| Author |
Message |
Jimmer
Board Administrator
08-29-2000
| Sunday, March 01, 2020 - 12:43 pm 
I didn't find the ending very satisfying
I find that true with a lot of his books. It's frustrating because I love a lot of what he writes. He writes a great story, seems to hit a certain page count and then wraps it up in a couple of chapters. A great build to an unsatisfying incredibly rushed conclusion.
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Sugar
Member
08-15-2000
| Sunday, March 01, 2020 - 12:51 pm
I remember liking Saving CeeCee Honeycutt. I have been meaning to look for Where the Crawdads Sing at the library.
Sometimes I really miss managing a bookstore
and having all those lovely books at my fingertips, a 30% discount, advanced reader copies...
I am about halfway through The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted. I find the 2 main characters interesting and wonderfully different from each other.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Sunday, March 01, 2020 - 2:53 pm
I liked The Giver of Stars.
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Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Wednesday, March 04, 2020 - 11:07 pm
There are plenty of unsentimental writers out there, but I have to believe no one is as unsentimental as Willy Vlautin.
I just finished his screamingly sad Lean on Pete and I'm thoroughly exhausted -- but in a good way. I was prepared for it to have one of the saddest endings ever, but Mr. Vlautin fortunately spared us that agony.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Wednesday, March 04, 2020 - 11:21 pm
Hmm, sounds like it is good to finish..
Taking a break go from the 9/11 oral histories, not due to the subject, but yikes, paper books are so unwieldy!
Back to my tablet and a book by a librarian in a prison. Reading Behind Bars: A True story of Literature, Law and Life as a Prison Librarian by Jill Grunenwald.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Sunday, March 08, 2020 - 7:55 pm
Enjoyed that visit to prison, just finishing Sally Ride: A Photobiogrphy of America's Pioneering Woman in Space, by Tam O'Shaughnessy
Tan was Sally's partner and obviously has Ann the memorabilia, as far back as kindergarten report cards, photos even older. Unfortunately most of them were fuzzy in the Kindle versiin.
But Tam knew Sally through school, sports, etc.
I have to admit that I did not realize that Sally died of pancreatic cancer at 61.
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Jimmer
Board Administrator
08-29-2000
| Sunday, March 08, 2020 - 9:41 pm
That is so interesting about Sally Ride.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Monday, March 09, 2020 - 2:32 am
She was a good tennis player. Billie Jean King told her she could become a pro, but Sally knew she wouldn't practice enough. She didn't catch on fire as a student until she got into physics.
She got her PhD around the time she was accepted by NASA as one of the first female astronaut candidates.
She did marry a fellow astronaut (male) for a time.
Her younger sister was a Presbyterian minister, married to a man, had kids, but I later photos has a female partner.
Sally was passionate about girls getting into science. After her second trip on the shuttle, she was preparing for a third flight when the Challenger exploded. A few years later she retired because it was clear that the program was slowed down in the Challenger aftermath. She was on the committee that investigated the exposion.
She convinced NASA to set up cams on space station that could be directed by students. That,and education was what took up her last years, with Tam and others.
She was very private about her cancer, so it was not widely known, it seems.
I started a new book, which is about a correspondence with Nelle Harper Lee, Mockingbird Songs, by Wayne Flynt.
Interesting text, letters and pictures.
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Jimmer
Board Administrator
08-29-2000
| Monday, March 09, 2020 - 11:49 am
Very interesting person. I really admire women like her.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Monday, March 09, 2020 - 1:43 pm
Yes, me too!
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Wednesday, March 11, 2020 - 2:32 am
The Watergate: Inside America's Most Infamous Address, by Joseph Rodota.. Next book.
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Heckagirl631
Member
09-08-2010
| Wednesday, March 11, 2020 - 1:23 pm
Not my typical kind of book, but it was okay. Brad Taylor's "Ring of Fire." Set 15 years after 9/11/01.
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Tresbien
Member
08-26-2002
| Friday, March 13, 2020 - 2:34 pm
As a now avid fan of Liane Moriarity, I thoroughly enjoyed her Nine Perfect Strangers. My library suggested Cheryl Strayed's Wild so I decided to take a break and read that.
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Heckagirl631
Member
09-08-2010
| Friday, March 13, 2020 - 4:13 pm
That should've read 9/11/01.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Friday, March 13, 2020 - 8:32 pm
Fixed it for you..
Cheryl Strayed is not a favorite of mine, since I have read so many books and blogs by real, serious, prepared through hikers. I wish Reese Witherspoon had chosen a legit biker to make famous.
But the book is obviously popular!
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Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Sunday, March 15, 2020 - 5:57 pm
Tres, I'm thrilled you liked NPS. I can't wait for the TV series adaptation that Nicole Kidman is spearheading. We're lucky she likes Ms. Moriarty's books as much as we do.
Sea, thanks for the tip about the Sally Ride book. I will try to track it down, which'll be a tiny bit difficult as it was announced a couple of days ago that the L.A. Public Library is shutting down all of its 73 branches for the rest of this month.  But they had no choice, of course. I fortunately have 6 books on loan, so I'll be okay. And I've got plenty of books I can re-read that I have on my home bookshelves.
Today I finished A Beginning at the End by Mike Chen. I read his first book (Here and Now and Then) and enjoyed it. This second one is not nearly as good, but it held my interest. It's very timely - the plot centers on the world rebuilding after a killer virus wiped out all but one billion of the world's 7 billion population. A new virus is threatening to wipe out the remaining one billion - that's where the book begins. He writes very well, fortunately - I just wish it had been a little bit more interesting.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Sunday, March 15, 2020 - 6:13 pm
I was just thinking about libraries this morning.
How will they disinfect books? I am sure they have ways to DO that, but, for now,they have to lock it down, of course!
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Sugar
Member
08-15-2000
| Monday, March 16, 2020 - 1:58 pm
The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman was an enjoyable read.
Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts by Kate Racculia could have used a few more ghosts but not a bad book.
I wanted to like Get A Life Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert but found the characters too whiny and obtuse.
I did like Bookshop of the Broken Hearted By Robert Hillman.
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Tresbien
Member
08-26-2002
| Friday, March 20, 2020 - 11:42 am
*Disclaimer: I do not own any stock in Amazon* Just thought I'd make a pitch for the Fire tablets or any other tablet. It might be a change from reading paper books, I get that, but it is so convenient to get books that way and no danger of illness.
Sea, I first heard about Wild when Lorelai decided to follow Cheryl's path in one of the Gilmore Girls movies. Also, many years ago a friend hiked part of the Appalachian Trail, and I read about that at the time. He was overcome by insect bites near Harper's Ferry and decided to quit. He took a bus to my place in DC and stayed with me for three days before going home to PA. I will never forget his great stories and the awful, terrible, obnoxious unbelievable smell of him/clothes/backpack! I'm about halfway through Wild now and had mixed feelings about her early on but decided to continue on and am enjoying it now. Ill prepared as she was for that trek, I have to respect her courage and tenacity.
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Jimmer
Board Administrator
08-29-2000
| Friday, March 20, 2020 - 12:54 pm
I thoroughly enjoy borrowing books from the library and reading them on my iPad or iPhone. Unfortunately, the publishers are making it more and more expensive for libraries to get eBooks.
Still, at this point, the selection is awesome. Of course, that will shrink as more people figure out how great this is now that they're avoiding going out.
Are you able to borrow books from the library and read them on a Kindle or Amazon tablet?
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Friday, March 20, 2020 - 1:22 pm
Yes, tenacity, mixed with lack of preparation and no clue what was involved.
But she certainly used the experience and has been successful!
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Friday, March 20, 2020 - 1:26 pm
I have read on kindles, then kindle fire tablets since 2007.
I know people can borrow from the library, but have never done that.
And for the current situation...
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Tresbien
Member
08-26-2002
| Friday, March 20, 2020 - 2:13 pm
Jim, most of what I read on my Fire tablet is from the library via the Overdrive app. Occasionally, I use the Amazon app, especially if a book is long like Outlander, and I won't finish it in 21 days. If I need to buy a book because the waitlist is months long, I will buy on Amazon, but I've been incredibly lucky in getting to read what I want at the library. And right now especially I want everyone to stay safe.
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Juju2bigdog
Member
10-27-2000
| Friday, March 20, 2020 - 9:22 pm
Bigdog and I both have Kindles, the Paperwhite Neanderthal version. I have downloaded a couple book-reading apps to my tiny iPhone SE, but have never tried it out. When I am going on a longer trip, I do download around three (which may be the max?) popular author books from the local library onto the Kindle, just in case I should over-read the 4-5 used paperbacks I bring with me. I also have a LOT of free books on that Kindle that I have downloaded from Bookbub.com. Those are mostly first books by authors I don't know who have series of books, hoping to get you hooked on buying their books. Most I discard after the first chapter, some I read all the way through. I have never gotten "hooked." Both the library and bookbub use my amazon.com account to allow me to download to my Kindle. I figure out how to do it EVERY time I get a book, and it is always easy, so why bother to memorize how to to do it? My memory banks are full and getting fuller. I barely, and I mean BARELY, came up with the author of Waiting For Godot, at the last minute last Sunday, while still on the cruise ship in Argentina, for our team to win trivia. (another guy had the right answer, and I had over-ridden him with a more popular answer, but I changed back to his at the last minute, and he was thrilled, and we were the only team to get it right; most went with the popular answer)
But I digress. Where was I? Forgive me; my ship is still rocking.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Friday, March 20, 2020 - 11:46 pm
I get the Bookbub emails daily, but also get Bookgorilla, which gives me more leads.
I have a 10" Fire tablet, which works best for me.
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