What are you reading the week of October 10, 2020?

New week = new posts!

Ming Tea Murder
by Laura Childs
(Tea Shop Mysteries/OverDrive eBook)

I listened to a lovely novella, The Gentleman From Peru.

Next up for listening is the first in a Victorian era detective series, A Beautiful Blue Death by Charles Finch.

Have a good week, all!!

Still reading Battle Ground, Dead Man in a Ditch, The Devil You Know, and Or What You Will.

Does anyone know what happened to Fred, our fearless thread-starter?

I've been listening to a great audiobook called Wish You Were Here, by John Allore and Patricia Pearson. I seem to be the only person on LibraryThing who owns the book, so I'm not surprised that there are no touchstones yet. It's true crime, the murder occurred in the same part of Quebec that Louise Penny has placed Armand Gamache, and it's interesting to hear how we Canadians deal with violent death. The story is both fascinating and appalling.

Once again I'm struggling to read an actual physical book, hence my recent conversion to audiobooks. I've read a few chapters of Patrick deWitt's much-acclaimed The Sisters Brothers, but I can't concentrate.

Tried reading Jorge Luis Borges's Ficciones this week. I can barely read a magazine these days so you can imagine that I utterly failed to comprehend any of Borges and his labyrinthine prose, studded as it is with words I've never heard before and peppered with details that you'd need a PhD to unravel. I only have an M.A. so wasn't up to the task!

Finding Dorothy

Continuing with How to Stop Time which started off with a bang but is a bit lagging in the middle. Could be me though.

>1 Molly3028: Thank you for starting us off this week!
>4 ahef1963: I'm also thinking about fredbacon!

I'm still reading The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. So far I'm loving it as much as The Angel's Game.

Enjoying A Keeper by Graham Norton

>7 PaperbackPirate: Im remember ing that Frank had some medical issues? Hope all is well with him

Just finished Finding Dorothy and thought it was really well done! Which means I need to think of what to read next over the weekend. I think I will finish Lady Clementine I was having trouble being in her head (its written in first person) and needed a break. I can do that now

I finished Capitalism and Slavery by Eric Williams. Williams was prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago from 1961 until his death in 1981. Before that, he was a professor of political and social science at Howard University. In this history, which deals primarily with slavery in the British Empire and more specifically in the West Indies, Williams' highly believable thesis is that slavery ended in the British Empire not primarily due to the work of humanitarians and abolitionists (although Williams doe credit their work) but because the economic system which made slavery "necessary" to English merchants because unprofitable to English industrialists once the Industrial Revolution was on. You can read my longer review on my 50-Book Challenge thread or the book's work page.

Today I started Born on the Fourth of July by Ron Kovic. Hard to believe I've never read this, but it's been on my shelves since around 1989, so it's high time to finally get to it.

Hard Core Twenty-Four
Janet Evanovich
3.5/5 stars
Stephanie Plum, bounty hunter is on the case when bodies show up without any heads. Diesel, a former associate shows up to help in the case to track down the killer. There is never a dull moment in Plum’s life.

Finished listening to the very enjoyable, A Beautiful Blue Death.

Next up for listening is Snow by John Banville.

Lounged in bed, slept and read all day on my day off today. Just finished the wonderful How to Stop Time by Matt Haig. Such an enjoyable ride through the ongoing adventures, heartache and loves of protagonist Tom through his centuries-long (& counting) life.

This has been optioned and will star Benedict Cumberbatch. Glad they kept it British. Hope they do it justice.

Just finished Pat Barker's The Silence of the Girls, which tells of the last days of the Trojan War, mostly from the viewpoint of Briseis, awarded as a prize of war to Achilles and then taken from him by Agamemnon. Brilliant, beautiful, and brutal book about the realities of warfare. Highly recommended.

Not sure what's up next. I need to chew on this one for a while first.

I finished Labyrinth by Kate Mosse on Monday and have yet to decide what to read next. I was so gripped by the story and really suffering with book hangover.

I now have the sequels of the Languedoc Trilogy on order so may read Sepulchre next when it arrives in a few days. Though I have a few books still in my box to read such as:
The Somnambulis by Ellie Fox
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
The Taxidermists Daughter by Kate Mosse
The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

Always so hard to choose! :)

I finished Complexity. The book is basically a history of the formation of the Santa Fe Institute, the scientist who were involved and their research. In describing their research, an understandable, not too detailed, description of the science of complexity: thought provoking stuff. It was published in 1992 and makes me wonder what's gone on since then.

I finished Born on the Fourth of July by Ron Kovic, which I found to be very powerful. There's nothing dated about it now, and it's easy to see why it gained such attention then. The memoir begins with the moment Kovic is wounded during a firefight and immediately loses all feeling from the middle of his chest downward. Kovic details his life for the first decade after his wound, including his evolution into a strong anti-Vietnam War activist, in often compelling fashion as well. As an anti-war statement and a chronicle of personal darkness and perseverance, this memoir stands up very well. My longer review is on the book's work page and also on my 50-Book Challenge thread (https://www.librarything.com/topic/315064).

Next up for me will The New Men, the sixth book in C.P. Snow's "Strangers and Brothers" series.

Finished: An Artless Demise by Anna Lee Huber
#7 in the Lady Darby Mystery series. Kiera's past puts her back in the public spotlight while she and Gage are in London. I'm looking forward to reading the latest and #8 installment A Stroke of Malice from the library
A Portrait of Loyalty by Roseanna M. White
The finale and #3 in The Codebreakers series. Characters from Shadows over England and Ladies of the Manor make appearances too.

Current: The Lost Queen: the Life & Tragedy of the Prince Regent's Daughter by Anne Stott
New biography about Princess Charlotte, Queen Victoria's cousin.

I'm rereading Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert Massie. It has been over forty years since I read it and it really holds up. I find myself wondering what's going to happen next when I already know. There is a short film on youtube of Tsar Nicholas and family attending an event. It was both touching and eerie.

>15 justalitnerdxx: I didn't care for Thirteenth Tale but I usually like that author so might try it again let me know what you think. I have Starless Sea on my TBR shelf and keep getting distracted. But Night Circus is among my favorite fantasy reads of all time!

Gave up on Lady Clementine, I really don't like first person in HF, its not often done well. Im interested in her history tho. Anyone recommend a good bio on Clementine Churchill?

>19 enaid: I remember reading that in college and during the week I was working registration I was reading the final chapter trying to hold back tears. I havent read it since but I did read his follow up, as well as Peter the Great. He really knows how to write history. I need to see what else he has written, its been ages.

ETA oh, I must have missed this: Massie died from complications of Alzheimer's disease on December 2, 2019, at the age of 90.1

>21 cindydavid4: I never did finish Peter the Great but I really enjoyed Catherine the Great after a couple of false starts. I expected Nicholas and Alexandra to feel dated but Massie was a very fine writer and it feels very current.

>21 cindydavid4: I read and own 3 of Massie's books including Nicholas and Alexandra, The Romanovs: the Final Chapter, and Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman.
Massie's Nicholas and Alexandra was the basis of the 1971 movie starring Michael Jayston and Janet Suzman in the title roles.

>20 cindydavid4: I loved The Thirteenth Tale years ago when I read it. I have the latest novel from the same author in my kindle to read next, Once Upon a River.
I recently read The Starless Sea because I also loved The Night Circus. For me, it was an absolutely gorgeous read for the description and the ideas, not so much the actual story.

Just finished the novel This Magnificent Dappled Sea by David Biro. At first I thought it was a memoir and was disappointed it was a novel, but it was a good, fast read.

Just loving for me a newly discovered author.

The Thicket by Joe R. Lansdale.

From the cover "Reads like a dark version of Adventures of Tom Sawyer and feels like a Coen Brothers Movie."
I shall be hunting more from this author.

>20 cindydavid4: I picked up the book at Waterstones recently because the blurb sounded interesting and my "cuppa tea" but then I recalled later that I'd watched the tv mini series in 2013 of Thirteenth Tale and wasn't blown away by it. That said, I was younger when I watched the mini series and the book may be different so I will give it a go!

I found a copy of Dracul at the bottom of my book box which I bought last year but not got around to reading, and thought I best give that a read next..

The Underground Railroad
by Colson Whitehead
4/5 stars
This is the Pulitzer Prize winning book by Colson Whitehead about the life of Cora, a slave on a planation in Georgia. Cora is able to escape her planation with a fellow slave, Caesar who has knowledge of the Underground Railroad and the book follows her life in those turbulent times. Wonderfully written, it pulls you in the minute you start reading!

I'm reading This House is Haunted by John Boyne. It's been on my shelf for years and I wanted something Halloweenish. It seems to fit the bill and I like it so far.

I've been away from this lovely place for several months taking care of some health issues. I read some books along the way but I'm not sure of the order in which order read them or even if I have the complete list. Anyway, here's what I recall reading from May through September:

Quiet Dell by Jayne Anne Phillips
Sara Berman's Closet by Maira and Alex Kalman
Under Occupation by Alan Furst
A Single Thread by Tracy Chevalier
A World of Love by Elizabeth Bowen
Five Days Gone by Laura Cumming
Aug 9 - Fog by Kathryn Scanlan
Disputed Land by Tim Pears
The Water is Wide by Pat Conroy
Dreamers: When the Writers Took Power, Germany, 1918 by Volker Weidermann

These books brought me so much pleasure and relief as I moved from hospital to home and back to hospital and to rehab and to home again.

I finished reading Tea Obreht's Inland this week. I really enjoyed it. Now I'm reading Katharine Smyth'sAll the Lives We Ever Lived: Seeking Solace in Virginia Woolf and re-reading Woolf's To the Lighthouse (I first read it 52 years ago when I was in college.)

>29 mollygrace: Molly so glad that you are healing at home. Some good reading there! Esp loved Inland. Not a fan of pioneer stories but this one grabbed me and would not let go!

Just finished Full Circle by Karen Young, and wish I hadn't.

What started out as a fairly transparent "suspense" story veered off about three-quarters of the way through into a murder mystery that also involved statutory rape, which no one (including the law enforcement characters who knew about it) seemed to remember is sort of basically ... um ... illegal.

Bad idea. Really bad idea.

Mollygrace welcome back and hope you are feeling much better!

New thread for the new week: https://www.librarything.com/topic/325504

>29 mollygrace: Welcome back!