| Author |
Message |
Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Monday, August 01, 2016 - 11:12 am 
Mamie - I'm so relieved, thank you! 
Teach - I totally agree! Had I not come across the very informative opinions expressed on these pages, I also never would have heard of, or read, the great many titles I've enjoyed thanks to all of you.
Sea - thanks a million for the tip about "The Boys of '36" - I went to the DirecTV website just now to set up the recording for tomorrow night!
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Monday, August 01, 2016 - 3:28 pm
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Kappy
Member
06-28-2002
| Monday, August 01, 2016 - 7:45 pm
Finished Far From True by Linwood Barclay which is the 2nd book in the Promise Falls Trilogy and was immediately ready for the next book only to find out it won't be out until November.
So in the meantime, I've begun Baltimore Blues which is suppose to be the first in a series by Laura Lippman. I began her book After I'm Gone and ended up returning it to the library only partly finished due to time constraints. We'll see if I finish this one, LOL.
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Teachmichigan
Member
07-22-2001
| Monday, August 01, 2016 - 8:30 pm
Thanks for the heads up - I've got my DVR set for the Boys in the Boat story as well. When I was listening to it, my DH and DS happened to be in the car as I was near the end. They were at the Olympics. I typically don't listen to audio when they're in the car (as we're all listening to different books), but I told them I HAD to listen! They both loved it, and I know my DH went on to read the entire book.
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Tishala
Member
08-01-2000
| Monday, August 01, 2016 - 10:40 pm
I just wanted to put in a plug for my BFF Michal's book After Abel and Other Stories. I posted about it a year ago. Since then, it has won several awards in the Jewish press and it has 98% 5 star reviews on Amazon. The other 2% are 4 star. If you have the opportunity, but it. Otherwise, read it at your library. It's a damned good feminist retelling of biblical stories from the Hebrew bible. I'm terribly, terribly proud of her accomplishment: Amazon
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Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Saturday, August 06, 2016 - 8:23 pm
I think at least a couple of you have read The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney. If I recall correctly, Mamie thought it was good, not great. That's how I felt about it, too. I enjoyed the family dynamics, but the plot was a little too busy and that made it hard to care/root for any one character. But I'll definitely read her future works because I liked her writing style a lot.
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Heckagirl631
Member
09-08-2010
| Sunday, August 07, 2016 - 6:28 pm
"One Wrong Move" by Shannon McKenna. It was okay. Reminded me a bit of Dean Koontz with the psi stuff and the people being on the run. It had the most sexual stuff in a book that I've read in a very long time.
Reading "Third Watch--Acorna's Children" by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. It's definitely part of a series. I have not read the first two books, I don't think. I have read a couple of the early Acorna books. It was so long ago, it's only slightly familiar. I used to love this type of thing.
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Thursday, August 11, 2016 - 5:56 am
I have picked up two books that I have had to put down because they just weren't doing it for me. I hope the next one reels me in.
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Teachmichigan
Member
07-22-2001
| Thursday, August 11, 2016 - 6:39 pm
Finally finished In the Unlikely Event - driving to Canada helps with audio books! - and am now finishing the final 100 pages of The Passage since the B&B where I'm staying has no TV - thus no Olympics. This has to be one of the oddest book reactions I've had; it's a well-told story, it's unexpected in its treatment of vampires (or virals or whatever you want to call them), and the characters are dynamic. Still, I am not taken with it, and I know I'll probably only Google the synopsis of the other 2 books in the trilogy rather than reading them.
Saturday our online group will have dinner with Diana Gabaldon at the Fergus Highland Games, so I'm listening to Voyager as well as a Phil Rickman Merry Watkins mystery from Diana's methadone list. Book club gatherings are a blast! Tomorrow night we do a catered camp dinner and then we all bring whisky for a tasting amongst ourselves before the Tattoo at the games. Albannach is also here this year, so I'm looking forward to a verra' fun weekend!
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Kappy
Member
06-28-2002
| Saturday, August 13, 2016 - 11:07 pm
Put down yet another book I wasn't getting into and went on to Trust Your Eyes by Linwood Barclay and really enjoyed it. What are the chances that a person using an online program like google earth would happen upon an image in a window that looks like murder? That's where it all starts.
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Mameblanche
Member
08-24-2002
| Saturday, August 13, 2016 - 11:34 pm
Teach... dining with Gabaldon??? Exciting! Can't wait to hear about it.
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Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Sunday, August 14, 2016 - 5:07 pm
I agree! It can't get much better than that, Teach. I'm thrilled for you. I'm glad it all worked out okay for you to attend.
Just now I finished my first (and likely last) experience with J.T. Ellison. Maybe I missed something crucial along the way (I doubt it), but the ending of No one Knows left me profoundly dissatisfied.
Mamie, you read this one and liked it. I thought I would like it too until I got to that ending, which left me completely exasperated. Fortunately, it was a quick read and not abnormally long. 😰😰😰
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Monday, August 15, 2016 - 10:00 am
I just finished a book with so many twists and turns and secrets, it got to be too much. The Couple Next Door and honestly, it didn't really have much to do with the couple next door. Not one of my faves. Didn't hate it but didn't love it either.
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Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Wednesday, August 17, 2016 - 12:44 pm
Last night I finished When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. Published posthumously, this is a not-to-missed memoir written by a neurosurgeon who is diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer at the age of 36.
I, for one, think constantly about my own mortality. I always hope that I'll be strong and brave when it's time to go eyeball to eyeball with something as devastating as a stage IV diagnosis. I doubt I will, but reading Dr. Kalanithi's book makes the task a little easier to face. It's not only beautifully written, it also delivers very sobering and unflinching glimpses of how a respected doctor becomes a patient.
I cannot stress this enough - you must read this book. It's only 228 pages but the content will stay with you for a long time to come.
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Roxip
Member
01-29-2004
| Wednesday, August 17, 2016 - 1:23 pm
I have a friend who has been battling stage 4 breast cancer for about 2 years - with mostly bad prognoses and numerous setbacks and relatively few positive notes. She has had to have half of her pelvis removed and yet was able to teach herself to walk again before the disease manifested itself once again. She is at the end now and has told her two daughters that she is tired of fighting...but she has been an absolute inspiration throughout the whole journey...praising God, living her life, loving on her family...as I write this she is off with her family in an RV taking her grandchildren on a little trip...making memories that will have to last a lifetime because she doesn't have much more time. She humbles me daily. Vicki Crumpton Metcalf is a warrior! If you are on Facebook look her up and read about her journey.
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Teachmichigan
Member
07-22-2001
| Wednesday, August 17, 2016 - 6:16 pm
Cancer has been so prevalent in our little community this past year. A good friend passed last spring, one of "my kids" (who is now 37 and a father of 3) is fighting leukemia with a bleak prognosis, and another friend from childhood is in the last stages of colon cancer. Their attitudes are all amazing, and like you, Ricky, I wonder if I could be that brave or that positive.
I'm finishing up What Belongs to You tonight (wow - that second chapter of 20 pages that was ONE paragraph was structurally intriguing!), and I just finished listening to Midwinter of the Spirit this afternoon. It's a Merrily Watkins mystery (Phil Rickman author) with supernatural thrown in, and I always love them.
By this weekend, I also have to read The Charm Bracelet by Viola Shipman for our library book club, as well as Maybe in Another Life (Taylor Jenkins Reid) as it's an interlibrary loan and almost a week overdue! My dual-enrollment college class starts Monday, and with a new textbook, most of the rest of this year's fun reading will have to be listening while in the car or doing chores as I have all new essays and writing instruction chapters to read.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Thursday, August 18, 2016 - 10:15 pm
Ric, I have wanted to read that but $12.99 makes me hope for a sale!
Oddly, there are a oouple of short versions of that book on Kindle.. under 35 pages for a $2.99. I feel that disrespects the author to do that, so I'm not biting and I have heard that the actual book is quite beautifully written.
Roxip, it sounds like your friend is living more in her time left than so many who have nothing terminal.. good for her. But it hurts a lot.. too.
I went to a funeral this week and of course drive people in treatment every week and am often amazed at how they cope.
And saddened at what survival can mean in terms of physical and financial devastation too.
There was a couple, Joey and Rory, who were on a country duo competition and I think came in third. Naomi Judd was one of the judges.
They were very much in love and sweet.
Rory's blog "This Life I Live" is found online and I've read the whole journey they took.. first in wanting a child, then in having that child, then finding out she had Down's, but they were so happy and then Joey was diagnosed with cancer, so about her journey and how wise she was when they knew she wasn't going to make it. She spend much time with little Indy but she also made sure Indy spent lots of time with Indy because she knew they would need each other and to be super bonded.
He blogged and now he's writing a book.
I'm still slogging through, when time permits, the book about medical mistakes and bookmarking like crazy .. some really concerning issues!
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Mameblanche
Member
08-24-2002
| Friday, August 19, 2016 - 3:40 am
Not feeling well. Tummy flu or something. Anyhow I spent Thursday reading Secret Daughter from start to finish. All the kudos are true and well-earned. I give it 5 stars. :-)
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Teachmichigan
Member
07-22-2001
| Monday, August 22, 2016 - 12:17 pm
Read Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Reid Jenkins in 24 hours -whilst also completing lesson plans for college class, making 4 loaves of lemon zucchini bread, washing/folding 6 loads of laundry and prepping/freezing a bushel of tomatoes. Yes - I enjoyed it that much! It was a fun, fast read with several laugh out loud moments. THANK YOU for the suggestion!
I also finished What Belongs to You - it wasn't as quick a read but it was intriguing. The ending made me cry - particularly as it related to the title of the story.
I did NOT, however, finish (nor even start)The Charm Bracelet, but it looks like a fast read. I'm hoping to plow through it by Wed. so I can get it back to the library for the next person in the book club. This book didn't have as many copies available through inter-library loan, so it's made this a bit of a race!
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Monday, August 22, 2016 - 12:25 pm
Glad you liked it, Teach.
I read How To Party With an Infant by Kaui Hart Hemmings. Thoroughly enjoyed it and especially since it's based in San Francisco and I knew the areas she was talking about. A fun look at motherhood.
I am reading The Regulars by Georgia Clark. Three women take an elixir that makes them drop dead gorgeous and it's the good and bad that happens with that.
I am also reading The Dinner Party by Brenda Janowitz. A woman's daughter is dating a Rothschild and she will do anything to make their seder dinner something memorable.
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Tresbien
Member
08-26-2002
| Tuesday, August 23, 2016 - 6:01 pm
It's been quite a while since I was as unsure about a novel in the first few pages as I was with Lauren Groff's Fates And Furies, which I finished just today. A very brilliant friend had recommended it, and I'm always pleased when a book challenges my vocabulary as well as continues to make me think after it's done. One of the main characters manifests both good and evil, a fascinating character study I thought. Recommend it!
Now onto A Little Life that just became available at the library -- yay!
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Reenie
Member
06-24-2006
| Wednesday, August 24, 2016 - 6:40 am
I have just started "The Woman in Cabin 10" by Ruth Ware. It grabbed me right away!! It's a captivating mystery set on an opulent "boutique" cruise ship in the North Sea.
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Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Thursday, August 25, 2016 - 12:02 am
Kappy: I'm very glad you're pursuing Mr. Barclay's trilogy. Yay!
Roxi: Thank you for sharing Vicki's story - very inspiring indeed.
Sea: Don't forget to keep tabs on the price so that you can get it when it drops - very, very worthwhile experience. I know you've read a lot of books about cancer - this one is pretty unique.
Teach: I'm thrilled you liked What Belongs to You and Maybe in Another Life, especially because you read SO many books!
Tres: Please DON'T forget to tell us what you think of A Little Life. A co-worker of mine finished it the other day (along with her book club mates) and they all LOVED it, despite the heavy, heavy storylines.
Earlier tonight I finished Powerhouse - The Untold Story of Hollywood's Creative Artists Agency by James Andrew Miller. It's a behemoth of a book (700 pages) but it's a quickish read because it's a compilation of quotes from all the major players at CAA and their foes as they recall the first 40 years of the agency.
My first job out of college was working at a magazine that was in the same office building as CAA (circa the late 70s). We were on the 9th floor and CAA was on the 14th. We saw their clients all the time. My favorite sighting occurred on the day I found myself standing behind Sean Connery in line at the little gift shop in the building's lobby (without realizing it was him). It wasn't until someone came up to him and asked, "Mr. Connery, may I have your autograph?" I nearly had a heart attack from the shock! A couple of minutes later, I asked and received his autograph as well. Too thrilling!
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Thursday, August 25, 2016 - 6:12 am
That would be exciting, Ric!
Kappy, I just got a review copy of The Twenty Three. I cannot wait to see where it goes. I will wait closer to publication date to read it though.
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Jimmer
Moderator
08-30-2000
| Thursday, August 25, 2016 - 7:00 am
Meeting Sean Connery and getting his autograph is very cool. He was great as James Bond but I've always been impressed with how good he looked and acted in his later career (after James Bond).
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