| Author |
Message |
Tresbien
Member
08-26-2002
| Tuesday, September 08, 2020 - 12:02 pm 
Anne Tyler is one of my favorite authors, and I've been a fan of hers since discovering her short stories in the New Yorker decades ago. Happily, I enjoyed The Redhead By The Side of The Road as much as any of her other books. I was trying to think of how I'd describe her novels to someone who hasn't read work yet. I think the best I can come up with is that she reveals the vulnerabilities of the human experience through her characters, and we love them for their weaknesses as much as their strengths.
I'm due to get my first Lisa Jewell book from the library sometime this week. Thankfully, it is The Family Upstairs not TGITG!
|
Jimmer
Board Administrator
08-29-2000
| Tuesday, September 08, 2020 - 1:45 pm
It's fascinating how authors can write a series of great books and then write a stinker. Art can be strange that way.
|
Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Tuesday, September 08, 2020 - 2:52 pm
Mamie -- I know, right? Terribly disappointing.
Sugar -- Thank you for agreeing with me. I think she didn't know how to end it, so instead of coming up with something creative, she opted to inform the reader, "...and they all lived happily ever after." Grrrrrr.
Tresbien -- That is an excellent way to describe Ms. Tyler's books to the uninitiated! I'm also glad you liked her new one - I thought it was marvelous. And I'm pretty sure you'll like The Family Upstairs - her most recent books are supposed to be really outstanding. I'll eventually get to that one, but not anytime soon!
Jimmer -- I agree completely!
|
Kappy
Member
06-28-2002
| Tuesday, September 08, 2020 - 3:07 pm
I read The Girls in the Garden back in 2016 and gave it 4 stars out of 5. If I remember correctly, I was also watching a British tv show at the time that went to a residential area with those same type of gardens which fascinated me and it all got intertwined. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it, lol.
I also went on to read Then She Was Gone by Jewel and enjoyed that as well so be forewarned!
I'm currently reading The Fix, the 3rd book in the Amos Decker series by David Baldacci and enjoying it.
|
Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Saturday, September 12, 2020 - 9:35 am
I never read A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman. I heard both glowing and not-so glowing reviews about it, so when I was sent an advance copy of his new book, Anxious People, I was leery. I absolutely adored this book! It was sweet, charming, touching, funny. It is about a botched bank robbery that turns into a hostage situation and it's not. It is about how we touch each others' lives. I was in tears. I highly recommend it.
|
Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Saturday, September 12, 2020 - 3:10 pm
I’ve added it to my TBR list! Thanks for the glowing review. I personally loved AMCO, but I never got around to reading any of FB’s other works. ☹️
Kappy! I’m really surprised you gave TGITG four stars. I had given 4 (and 5) stars to the 12 books LJ wrote before that one. I’ve got the 5 others of hers, including TSWG, in a little stack waiting to be read, but it’ll be next year before I dig back in — I’ll need that much time to recover from the trauma of TGITG. ☹️
|
Zeyna
Member
07-15-2001
| Saturday, September 12, 2020 - 3:18 pm
Does anyone subscribe to Kindle Unlimited? I received a few months trial for $2. I've read a few books based on their recommendations, and while they were mostly ok, I don't see anything by authors I like. Just wondring if anyone has any insight before I cancel.
|
Kappy
Member
06-28-2002
| Saturday, September 12, 2020 - 5:33 pm
Uncle Ricky - you made it through 12 of her books. I've read 2 and left it at that, LOL.
Mamie, the thing I enjoy most about Backman's books are how the characters affect each other. I saw a movie based on AMCO and could barely get through it while I absolutely loved the book. Beartown was also a good one.
|
Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Saturday, September 12, 2020 - 11:05 pm
I think I might have Beartown and A Man Called Ove on my Kindle. I have so many on there to review that I don't even remember what's on there anymore.
|
Mameblanche
Member
08-24-2002
| Sunday, September 13, 2020 - 8:58 am
A Man Called Ove was wonderful and unique. Read it ages ago.
|
Sugar
Member
08-15-2000
| Sunday, September 13, 2020 - 9:18 am
I really enjoyed A Man Called Ove & My Grandmother Asked Me You Tell You She's Sorry as well as most of his other books. Despite not liking Beartown I did start the sequel Us Against You but only read about 30 pages and stopped. I despise the sport at all cost mentality.
|
Kappy
Member
06-28-2002
| Sunday, September 13, 2020 - 3:19 pm
Sorry, I didn't read Beartown. It was Britt-Marie Was Here.
|
Sugar
Member
08-15-2000
| Tuesday, September 15, 2020 - 12:02 am
There is a movie based on Britt Marie Was Here. I think I watched it on Amazon.
|
Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Thursday, September 17, 2020 - 12:17 am
My total love affair with Steve Cavanagh continues. I just finished the third in his Eddie Flynn series, The Liar, and was riveted from beginning to end. You don’t have to be a fan of legal thrillers to enjoy this one. If you’re looking to be thoroughly entertained, this book delivers that very nicely. Cavanagh is a treasure for the ages!
|
Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Friday, September 18, 2020 - 10:10 pm
The Perfect Predator: A Scientist's Race to Save Her Husband from a Deadly SuperBug. A memoir by Stephanie Strathdee, PhD and Thomas Patterson, PhD.
Whoa.. This is scary and real in terms of how superbugs threaten anyone getting one. And this couple, both scientists in epidemiology and who travel even more widely than Juju and Bigdog (which is saying a lot). Husband gets sick in Egypt. Wife doses him with cipro. He gets sicker, is under care, then airlifted to Germany.
She is in contact with colleagues at UC San Diego and other expert friends. He is in grave danger and is brought home to San Diego where it turns out he has a super but resistant to everything.
Long story but he is on life support, and his wife wants to try phages, which can attack these things where antibiotics are no longer useful. But funding is lacking in most countries. She pulls together a team that includes various labs, the US Navy, they get emergency approval from the FDA..
Husband lives. No one else could pull this off, but now there is proof that this can work.
....
And I am currently reading Chanel Miller's Know My Name and am every bit as rivetted as was Ric.. Perhaps more, given my years as a role crisis advocate. I knew of the case, the verdict, the judge, the recall, had seen Chanel on tv, but the book really puts you into the feelings.
|
Grooch
Member
06-16-2006
| Saturday, September 19, 2020 - 1:37 am
Seamonkey, was the book scarier than Hot Zone? If so, I won't be able to read it.
|
Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Saturday, September 19, 2020 - 1:54 am
Well, the book was very real, but the efforts to use phages are a hopeful thing for the future.
And it is no spoiler that the husband survived, as he did contribute as an author.
So different, both scary, but worth reading.
|
Grooch
Member
06-16-2006
| Saturday, September 19, 2020 - 2:12 am
Thanks. If I come across it, I'll take a stab at it.
|
Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Saturday, September 19, 2020 - 4:12 pm
https://davidmichie.com/nine-ways-to-support-your-favourite-authors-five-without-spending-any-money/
|
Teachmichigan
Member
07-22-2001
| Saturday, September 19, 2020 - 8:29 pm
I read Backman's A Man Called Ove in one sitting (and the movie is equally wonderful), enjoyed Beartown and loved My Grandma Told Me To Tell You.... I'll definitely look for his new one.
|
Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Saturday, September 19, 2020 - 9:46 pm
I loved A Man Called Ove
|
Sugar
Member
08-15-2000
| Sunday, September 20, 2020 - 3:25 pm
I did not particularly care for Tin Man by Sarah Winman, I found it a bit disjointed and it took too long for the other characters point of view to surface.
I did like Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata. It was a bit odd but an ok way to spend the afternoon. I don't think it was as comical and quirky as the blurbs and reviews indicated.
|
Sugar
Member
08-15-2000
| Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - 12:34 pm
Miss Julia Knows a Thing or Two by Ann B. Ross was fairly standard for the series. I have been a bit surprised by the almost total absence of Lloyd in some of the latest books, however, it isn't out of keeping with Lloyd being a teenager I suppose. I do like the Etta Mae character.
|
Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Thursday, September 24, 2020 - 11:53 pm
Finished Know My Name.
Starting Notorious RBG.
|
Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Monday, September 28, 2020 - 5:15 pm
A friend highly recommended Alan Taylor's exhaustively researched Thomas Jefferson's Education. The main focus was on how Jefferson made it his lifelong mission to create what is now the University of Virginia (in Charlottesville).
Because he thought the College of William and Mary (Virginia's premier school before UVA came along) lacked the prestige of the major universities in the northeast, Jefferson worked tirelessly to bring a (similar) major university to his home state. It's a bit tough to get into the narrative (because of the dense details Taylor provides) but it eventually gets easier. I had no idea college students in the 1820s could be such violent troublemakers (emphasis on violent). I was shocked to read just how awfully they behaved!
|
