What are you reading the week of April 4, 2020?

I've started William Faulkner's The Hamlet, which I'm really enjoying. It's one of his more accessible novels. But it really evokes a lot of memories since I grew up in southeast Arkansas among the cotton farms and bayous. During my Faulkner phase in my early twenties, I talked my father into going bear hunting the first year that bear hunting season was reestablished in Arkansas. My dad and I and couple of his coworkers camped out in the woods. At night we would sit around the camp fire and they talked while I read Absalom, Absalom!. God, that's almost forty years ago now.

Just finished listening to The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich. A poignant piece of historical fiction.

Next up for listening is Macbeth by Jo Nesbo.

Finished Little Fires Everywhere which I liked, despite knowing what was going to happen at the end very early on. Predictable, but the writing is so good, the characters so well developed that reading it was lovely. I can see why she won a Booker for it. Haven't read her first book, need to do that.

Found a book on my shelves that I hadn't read in years Tell Me That You Love Me Junie Moon Read the book in HS, saw the play and movie. I remember loving all of them. So its time for a reread.

I have about 100 pages left of A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. I think I'll rewatch season 1 after I finish.

Enjoy!!!!!! Its one of the few adaptations that seriously worked, it even cut back on some of Martin's silliness. Continues thro book 5, then Martin leaes us all hanging, and leaves the show to continue, without much guidance. but youve got lots of good episodes to watch!

Indianapolis: The True Story– Lynn Vincent and Sara Vladic
Book on CD read by John Bedford Lloyd
5*****

The subtitle is all the synopsis anyone needs: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man.

I’ve known about the U.S.S. Indianapolis since I was about eleven years old. In 7th grade I became fascinated by sharks and read virtually every book in my public library about them. Many of those books included the story of the Indianapolis sinking and the days at sea that the survivors endured. So, this was not a new story for me, nor the first book about the tragedy that I’ve read.

But knowing the story did nothing to lessen my fascination or divert my attention from the tale. Vincent and Vladic did extensive research, including interviews with survivors and their families. The result is a detailed, thorough and still intimately personal story. There was more than one section that brought me to tears, and I cheered at the eventual success the survivors had in clearing their captain of charges of culpability.

The audiobook is masterfully narrated by John Bedford Lloyd. I listened in rapt attention.

Paris By the Book – Liam Callanan
Digital audiobook read by Kim Bubbs
3***

From the book jacket: When eccentric novelist Robert Eady abruptly vanishes, he leaves behind his wife, Leah, their daughters, and, hidden in an unexpected place, plane tickets to Paris. Hoping to uncover clues – and her husband – Leah sets off for France with her girls. {There} she discovers an unfinished manuscript Robert had been writing without her knowledge … and that he had set it in Paris. Mother and daughters follow the path of the manuscript to a small, floundering English-language bookstore whose weary proprietor is eager to sell. Leah finds herself accepting the offer on the spot.

My reactions
I wanted to love this book. The author is from my home town, the beginning of the book is set in Milwaukee, and then the action moves to a city I love, Paris France. Plus, it’s a book about books. But …

I never really connected with these characters. I didn’t understand this great love between Robert and Leah. He was always given to these “disappearing” acts and it was clear to me (so why not to Leah?) that he had some significant mental and/or emotional health issues. Her continued grief and inability to move on just drove me crazy. On the other hand, I can only imagine how devastating this was for her, especially with two little girls who NEVER STOPPED looking for their Dad.

The twists and turns in the story gave me difficulty as well. It seemed all too convenient that they could suddenly get an extended visa, for example. I won’t mention other twists to avoid any spoilers.

Bottom line, it’s a splendid premise, has some great atmospheric scenes highlighting Paris, includes MANY book references, but didn’t live up to my expectations.

Kim Bubbs does a fine job narrating the audiobook. I could easily tell which character was speaking, and it moved at a satisfying pace.

Started this free book via audiobook.com intro offer ~

Woman in the Water: A Prequel to the Charles Lenox Series by Charles Finch

(London, 1850/young Charles Lenox aims to be a detective)

My Kindle gave up the ghost two days ago so I'm stuck in reading h3ll. The new Kindle won't be here for almost two weeks. Argh!!! I do have the Kindle app on my phone so I can keep reading my bedtime book. So, I'm still reading Godsgrave but Tigana, Sixteenth Watch, The True Bastards, and Docile are stuck in limbo until the new reader arrives.

I have just started reading The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah. I really enjoyed her book The Nightingale and picked this up in hopes that it would be as readable, and it is. I'm enjoying it.

I'm about 25 pages into Lawrence Durrell's Justine, which has the most sublime writing I've ever encountered. Then I lost the book. Everything is so messy right now and I don't have the energy to do anything about it.

Hope you're all keeping well and safe.

I finished Napoleon's Buttons. It is a collection of stories about various groups of molecules that have impacted history, from spices, to foods, to medicines, to refrigerants, etc. presented without shirking away from the chemistry involved. It was engaging and interesting even to an organic chemist. One would not have to be an chemist to understand and enjoy the book.

I spent the last couple of days reading through one of my "between book" stacks, during which I finished the wonderful short story collection, Tierra del Fuego by Chilean author Francisco Coloane. . . .

* “William L. Laurence of The New York Times See Atom Bomb III Dropped Over Nagasaki” from A Treasury of Great Reporting: "Literature Under Pressure" from the Sixteenth Century to Our Own Time edited by Louis L. Snyder
* “When Lightning Strikes” from Magazine Digest - August 1949 edited by Murray Simmons
* “On Early Rising” from Leaves in the Wind by Alpha of the Plow (a.k.a. A. G. Gardiner)
* “But You Must Act” by Abraham Lincoln from The Union Reader edited by Richard B. Harwell
* “The Lighthouse Builder” from Tierra del Fuego by Francisco Coloane - Finished!
* “The Doomed Sisters” by Charles Robert Maturin from Great Irish Tales of Horror edited by Peter Haining
* “Are You ‘Psychic?’” by Arthur Train from Scribner's Magazine - March, 1936

I'm now already about a quarter of the way through Istanbul Passage a fun if not too deep spy thriller by Joseph Kanon.

>5 cindydavid4: I've already watched the whole thing, but am now ready for the books. I'm glad I watched the show first because I think if I read the book first I never could have kept track of all the characters!

The Queens of Animation: The Untold Story of the Women Who Transformed the World of Disney and Made Cinematic History by Nathalia Holt
4.5/5 stars
This is the amazing true story of the women animators that worked at the Disney studios and who influenced and participated in the filmmaking process of the animated films. They came from all backgrounds and did jobs that the men got paid more for doing but they persevered and were able to make an impact on the films they worked on. Interesting fact -I never knew that the book Bambi: A Life in the Woods was banned in Germany because it dealt with German antisemitism and it was written by a Jewish author. Highly recommended!

I started reading An American Marriage by Tayari Jones last night. I'm only two shortish chapters in, but am thoroughly enjoying it.

I'm now reading Hilary Mantel's third in the Thomas Cromwell trilogy - The Mirror & the Light. It's over 700 pages, so I think this one will take me awhiel.

>16 bell7: it is well worth it, tho took me longer than it usually does. I did find my self skipping some of the flashback info we already knew, and some of the overly wordy streams of consciouness. But its an excellent ending to the trilogy!

>13 PaperbackPirate: For some reason it didn't bother me when I first read it (decades ago!) I remember going through the first three in one summer.....as far as the other two, they were written by splitting up characters and aking for very confusing reading. There is a website called Boiled Leather that has come up with an order of chapters to read for each book, so you can read it in chronologial order more or less

Hee since you saw the show at least you will not toss the book at the wall when you read a certain section of book three like I did. Took me a while to return to it

I loved the show, I remember crossing my fingers that it would be true to the books and in a lot of ways it exceeded my expectations. But since Martin stopped at book five, the show writers had to make do best that could. Still I plan to rewatch it during this quarrantine, and skip the parts I didn't like :)

>17 cindydavid4: I'm hoping those flashbacks help me out, as it's been two years since I read Bring Up the Bodies! :D

Ah, ok, they just might! ive been rereading both books every few years, so its old hand to me.

I just started All The Bright Places. I've never read it but I heard it was good.

Enjoying this OverDrive audiobook ~

Mortal Friends: A Novel by Jane Stanton Hitchcock

(DC high society satire/murder mystery)

Sweet video about girls at home during the outbreak-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJM-u6IABGQ&authuser=0

I have just reread Book 8 of The Richard Jackson Saga by Ed Nelson on Amazon to reedit.

I finished Michael Holroyd's biography of Lytton Strachey. It was nice to be back among the Bloomsberries for awhile.
Now I'm reading Anne Tyler's new book, Redhead by the Side of the Road

I finished Istanbul Passage by Joseph Kanon. This is a fun, engaging espionage thriller about a low-level U.S. operative trying to navigate all sorts of mayhem in 1945 Istanbul to try to save a high-level escapee from the Soviets because the American government thinks this fellow has information they can use about those darn Ruskies. The war is over and all the spies are leaving Turkey. Well, not quite all the spies, of course. I'll call this book good-plus, but not great.

I'm going to take a couple of spins through one of my "between book" stacks, and then read Of Love and Other Demons by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Started on and enjoying An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine

oh I loved that book!

>15 ahef1963: - I recently finished it. Great book.

A Good Yarn – Debbie Macomber
Digital audiobook narrated by Linda Emond
3***

This is book two in the Blossom Street series, featuring Lydia Hoffman, owner of “A Good Yarn” in Seattle Washington, and the people who come to her store for knitting classes and form friendships as a result.

It’s a charming, easy read with an ensemble cast that includes teenagers and seniors, and every age in between. Happy marriages, divorces, dating scenarios, crushes, and disappointments. People struggle with financial ruin, job loss and major health issues. The reader shares their ups and downs, and it ends on a predictably upbeat note.

I haven’t read the first book in the series, though I have read other books by Macomber. They are all mind candy, comfort reads. Enjoy!

Linda Emond does a fine job narrating the audiobook. She has a lot of characters to voice and manages to keep them straight.

Finally finished Time Storm, which is a very different take on time travel and finished a bit bizarrely. I felt like I was watching the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey...

On the penultimate chapter of The Presidencies of William Henry Harrison and John Tyler and about to start Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris.

Finished Missing pieces by Joy Fielding
Now reading The gray man by Mark Freaney

I've just started Of Love and Other Demons, a short novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It's been a long time since I read any Marquez and I'm looking forward to revisiting his world.

I've also added two new books to my "between books" rotation. One is Cape Horn and Other Stories from the End of the World by Chilean writer Francisco Coloane. I just finished his collection Tierra Del Fuego and enjoyed those stories so much that I decided to immediately begin this other collection of his. Of few stories appear in both, but I'll be happy to reread those.

The other newly started short story collection is Foreign Shores by Haitian writer Marie-Hélène Laforest. I seem to be the only LT member with this book in his or her collection, unless there are multiple listings for it that I'm not aware of.

I finished Anne Tyler's Redhead by the Side of the Road -- I'm not sure how I feel about it. It's a very slight book. Yes, there's a family but we don't get into the middle of it. We're out along the edge with one member, Micah, who is mostly alone and seems to want it that way, sort of. Lots of Micahs out there, if we bother to look. So much about him is revealed -- to us, and to Micah -- in this book. I'll have to think about this one for awhile, which means that it's more than a small tightly written story. Tyler has created a world, a life, in a book I read in one rainy afternoon.

Now I'm reading Louise Erdrich's The Night Watchman.

Reading A More Perfect Heaven as usual, excellent writing, and loved her play she puts in the middle,

In addition to Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris , about to start The Siege by Ismail Kadare.

The new thread is up over here.