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Dovez
Member
08-27-2005
| Wednesday, July 02, 2014 - 10:26 am 
Thanks to uncle Ricky for pointing me back in the direction of this thread. I just finished -last night -this marvelous book from Australia
"the husband's secret " by leane moriarty
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Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Wednesday, July 02, 2014 - 12:11 pm
Welcome back Dovez and Fruitbat, too! Those titles sound intriguing!
Finished The Good Father and really enjoyed it. It's about a man who's 20-year-old son is accused of assassinating a Presidential hopeful and how the father tries to prove the son didn't do the crime. Highly recommended!
Now reading Ham - Slices of a Life by Sam Harris. It's a collection of short stories. One of the opening chapters is his eyewitness account of Liza Minnelli's wedding ceremony marriage David Guest. This (hilarious) story all by itself is worth the price of admission!
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Teachmichigan
Member
07-22-2001
| Wednesday, July 02, 2014 - 4:49 pm
Finished The Invention of Wings in two days - great book! Now I'm reading Philomena. I'm looking forward to watching the movie but wanted to read the book first.
DH just finished the first Game of Thrones book, and he enjoyed it as much as I thought he would. He asked how many books were in the series, so I'm looking at renewing my Audible membership. He has to travel for his job a lot in the summer, so he'll probably get through a book every 2-3 weeks!
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Dovez
Member
08-27-2005
| Wednesday, July 02, 2014 - 5:04 pm
teach...i liked "invention of wings" and found the historical references interesting. i both read "philomena" and saw the movie so will be interested in learning what you think.
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Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Sunday, July 06, 2014 - 1:35 pm
Finished Sam Harris's Ham collection of various stories of his life. Very well written and captivating. Some are really, really funny and others are sweet and/or poignant. I highly recommend it. What's odd is that I've never heard Harris sing or seen him act. To me he's just a famous person who wrote a book and I read it (and loved it). 
I'm now reading a writer (Parnell Hall) who I'd never heard of before until I saw him mentioned (in passing) in Harlan Coben's latest novel. One of the characters in the Coben book was reading a Parnell Hall novel, so that led to me to find out if that was an actual writer. That usually means the two writers are friends, so a friend of Coben's should be worth a try. Hall's first novel is Detective and I'm enjoying it immensely!
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Heckagirl631
Member
09-08-2010
| Monday, July 07, 2014 - 5:23 pm
I finished The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. It did pick up nicely, but I still feel it could've done with some editing. No rush to read the other ones, but will probably read them eventually. Not sure what's next.
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Teachmichigan
Member
07-22-2001
| Monday, July 07, 2014 - 6:03 pm
Finished listening to Written in My Own Heart's Blood today, but I'm still reading it (more slowly - savoring it!) on my Kindle. I'm a bit into Philomena, and it's another good one.
The Little Friend just came through on library loan, so I'll be doing more Tartt reading this week as well! I LOVE SUMMER!
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Monday, July 07, 2014 - 11:02 pm
I finished The Year We Disappeared.. very sad tale of police and other corruption on the cape and what happened to this family.. shot in the face by someone protected by the crooked city/cops.. and he was an uncrooked cop.. had to endure horrendous medical procedures, they lived in total terror and under threat, finally had to relocate to a secret location.
Read Tasting Home: Coming of Age in the Kitchen .. interesting life,lots of cooking.
And now reading Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story Another interesting life.
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Rieann
Member
08-26-2006
| Tuesday, July 08, 2014 - 1:34 am
I finished That Night by Chevy Stevens. It was a page turner, but I felt as though I had read much of it before. Not as good as her other books for me.
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Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Tuesday, July 08, 2014 - 4:42 pm
Teach, please don't kill me if you end up disliking The Little Friend. The little boy who's the sidekick to the main character was so delightful - he's the reason I loved the book so much!
I finished Detective and thought it was a great first novel. I'm now reading Jo Nesbo's first Harry Hole novel (The Bat) - his later books are much more popular, but I like to start at the beginning of a series whenever possible.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Tuesday, July 08, 2014 - 4:46 pm
Finished Gifted Hands and sort of started another book, sill see if that sticks..
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Teachmichigan
Member
07-22-2001
| Tuesday, July 08, 2014 - 5:56 pm
No worries, Uncle_Ricky! I NEVER hate anyone who recommends a book. I've enjoyed her first two, so I see no reason why this would be different.
I must admit, I'm having a harder time with Philomena than I anticipated, but I think that's largely due to the fact that I am so invested in Gabaldon's books that I'm having a "hangover" and not quite ready for new characters - real or imagined!
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Tuesday, July 08, 2014 - 6:54 pm
The sidekick was the only thing I liked about The Little Friend.
Uncle Ricky, I have Ham on my Kindle. I look forward to reading it.
Rieann, I totally agree about That Night. I got an early copy and I found it hard to say too many good things about it. Liked her other books a lot more.
I am reading The Heart of Darkness for our book club on Monday. It's hard to get into.
I am also reading What It Was Like by Peter Seth for the Story Plant. I need to get reading because I have to answer some questions for them.
I also just finished After I Do by Taylor Reid. Loved it. It was about a husband and wife that start to dislike each other so decide to take a year off from each other and see what happens. Very funny, very touching.
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Teachmichigan
Member
07-22-2001
| Wednesday, July 09, 2014 - 10:07 am
Mamie - Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness? You poor lady! That is a depressing book, and one that really should be read in a class where there are LOTS of people with whom to commiserate AND where there are ongoing discussions to keep any semblance of interest up. I understand its literary "value," but I also am THRILLED that I have the ability to NOT teach it to my students since it was not one I enjoyed. I like enough novels that are classic (and have the required number of deaths  ) to be able to avoid it!
Best part of having read HoD - you recognize the allusion in Disney's movie Tarzan when the elephant (Tantor) yells, "The horror! The horror!" when they first stumble upon the humans' camp.
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Wednesday, July 09, 2014 - 10:56 am
It is hard to slog through. I can't wait to see if we all feel the same way. My sister-in-law says she finds herself skimming over lines.
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Landileigh
Member
07-28-2002
| Wednesday, July 09, 2014 - 11:58 am
The movie Apocalypse Now was based on Heart of Darkness
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Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Wednesday, July 09, 2014 - 12:38 pm
Heart of Darkness was definitely a workout and I don't have fond memories of it. The film adaptation is much better, especially Robert Duvall's classic performance as the napalm-loving Kilgore. The film is very loosely based on the book - very loosely.
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Jimmer
Moderator
08-30-2000
| Wednesday, July 09, 2014 - 1:05 pm
I thoroughly enjoyed Apocalypse Now. I still can't believe it didn't win Best Picture. I haven't read Heart of Darkness.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Wednesday, July 09, 2014 - 6:53 pm
I don't have fond memories of Heart of Darknesss, either.
The book I started is by Craig Lancaster, The Summer Son. I loved his Edward books, which I recommended to Fruitbat awhile back. Don't think this could possibly be at that level, but so far, so good.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Thursday, July 10, 2014 - 9:21 am
Craig Lancaster's style draws me in. So happy I decided to read another of his books. The Edward books have as the main character, narrator, Edward, who is Asperger's or on the spectrum and it is very well done.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Sunday, July 13, 2014 - 10:10 am
Finished The Summer Son.. might look to see if he has a fourth book.
Haven't picked the next book.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Tuesday, July 15, 2014 - 11:57 am
The Dalai Lama's Cat is what I'm reading now..
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Rieann
Member
08-26-2006
| Tuesday, July 15, 2014 - 4:44 pm
I went and looked up The Dalai Lama's Cat. It sounds charming. It was priced at $1.99 for Kindle, so I bought it. I can add it to the other 500 books I haven't read yet. Ok, I'm exaggerating a bit. 
I look forward to hearing your review, Sea.
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Heckagirl631
Member
09-08-2010
| Tuesday, July 15, 2014 - 5:26 pm
finished Relentless by Dean Koontz. Pretty good.
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Mak1
Member
08-11-2002
| Tuesday, July 15, 2014 - 7:30 pm
I read Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz. It was okay but not sure I want to read the series.
Today I sort of finished Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker by Jennifer Chiaverini. I say "sort of" because I got tired of trying to slog through it. I skipped from the middle to the last chapter, then skimmed a bit of the chapters I had skipped. It is a novel based on the story of a real person, Elizabeth Keckley. I checked amazon reviews to see if I was the only one who didn't like it. Nope. Mrs. Keckley actually wrote a memoir with stories of her time with Mrs. Lincoln. Some of the reviewers at amazon said that Ms Chiaverini's book actually plagiarized several parts of Mrs. Keckley's book. That made me like it even less. I would rather read the first person account than a plagiarized novel! Oh well, at least it was a library book, so all I lost was a few hours of time.
Next up is Barbara Kingsolver's Flight Behavior.
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