What are you reading the week of September 26, 2020?

Finished Frozen by Ann Cleeves. Not enough of a story to be interesting.

Added Dead Man in a Ditch by Luke Arnold to my rotation.

How Long 'Til Black Future Month is an a short story collection by Hugo award winner N.K Jemisin. I admire authors who are able to built a world with a series, as well as build a world with a short story, takes a certain kind of talent and Jemisin has it! I like some of the stories more then others . The first one Those who Stay to Fight, is a , a take on Ursula Le Guins Those Who Walk Away from tells of an utopia I hope is coming someday. Even the ones that were not for me, were still better than many others Ive read elsewhere. Ill say m ore once I finish

Also still reading the dutch house for next months book group. Im leading the discussion so figured Id better read it again. Liking it as well the second time around

I finished The Hucksters by Frederic Wakeman, a satiric novel about the advertising world that was a best seller in 1946. You'll find my review on the book's work page and on my 50-Book Challenge thread.

Next up will be Hillbilly Elegy J.D. Vance.

>3 rocketjk: I very much liked Hillbilly Elegy when I read it a year or so back. Hope you do too!

In my usual "can't read because my mind's overactive" phase, so I'm listening to books instead. Right now I'm very much engrossed by Unfollow by Megan Phelps-Roper about growing up in the Westboro Baptist Church and why she left. Megan is the narrator as well, she has a pleasant voice and is obviously extremely intelligent. What a story. Four more hours to go.

>4 ahef1963: ahef: glad to know I am not the only one who has phases like "can't read because my mind's overactive". It passes, but sometimes not for weeks!!

Enjoying Plainsong by Kent Haruf

Reading Out by Natsuo Kirino

Japanese crime-ish story, don't know if I'll finish it, it feels like she using a western plot for a Japanese novel and it doesn't feel right(?). It's pretty dark and a tad hard to suspend disbelief.

Did well in Japan (didn't Tom Waits have a song about that?)

Wish me luck

I'm about to finish My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite. Dark but fun.

I'm also reading The Baltimore Book of the Dead by Marion Winik a little at a time.

Next up is Ban This Book by Alan Gratz for Banned Books Week!

>4 ahef1963: Thanks! I've heard/read mixed reviews, as has my wife. From what I hear it's part insightful and part self-indulgent. I'm keeping an open mind and have enjoyed the first 25 pages or so.

>6 aussieh: Kent Haruf may be the most criminally underrated American author of the last 50 years. It took a long time for him to even show upon my radar, but when he did, I chased down and read everything of his I could get my hands on.

Boy Swallows Universe
Trent Dalton
4/5 stars
Set in Australia in the 1980’s we find brothers Eli and August Bell living with his mother and Slim, a friend that watches over the family. Life is not easy for the family, the father is in jail and they have little resources to live on. The Bell family keeps hanging on when the boys go to live with their dad after he is released while their mother ends up in jail and now Eli is now being targeted by Tytus Broz, a criminal/drug dealer. This is definitely a wild romp and you will have a hard time putting this down!

>11 LyndaInOregon: I have long loved him, but was disappointed with the book he wrote before his death Our Souls at Night Writing was great, but the ending, the decisions made, was not in line with the characters personalities, really bugged me

I finished the LTER The Piano Student. This novel is based on letters between Horowitz and his lover, Kaufman. The story is relayed many years later by Kaufman to a stranger he meets in a piano bar. I found the shifts in time from the story to the present difficult to follow and I was often confused. I also never figured out what role the stranger was meant to play. That aside, it was a poignant portrayal of the pain living a double life.

Yesterday I felt lousy (seasonal allergies) and I stayed in my pajamas in a cosy spot on the sofa. I started and finished Holding by Graham Norton, who is, for the uninitiated, an Irish talk-show host, very sarcastic and camp. His book was neither of these things. It was a warm and immensely readable story about a small town in Ireland where nothing happens, until a body is uncovered by workers digging foundations for new homes just outside of town. I was quite impressed with this understated novel and have already ordered Norton's second novel.

I think I'm going to read Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy next, although that's not set in stone.

A Short History Of Nearly Everything – Bill Bryson
3.5***

Well, the title pretty much gives you a synopsis of what this nonfiction work is all about – “nearly” everything.

Bryson allowed his curiosity about scientific discoveries to lead wherever it might take him, and he organized his findings in a somewhat chronological order (hence the “history”). He begins with how the universe came into being, and proceeds through how Earth came to be the rock we call home, the natural disasters / dangers of volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, etc, continues through the formation of life, from the smallest microbeings to, eventually, man (and the way we are destroying the planet on which we reside).

It’s dry in places, and extremely detailed as well. It’s also funny and entertaining occasionally. I found myself reading certain passages aloud to my husband (who, I think, was sorry he asked “What are you reading?”).

Oh I love his non fiction; Mother Tongue is a look at how English came to be. Summer 1927 Brings together 4 or 5 situations or people or events of that year - from baseball to airflight , boxing to Mickey, in a very readable history of that time. At Home: A Short History of Private Life was also interesting tho I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the others. Enjoy

Finished Child of My Heart, which sort of bounced between a tearjerker and a skeevy subplot that borders on pedophilia. McDermott is a fine writer, but her heroine is impossibly cool-headed for a 15-year-old, and the direction of the main plotline is obvious almost from the get-go.

Loretta Lynn: Coal Miner’s Daughter – Loretta Lynn & George Vecsey
Book on CD narrated by Sissy Spacek
3.5***

This autobiography takes the reader from Loretta’s birth (sometime when FDR was president – she refuses to reveal how old she really is) to stardom.

I found this very interesting. She tells her story in a forthright and honest manner, relating both the good and the bad. She doesn’t apologize for her life or her choices (she married at age thirteen and was a grandmother by the time she was 29), but allows that she may not have had the education or life experience to do things differently at the time.

There were times when I winced at her ignorance but there’s no denying her talent and hard work. This memoir was first published in 1976. I had to keep reminding myself how different life was then. The audiobook I listened to was for the 30-year anniversary edition and included a forward with some additional information.

Sissy Spacek does a marvelous job narrating the audio. She was Lynn’s hand-picked choice to portray her in the movie, and has Lynn’s voice down pat. Most of the time I completely forgot it was Spacek performing it. I have never seen the movie, but having listened to Spacek’s performance on the audio, I know want to. Brava!

Oh you have to watch the movie it is pretty incredible (btw I heard she was actually 16 when she was married but still pretty young)

I finished reading The Authenticity Project. It had an intriguing cast of characters who found each other due to a notebook where they were encouraged to present theirselves truthfully. It was written in such a way that I found it hard to put the book down even though it wasn't too hard to guess how much of the story would end up. There were some surprises and the characters were believable.

>19 BookConcierge: & >20 cindydavid4: She was born in 1932. Darn those government records! https://web.archive.org/web/20190407034712/https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/...

Finished pull of the stars, I really liked it, and I have a feeling it will be coming to a theatre near you soon .
Maternity detail m ight be a bit too much for some, but its well worth the read

Just started buffalo soldier by Tanya Landman, historical fiction -
civil war era and after.

Abandoned Julie Cannon's 'Mater Biscuit -- two of the four main characters were totally obnoxious and one was a wimp. Impossible to care about any of them. Even though the path of the story was predictable, I wasn't interested in walking it.

Almost finished with The Passenger, by Lisa Lutz. Wonderful twisty tale told by an unreliable narrator -- though there's a key scene that takes place in the front seat of a car which seems to me to be physically impossible. (No, it's not sex.)

Next up is a re-read of Olivia Goldsmith's Marrying Mom. It was in a bag o' books I bought the other day and realized, when I started to journal it, that I read and enjoyed it several years ago.

New thread: https://www.librarything.com/topic/325006