**** Favorite Reads for Q1

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**** Favorite Reads for Q1

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1This-n-That
Mar 20, 2017, 11:59 am



Well, Spring has sprung, at least in the US. This brings to mind all the reading we did during the colder months. What were your favorite books read between January and March 2017? Any books you wanted to toss across the room? Any new favorite authors or writers you probably will avoid in the future?

2This-n-That
Modifié : Mar 21, 2017, 9:17 pm

My top 3 picks for January - March are:

1. Born a Crime by Trevor Noah - I listened to the audio version of this and would recommend that format to others. Noah's narration is excellent and only serves to enhance his stories. The book not only discusses his childhood but also touches on the social, racial and economic implications of the post-apartheid period in South Africa.

2. The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee - This took me a long time to get through and sometimes read like a (very well written) textbook but was definitely worth the effort.

3. Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse - Told from a girl's perspective, this book is written in free verse and I had to remind myself several times that it was a fictional account. This isn't just a novel about a historical event, but in some respects it is also a coming of age story. Growing up, cultivating an identity, losing friends and significant others, are all intermingled with the ominous daily task of dealing with dust and drought.

3torontoc
Mar 22, 2017, 9:49 am

Hmm - I read some really good books this quarter.
Judas by Amos Oz
The Vanishing Velasquez A 19th Century Bookseller's Obsession with a Lost Masterpiece by Laura Cumming
Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of The Water Lilies by Ross King
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

4dchaikin
Mar 26, 2017, 11:49 pm

Ferrante. That's really it.

I liked Born to Run a lot too, but I haven't actually finished it, and probably would only recommend it to someone who's already interested.

5Simone2
Mar 27, 2017, 8:18 am

Ferrante for me too.

No 5 or even 4,5 star reads for me in Q1. A lot of 4 stars though, beside Ferrante. The ones I remember best, are:
The Buried Giant by Kauzo Ishiguro
Complicity by Iain Bankx
As I Lay Dying by William Faulker
The Counterfeiters by André Gide
Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov

Looking forward to some unforgettable 5 star reads in Q2!

6Rebeki
Mar 31, 2017, 6:37 am

My reading has been a bit slower over the last month, but I've had a good first quarter overall.

I don't award stars, but I would say my favourite book of the last three months was The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton, with Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout in second place.

7ELiz_M
Mar 31, 2017, 10:25 am

I haven't read many books this quarter--working on too many longer, slower books. My favorite, started and finished this quarter, would be Eline Vere. This is bit of a cheat, but having read Your Face Tomorrow, Volume 3: Poison, Shadow, and Farewell (it's taken 18 months to red the whole novel....), it is an excellent read, with the sum being greater than its parts.

8thorold
Mar 31, 2017, 3:45 pm

To paraphrase Dan: Milton, that's really it.
He, and books about him, have taken up at least half my reading time in Q1, and I'm not regretting it yet.

Otherwise, I got a lot of fun out of The way we live now, rather less out of Het verdriet van België, but I'm glad to have finished that at last. Pleasantest minor bit of serendipity of Q1 was Gerri Komrij's autobiographical novel Verwoest Arcadië.

>7 ELiz_M: I think I could live with myself quite happily if I'd had nothing else to read in Q1 but Eline Vere and Your face tomorrow :-)

9bragan
Mar 31, 2017, 8:38 pm

No five-star reads for me yet this year, but a good number of four-and-a-half star ones:

The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman
Guards! Guards! and Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett (rereads)
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson
The Mothers by Brit Bennett
Religion: Ruining Everything Since 4004 B.C. by Zach Weinersmith
How We Got to Now by Steven Johnson

10This-n-That
Modifié : Mar 31, 2017, 8:59 pm

>9 bragan: 4.5 stars is still quite good. I am looking forward to reading Homegoing this year.

>4 dchaikin: Are you reading Homegoing? What do you think of it so far.

11Nickelini
Avr 1, 2017, 1:09 pm

As expected (due to lifestyle changes) I'm reading significantly fewer books this year. I got off to a slow and lousy start with the overly long 1-star China Rich Girlfriend followed by a few forgettable books. But things have turned around and I found three highlights:

- Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio (funny and smart)
- Reasons She Goes to the Woods (dark and compelling)
- Major Pettigrew's Last Stand (unexpectedly delightful)

12ELiz_M
Avr 1, 2017, 2:11 pm

>8 thorold: Same here! Unfortunately, I also got bogged down in several 500+ page books that I didn't enjoy much.

13AlisonY
Avr 1, 2017, 3:35 pm

It's been a slow Quarter for me as well, but those books I have read have mostly been enjoyable.

5 star reads were:

Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O'Neill
The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton (strictly speaking finished outside of the quarter, but only just)

Pretty close were:

The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing
My Struggle: Book Three by Karl Ove Knausgaard

14japaul22
Avr 1, 2017, 8:03 pm

I didn't go back to look at star ratings, but of the 20 books I've read, these were the stand-outs:

A Train in Winter by Caroline Moorehead (nonfiction about women in the WWII resistance movement in France)
Deerbrook by Harriet Martineau
Swann's Way by Proust
L'Assomoir by Zola
The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble
Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa
The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti

I've had a great start to the year!

15avidmom
Avr 19, 2017, 1:35 am

I haven't read too many books this quarter (only 8 so far), but of those I think Brain on Fire would top the list as my #1 pick because I'll always remember it. It was quite a story. It certainly is not the best written book in the bunch but it was the most page-turning one I ran across.

My memorable quarter reads:
Brain On Fire by Susannah Cahalan
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

I also enjoyed reading Troublemaker by Leah Remini

16arubabookwoman
Mai 2, 2017, 8:40 pm

My 4, 4 1/2, and 5 star reads for the first quarter were:

Travels in Siberia by Ian Frazier
The Dark Road by Ma Jian
American Tabloid by James Ellroy