What are we reading in October?

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What are we reading in October?

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1christina_reads
Oct 1, 2018, 9:27 am

Merry October, everyone! What are you reading this month? I'm kicking things off with Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the next installment of my HP reread.

2Helenliz
Oct 1, 2018, 9:32 am

I'm reading The MYsteries of Udolpho and, as its heroine is more annoying than fingernails down a blackboard, I'm pausing after each volume to read something else. Currently my gap book is Bats in the belfry a murder mystery.

3lsh63
Modifié : Oct 1, 2018, 12:38 pm

I'm reading Lethal White, which will probably take a while, it has to go back to the library October 16th, yikes! I'm also juggling it with Force of Nature, which is due back at the library October 15th.

I wonder if my boss will let me take days off to read hah!

4dudes22
Oct 1, 2018, 3:54 pm

I'm starting the month by finishing my Sep Mystery Cat book Still Midnight by Denise Mina.

5rabbitprincess
Oct 1, 2018, 8:40 pm

Now that I'm back at work after two weeks of vacation, I am reading Tales from Watership Down, by Richard Adams, on the bus.

At home I'm reading Portrait of the Clyde, by Jack House, which I found at my grandma's and which is a delightful follow-up to my trip to Scotland.

6DeltaQueen50
Oct 1, 2018, 10:40 pm

Currently I am reading Dark Voyage by Alan Furst and Wild Harbour by Ian Macpherson. Two very different books although they are both set during WW II.

7donan
Oct 5, 2018, 12:01 am

I'm diving into October, after a lackluster September, determined to finish BingoDOG card. So, I'm reading Siddhartha for 1001 list and Silas Marner for >100 years. Also listening to Grit.

8rabbitprincess
Oct 5, 2018, 5:33 pm

My next bus book is 1599: A Year in the Life of Shakespeare, by James Shapiro. I'm glad I read Henry V earlier this year; it's made the first section more interesting.

Also just finished a book about the shambles that is the human body: Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Defects, from Broken Genes to Pointless Bones, by Nathan E. Lents. Not bad, but definitely more of an overview book than an in-depth study.

9LisaMorr
Oct 5, 2018, 5:35 pm

I'm working on the second book in the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy, The Wife.

10RidgewayGirl
Oct 5, 2018, 9:03 pm

I just finished Lethal White by Robert Galbraith, which was wonderful, and now it's back to The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea and The Labyrinth of Spirits by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.

11dudes22
Oct 6, 2018, 11:28 am

I've just finished my Sep Mystery Cat book Still Midnight by Denise Mina and am going to start The Silver Needle Mystery by Laura Child which was supposed to be my Sep Color Cat book. Somehow I got a little behind last month.

12rabbitprincess
Oct 6, 2018, 6:28 pm

I'm probably about to finish a book I started just this afternoon: Bookworm, by Lucy Mangan.

13DeltaQueen50
Modifié : Oct 8, 2018, 4:11 pm

I am just starting Savage Season by Joe R. Lansdale, an author I've wanted to read for some time. I am also about to start Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward and listen to Over the Top and Back by Tom Jones.

14Jackie_K
Oct 7, 2018, 9:13 am

I'm still reading Educated: A Memoir and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, carried over from last month. I'm really hoping this is the month I get them done - not least because Huck Finn will mark the successful completion of my challenge (which is at least one book in each of my categories).

I'm also going to start When Breath Becomes Air for the Non-Fiction challenge, and will no doubt weep my way through it, knowing me.

15rabbitprincess
Oct 7, 2018, 10:14 am

>14 Jackie_K: Have tissues handy for the epilogue!

As predicted in >12 rabbitprincess:, I finished Bookworm yesterday and am now preparing to start How Do We Look, a gorgeous-looking book by Mary Beard about how we look at art. It's a tie-in to the Civilisations programme, which I'd also like to watch somehow...

16whitewavedarling
Oct 7, 2018, 9:11 pm

I've been so slammed with work over the last month, I haven't gotten in nearly enough reading, but I'm really hoping to change that this month. Admittedly, football has also lured me away from books, so I'm going to have to be mindful of that also. Currently, I'm still reading Silver Wolf by Alice Borchardt, which is lovely, but also heavy and takes a bit more concentration, so it's not something I can read at any moment.

On the side, I'm reading two books which are totally different from that and each other: Leaving Berlin by Joseph Kanon and White Fur by Jardine Libaire.

17BookConcierge
Oct 8, 2018, 4:00 pm

Actually finished this one in Sept ...


The Trouble With Goats And Sheep – Joanna Cannon
3.5**

In the summer of 1976, in a particular neighbor in England, two young girls, Grace and Tilly, try to come to terms with the disappearance of one of their neighbors, Mrs Creasy. It seems everyone’s suspicions lie with the odd man who lives at Number Eleven, but none of the adults will say WHY, other than vague references to a missing baby some nine years previously.

What an interesting and inventive way to structure this mystery / coming of age novel. Cannon tells the story in dual timeframes (Summer 1976 and December 1967), and with multiple points of view. Grace and Tilly are naïve but ever curious. Adults frequently talk around children as if the children can’t hear, and that is the way that the girls get much of their information (and misinformation). Of course, some of what they learn makes no sense to them, given their limited life experience, while this reader could put together clues far ahead of them.

But in addition to the mystery Cannon gives the reader a coming-of-age story. Tilly is the quieter, shyer girl, somewhat in awe of Grace, who is, herself, trying to emulate the local teenager. Grace can be bossy and unfeeling. Tilly, somewhat sickly and sheltered by her single mother, is at a distinct disadvantage. Their relationship has its ups and downs through the book, with one particularly painful episode when Grace fails to give Tilly her due. But in the end the girls learn valuable lessons about friendship, responsibility and not being quick to judge.

This is Cannon’s debut novel. I would definitely read another book by her.

18Jackie_K
Oct 9, 2018, 3:32 pm

>17 BookConcierge: I read that book the other year and really liked it. Possibly because I was a couple of years younger than Grace and Tilly in 1976 and lived in a similar East Midlands town and street. I think that's the first summer I really remember (it was the summer of the drought). I thought she captured the time and the voice of the place really well - a couple of dialect words she used really made me smile, and think that she must be from round that way too.

19rabbitprincess
Oct 9, 2018, 5:25 pm

I have a cold and am feeling sorry for myself, so what better time to start listening to Craig Ferguson reading his memoir, American on Purpose?

20christina_reads
Oct 10, 2018, 9:05 am

I've just started Alison Goodman's The Dark Days Club and am excited -- it's fantasy set in Regency England, which is basically my catnip.

21BookConcierge
Oct 10, 2018, 11:14 am


Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon – Michael P Ghiglieri and Thomas M Myers
2.5**

The subtitle is all the summary anyone needs: Gripping accounts of all known fatal mishaps in the most famous of the World’s Seven Natural Wonders. And the cover adds to this by showing skeletal remains and a mid-air collision. The authors recount all the fatalities occurring in the canyon area, from falls off the rim, to flash floods, to drownings, to murders, and yes aircraft mishaps.

The chapters are divided by cause: falls from the rim, falls within the canyon, environment (i.e. dehydration), etc. They have a pretty engaging style when they are recounting a specific scenario, giving the reader insight into the ways in which various visitors met their fate – mostly due to ignorance or callous disregard of warnings. But they tend to get preachy about the causes of most of these fatalities. (No. 1 risk factor is being a young male … especially one fueled by alcohol.)

I had the second edition, with is easily 100 pages longer than the original. Presumably this is because of additional information provided to them since the book was first published. While each chapter includes several detailed scenarios, a table at the end of each chapter outlines ALL the deaths attributed to that particular cause.

On the whole it was rather dry and somewhat boring.

In the interest of full disclosure, however … a couple of years before we met, my husband went on a Colorado River rafting trip in Grand Canyon. His raft broke apart when going over Crystal Rapids, dumping all passengers into the river. I was kind of expecting something along the lines of what my husband wrote about the trip when I picked up this book. Here is a snippet of what he wrote about that experience:
Your mouth is dry, your knuckles are white, your muscles are knotted, and ... you’re going over the edge. Time is now measured in hundredths of a second; everything seems to move simultaneously in slow motion and at lightning speed.

We’re falling towards the sluice hole. Opposite the sluice hole is an eight-foot standing wave crashing uphill into the sluice hole.

The bow of the raft touches the surface of the sluice hole. The raft is being hit by tons of water from every direction. That’s normal. But something is wrong. Something is very wrong.

Only later am I to learn that the raft has broken up. Thirteen people are in the water. But again, I don’t know this. It all happened too fast for me to comprehend. All I know is that I can’t breathe, and that it’s getting darker and darker.

I’m in the sluice hole. I’m being tossed, tumbled, turned and twisted. I’m being pulled down. I’m being pummeled by a thousand soft blows. I know that something has gone terribly wrong. I’m being pulled down and down. It’s getting darker and darker. It’s quiet, there is no sound. A warm stream flows down my leg. I’ve got to fight out of this. I’ve got to get to the surface.

Up … I’m going up. But I hit the underside of the capsized raft, and then I’m slammed back down, and down, and down. I go back up once more and once again hit the bottom of the raft, and then it’s back down and down. I’ve been under water for a long, long time. My head is about to explode, my lungs are on fire. I’ve got to breathe. I think about dying. I begin to see white flashes, something like stars or lightning. I just can’t hold my breath any longer. It’s black, it’s so black.

I start up again. This time I see light. This time I break the surface. I take in a huge breath of air. I’m in a churning, roaring mass of water. A wall is closing down on me, and then I’m slammed back down and down.


After being thrown out of the eddy and catapulted downstream by the river’s strong flow (over yet another set of rapids – without a raft), he was eventually plucked from the water by another boat. Amazingly no one drowned; another rafting expedition gave them extra blankets and food, and luckily for my husband, HIS “ammo box” of personal gear was one of the bits of flotsam retrieved, so he had his spare pair of glasses. They had to spend the night, before they could be airlifted out the next morning.

22VivienneR
Oct 11, 2018, 12:37 am

23rabbitprincess
Oct 13, 2018, 1:21 pm

Feels like it's been a while since I finished a Serial Reader read! Yesterday I finished Jude the Obscure, by Thomas Hardy, which ended up being surprisingly readable (although oh Lord, the angst). And today I started a new serial: The Rose and the Ring, by William Makepeace Thackeray.

24VivienneR
Oct 14, 2018, 12:19 am

Just finished

Malcolm Orange Disappears by Jan Carson

Northern Ireland author, Jan Carson, has the most imaginative writing style I've ever come across. That it's a debut novel makes it all the more awe-inspiring. Eleven year-old Malcolm, his parents, and baby brother travel around America living in their beat-up Volvo. Malcolm is worried about the holes that are beginning to form on his body although no one else notices. When the father abandons the family, Malcolm's mother finds a job and home at a Baptist retirement village in Oregon filled, of course, with fantastically colourful characters. Carson maintains the surprise factor throughout this ingenius story without once letting up. This is a wonderful, unforgettable story.

My thanks to Jackie_K for the recommendation.

25DeltaQueen50
Oct 14, 2018, 12:21 pm

>23 rabbitprincess: I was also feeling like there was no end to the serial read I was doing, Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol but I finished it yesterday and I surprised myself as I actually quite liked it. Next up for me in installments is Daisy Miller which is very short.

And speaking of long books, I am also reading River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay which is totally immersing me in the story and the setting.

26rabbitprincess
Oct 14, 2018, 1:13 pm

>25 DeltaQueen50: How do you choose your next read on Serial Reader? I have such a hard time deciding that I made a list of everything in my "For Later" queue and use a random number generator to pick my next title. It seems to favour the long ones lately!

In non-Serial Reader reading, I'm working on The Perfectionists, by Simon Winchester.

27Helenliz
Oct 14, 2018, 3:21 pm

I'm going to ask a stupid quesiton, what's serial reader abnd how do you get it? I get that some older books were intially release in serial form, and that they cand work that way. I have listened to Dickens on audio book and it worked really well, listeneing to it in hour long chunks.

28rabbitprincess
Oct 14, 2018, 3:46 pm

>27 Helenliz: Au contraire, a very good question! Serial Reader is an app that I believe is available on both Apple and Android devices. (Apple for sure, because that's how I have it.) It breaks down public-domain works into chunks that can be read in about 10 to 15 minutes, on average. Every day it sends you a new issue, and you can read ahead, pause, or rewind if you get a backlog of issues. It gives you encouraging messages after you finish an issue (although you can turn these off), and badges for reading a certain amount of words, number of serials, or number of days. I especially like the encouraging messages as I work my way through Anna Karenina :)

29DeltaQueen50
Oct 14, 2018, 4:49 pm

>26 rabbitprincess: RP, I am trying to read books from the 1,001 list so that is usually my first priority when choosing a book. I went with Daisy Miller for my next read even though it isn't on the "list" simply because it is short. My next read after Daisy Miller may be Madame Bovary because I just read Flaubert's Parrot and it was mentioned so many times that I now have an interest in reading it for myself.

>27 Helenliz: I'll add to RP's post if I may as I read my installments as e-mail that I receive from DailyLit - https://www.dailylit.com/
It's free and you just sign up, choose your read and decide on how many installments you want delivered in a week. As you read along you can always immediately get the next installment delivered if you don't want to wait. I find this an excellent way to tackle those intimidating classics - a small installment seems much more doable than picking up a huge scarey chunkster!

30rabbitprincess
Oct 14, 2018, 5:50 pm

>29 DeltaQueen50: Ooh, I'll have to check DailyLit too and see if there's anything that Serial Reader doesn't have! Thanks for adding :)

31Helenliz
Oct 15, 2018, 1:17 am

>28 rabbitprincess:, >29 DeltaQueen50: Thankyou both. I will have a browse, it sounds an interesting way of approaching a big book.

32christina_reads
Oct 15, 2018, 11:33 am

I just breezed through Mammoth by Jill Baguchinsky, a LTER book, and have now started Winter in June by Kathryn Miller Haines.

33RidgewayGirl
Oct 15, 2018, 11:41 am

Having finished The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea, which was brilliant and wonderful, I've begun a bunch of new books as I fight this book hangover.

I've begun The Labyrinth of the Spirits by Carlos Ruis Zafón, Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese and Calypso by David Sedaris. They are all promising and very, very different from each other.

34lsh63
Oct 15, 2018, 12:45 pm

>32 christina_reads: Hi Christina, I'm reading Winter in June also for many reasons; it's been on my TBR a while, it has a orange cover for this month's ColorCAT, and it will fill a bingo square as well!

35christina_reads
Oct 15, 2018, 1:47 pm

>34 lsh63: Haha same! I'm using it for the Pacific Ocean-related Bingo square, because I think it's the only book on my shelves that will fit!

36dudes22
Oct 15, 2018, 5:05 pm

I'm in the middle of The Terra-Cotta Dog by Andrea Camilleri, my book for the Oct Color Cat.

37christina_reads
Oct 19, 2018, 9:43 am

I'm getting my historical romance fix with Mary Balogh's Someone to Wed.

38rabbitprincess
Oct 19, 2018, 5:12 pm

I've been hanging out in Malta with Lymond and The Disorderly Knights.

39BookConcierge
Oct 19, 2018, 6:24 pm


Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café – Fannie Flagg
Abridged audiobook narrated by the author
Unabridged audio performed by Lorna Raver.
5*****

When Evelyn accompanies her husband to the nursing home to visit an ailing relative, she meets Mrs Threadgood. As their friendship progresses, Ninny tells Evelyn about Ruth and Idgie and the Whistle Stop Café, and the time Idgie was tried for murdering a man.

This is actually the third time I’ve read this book and I love just as much now as I did the first time. Flagg does a marvelous job of developing these characters, and the reader feels the love between them. I was hooked from the beginning and engaged throughout. And I was in tears at the end (which is VERY different from the movie).

I thought that this time out I’d enjoy Fannie Flagg reading the audio version. She’s marvelous; a trained actress, she can easily interpret the many characters. However, I realized after I’d gotten the book from the library that Flagg’s audio work is an abridged version. So, I managed to get the unabridged version as well … narrated by Lorna Raver. Raver does a fine job, but she’s not Fannie Flagg. Who could be?!

40rabbitprincess
Oct 21, 2018, 11:31 am

Just finished the latest Kopp Sisters novel, Miss Kopp Just Won't Quit, by Amy Stewart. Now I'm all caught up! I have enjoyed bingeing on the series this year.

Next up from the library pile is The Watchers: A Secret History of the Reign of Elizabeth I, by Stephen Alford.

41DeltaQueen50
Oct 21, 2018, 1:26 pm

I've just finished Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline and found it a heart-warming but not overly sweet story. I am now going to start some of my Halloween reading with Hallowe'en Party by Agatha Christie. I am also about to start Portrait of Jennie by Robert Nathan.

42lsh63
Modifié : Oct 22, 2018, 5:15 am

It's very slow going with The Witch Elm, Tana French has never disappointed me, so I'm hanging in there, but so far this book is very different from her usual. Maybe I wasn't paying attention to the fact that it is a standalone and not another in the Dublin Murder Squad series.

I'm also working on The Clockmaker's Daughter and November Road. All three are due at the library on the same day!

43christina_reads
Oct 22, 2018, 10:30 am

I'm continuing my series reread with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

44LisaMorr
Oct 22, 2018, 12:42 pm

I finished Kristin Lavransdatter: The Cross Friday night - really a great trilogy.

I've started The Fires of Heaven, book 5 of The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan.

45rabbitprincess
Oct 22, 2018, 4:34 pm

>42 lsh63: Will definitely have to keep that in mind, that The Witch Elm is a standalone! I haven't read The Trespasser yet; been hoarding it for a rainy day.

46BookConcierge
Oct 22, 2018, 8:00 pm


How to Fall In Love With a Man Who Lives In a Bush – Emmy Abrahamson
3***

Julia is a Swede living in Austria where she teaches English at Berlitz. She’s in Vienna because she followed a boyfriend there; now they’ve broken up and she’s at loose ends. One day, while waiting on a park bench she meets a smelly, dirty homeless man, Ben. They enter into an easy conversation and when she gets up to leave he virtually commands her to meet him again the next evening. Thus begins their relationship.

This was a quick, fast read and mildly entertaining. I shook my head at the chances Julia took, but recognized what she saw in Ben. He was clearly intelligent, caring, giving and willing to work at the relationship. She, on the other hand, was pretty closed off to any change in routine, and visibly embarrassed by her boyfriend. They are sometimes at cross purposes and have trouble communicating clearly with one another. The plot is rather implausible, including chasing him to Vancouver and wandering aimlessly in that city on the chance she’d find him. But there is a happy ending.

All told it’s a decent chick-lit, new-adult romance.

As an afterward, there is both an interview with the author, AND an essay by Abrahamson’s husband ... who was homeless when she met him on a park bench in Amsterdam. But THIS is a novel, not a memoir.

47RidgewayGirl
Modifié : Oct 24, 2018, 5:11 pm

I just picked up Transcription by Kate Atkinson and The Witch Elm by Tana French from the library, if anyone was curious as to my plans this weekend.

48rabbitprincess
Oct 24, 2018, 6:27 pm

I abandoned The Watchers and switched to Red Bones, by Ann Cleeves, which is doing the job much better.

49VivienneR
Oct 28, 2018, 1:53 am

I just finished two:

The Color of Our Sky by Amita Trasi was a major disappointment. Almost identical to the rich kid bad/poor kid good plot of The Kite Runner. This completed my Bingo card.

I loved The House at Sea's End by Elly Griffiths the third in the Ruth Galloway series. I'm now a big fan of Griffiths. As well as the first-rate location on the Norfolk saltmarsh I'm hooked on archaeologist Ruth Galloway. She is so confident in many areas yet insecure in others. The best part about starting this series so long after they were published is that I can go straight to the next one without having to wait for another to hit the bookstores. Interesting plot, great characters and a bit of a love interest: what more can you ask for?

50rabbitprincess
Oct 28, 2018, 8:48 am

Yesterday I finished The Disorderly Knights, by Dorothy Dunnett. Only 5 books left in my 2018 pool! This was probably the biggest one, too.

51lsh63
Oct 28, 2018, 10:25 am

I'm reading The Clockmaker's Daughter, which I am enjoying but I'm having a little difficulty keeping track of the various characters and their respective time periods.

52BookConcierge
Oct 31, 2018, 10:30 am


I, Robot – Isaac Asimov
Digital audio narrated by Scott Brick
4****

I’ve never been a great fan of science fiction but this book has been on my tbr for ages. The thread that weaves the chapters together is Susan Calvin, PhD – a specialist in “Robopsychology.” At the age of 75, she is retiring from U.S. Robots and being interviewed by a journalist about her life-long work. She tells the stories of the advance (and decline?) of robotics.

What fascinates me about this is that it was written in 1948 and is STILL set in the future. Although Asimov’s imagination outpaced the reality of robotics as we know it today, he grappled with many of the same issues we have faced and are still facing. In Asimov’s world the scientists who first developed these tools to help humanity could not help but “improve” them beyond being mere worker-machines. And hence the Three Rules: 1) A robot must not harm a human being; 2) A robot must obey human orders; and 3) A robot must protect its own existence … but only if doing so does not violate rules 1 and 2.

As the narrator relates Dr Calvin’s fifty years of experiences in the field, the reader gets a sense of the slippery slope humanity has embarked on by relying more and more on these highly intelligent machines. It’s fascinating, frightening, thrilling and thought-provoking.

Scott Brick does a fine job narrating the audiobook. He set a good pace and was chillingly non-emotional when voicing the intelligent robots (especially the politician).

53lsh63
Oct 31, 2018, 5:51 pm

On this last day of the month, I finished November Road and I am very surprised that I am lukewarm about Barbara Kingsolver's latest, Unsheltered.