. Interesting so far.

>196 AlisonY: That Tara West book has a great title.

I finished reading Gunpowder Gardens: Travels Through India and China in Search of Tea by Jason Goodwin. I love travel books and this was a really good one. It also included lots of history and other information about tea which was an added bonus.

I have started reading The Patriarch by Martin Walker. This one is book 8 in the Bruno, Chief of Police series and these are great fun to read.

I read Local Woman Missing. Fast read

>202 benitastrnad: Im also a big travel book fan; this looks interesting.

>201 thorold: A number of the Northern Irish books I've read lately have had great titles, Mark. Pity what was between the covers wasn't anything special, but it was a bit of fun reading a kind of genre I normally stay well away from.

Awaiting the arrival of two books I planned to read this month, checked out myTBR shelves and came upon ghost empire, a book that Ive wanted to read for a decade or so and never got around to it. Well I started the intro and think this will do just fine. Ive always been interested in the history and have long wanted to go there.l So Im traveling back in time vicarlously for the weekend

Today I read They Called Us Enemy, the graphic novel memoir of George Takei's childhood in the Japanese internment camps. Powerful.

I finished Anthony Marra's Mercury Pictures Presents, which was all over the place but a fun ride. Now reading Monique Roffey's The Mermaid of Black Conch.

My hold for Abandoned in Death came in and I gobbled it down in one bite.

I started My Grandmother's Braid, and so far it seems a milder version of Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine.

I finished The Patriarch by Martin Walker and started Daughter of the Morning Star by Craig Johnson.

>210 labfs39:
I have copies of both of those books on my shelves. I should get them read, but they will have to wait awhile as I have plenty of other books that are screaming at me in a much more strident kind of voice. Just to shut them up, I will read them first.

>212 benitastrnad: My favorite book by Bronsky remains Baba Dunja's Last Love.

I finished Turning Angel, the second in Greg Iles' Penn Cage mystery series. I'll have a review up on my CR thread today or tomorrow. The plot was pretty much entirely implausible (the plotting of the first book, which I read several years ago, I recall as being much more believable), but the book was still fun to read, enough so that I plan on continuing on with the series bye and bye.

Next up will be Mary Roach's latest book, Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law which is only about half the length.

I am continuing the Oxford Tearoom Mystery series with Till Death Do Us Tart. I seem to be following along in a chain-like fashion from one to the next. This is probably due to the short excerpts at the end of each book to showcase the next one in the series.

I'm returning to Palestine to read Gaza Mom.

I finished Monique Roffey's The Mermaid of Black Conch, which grew on me and I ended up liking quite a bit. Now onto Ian McEwan's Lessons, which is dense but engaging.

I just started Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey for our local reading group. I read the Foreward, Preface, and Intro to get the background, and now I am ready to get into the actual diaries themselves. Lots of photos too.

Finished A place called Winter this morning, and I’m halfway through Jan Carson’s The raptures. I’m travelling at the moment, so it will be a little while before I post any reviews.

I just finished A Door in the River.

This morning I finished volume 1 of the 4-volume Anniversaries by Uwe Johnson. And I picked up Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

And I’ve started Bewilderment (which would make a decent autobiographical title for me). I meant to read it in February. Hopefully I’ll finish the 2021 Booker longlist before the 2022 list comes out.

>222 dchaikin: have you read other books by Richard Powers?

>223 dianeham: no. This is my first. I think I have The Echo Maker lying around the house somewhere.

>224 dchaikin: I read Orfeo and only gave it 2.5 stars.

time of our singing is an absolute masterpiece. Concerns a mixed marriage between a african american woman and a Jewish immigrant after WII, both lovers of music, (met at Marian Andersons performance) covers the time period and through their three children, who become singers themselves. This from the review "The Time of Our Singing is a story of self-invention, allegiance, race, cultural ownership, the compromised power of music, and the tangled loops of time that rewrite all belonging

I wanted so much to love Overstory butafter the excellent first 200 pages, felt it bogged down. Lots of hamering of his views which while I thought correct, really tired of reading them.

Just finishedTolstoy Rasputin, Others and Me by Teffi. She wrote many of these stories when she was in exile in Paris, from the 20s to 50s.

Didn't like it as well as Memories as that was more of a story of her escape from the revolution, didn't care for her cute stories of her childhood all that much. But was very interested in her stories about Rasputin (very surprised she managed to escape with her life) Lenin (did not know that germany sent him in a covered carreage to russia with money to disrupt the country) and other emigrants with her, trying to hold it together against odds. I can see why she was so very popular. Might try more of he books sometime, Ultimately giving thise 4.5* and highly recommend her work

>225 dianeham: Powers seems to get a bunch of mixed reviews. I expect a little science but otherwise i’m trying to have no expectations.

Finished Till Death Do Us Tart and will start the next in the Oxford Tearoom Mysteries. Also read a picture book bio of Agatha Christie in the Little People Big Dreams picture book series by Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara.

>226 cindydavid4: >228 dchaikin: Richard Powers is one of my favorite American authors, and The Time of Our Singing is one of my favorites of his books.

I ended up getting covid this week, and while I don't feel awful, I don't feel great either. So I set aside Cold Coast by Robyn Mundy and Anniversaries and turned to a mystery, The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware and a reread of Mansfield Park by Jane Austen.