| Author |
Message |
Teachmichigan
Member
07-22-2001
| Saturday, September 29, 2018 - 7:20 am 
Finished reading Wally Lamb's I'll Take You There and listening to Gabaldon's Written in my Own Heart's Blood (the latter for the fifth time). The first one wasn't one of Lamb's best, but I still enjoy his writing. I'm neck deep in French's The Secret Place and loving it. On audio, I just started Joan Didian's The Year of Magical Thinking. I've heard wonderful things about it.
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Jimmer
Moderator
08-30-2000
| Saturday, September 29, 2018 - 8:22 am
I know you love Outlander and I’ve read the first three books (I just finished Voyager a couple of weeks ago). I have to say that I found the first one extraordinarily violent (equal to or more than Game of Thrones) and at points it was a struggle to read. However, I kept reading and I’ve enjoyed each book more and more. I hope that trend continues.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Sunday, September 30, 2018 - 6:28 pm
I remember liking The Year of Magical Thinking.
I love Wally Lamb, but not the latest and I have so many books that I hate to spend inflated prices. And, oddly, there isn't a kindle edition, which is very unusual! Some really scathing reviews from people who say they usually love his writing.
Too bad. I have always liked his books so much.
I finished Code Girls which was full of history.
Amazing that thousands of women got jobs codebreaking and that their work, which had to be kept secret and was kept secret for decades, was instrumental in defeating the Nazis and the Japanese in WWII. The outcome could well have been reversed.
Many of them went to their graves never talking about that time but the author was able to interview and use documentation that was finally released.
These women were civilians, WAVES, WACs.. and often were not much acknowledged.
One eventually was mother to Bill Nye the Science Guy.
Now starting the memoir of Mimi Alford, Once Upon a Secret: My Affair with President John Kennedy and its aftermath. She only wrote it after she was outed in someone else's book. She never told her parents before they died. It is interesting but kind of uncomfortable to read, in terms of the power differential and her dismissal, so far, of that.
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Monday, October 01, 2018 - 8:58 am
I finished Jodi Picoult's new book A Spark of Light last night. It really put perspective on both sides of the abortion issue by playing out a shooting/hostage situation at a clinic. It is told from the aftermath, backwards. One of my very favorite books she has written.
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Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Tuesday, October 02, 2018 - 6:48 pm
I just finished Sally Field's memoir, In Pieces. There's less than 3 months left in the year and I'll very surprised if I read a book better than this before year's end.
Her humility and gut-wrenching honesty are among the most amazing things I've ever experienced as a reader.
This is a woman who has won two Academy Awards and three Emmys. She mentions those details almost as if they were footnotes! Instead, she focuses on the relationships with her mother and stepfather and the brutal honesty will practically take your breath away. On top of that, the passages about her relationship with Burt Reynolds are jaw-droppingly shocking. Well, they were shocking to me -- you'll see what I mean when you read the book. How in the world did she put up with him???
This has to be the most un-movie-star-like memoir in the history of movie-star memoirs. You must, must, must read it -- it really is one of the very best -- I can't adequately describe what an extraordinary human being Ms. Field is. Wow!
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Teachmichigan
Member
07-22-2001
| Thursday, October 04, 2018 - 5:37 pm
Wow - couldn't get it at the 27 libraries in our area, but our little local library has it. It's reserved so I can pick it up tomorrow. Thanks for the recommendation, Ricky!
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Thursday, October 04, 2018 - 6:40 pm
Finished Mimi Alford's book. Interesting that she did get the power imbalance in the situation, but seemed to resent more that when she told her fiance he wanted her to stuff it away. She did but in time that marriage did fail.
And after she was outed by reporters and spoke out, she had to hide.
When she wrote the book she was chastised by Barbara Walters for hurting Barbara's friend, Caroline Kennedy.. not a word about. JFK's actions with multiple women was what caused the hurt.
🚩
Now reading a memoir by Nicholas Sparks, the author and Micah Sparks Three Weeks with My Brother.
They had very strange parents!
And the three weeks is sort of a Juju on steroids trip globe hopping with a group.
Interesting.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Friday, October 05, 2018 - 3:50 pm
Well.. This book was more than I thought at first.. I knew Nicholas Sparks from movies of some of his books..had no idea there were 10 movies. Have read a couple of his book, but there is a long list.
But the rest of his life.. Wow!
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Friday, October 05, 2018 - 11:20 pm
Now starting 102 Minutes: The Unforgettable Story of the Fight to Survive inside the Twin Towers by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn.
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Jimmer
Moderator
08-30-2000
| Saturday, October 06, 2018 - 7:54 am
That sounds intense.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Saturday, October 06, 2018 - 10:57 am
I do know some of this.. About the FD and PD in NYC being such rivals that they had different radio systems, the need for boosters.. Most of the guys who went up were cut off from communications, how people who evacuated the second tower were sent had up.. So many issues..
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Jimmer
Moderator
08-30-2000
| Saturday, October 06, 2018 - 11:31 am
how people who evacuated the second tower were sent had up.. So many issues..
They were sent back up?
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Saturday, October 06, 2018 - 4:00 pm
Yes!
Tragically, security guards sent people back up in the second tower before it was hit.
I am just at the part where an entire company got down to the bottom and were sent back up by a security guard.
They had rules about evacuation, but not always followed.
And the communication problems meant that some who were at the command center knew less about the first hit than many up in both towers who had contact with people via cell phone who were watching in person or on tv.
Communication or lack of it also meant that first responders had no idea who had evacuated, thus stayed in, searching for people.
The towers were designed to save weight and space, so stairwells were more cramped, floors thinner.
The theory is that any building over 60 floors must be designed so that a fire is contained in a floor and then allowed to burn out, but this didn't work. In this case the jet fuel spread fires through more floors and the supposedly efficient design pancaked.
So much more and a warning not to be quiet about codes and standards, where it I possible to have input.
Kind of like reading about the Titanic.. Disaster could have been prevented or kept smaller.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Saturday, October 06, 2018 - 4:43 pm
Another example. In tower 2 callers reached a hotline number. Two men, sitting side by side, among those answering phones. One saying to stay put.. The other saying to evacuate now. Luckily for Morgan Stanley employees, they got to second guy. They occupied 22 floors and they had trained people to lead evacuations.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Saturday, October 06, 2018 - 5:04 pm
I am reading about various companies.
Aon.. That is the company where Tamitha, the cousin of Monica from BB2 worked.
Imagine my shock reading the following
quote:For some coming from the highest floors in the south tower, the long descent to 78 drained the moment of its urgent steam. Scores of people waited for elevators in moods and mind-sets that ran from terrified to annoyed. Dreadful as the big fire next door was, did it really make sense to shut down the entire south tower? With the announcements that all was well in their building, the human tides now ran in contrary directions. It became harder to know what was the right thing to do. Marissa Panigrosso and Sarah Dechalus, who had been shooed out of the Aon offices on 98 when Eric Eisenberg started rounding up people, walked down the twenty flights to the 78th floor. They met a colleague, Mary Jo Arrowsmith, who was crying. Panigrosso took her hand. She also met Tamitha Freeman, another Aon employee, the mother of a toddler, who had just returned from a trip to North Carolina. Dechalus considered going upstairs to get her bag. She saw people turning back, but the truth was, you never could run right in or out. She pondered for a couple of minutes, then got on the elevator going down. Freeman, however, was bothered about her own bag. “Forget it, you don’t need it,” Panigrosso said. “My baby’s pictures are in it,” Freeman insisted. She turned back upstairs. Panigrosso, with Arrowsmith in tow, kept going. Her elevator, which could hold fifty-five people, was half-empty. It was not yet 9:00.
We know she never made it out 😢
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Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Saturday, October 06, 2018 - 8:17 pm
Sea, I read that book a few years ago and was really impressed with how vivid the descriptions of how people responded were. I had no idea Tamitha was Monica’s cousin. ☹️ It was a very difficult book to read but I’m glad I did.
Today I finished Linwood Barclay’s latest, A Noise Downstairs. After the first 100 pages I got the sinking feeling that I was finally reading his first bomb. But I refused to believe he would let me down given his history of writing such tasty thrillers. I kept an open mind and, sure enough, he came through again with another terrific set of twists that were exciting and very well hidden. As all the hairpins began to fall one by one, the book ended up having a sensational and very fun ending. Again, the twists and turns were yummy!
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Saturday, October 06, 2018 - 8:30 pm
I have read a few 9/11 books. This is very thorough and in a way it keeps those people alive, sort of.
I certainly was not expecting to see the name of someone I knew about, the name we looked for on lists because of Monica. Wow.
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Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Monday, October 15, 2018 - 5:58 pm
Recently finished the following:
Lake Success by Gary Shteyngart, his highly-anticipated return to novel-writing. (His previous book was a memoir.) I enjoyed his first three novels, but this one is okay, but not recommendable (mostly because it's just okay). Who wants to spend time with a book that's just okay, right? I was hoping for the best, but got only mildly good. I think I'll suspend reading any future works by him unless the critics rave about the next one (doubtful).
The Man I Never Met by Adam Schefter. Speaking of 9/11, this is a memoir by Schefter, who is a much-respected on-air reporter for ESPN and an expert NFL analyst. The focus of this book is his courtship of Sharri Maio, a woman whose husband died in the World Trade Center attack, along with 657 of his Cantor Fitzgerald colleagues. Schefter writes sparingly, but compellingly, about the challenge his faced in filling the shoes of not only the woman's husband but also that of being a father to her toddler son. It's a quick and well-written read and you don't have to be a fan of the NFL to enjoy it.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Monday, October 15, 2018 - 7:04 pm
I finished the excellent 9/11 book.
Now reading a history of Nancy Drew and other series books for kids.. Lots of history of that long time period, the ghostwriters, the syndicate. Interesting but longish.
Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her.
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Kappy
Member
06-28-2002
| Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - 4:25 pm
I've begun Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens and while I was unsure in the first few pages, while getting used to the author's style of writing, I am absolutely loving it now. It's about a young girl who is abandoned by her entire family at the age of 7 and how she survives living alone in a coastal marsh in North Carolina.
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Heckagirl631
Member
09-08-2010
| Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - 4:31 pm
I finished, "Now That She's Gone" by Gregg Olsen. It says it's a thriller on the cover, but more of a murder mystery, I thought.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - 8:59 pm
Finished the Nancy Drew history.
Starting a book that is drawing me right in, about Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn in Manhattan: Her Year of Joy. What a waste of her talents that she was under contract, stuck making movies that portrayed her as a caricature, belittled her, while she made them boatloads of money.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Monday, October 22, 2018 - 4:00 am
Marilyn's time in NY was fascinating. She was so complex.. Such varied people she hung out with!
Arthur Miller just took away her support system, but didn't provide support. Sad.
Now starting an Elizabeth Berg novel, The Story of Arthur Trulov.
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Uncle_ricky
Member
07-02-2007
| Tuesday, October 23, 2018 - 7:17 pm
I finished another of Agatha Chrisitie's, The Secret Adversary. Her second published novel and written in 1922, it's really, really good. It's the work of someone who had already written dozens of other books. It's amazing that it's only her second book. The moments of levity she inserts into the story are remarkably fun and surprisingly unexpected. I hope I get to read all of her books before it's time for me to go to my incinerator. So many books, so little time (as you all know)!
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Tuesday, October 23, 2018 - 8:04 pm
Ric, maybe heaven is a fully stocked library...
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