What are you reading the week of September 18, 2021?

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What are you reading the week of September 18, 2021?

1fredbacon
Sep 18, 2021, 9:11 am

I'm halfway through 1919, the second volume in John Dos Passos' USA Trilogy. I had to set it aside for a few days as it was making me very depressed. A hundred years later and nothing has changed but the costumes and props. It's still the same stratified, divisive society.

2PaperbackPirate
Sep 18, 2021, 10:59 am

Today I'm going to start reading Fifty Words for Rain by Asha Lemmie for my book club. I'm looking forward to this book!

3Shrike58
Modifié : Sep 20, 2021, 5:13 pm

So, I finished The Second Most Powerful Man in the World (not a bombastic title at all) and started Hidden Nature. Polaris Rising will be next.

Swapped out Mark Donohue: Technical Excellence at Speed for "Hidden Nature" (which I will return to) and will probably finished that tomorrow; "Polaris Rising" is the book I'm actually lugging around.

4seitherin
Modifié : Sep 18, 2021, 5:55 pm

5ahef1963
Modifié : Sep 18, 2021, 9:11 pm

I've finished In Every Mirror She's Black by Lola Akinmade Akerstrom, which I enjoyed. Later yesterday I picked up Yaa Gyasi's second book, Transcendent Kingdom and finished it today. It was very good. It wasn't brilliant and staggering as Homegoing, but a beautifully-written book all the same.

I don't know what to read next. I'm too tired for life-shattering decisions like the choosing of a book.

6Limelite
Sep 18, 2021, 10:18 pm

Reading Britannia Mews through my ears. Teddibly propah English narrator. Dipping into Kevin Wignall's A Death in Sweden but am not really underway in it. Same for a contrast read, the comic British detective mystery Oranges & Lemons by Christopher Fowler. It's more sardonic than comical.

7Molly3028
Sep 19, 2021, 3:36 pm

Starting this OverDrive audio ~

A Slow Fire Burning: A Novel
by Paula Hawkins
(narrated by Rosamund Pike ~ Amy in 'Gone Girl' movie)

8JulieLill
Sep 19, 2021, 10:32 pm

I have been reading a very long book on Walter Winchell - very detailed but it revolves around his life and what he was reporting on.

9LyndaInOregon
Sep 19, 2021, 11:05 pm

Do you ever find books in your TBR stack or at the top of your wish list and have no memory of how they got there?

That's the case with my latest read, The Heap, by Sean Adams. I have no memory of why I requested this via ILL, but it is an odd coincidence that it arrived just as we were beginning our national remembrance of 9/11.

The fall of the 500-story condominium / city /desert behemoth in "The Heap" has occurred long before the book's beginning, and the cause of the collapse is never revealed. It's irrelevant to this story, anyway, which deals with the human capacity for hope and self-delusion and those who would take advantage of those qualities.

10BookConcierge
Sep 21, 2021, 8:22 am


An Irish Country Christmas – Patrick Taylor
Book on CD performed by John Keating
4****

Book three in in the charming and popular story of 1960s country GP, Barry Laverty, M.B., his partner / mentor Doctor Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly, and the people of Ballybucklebo. It’s Christmas and love is in the air.

I came late to this party, but I’m glad I finally arrived, and now it seems that I may never leave. The books are charming and entertaining and just plain fun to read. I love the cultural references to the time period, as well as learning a little about medical practices “back in the day.”

Taylor peoples the novels with a cast of eccentric villagers, and a few lovely ladies. I particularly like the doctors’ housekeeper, Kinky. And appreciate Taylor’s including some of Kinky’s recipes at the end of each book.

John Keating does a marvelous job of performing the audiobook. He really brings these characters to life. I love the way he portrays Kinky!

11princessgarnet
Modifié : Sep 22, 2021, 1:02 pm

From the library: Murder Most Fair by Anna Lee Huber
The new and #5 installment in the "Verity Kent Mystery" series
Verity and Sidney are visiting Verity's parents in the Yorkshire Dales for the holiday season. It's an overdue visit. Also Verity's elderly Great Aunt Ilse comes with the Kents; there's nothing for her left in Germany. When a murder occurs during their visit, the Kents wonder if it's related to their wartime work.

I'm a newcomer to this series and am enjoying it.

12BookConcierge
Sep 23, 2021, 10:32 am


In the Country We Love – Diane Guerrero
Audible original audio narrated by the author.
4****

Subtitle: My Family Divided

When Diane Guerrero was fourteen years old, she came home from school to find an empty house. Her family had been picked up by ICE and were detained pending deportation. Fortunately for Diane, a family friend agreed to take her in, so that she could remain in school. This is her memoir.

The author has an important message to convey about the effects on children of America’s immigration and deportation policies. Diane had been born in the United States, so she was never at risk of being deported, but she was a child when her parents and brother were sent back to Columbia. And no government agency checked on her welfare … at all. Yes, you read that right. Social Services, Child Protective Services, ICE, Homeland Security … not one single government entity bothered to check to see if this 14-year-old child was okay, had food, shelter, clothing. It’s not like they didn’t know she existed. While her parents were awaiting deportation, she visited them at the detention facility, registering as their daughter, accompanied by the family friend who was temporarily caring for her.

The traumatic events left psychological scars, and Guerrero is open and honest about what she endured (including years of self-harm) until she got the emotional help she needed. She is now an outspoken advocate for immigration reform.

My book club had a very interesting discussion of this book. Her “voice” as an author is very young at the outset. It’s almost as if she were writing for a high school or even middle school audience. But as she recovers from the trauma, and particularly the last two chapters, her voice matures, and she writes with confidence and authority.

Guerrero narrates the audiobook herself. I had read the first two-thirds of the book in text format before a friend shared the audio with me. The difference in maturity between the beginning and ending is more evident on the audio.

13Molly3028
Sep 23, 2021, 12:25 pm

Starting this audio selection via hoopla ~

Girl, Alone (An Ella Dark FBI Suspense Thriller—Book 1)
by Blake Pierce

14Copperskye
Modifié : Sep 23, 2021, 1:05 pm

>10 BookConcierge: I own a couple of books in that series, including that one. I should read it this December!

I finished Fuzz, Mary Roach's latest which was enlightening and entertaining, as expected, and started Harry Bingham's Talking to the Dead.

15rocketjk
Modifié : Sep 23, 2021, 1:39 pm

Seems like I'm behind a bit! Since my last report on last week's thread I've finished . . .

Monica Stirling's 1958 novel, Sigh for a Strange Land, a story about alienation and displacement taking place during and just after the Hungarian Uprising of the 1950s.

Death of a King: The Real Story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Final Year by Tavis Smiley, an excellent if sad and disturbing history.

Shiloh, famed historian Shelby Foote's historical novel about that bloody American Civil War battle.

And, just last night, Picnic Grounds: A Novel in Fragments by Oz Shelach. Picnic Grounds is an understated but very powerful collection of short vignettes (the fragments of the title), anywhere from a half page to a page and a half long, about life in Israel, mostly in and around Jerusalem. More specifically, they are about denial and absurdity. The "absurdity" aspect could mostly be about government deception and double-talk anywhere. But the "denial" dimension, much more prevalent overall, are about a very specific Israeli phenomenon, the historic denial of the destruction of Palestinian villages and the uprooting and banishment, sometimes the murder, of their inhabitants around the time of the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

If interested you can find my longer reviews of all these works on my 50-Book Challenge thread.

Next up for me will be Indian Summer a history/memoir about Anderson Valley, the location in Mendocino County, California, where my wife and I have lived since 2008. The work was published locally.

16seitherin
Sep 23, 2021, 4:09 pm

finished More Beautiful Than Death by David Mack. meh. added Tonight You're Dead by Viveca Sten to my rotation.

17LyndaInOregon
Sep 23, 2021, 6:49 pm

Just finished Red Sun of Darkover, a collection of short stories set in the Darkover universe, mostly written by authors other than Marion Zimmer Bradley. Fans of the series may enjoy these alternate viewpoints; casual readers may find they all begin to sound alike after a while.

Just started Wild Life, by Molly Gloss. Gloss is one of my favorite writers, and this one -- though it's going to take a totally different direction, if the cover info is at all accurate -- begins with a very funny take on what it was like to wrangle five energetic boys as a single mother in the early 1900s.

18aussieh
Sep 25, 2021, 1:26 am

My latest is Victims by Jonathan Kellerman

19fredbacon
Sep 25, 2021, 9:23 am

The new thread is up over here.