| Author |
Message |
Denecee
Member
09-05-2002
| Wednesday, April 06, 2016 - 11:31 am 
Teach, I am so excited about the new season of Outlander!
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Rieann
Member
08-26-2006
| Wednesday, April 06, 2016 - 11:38 am
Mamie, I went to see if you had read Chevy Stevens's last book on your blog the other day. We had both read her earlier books. I thought I had your blog in my favorites, but I scrolled past it and I went to Google the name. I typed...
One Broad, Two Blogs
HAHA! I had a total brain fart!
ETA- Enjoy your new book!
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Wednesday, April 06, 2016 - 2:47 pm
Rieann, I got the ARC of it ages ago but haven't read it yet.
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Wednesday, April 06, 2016 - 8:36 pm
I just opened up Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld. It's a modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice. A few chapters in and I am loving it. I hope it keeps up.
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Teachmichigan
Member
07-22-2001
| Wednesday, April 06, 2016 - 9:13 pm
Denecee, SO AM I!!! We'll have to resurrect the series thread!
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Rieann
Member
08-26-2006
| Wednesday, April 06, 2016 - 9:55 pm
Thanks, Mamie. I was cleaning up my Kindle and realized I had a sample of it. I know some of her recent books haven't been as up to par as her first.
Eligible sounds interesting. With your stamp of approval, I will give it a go. I notice it comes out on the 19th. 
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Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Thursday, April 07, 2016 - 3:47 pm
Mamie mentioned it months ago, but I finally got around to reading Mary-Louise Parker's Dear Mr. You. She writes beautifully (no doubt about that). It was the content that just didn't connect with me. Either I'm too mainstream or her style is too esoteric. I'm voting the latter, but it's probably the former. The story she wrote about her father and his last days was my favorite.
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Thursday, April 07, 2016 - 7:47 pm
That was my favorite too.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Thursday, April 07, 2016 - 9:42 pm
I finished Admit One and I guess I didn't like the guy that much.. he seemed proud of being a jerk.. or felt things he did were ok because he wanted to be an actor.
Starting the free pre release book of the month I chose through Amazon Prime,
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Saturday, April 09, 2016 - 10:16 am
I was disappointed in Glory Over Everything. It wasn't a bad read, it just didn't live up to the first book. And as we know, that happens a lot, sophmore slump.
I am reading Becoming Grandma by Lesley Stahl. I am in tears reading it with just the thought of my grandson Luke being born in a few months.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Saturday, April 09, 2016 - 12:17 pm
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Reenie
Member
06-24-2006
| Monday, April 11, 2016 - 10:49 am
Just finished "Far From True" the second book in Linwood Barclay's trilogy. I liked it a lot but did have some trouble keeping so many characters straight!
Now on to "The Light Between Oceans", a friend recommended it to me.
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Monday, April 11, 2016 - 11:47 am
The Light Between Oceans is a really good book.
I picked up and finished No One Knows by J.T. Ellison yesterday. It's everything I want in a suspenseful mystery and one that you can't put down. There was a twist that I didn't see coming at all. I highly recommend it.
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Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Monday, April 11, 2016 - 12:19 pm
Mamie, I'll never be a grandparent and I never had any grandparents of my own, but I will definitely read the Stahl book because it sounds really interesting (and you gave it a positive review, of course).
Reenie -- glad you liked the Barclay - you survived all those characters!
Over the weekend I read the latest from Harlan Coben, Fool Me Once. His books really are a ton of fun. This one was no exception. And having read this one so close to Far From True, I think I can now safely declare that I prefer Coben (by a hair) over Barclay.
Coben writes in a very straightforward style. When one chapter ends, the action continues in the next chapter with no "breaks in the action" to disrupt the flow. Barclay tends to bounce back and forth (and back and forth again) between competing storylines - it's a tad unsettling but not cripplingly so (fortunately).
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Tresbien
Member
08-26-2002
| Saturday, April 16, 2016 - 1:40 pm
Finished Owen Meany with tears streaming down my face Uncle_ricky. I'm not sure I'll read it four times but can see why you would. Early on, I thought the full caps text would annoy me, but in small bits it worked very well to convey Owen's unusual voice. I was concerned that there would be a loose end in the story and was happy it was tied up.
Needed something light this week so am gobbling up a couple of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum novels. Friends have talked about her for years. Why did I wait so long to try her? Fun reads!
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Saturday, April 16, 2016 - 6:04 pm
Mamie, are you an Anne Lamott fan? Actually even if you aren't, her book Operating Instructions which was about when she had her son, is good and then she wrote another book WITH her son about his having a child and for her having a grandchild. She tends to let it all hang out ..
I finished the book I got as a preview (through Amazon Prime).. and the title, which I neglected to mention before, is The Eagle Tree: The Remarkable Story of a Boy and a Tree. The protagonist and narrator is a boy who is on the spectrum.. Asperger's is mentioned so .. and I think the voice is pretty darned authentic in terms of his way of thinking and interacting.
One of his things is climbing trees and this has been the cause of friction, to say the least.
At times it is frustrating but it WOULD be frustrating to deal with him and for him to deal with the world and I thought it was very good book in the end.
So.. oddly enough I think another book I thought I had already, but didn't, came on sale and that is what I'm reading now.. look me in the eye: my life with aspergers by John Elder Robinson, who is actually the brother of Augstin Burroughs (Running with Scissors, etc) and who has Asperger's.. so non-fiction..
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Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Saturday, April 16, 2016 - 8:09 pm
Oh, Tres, I'm so glad and relieved that little Owen moved you as much as he moved me. I almost warned you that you'd get bitten by the boo-hoo bug, but then that would have tipped you off about how emotionally wrenching the book gets as you work your way to the conclusion. Fortunately there's plenty of comedy to offset the heavier sections. It's definitely Irving's masterpiece with Garp a close second.
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Sunday, April 17, 2016 - 7:38 am
Sea, love her! I have read both of those books.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Sunday, April 17, 2016 - 2:49 pm
I figured you had.. but I never like to assume.
I had forgotten how strange Augustin Burroughs' childhood was... his brother is reminding me and while I'm not up to that part, the brother left home very early to escape some of the weirdness.. their father was a mean drunk and the mom sunk into mental illness as the years went on. He describes how the dad was a pretty good guy and father but as the sun went down and he drank copiously from gallon jugs of cheap wine, he' berate, hit, beat.. and then he tells of the first time his little brother (who became Augustin) innocently went when his dad requested he sit on his lap. Big Bro thought maybe he'd be nice but then he put his cigarette out on the younger brother's forehead. 
Anyway, glad I'm finally reading this book.
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Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Monday, April 18, 2016 - 3:30 pm
Thanks, Sea, for the info about the Robinson book. It will be interesting to compare his writing to his brother's. I'm patiently waiting for my library copy of the latest by Burroughs (Lust and Wonder) to arrive.
On Saturday I finished The Big Short by Michael Lewis and yesterday I rented the film version. Both were outstanding, the book much more than the film. So incredibly infuriating. How in the world could those Wall Street banks NOT know what was going on with those subprime mortgages??? Beyond mind-boggling! 
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Scout
Member
01-19-2005
| Tuesday, April 19, 2016 - 10:22 am
I just finished a very sweet book, "Haatchi and Little B". It's about a little boy in England that has a rare genetic disorder and the three legged dog that brought him out of his shell and kind of saved him.
The little boy, Owen, was recently featured on the TLC show, "Two in a Million" where he met another little boy with the same disorder. I was so impressed by this kid that I wanted to find out more and found this book at the bookstore. He has some amazing family support, and he is one incredible kid.
It's a short book - kind of tells the parallels of the dog, Haatchi's story, and of Owen's and his family.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Tuesday, April 19, 2016 - 11:23 am
Scout, that sounds wonderful!
I've seen the first two episides of Two in a Million and it really is amazing to see the people get together when they feel so different and isolated.
It really is a shame those two boys live on different continents, but was wonderful that they could meet like they did. And that they can video chat online now.
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Mameblanche
Member
08-24-2002
| Tuesday, April 19, 2016 - 11:42 am
I saw the first ep with the kids, and it was heart-wrenching and sweet. Loved it. But I cried so hard through most of it, I decided I can't handle this show, it's too much for me, so I removed it from my DVR.
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Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Tuesday, April 19, 2016 - 12:24 pm
Mame, I'm with you on that. I went to the TLC website and was able to watch the trailer for the episode with the two little boys. It was only 90 seconds long and I was fighting back tears like crazy. I could never make it through an entire episode. Well, I could, but not my tear ducts. Oh, man, my eyes are on fire now - just from the trailer!
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Mameblanche
Member
08-24-2002
| Tuesday, April 19, 2016 - 12:29 pm
Commiserating hugs Uncle Ricky! But I do have to admit though, that being an old softie, there are shows I (strangely) do enjoy weeping through in their entirety, like the adoption famly-reuniter shows, The Locator and Long Lost Family.
But the other show, perhaps because it's graphic medical conditions, my poor heart just can't take it, I hate to see people suffering.
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