WHAT ARE YOU READING? - Part 8

October is here (well, almost if you are in the States) and the old thread got long so time for a new one. A new month, a new quarter, a new thread :)

So what are you reading? The holiday season (Halloween, Thanksgiving (in the States), Christmas and other December holidays, New Year) is almost upon us so most publishers are already pushing their holiday(s) fare. Most stores seem to already have some Christmas stuff out (some started in July); the pumpkins are all over the place and all kinds of spooky ornaments seem to show up anywhere you look. Does that change your plans and do you end up reading seasonal books this time of the year? Or do you plan for them?

PS: If you like spooky stories, October is a great month for them including A Night in the Lonesome October (if you had never read it or heard of it, it has 32 chapters - an introduction and one chapter for each day of October so a lot of people who like speculative fiction tend to read it in October, attempting a chapter a day (does not always work...)...

Well Im juggling several for this month

paul mccartney a life for the RTT oct theme music

the blue sky for theAC indochine theme

behind the mountains someone hearabouts mentioned Oliver de Farge. I came across his pulitzer prize winning laughing boy in 1929, and given that it takes place in the Navajo community in my state thought to read it. What a pleasure it was. Ended up finding several of other novels and short stories. So I thought now it would be a good time to read another

still planning to read hired man ancestor stonesand happiness at some point

I'm reading a short story collection called Difficult People by Catriona Wright, reviewed by lisapeet in her thread and I'm really enjoying it. I'm also reading Chevy in the Hole by Kelsey Ronan, a novel set in Flint, Michigan following storylines set in different eras, and finally, I'm reading Kevin Wilson's newest book, Now is Not the Time to Panic, about two teenagers who pull a harmless prank that sets off a series of unintended events.

I’m reading Lucy By the Sea and so far it’s getting on my nerves. I liked Oh, William by this new is set during covid pandemic. Lucy seems pretty out of it in this book. Since her ex-husband is a scientist, he’s the only one in the book who knows anything about the virus. It’s just silly. Lucy is supposed to be very intelligent but not here.

Two books I am just about to start:

Love's Labours Lost - Shakespeare (The Arden Shakespeare)
Tokyo Décibels Hitonari Tsuji

I've had a particularly busy last two weeks at work, so I'm a bit stuck in the middle of two long books - The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope and The Saddest Words: William Faulkner's Civil War. I'm really enjoying both of them, but felt like I wasn't making any progress, so I (irrationally) started a third book, The Colony by Audrey Magee, which is just as wonderful as everyone on LT promised.

We are having a rainy weekend with the leftover rain from Hurricane Ian, so my kids' activities have been canceled for the most part. Hoping to catch up with a little reading because of that.

I had a bad reading week. I worked alot and when I got home I was too tired to read. Instead a vegged in front of the TV and knitted - so it was a good knitting week.

I am reading Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill and am really enjoying the unique style of this book. It is taking me much longer to read a 265 page book than it should, but it is not the fault of the book. This one is great fun.

I am also still reading Battlefield: Farming a Civil War Battleground by Peter Svenson. I am enjoying this book, but just haven't had the time to devote to it while I am slogging through Deleuze Connections by John Rajchman for a professional group read at work. I like to read these works of philosophy from time-to-time because they make me think in ways that I wouldn't and they make me look at things in ways that I wouldn't. A book of philosophy makes me stop and really concentrate and that reminds me about how powerful books are in the ways they really can change the world. It is also good to discuss this kind of thing with colleagues as it helps me to get to know them and the work that they do.

>5 baswood: oh, enjoy LLL!

I'm switching over to some October goals. So this morning I started Middlemarch, which I've never read (and which greeted me with lovely chapter 1). And I plan to start My Name is Lucy Barton, but I'll have to overcome some instinctual resistance. I'll continue with Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard. And, I'm setting aside, for now, The Book of Flights by JMG le Clezio, and Empires of the Indus by Alice Albinia. On audio, I'll continue with Nightcrawling.

Finished Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah Chain Gang All-Stars—carceral dystopia, with death row channeled into a super popular reality TV/death sports complex. Very modern feeling, and a brutal read, but also, tragically, believable.

Eleanor Catton's Birnam Wood was a bit of an eco-thriller, very absorbing despite a cast of dislikable characters (which I actually enjoy). I liked this a lot up until the last two pages, and since anything I could say would involve spoilers I won't go any further.

Now reading Ling Ling Huang's Natural Beauty, not sure at all where it's going.

I'm about 40 pages into Ar'n't I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South by Deborah Gray White.

I'm starting the new month with a new book, this one for the Asian Book Challenge, Novel Without a Name by Duong Thu Huong. I also have Curse of The Narrows: The Halifax Disaster of 1917 at my elbow.

Have started....
The Sewing Girl's Tale: A Story of Crime and Consequences in Revolutionary America by John Wood Sweet (guess you could call it narrative nonfiction?)(2022)
And Late Wonders: New & Selected Poems by Wesley McNair (2022)(I suspect I have most of these poems in his previous volumes...but it's a lovely compilation of his life's work....

I started My Name is Lucy Barton and I found the first 20 pages terrific. Brings Anne Tyler to mind.

>15 dchaikin: I can see that comparison. I gave it 4.5 stars.

I finished Lucy By the Sea. I really liked 2 of the Lucy books but I was disappointed in this one. It’s Lucy and William in Maine during the pandemic. Lucy is less smart and less brave in this book - just less. But Olive makes a sort of cameo appearance.

im with you diane. I wish Stout had move on to another of the characters to write about instead of these sequels.

Has anyone read Treacle Walker?

In the past week I have read The Man in the High Castle which I found a bit puzzling (and not in a good way), and this weekend I hit myself with a nice dose of adventure as I read another Verne book, Face au drapeau. This was much more fun to read.

I was in love with the blue sky, a book Im reading for the AC Indochin theme. Its a gentle and humorous story of a young boy from Mongolia, and love how the story tells of the culture and lore as he grows. And then - this is not a spoiler as its told on the book flap, but his beloved dog eats poison that his father had put out for the worlves to keep them from the lambs. Oh my god what this boy does to drag him and keep him alive doing this and that while the dog is suffering horribly. The boy screams to the sky to save him, and this goes on for several pages. Nothing about putting him out of his misery. I skimmed a lot of the end and despite my early love this isnt a fav. Giving it 3 stars because I really was enjoying this, and I learned quite a bit about the area during the Stalinist era. But no more

>21 cindydavid4: Perhaps not all book flaps have this amount of detail. This might be a good time to use the spoiler tag. If you would like to try it, type open bracket spoiler close bracket, your comment, then open bracket backslash spoiler close bracket. Spelling out spoiler.

>22 labfs39: forgot about that. will fix

Reading Bird summons that I happened to find at our used. Read her the kindness of enemieswhich I loved. hoping this is as good!

>23 cindydavid4: Glad it worked for you. I hope to read that one too

I finally finished Tauben fliegen auf by Melinda Nadj Abonji. It was definitely not the book's fault that I took so long. I am blown away and highly recommend it (the English title is Fly Away, Pigeon).

I need a quick and gripping read after this, and started the second book of the Dóra Guðmundsdóttir series by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir. I am already hooked, although it is tad too gory for me.

I finished the extremely valuable Ar'n't I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South by Deborah Gray White. Professor White's study of the particular aspects of the experience of female slaves in the American south was considered a groundbreaking book when it was first published in 1985. Most of the previous studies of the slave experience had either focused especially on the male experience or had more or less failed to differentiate significantly between the lives of male and female slaves. The book is still held in very high esteem these 37 years later. My more in-depth review is posted on my 50-Book Challenge thread and on the book's work page.

Next up for me will be a memoir called Ruling Over Monarchs, Giants & Stars: Umpiring in the Negro Leagues & Beyond by Bob Motley. Motley is, according to the book's cover blurbs, one of the last living former umpires in the Negro Leagues.* His memoir also covers his World War 2 combat experiences as a Marine in the Pacific Theater. The memoir is an "as told to" work done with his son, Myron Motley.

* The professional baseball leagues that African Americans played in during the days before Major League Baseball was integrated in the late 1940s. The Negro Leagues lasted until 1951. The book was published in 2007. I'm not sure if Bob Motley is still alive.

>29 rocketjk: Oh, I read Ar'n't I a Woman a long time! I's fab to revisit it through your comments. I read it as part of my women studies reading (the print is quite small; I doubt I could read it now without aid). If anyone in the continental US wants to read it, send me a note and I'll send it.

>30 avaland: Glad I could bring you back to a book you enjoyed. Thanks for letting me know.

>32 Bamf102: that was fast. I had the Hobbitt for years and never read it.

I tried to read A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry for the monthly read but it was about fighting in wwi and I couldn’t read it. So instead I am reading a play of his On Blueberry Hill 2 characters doing alternating monologues about their lives. Seems the 2 don’t like each other but they are stuck together for 20 years.

Still slogging through Inside Star Trek. I probably shouldn't say "slogging". Our house guests leave tomorrow, so I should have more time to read. Still, this behind-the-scenes look is slow going, even for a diehard Trek fan.

I finished Ling Ling Huang's Natural Beauty, which just wasn't a book for me—the older I get, the less I can deal with body horror.

Now I'm reading Brandon Taylor's The Late Americans, which isn't out until May and doesn't have a touchstone yet.

>34 Bamf102: Tolkien is hands down my favorite fantasy author, and The Lord of the Rings trilogy is one of my top 5 favorite “books.” I’m so glad you loved The Hobbit.

I've had a slow start to the month, due to Real Life events, but I'm now ready to sink my teeth into The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka, the sixth and last book I have left to read from this year's Booker Prize shortlist, and Black and British: A Forgotten History by David Olusoga, an award winning book that was the source of a BBC Two documentary series several years ago.

>19 dianeham: I read Treacle Walker. It was a strange work that seemed more appropriate for a children's literary award than the Booker Prize, IMO.

>39 Bamf102: I’m betting you’ll love it!

I finished Wolfgang Leonhard’s amazing memoir Die Revolution entlässt ihre Kinder (his own reading on audio, recorded fifty years after the book first came out), as well as Harry Mulisch’s Twee vrouwen (forty years past its read-by date) and Felicitas Hoppe’s recent novel (I think it’s a novel…) Die Nibelungen: ein deutscher Stummfilm, which made me watch the Fritz Lang film it’s riffing off.

I’ve now started Edmund White’s A saint from Texas and as part of my Mann family gap-filling project I’m listening to Klaus Mann’s Mephisto, which I’ve read before but don’t remember much about.

>39 Bamf102: etc. I loved The Hobbit (when I last read it about 50 years ago) but I never really managed to like The Lord of the Rings. I know I’m an outlier there, though!

Finished 2 books in the last 2 days: a dark fantasy/horror blend by Caitlín R. Kiernan (Threshold) and Elena Ferrante's collection of essays In the Margins: On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing. None of them worked really well (although Kiernan's made me want to read more about the characters at least). Reviews in my new thread.

Not sure what I am reading next - I seem to have a problem starting on a book lately.

>44 AnnieMod:
I have the opposite problem: easy to start, difficult to finish! Although I did manage to finally finish two books last night.

>45 lilisin: It may be just different stages of the same problem - depending on where you get stuck in a book. :) Opening a book is easy, staying with it for more than 10 pages had been a struggle lately. And none of my usual tricks of changing genres and styles and languages seems to work.

With this being said, Voices of the Lost by Hoda Barakat seems to have managed to keep my attention for longer than that so we shall see how that will go.

I started The Importance of being Ernest - I found it very annoying.

Oh I think its one of those plays that is best seen onstage. Saw a wonderful production of it here years ago starring Vanessa Redgrave.

Just picked up Celeste Ngs new one our missing heartsAbout a horrifying world much like our own. Probably not the happiest story ever written but I trust her writing based on her other books, to give us a story we will not forget

>48 cindydavid4: you saw Vanessa Redgrave? I’m so jealous. I’m on the hold list for Ng.

>48 cindydavid4: My sis actually got a backstage pass; sis was the performing arts director at one of our colleges and was working on a similar project that interested Redgrave. We spoke with her for several minutes said good bye closed the door and screamed we just sty vanessa redgrave. By the time we go to our car, I stopped and said um we forgot to get her autograph or take her picture! Ah well we will always remember that

>50 cindydavid4: wow! Wow! Wow!

Finally finished Inside Star Trek. As I think I mentioned before, it was pretty slow going, as it spent a lot of time talking about the financial and organizational side of getting a television series produced. Even for a fan of the series, it was an uphill read. There were a few interesting tidbits, but a lot of the "gossipy" material has been circulated through fandom for years.

Picked up something funny for a bit of relief -- This Is Going to Hurt. It's a blackly humorous memoir about the trials and tribulations of a young doctor in Britain's National Health Service, and promises to be a quick read.

I’ve finished The Secret Scripture. I was so moved by it throughout and thought it was beautifully developed, told by its two narrators, 100 year old Roseanne and her psychiatrist of decades Dr. Grene. I’m wanting to read other novels by Sebastian Barry and would welcome any suggestions. I only picked this one because it was on the shelf at the library and I liked its cover and title and blurb, I’m not always so lucky!

>53 dianelouise100: I can recommend On Canaan's Side, which I liked even more than The Secret Scripture.

I really took to My Name is Lucy Barton. It's a quick read. I've started the final volume in Anniversaries.

The Blue Sky by Galsang Tschinag was available as a Kindle ebook for $2.99, so I am reading it on my phone whilst out and about. It's the story of a Tuvan (Mongolia) boy's childhood. Loving it so far.

Just started The Life and Times of Michael K. I couldn’t settle on a book until I started this one.

I finished reading Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill and very much enjoyed this mystery novel. I recommend it to my friends who like to read mysteries. The author uses a literary plot device of a story within a story, but it works very well here.

I started listening to Good Lord Bird by James McBride and am enjoying this irreverent vulgar historical novel about John Brown's life. The narrator for this recorded version is excellent. I am deep into Deleuze Connections and have to present a bit on the philosopher Spinoza tomorrow for the class.

Finished This Is Going to Hurt, and found it darkly humorous but ultimately depressing, as the author left medicine before actually completing his full training cycle, burnt out and disillusioned with the system.

Now reading The Love of My Life, by Rosie Walsh (which I can't seem to get to link). It's a suspense novel, regardless of the name, and I'm waiting for the Big Reveal payoff. Will be somewhat disappointed if it turns out to be what the author is currently trying to get me to believe!

I finished Ruling Over Monarchs, Giants & Stars: Umpiring in the Negro Leagues & Beyond, a memoir by Bob Motley, who at the time of the book's publishing in 2007 was the last living Negro League umpire. Motley's memoir runs from his childhood in the Jim Crow Alabama of the 1920s through his futile attempts to become the first African American umpire in the Major Leagues in the 1950s. The writing's not exactly top notch, but it is good enough to enjoyably relay Motley's fascinating life story.

Next up for me will be this month's reading group selection. I will finally be reading The Boys in the Boat, which I remember was wildly popular when it first appeared. My wife has read it and enjoyed it, so I have high hopes.

On a personal note, my wife and I leave tomorrow for two weeks in Portugal, a trip I am looking forward to immensely. Happily, Covid numbers seem to be very low there at the moment, so we are keeping our fingers crossed in that regard. I'm up to my eyebrows in vaccine shots and boosters.

>61 rocketjk: how exciting. Have a blast.

>61 rocketjk: oh that sounds like fun!have a safe trip

Just about done with our missing hearts and know its going to be one of my favs for this year.

>63 cindydavid4: I’m waiting for it from the library.

I wont say much, except I think you will really like it

Jerry, enjoy Portugal and just being somewhere entirely new.

I'm finishing up Chevy in the Hole by Kelsey Ronan, set in Flint, Michigan and I just finished a brilliant book of short stories called Difficult People by Catriona Wright, which was reviewed by lisapeet earlier this year in such a way as to make me go order a copy immediately.

I'm also reading The Yacoubian Building by Alaa al-Aswani, set in Cairo, Egypt and Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley, a fascinating debut novel by a very young author.

just finished and have been sitting outside with the book in my hand thinking. Not saying anything else. Just read it

Well I will say this: i remember where I was when I heard the news of children being pulled from the arms of their immigrant parents and taken away: infants teens, didn't matter, one father killed himself at the border after his son was taken. I could not imagine this happening in this country at this time. I was sick, angry, not knowing what I could do. many of them were put in cages, surrounded by fences. So many of these kids are still without their famiiles. Reading the authors notes made me put this together with the faulty foster system in our country, the removal of children from native american families and sent to bording schools. and even the Japanese internments Our country has a history of doing this, which makes this book esp relevant to now

Finished 2 novels over the weekend Voices of the Lost by Hoda Barakat and Annie Dunne by Sebastian Barry. While none of them is perfect, I liked both of them. Reviews in my thread and in the works.

Next: back to Kiernan's albino girl Dancy Flammarion with the second edition of the short story collection Alabaster (it has an extra story compared to the first edition).

Finished The Blue Sky by Galsang Tschinag and immediately went online and bought the second in this autobiographical trilogy. I found both the text and the author so interesting. Review in progress. Next up: From the Land of Green Ghosts, a memoir by Burmese author Pascal Khoo Thwe.

Looking at the last 20 posts or so, we should change the thread title tp "What did you just read" :-)

So far this month I have read:

Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King, aka book 5 in the Dark Tower series, which I am pretty much only still reading at this point because I'm stupidly stubborn.

Weekends at Bellevue: Nine Years on the Night Shift at the Psych ER by Julia Holland, which was maybe not quite what I was hoping it would be, but definitely got more interesting to me as it went on.

And most of Galactic Empires, edited by Gardener Dozois, which I started because I was feeling a bit nostalgic for some space opera, but which has perhaps mostly just served to remind me why I don't go in for the Hard SF stuff much anymore.

Now reading book of illusions been having trouble finding this book, finially found a copy in a used book store Generally like his writing, and anything having to do with silent films has my attention

I’m rereading Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, actually listening to the wonderful narration by Kenneth Branagh. And I’ve just brought home On Canaan’s Side by Sebastian Barry, thanks, kidzdoc, for the recommendation.

Ive never wanted to read it. But Kenneth Branagh? Id listen to him read a phone book :)

I'm reading 3 books right now, which is why I haven't finished anything lately!

Still reading The Saddest Word, which is an amalgamation of Civil War and Reconstruction history, literary analysis of Faulkner's works, and Faulkner biography.

I'm in the middle of a new novel, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow which grabbed me right away and I flew through the first 100 pages, but now I'm tiring of it.

And I've started a reread of Middlemarch with the group read. This is one of my favorite books (hope that holds up!) and I think it will help my stress levels to read something familiar and loved.

I finished listening to Good Lord Bird by James McBride. I found this to be a vulgar irreverent look at John Brown's life as a radical abolitionist that I enjoyed very much. The slapstick moments in it were pure fun. There was lots of finger pointing at dumb white people who just don't get it - didn't get it in 1859 and don't get it now. I am from Kansas and I think that even if it was irreverent McBride got the history right. In short, this is a different view of history than we normally get and I enjoyed reading it. I would recommend it to friends.

That said, I don't think I would recommend it to Alabama's current idiot senator. He most definitely would not get it.

I have started reading Three Rings: A Tale of Exile, Narrative, and Fate by Daniel Mendelsohn. This is a short book as it is a written copy of a speech he gave about classic Greek literature. I am reading this in preparation for some other reading I am going to be doing in some of the Greek classics and their modern interpretations.

>76 benitastrnad: That is a ringing endorsement, so I'm moving GLB higher on the tbr pile. I really liked Deacon King Kong.

I started Jackal today.

Just finished The Love of My Life, which still won't link, but that's okay. It was twisty suspense with a totally unreliable narrator, but as the book progresses, it becomes hard to tell which of her stories are self-serving, which are coming from her own mental/emotional problems, and which are repetitions of lies she has been fed. Some of the details were a bit wobbly, and a couple were downright unbelievable, but I'd still give it three stars.

Getting ready to start This Tender Land, but as I picked it up I noticed the cover promo: "If you liked Where the Crawdads Sing..." Uh-oh. Well, it was a quote from Parade magazine, so consider the source...

Ok, clear the deck! all books I am currently reading are on hold, sitting politely on my tbr shelf, waiting until I finish Terry Pratchett: a life with footnotes! been looking forward to it since I first heard that his assistant was finishing it for the late sir terry. I may be some time.

I finished a 5 star read today! Ms and the Material Girls: Perceptions of Women from the 1970s through the 1990s by Catherine Gourley. This is the final book in the series about women in the twentieth century. It is a YA photojournalistic work of nonfiction and it is thorough and creative at the same time. This is cultural history at its best. The fact that is was designed for YA's makes it execution so delicious. The book is well written and interesting (I think it was even exciting at times) and full of history about all kinds of women's history. It covers the Women's Movement from organization to the beginning of the 21st century. It discusses images and attitudes about women. It brings in sidebars about women of all kinds - from Phyllis Shafley to Gloria Steinem. From Queen Nancy Regan to Ultra Feminist and governor's wife then First Lady, Hilary Rodham Clinton. It has pages about advertisements and body image. It tells about the Title IX protests from the Yale Women's Crew Team and ends with the photograph of Brandi Chastain at the Women's World Cup soccer match.

Not only was this book well written, it was well designed. Imaginative use of text, both color and print size, and placement of photographs on pages kept visual interest as high as that of the text. This book is the perfect homework assignment/report writing source. Everything is well documented and sourced. Well written and well designed - it doesn't get better than this.

Finished Alabaster (second edition) by Caitlín R. Kiernan last night (review in my thread and in the work) - the first collection of stories about the albino girl from Threshold. Not perfect but readable and enjoyable if you go for dark fantasy and horror.

Started The Odyssey the other day (the Fagles translator, with Bernard Knox's introduction) for my Greek course thingie. And last night started with the introduction to Sebastian Barry Plays: 1 which contain 5 of the early plays by Barry (plays 2-6; #1 does not seem to be available in a printed form), including the one introducing Annie Dunne. Which probably mean that I will also start another book tonight - both of these require some time for them to just juggle around in my brain after I read a few books/a play respectively so I may have time to add something else.

I finished a re-read of Klaus Mann’s Mephisto and took in his uncle’s Die kleine Stadt in my Mann family project. Both backstage novels in different ways, as is the book I’ve just started, Volver la vista atrás, the recent novel by Juan Gabriel Vásquez based on the life of the Colombian director and actor Fausto Cabrera.

I’ve also found time at last for Het bittere kruid (Bitter herbs), Marga Minco’s novella about her experiences as a young Jewish woman during the German occupation. A very short book, but it packs quite a punch.

>82 Bamf102:

That's quite a case of book whiplash there!

>86 Bamf102: oh wow, what an amazing book! There is a lot of violence, some of it I had to skip through, but shes a really good writer and her characters just pop off the pages.

>82 Bamf102: I have been in more than one book discussion ready to sing praises to the book, but after listening to others, ended up dropping it down a peg or two. However its happened opposite- really didnt care for a book but listening to others made me aware of other points of views so I reconsidered a bit.

I’ve finished Heart of Darkness and strongly recommend Branagh’s Audio version, which really enhances the eerie, ghost story-like, effects, as Audible points out. For me it’s the ultimate horror story! Closer to the 31st I want to reread The Hound of the Baskervilles; both that and Heart of Darkness fit in this quarter’s thread for RTT.

As I expected in >84 AnnieMod:, I did start another book yesterday: Difficult Light by the Colombian author Tomás González. It is a short novel (a novella really) and very readable so far.

I have picked up Seffi Atta's The Bead Collector the other day so it's in the mood reading rotation....

>94 avaland: I'll be curious as to how you like it, Lois. The only Atta I've read is The Bad Immigrant, which I thought terrific.

I finished a wonderful "short" book for my personal short books project. This one was Three Rings: A Tale of Exile, Narrative, and Fate by Daniel Mendelsohn. This is a long essay that was written by Mendelsohn for a speech he gave at the University of Virginia. The essay was about the literary device of ring narration, also known as digression. It was entertaining and informative at the same time. That is unusual given that the topic is so attention getting, but Mendelsohn manages to bring life to it. This was good intellectual reading.

>95 labfs39: This is my fourth Atta novel; I've not given the other three anything less than four stars.... (

>95 labfs39: ive not read any of Atta, what book should I start with?

I picked up an ebook copy of Anything is Possible yesterday and started it. This is the second in the "Amgash"* series by Elizabeth Strout (*the Lucy Barton series).

>98 cindydavid4: I've only read The Bad Immigrant which I really liked. It would make a good book club book too. Lois could answer this question better than I. Lois?

>98 cindydavid4: All of her books are all available through her US publisher, Interlink Publishing in Massachusetts http://https://www.interlinkbooks.co (I have a few more of her older books to get to)

I suspect her most recent two, The Bead Collector (2019)(which I am reading now) and The Bad Immigrant (2021) are probably in libraries (or they should be). I'd go with the Bad Immigrant as a starter.

Just finished book of illusions and am blown away by it. I have read a few of his NY books and liked them, and actually had been looking for it. A man in grief over the death of his family comes to life when he spots a silent movie by an actor who disappeared 50 years previously. He researches and writes a book about him, only to receive an invitation, which sets up a chain of events to the end.Realized how much this man was like the actor himself. Anyway well written page turning book, just what I needed

I’m reading Just One Damned Thing After Another (Chronicles of St. Mary's Book 1). Two library books up next: Jackal and On Canaan’s Side.

>102 cindydavid4: oh, yay. I was quietly hoping you would enjoy that Auster novel. (It’s the only one by him that I’ve read).

There were moments when I really hated the main character, but he is written in such a way that you cut him some slack. I taped a bunch of silents from TCM decades ago, think I should rewatch them

"Follow the catastrophe curve from eleventh-century London to World War I, and from the Cretaceous Period to the destruction of the Great Library at Alexandria. For wherever Historians go, chaos is sure to follow in their wake ..."

ok Im hooked

gosh looking at his other work, the titles sound familiar but the synopsis don't. I may have to choose another to try

>107 labfs39: The only Auster I've read is Travels in the Scriptorium, which I quite enjoyed. Very surreal. In my review I wrote: "Part puzzle, part mystery, and part postmodern commentary, I loved how this book kept me guessing until the very end when my head spun around so fast I had to go to the chiropractor."

that does look good, Ill try it. thx tho just saw this " every character other than the protagonist, Mr. Blank, is taken from a previous novel, with yet more characters mentioned peripherally." if thats the case does it matter if I didn't read the previous novel? (which is?)

hee, thats not enough horror fantasy for you!!!? :)

understood!

>103 dianeham: What did you think of Just One Damned Thing After Another? I was disappointed in it and decided not to pursue the rest of the entries in the series.

I finished up a couple books this week that I just reviewed on my thread. Now I'm going to focus on my Middlemarch reread and also Maggie O'Farrell's latest, The Marriage Portrait, which just came in at the library for me.

>113 LyndaInOregon: I’m not done yet but I keep putting it down and getting bored with it.

Just finished William Kent Krueger's This Tender Land, and really enjoyed it -- 4.5 stars out of 5. See my full review on my thread. (If I knew how to quick-link it, I would. Sorry. Technologically challenged.)

Anyway, whoever compared it to Where the Crawdads Sing (blech) needs their head (or at least their critical facilities) examined.

Next up is Under the Rainbow, a Hollywood tell-all.

>115 dianeham: oh dear, thats not a good sign....

I am on a two week trip to Ireland (we arrived yesterday) and I just started reading The Ruin by Dervla McTiernan. I have never heard of this author or this series, but I felt like reading a crime novel set in Ireland and this novel popped up in a blog entry on Irish crime fiction.

I have finished my previous nonfiction read, so I have taken up Annie's Proulx's Fen, Bog & Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis.

>118 MissBrangwen: I love reading almost any book set in Ireland and have enjoyed Derva McTiernan’s mysteries, particularly the The Ruin. Have a great trip!

Oh oh oh, Natalie Haynes has a new book stone blind about Medusa. Its not out until February, but no matter I am preordering it now!

Just dumped Under the Rainbow, apparently written by a wannabe actor whose "wanna" didn't extend far enough to compel him to do the work of learning his craft and who therefor decided to take a shortcut to fame, mostly through bedroom windows. He makes the fatal mistake of keeping 99% of the attention firmly on himself, and it's not even particularly dishy. Phooey.

Just started An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good, a slim collection of short stories. Gobbled up the first one with breakfast.

Yesterday I finished Nightcrawling on audio. I enjoyed it. I mean it's an awful story, but I was always into it. For my next audiobook, I picked up Trust by Hernan Diaz (another non-American-born author who lives and teaches in the US. A common Booker list characteristic. He teaches at Columbia University.) Diaz and I are the same age. I haven't started it yet, other than listening to a sample.

>123 dchaikin: Diaz and I are the same age. Funny, the book I am reading right now is by an author my exact age.

Like Daniel in >123 dchaikin:, I just finished Nightcrawling and concur -- grim but compelling. Extraordinary coming from an author barely into her twenties.

I'm finishing up Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout and my feelings about this book have swung wildly while reading it. I'm also returning to an old, favorite crime series by Janwillem van de Wetering with The Sergeant's Cat & Other Stories and beginning Marcy Dermansky's Bad Marie.

>125 RidgewayGirl: I love van de Wetering.

Finished an Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good and found it wickedly delightful.

Will be starting The Magdalen either tonight or tomorrow. Nothing like a sudden change of directions in one's reading.

I’ve been flipping around lately, unable to make a commitment to anything I dipped into. Then I picked up The Hummingbird’s Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea and I was hooked—no putting that one down after 20 pages or so.

>129 dianelouise100: one of my fav books in the world. He did a reading at our local indie when it came out. He was a great reader and fascinating, apparently his family is connected with the saint in question. His sequel to this is just as good

Finished the only novella in the Alex Verus series (Favours) and a Maigret novel (Maigret and the Reluctant Witnesses) over the weekend. Reviews (plus reviews of 2 more Maigret novels I read back in September (Maigret and the Man on the Bench and The Carter of 'La Providence')) on my thread and the works. All were enjoyable even if none of them was perfect.

Now I am back to Wyoming to check on the Pickett family with Endangered. Plus I am still reading "The Odyssey" and the collection of Barry plays.

>107 labfs39: and >108 cindydavid4: One book by Auster that I really liked was Timbuktu, which is not about travels to the fabled African city, but about a homeless man and his dog, with the focus on the dog.

I just finished Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness, a graphic nonfiction work. I'm still not sure what I think of graphic books as a form for conveying story/information.

I'm also reading Our Lady of the Nile while I wait for Quo Vadis to become available again.

>133 arubabookwoman: Huh, I picked up Timbuktu at a library sale this summer, but upon reflection thought maybe it wasn't going to be good (not sure what led to this supposition). I was going to re-donate it, but now I won't. Thanks

>134 ELiz_M: Have you read other graphic works or was this your first?

Finished terry pratchett life with footnotes the first part, talking about his childhood through writing his first book was excellent as was the last section after his diagnosis until his very untimely death, was even more (and required several kleenex to get through.) In between was lots of talk about book selling book, times when Pratchett behaved very badly various anectdotes from various people, things that the author of the bio was involved in, and some parts of Pratchetts personality which led me to rather dislike him somewhat (tho understood why he did the things he did). Very little surprisingly about the actual writing of books, some here and there that were interesting. But more than the awards and accolades and such, thats what I wanted to know the most. so... I started out with 5 stars went down to three. still not sure. I remember meeting him, and loving his work. Maybe I should just start rereading Discworld. That might help

then I happened upon this review "I had to take a star off my rating, because the main character dies. Surely a mistake. With the familiarity of deep friendship, and obvious respect, Rob Wilkins shares with us Sir Terry's irascible views, easily kindled curiosity, and unfailing satisfaction with tinkering. the biography is told with a deft hand, never hiding the fact that this is *not* being written as an unbiased account of a literary figure. It is instead a loving reminiscence of a life lived large.

Mind how you go."

I didn't care that much for the Night Watch books, not sure why; Perhaps because I was more intrigued with the witches and wizards, and books about Death. I think I might start with those (NW) to see how I look at them now. The first book I started with (the only one I could find in the states besides the good omen was small gods got me hooked and when we were in britain that year I managed to take home a few shelves of his books. took a while for the us to catch up.

Guess I was fortunate in that my first Pratchett book was The Light Fantastic, which is I believe the second of the Discworld series. Like Cindy, I'm not overly fond of the Night Watch series.

Currently, I just finished The Magdalen, which was only so-so, and just picked up a collection of Richard Russo short stories, The Whore's Child. I'm very much a Russo fan, but am mostly familiar with his novels.

Interestingly enough, the first entry in The Whore's Child centers around a little girl placed in a Catholic orphanage, and so has echoes of The Magdalen in it, mostly in the negative portrayal of the nuns charged with running the facilities. Serendipity lives!

I started with Guards! Guards! mumble years ago, then read the other books in the subseries which were published at the time and then went exploring the rest. I suspect that everyone feels drawn towards different parts of the universe initially based on what other types of books they like

Finished the 15th Joe Pickett novel Endangered last night and while it has some significant issues, it is always fun to check on the (mis)adventures of the game warden and his friends and family so the book was actually fun (despite some gruesome moments).

And started Dear Cyborgs. A few pages in, it is weird but readable so we shall see.

Guards Guards will be my next Discworld stop. But not sure when yet.

I started Summer by Edith Wharton this morning.

>144 Bamf102: And we snagged another one. Mua-ha-ha. Uhm, I mean - welcome to Sir Terry’s world :)

>142 Bamf102: Back when I read them for the first time I did not care about fantasy much - I loved science fiction, detective/spy/crime/mystery stories but I considered fantasy to be mostly swords and magic - neither of which I cared about much. Zelazny’s Amber and Sir Terry (and the Night Watch in particular) (both series of almost forced on me by a friend) made me realize that there is more in fantasy. The rest as they say is history. I still prefer urban fantasy and its offshoots to high fantasy (once I discovered the genre that is) but I am a lot more open minded these days and I like fantasy well enough.

You might be interested in visiting this group: https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/1681/All-Things-Discworldian-The-Guild-of-P...

And just found this: great trailer, and look at that cast! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fotvV-Ty9rU

Finished Dear Cyborgs and it was meh. I am not sure what I expected really but it was weirder than I expected (in a bad way).

Now reading Fleeing Xinhe Street by Zhe Gui - a short novella in the Penguin Specials series (something like the Kindle Singles but usually a bit longer).

Finished The Whore's Child yesterday, despite rationing out these seven short stories in an attempt to make them last!

Started Summer's Child, by Diane Chamberlain this morning. She's a new author to me and so far I'm enjoying this romance/mystery tale of the search for an abandoned infant's family, some 20 years after the fact.

Managed to escape from the laptop for lunch today so finished Fleeing Xinhe Street which ended up a lot more enjoyable than I expected it to be :) Review over on my thread and in the work.

Next is This World Does Not Belong to Us by Natalia García Freire

Finished This World Does Not Belong to Us which was decent, especially for a debut. Review in my thread.

Starting on Brooklyn Heights by Miral al-Tahawy today.

Now reading shrines of gaiety new one from Atkinson

I have had to stop reading From the Land of Green Ghosts to start my book club book, The Invisible Wall. I had hoped to finish it first, but life has been hectic this week.

>157 Bamf102: the animated version of this is fun. BTW if you love Nightwatch, you'll love the childrens book where is my cow? Vimes makes sure he is home by 6 every night so he can read this book to his one year old son. Its darling and funny.

I've still never read Terry Pratchett. Maybe someday... where would I start, though? I have a feeling I may have asked this question at some point and forgotten the answer.

Brandon Taylor's The Late Americans was a lovely, if slightly scattered, read. About a cohort of folks in and around the University of Iowa, many (but not all) in the humanities MFA programs, many (but not all) young queer men, and their shifting, changing relationships. I really like his writing a lot, and just moderated an author panel he was on, and he was just as thoughtful in person as he is in his writing.

Now about halfway through Silvia Moreno-Garcia's The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, which is fun and immersive.

>160 lisapeet: first put your brain back into college mode, so you’re in a proper discworld place.🙂 Then I vote for starting with Small Gods.

Very cool about Brandon Taylor. I thought Real Life was terrific.

I finished two books this week. Body in the Castle Well by Martin Walker is book number 12 in the Bruno Courrages series and I just love the descriptions of the Dordogne region of France. Even if this was a mystery it (and every book in the series) is designed to make you want to vacation in the place. This one came complete with a description of the annual meeting of the confrère of the Pate de Perigeaux. Simply delightful and reminded me of the Rick Steves episode about foie gras and vacationing in the Dordogne.

I forgot my second finished book. It was Mysteries of the Middle Ages: The Rise of Feminism, Science, and Art from the Cults of Catholic Europe by Thomas Cahill. This was book 5 in the Hinges of History series and it was well worth the time it took to listen to it. I listened to the recorded version of the book and the narrator was very good. I don't normally listen to nonfiction as I find that I want to go back and study parts of the book too much so I end up looking at the book anyway. If that is the case I might as well read it. I want to read the rest of the books in this series, so plan on digging out the other books from my collection and get to them. This book was about the Late Medieval period and how the selected people laid the foundations for the Renaissance. In Feminism, the author spotlighted Elinor of Aquitaine and St. Francis; for Science it was Abelard, Roger Bacon, and Thomas Aquinas; for art it was Giotto and Dante. It was a short journey into an amazing look at these towering figures of history. I highly recommend this book.

>161 dchaikin: thats the one I started with, after Good Omens; mainly because it was the only one I could find here (the bio I read talks quite a bit about the problems sir terry had with getting started in US. But by 2009 we held the US discworld con here (I got to meet him and he signed my books) Glad there are more choice now, but Small Gods and Soul Music are two Id start with

>163 benitastrnad: My two experiences with Cahill how the irish saved civilization and the gift of the jews were disappointing, lots of good history when he stuck with the facts,but once he got to generalizing and assumptions that he claimed were true, I lost my taste for him. I think he's a good read for history, as long as you don't pay too much attention to his guesses. note, YMMV

I screwed up my reading. We were leaving for a few days and the newest Rebus novel arrived just before we left, so I grabbed it and went....not that I had much time to read (see our thread for details)

>166 cindydavid4:
I agree with you. The body of the book was very good, but I could have done without the pontificating in the epilogue. If he wanted to write an editorial and make predictions for the future I think there are better places to do it than in the epilogue. Of course, the book was published back in 2006 so there has been lots of water under the bridge since then, but Cahill predictions about the Catholic Church have NOT happened, and I don't think will ever happen. People have to have someplace to hang their faith hat and modern religion is as good a place as any. Even with all its faults.

I have also read Gifts of the Jews and How the Irish Saved Civilization. I thought the first book was OK and the latter was meh ... simply because I didn't like the hyperbolic title. After all, there were other places around the world that were "saving civilization" that might not have been located in western Europe. Places like Baghdad, Constantinople, etc., etc.

I plan on reading Sailing the Wine Dark Sea next.

I felt the same way, confused, but not caring - I wanted to know more!!! Keep reading! (the glossary in the back of the book is helpful) Last year i named her my favorite new (to me) author of the year. Shes incredible.

She has several other trilogies plus a wonderful short story collection How Long Till Black Future month You have years of enjoyment waiting for you

I just finished Maggie O'Farrell's latest, the Marriage Portrait.

Now I'm rereading Middlemarch with the group read and about to start Ruth Ware's new mystery, The It Girl.

>171 japaul22: curous what you though of Marriage Portrait

Really liking Nine Fairy Tales: and One More Thrown in for Good Measure They aren't really 'fairy' as in for kids, they are very much shaggy dog tales, but gosh I like them. Im usually not a fan of talking animals but love the cats tale, the dogs tale and the birds tale. Ill be reading War with the Newts soon

>172 cindydavid4: I just posted a review on my thread. I liked it as a suspenseful page turner that happens to be set in the 1500s, but didn't think it was successful if you're looking for richly detailed historical fiction.

I finished two outstanding books yesterday, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka, the winner of this year's Booker Prize (and deservedly so), and Home Is Not a Place by Johny Pitts and Roger Robinson, a new book about Black Britons which consists of photographs by Pitts, the author of Afropean: Notes from Black Europe, which won several literary awards in 2020, and poetry by Robinson, whose collection A Portable Paradise won the T.S. Eliot Poetry Prize in 2019 and is easily one of my favorite books of poetry.

I've started The Sentence by Louise Erdrich, for a monthly group read in Goodreads, and Life on Mars: Poems by Tracy K. Smith, the former U.S. poet laureate.

I just put seven moons on order (paper back comes out Nov 1) Im also waiting for the new Natalie Haynes book stone blind better finish the ones I am reading now so I can focus on those! ETA touchstone corrected

I finished Silvia Moreno-Garcia's The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, which was a fun and immersive page turner, and am now reading Leigh Newman's new short story collection, Nobody Gets Out Alive.

I got Our Missing Hearts from the library today. cindydavid4, you read that, right?

Finished a few books over the weekend (and wrote the reviews today over on my thread):
Brooklyn Heights by Miral Al-Tahawy, translated from Arabic (Egypt) by Samah Selim which was good but should have been longer (which I guess is better than needing to be MUCH shorter).

City of Incurable Women by Maud Casey which had an interesting premise and failed to deliver on it... thankfully it was short.

Plays: 1: Boss Grady's Boys / Prayers of Sherkin / White Woman Street / The Only True History of Lizzie Finn / The Steward of Christendom by Sebastian Barry which were fun to read (and which led me to a trove of readings of rarely seen plays by Irish playwrights while trying to find out why his first play is missing from the collection).

Now I am back in time with a trio of hardboiled novels written a few years after WWII: The Lying Ladies / The Bandaged Nude / Many a Monster. 50 pages into the first and they are exactly what I expected them to be - pulpy, ridiculous in places and fun. I am not sure if I am reading the 3 novels in a row or if I am going to inject other books between them yet - depends on how I feel after finishing the first of them.

>179 dianeham: yes and I loved it! but your mileage may vary. I did read the authors note in the back before I read it, gave me some background where she was going with this

Sorry about that but totally get it. I remember having a lot of trouble getting through the first book in the Kingdom series. You might want to check out her short stories how long 'till black future month touchstone not working but you know who wrote it!

Before returning to From the Land of Green Ghosts, I'm reading an ILL book, the first Gabriel Allon espionage book, The Kill Artist.

>160 lisapeet: I'd start a Pratchett journey with The Colour of Magic, which is the first of the Unseen University books, and gives a good introduction to characters who will pop up throughout his Discworld writing. You can google "Discworld Reading Order", or just wander from there.

Back in the 21st century after an internet outage that lasted several days. (Construction, broken thingies, massive rainstorm that let water get inside broken thingies and created sparkenzitsingers.)

Anyway, I finished Summer's Child, which barely rated a "C" for its sudser tone and reliance on coincidences.

Picked up Barbara Kingsolver's newest, Demon Copperhead, and am about halfway through it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this is her first novel since The Lacuna to feature a male protagonist.

And -- tadaaaaa -- hit the local library book sale over the weekend, and scored a Sherman Alexie short story collection, a couple of Harlan Coben thrillers, a cople of older Tony Hillerman Jim Chee novels, and some miscellaneous goodies.

I started the library copy of Our Missing Hearts but I’m having trouble seeing it. I have reading glasses but I would be more comfortable reading the ebook. I ordered stronger glasses so we’ll see.

I'm still chugging along with Fragile Things. I've read a few more stories since last updating here. I'm really taking my time with this one - much more than I ever have before with a book. It comes down to my feeling that the stories have their greatest effect when read in a single sitting, and the fact that I often have to read a story twice to really appreciate it. That makes reading it during the work day much more difficult than reading work meant to be read over multiple sittings, or from a collection of shorter and/or less complex stories, would be.

I also started reading 100 Creepy Little Creature Stories yesterday, and so far, 6 stories in, I'm enjoying it. (The stories in this one are very short, and don't really require two reads the way many of the Gaiman ones do, so I can get through a bunch a day. Which is good, because unlike in the Gaiman, this book has 100 stories in it.)

I wanted something a little spooky for the end of October, and I've wanted to read more from the supernatural and weird fiction traditions for a while. The stories collected in 100 Creepy Little Creature Stories fulfill both desires quite nicely.

I do wish that the editors had chosen to put the dates of each story with the title, though. (Or, indeed, listed them all anywhere. The dates on the ones still in copyright are listed in the copyright info at the front, but there are no dates provided at all for the stories that are public domain.) I can live without an introductory blurb for each one, given how many stories there are, but a date for context would be nice.

>191 Julie_in_the_Library: You might also read his smoke and mirrors , his first collection. I liked Fragile things but think I liked this one a bit better.

For next months RTT theme Endings, I am reading Shepherd's Crown the last book in the Discworld series, completed and published by his daughter after he passed. For some reason I didn't have this on my shelves, so Im reading it on All Free Novel. Forgot that this book features its own ending, at the beginning of the book, the death of a beloved character. Even Death had a tear in his eye socket

I finished Trust by Hernan Diaz on audio. A carefully crafted book. Good, and likable, but I'm not whether it will stick with me. Looking for my next audiobook. Perhaps Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet, on the Book list, but only 9 hours on audio.

well Case Study isn't release until December 1. So I picked up A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life by George Saunders. I should start tomorrow.

I've just finished Our Lady of the Nile, which I picked up when Quo Vadis wasn't available for renewal. I am also working my way through the Sandman series, currently up to The Sandman: Vol. 3, Dream Country.

>193 cindydavid4: It's on my TBR!

>197 ELiz_M: I just finished reading the main series last month or so. How are you liking it? Do you plan to watch the Netflix adaptation when you're done?

Still working on the omnibus but in the meantime, managed to finish 3 books in the last days: a short story collection (Wild Swims: Stories by Dorthe Nors, translated from Danish), a play (The Domestic Crusaders by Wajahat Ali) and a short Fantasy novel (The Bruising of Qilwa by Naseem Jamnia) - all three of them were good in different ways. Reviews in the usual places.

And started The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor which caught my eye in the library last week.

>196 dchaikin: Dan, if you want "Case Study" on paper, I will be happy to send you my copy.

Just finished Nine Fairy Tales: and One More Thrown in for Good Measure I liked this, tho I felt the stories were similar, in a shaggy dog story way. But I appreciated them anyway.

>199 AnnieMod: thanks! I feel guilty not paying for a new book. So I’ll pursue that, assuming it’s available.

>202 dchaikin: Send me a PM with your address and I will drop it in the mail some time next week :)

>203 AnnieMod: sorry, I’m failing in clarity. In support of the working author, i’ll buy a copy.

ETA - but I’m really grateful for the offer. Thank you!

I'm about half way through my reread of Middlemarch. And added Ruth Ware's new mystery for a little Halloween fun - The It Girl.

>200 Bamf102:
I really liked the Nevernight series. I also really liked the series that he co-wrote with Amie Kaufman. That one is a space opera and the first book in the series is Illuminae. There is a new space opera series by this pair and the first book in it is Aurora Rising. I read these books before I read Nevernight and so was very surprised by the violence in Nevernight. I liked it but my first thought about it was that it was a "guy" book. I also want to read his series Lotus War. The first book in that series is Stormdancer.

Illuminae Files and Aurora Rising, are Young Adult novels and are very different in style than is Nevernight Chronicle.

I am reading A Surprise for Christmas and Other Seasonal Mysteries for a reading group I am involved in and have started the Beartown series by listening to the book Beartown by Fredrick Backman.

>208 Bamf102:
By "guy book" I mean that the book is full of lengthy descriptions of violence that got boring. (At least to me they were). I think it is a stylistic type of writing that seemed oriented to attract male readers.

I liked the series and enjoyed reading them, but I can say in all honesty that I thought they were excessively violent. The author could have made his point without so much gore. We have had this series in our library since they were published and so far all three books have been checked out once. I am pretty sure that one is me, so I wonder how huge that fan base really is? I have tried to get people to read it but so far no takers. Maybe I am saying the wrong things or maybe the series is just more popular in other places. The first book has one more year to live on the shelves and if it isn't checked out, it will be weeded.

>204 dchaikin: Ah, ok. If you change your mind, let me know. :)

>211 Bamf102:
I only read the first two of the Song of Ice and Fire books and stopped reading them because, in my opinion, they were excessively violent. I think the title of them should be 1001 Ways to Kill, Maim, and Torture People and Make Lots of Money Doing It. My point is - that even though I thought the Nevernight series was good, (and I read all three), I also thought that they were excessively violent and were written to be consumed by people that like that sort of novel - which isn't me. Fantasy is consumed by lots of people nowadays, but that wasn't always true. For much of its beginnings the typical reader was male, unmarried, and between the ages of 20 - 30. That narrow of a demographic is no longer true of the readership, and so authors are writing for a wider demographic at this point in time. However, I still get the feeling from time-to-time, while reading some fantasy, that it appeals to a demographic that wants more violence. That's OK, as every reader is entitled to read what they want and have their own opinions about books.

I read all three of the Nevernight books and thought they were good, but on the dark and violent side. In my case, they were at my uppermost tolerance limit for violence.

I just started reading The Trespasser by D.H. Lawrence.

Am bogged down in Demon Copperhead at slightly over the halfway mark. If you've read it, it's the section where Demon has trashed his knees playing football. Does it get any better?

Should add that my personal life is in total uproar right now, and I've started four books in the last 3 days, so........

>198 Julie_in_the_Library: I watched the Netflix series first. But the story arc(s) and gaps kept tugging at my brain so I went to the comics to settle/conclude the story.

>213 benitastrnad: Fantasy is consumed by lots of people nowadays, but that wasn't always true. For much of its beginnings the typical reader was male, unmarried, and between the ages of 20 - 30.

Um no, I and most of my friends were reading fantasy in HS, were girls ages 16 and up.That being said didn't get into Game of Thrones till I was 30, Yes they were violent and full of sex but the writing and the characters kept me hooked. When the series started, the acting was incredible, as was the story, so I forgave it lots. Not something I would have read back in the day 9(tho I do agree with your sub title!)

I'm currently reading The Forest Unseen: A Year's Watch in Nature by David George Haskell. Which could be described as "a book in which a guy stares at one spot on the ground for a year," but it's fantastic. Great combination of fascinating science, thoughtful reflection, and poetic writing.

>219 bragan: I loved this book. It made me want to find a forest and study all the life in one small area. Glad to hear of someone else enjoying it.

my review of Babelis here

https://www.librarything.com/topic/347243#n8048284