Moorhead Public Library’s Comments (group member since Apr 06, 2020)

Moorhead Public Library’s comments from the Classy and Trashy Book Club with the Moorhead Public Library group.

Hi Everyone! hope to see you tonight at Classy and Trashy. I liked I Capture the Castle and am looking forward to talking about it.

I've still been hopping around a bit in my reading - since I saw Karen reading some Anne McCaffrey books, I thought I'd give them a try and listened to Dragonflight; I liked it enough that I'll probably continue the series, but maybe not enough to pick up the next one right away.

I also finally read a Josephine Tey book, although not Daughter of Time which is the one I've always meant to read. Brat Farrar came up as a recommendation for me (I think because I was reading Capture the Castle), so I checked that out, and enjoyed it quite a bit. Like with I Capture the Castle, I think it's interesting to try and get a sense of the underlying class assumptions. We'll have to talk about that tonight.

I also read The Marlow Murder Club and recommend it for any cozy mystery fans. It's a bit like a less posh Thursday Murder Club. I'll definitely check the next book out when it's published. - deb
ps - I have big news to share tonight

Hello! Here's a new thread for anything we're reading this spring.

Last I posted I was just getting back into the Rivers of London Series. I totally got into it and then ended up kicking myself because I ran out of books in the series like a week before the release of a new one. I did not time it well.

So I've kind of waffled a bit in my reading, and ended up starting 3 books, which now I feel I have to finish before getting back to the new Peter Grant book. One of them is obviously The Devil and the Dark Water. I like Turton's writing style - I find it very engaging and easy to get into. But I have to admit the setting is not as appealing to me as the cozy-mystery setting of 7 and 1/2 deaths. I'm a little over 1/2 way through, so we'll see what I think at the end.

I also started Murder in an Irish Village - it's the first in a series and it definitely seems like that. I can't decide if I'll continue with the series or not when I finish it.

And I'm reading When in Rome, another Inspector Alleyn. I'm still enjoying that series and discovered you can watch it for free on tubi!

hope you're all doing well and can make it Tuesday night!
- deb

I'll look forward to seeing you in May, Kathy! And yes - the book is I capture the castle. I still am just not sure about recommending Wheel of Time for a 7th grader. If he's a big reader and kind of mature for his age, probably? It's definitely intended for an adult audience, but I can imagine myself having read it when I was in middle school (although back then we called it jr high).

As for the sales tax - we don't have approval for it yet, just approval to put it on the ballot in November. Make sure any Moorhead friends know about the vote!

After my Wheel of Time marathon, I'm kind of hop-skipping-around in my reading. I meant to do the Expanse books, but then I didn't get very far before it was due back in Libby. I've gone back to Inspector Alleyn a bit, checked out the Laetitia Rodd series, and am currently going back to the Rivers of London series. I might linger on Rivers of London a bit and try to get caught up on it. - deb

Okay - I added you as a friend to the Moorhead account, and will try from my personal account at some point too.

Meanwhile - I finished the Wheel of Time! At least pretty much. I haven't read the novellas like New Spring, but I've now read all the major books. And except for a couple of books in the middle I really enjoyed it.

So now I'm trying to decide what to tackle next. I read the first book in the Laetitia Rodd mystery series and have started the first book in that Expanse series. Thus far I'm not completely sucked into either series, but we'll see as I get further.

Hope to see you tomorrow night!

- deb

Hi Kathy,
I let Jenny and Brittany know, and I tried finding you from my personal goodreads account but I failed! I found 3 Kathy Vanders, but 2 didn't have any books and one only had one. I'll try again from home. Maybe it will work better on my computer.

Meanwhile, I'm finally getting back into the Wheel of Time and - I think - enjoying it as much as when I originally started it (but that's hard to say since it was so long ago and I have a horrible memory).

I just finished Knife of Dreams and the pace really picked up in that one - there were victories, forsaken captured, kingdoms won, and all sorts of good stuff. Also, after a spell without Matt he's had a bigger roll in the past couple of books again. He's probably my favorite character....at least at the moment. His character seems the best at bringing humor into the story.

- deb

I think it would be appropriate for an 8th grader if they're kind of mature? Although I'm by no means great at judging that kind of stuff. There's definitely violence (there's a war between good and evil going on, so that's kind of a given), and some torture (although I don't think it's necessarily super graphic in terms of blood and gore, but enough to psychologically creep you out...) and a tiny bit of sex (but again, not super graphic).

If anything I might wonder if an 8th grader would get bored w/ parts of it (I'm kind of bored where I am right now...so that's not necessarily an age thing). Is he 14? 15? I think that's probably an okay age to start reading them, but probably wouldn't start younger. - deb

Just a quick update on what I've bene reading - I cruised through a few more Marsh mysteries, and then decided to get serious about the Wheel of Time. For those of you who don't know, I started that series back in 1994 or '95 when you still had to wait for each new book to come out. I kept up with it I think until Winter's Heart, but at that point I felt like I needed to refresh my memory on the earlier books and just never really got around to it.

So then a while ago I started wanting to finish the series and started it from the beginning...but by Crown of Swords I was so irritated with so many of the characters I started dragging my feet. and dragging them some more. But I finally finished it! I'm hoping the characters get less annoying in the book I'm now on, Path of Daggers. - deb

Yes - Book Blizzard kicks off Jan 1! We'll have paper forms here in the library, or if you use beanstack you can just enter the challenge on that and make sure you remember to enter any books you read during it.

I finished Tied up in Tinsel (I love how salty Alleyn gets in parts of it), but then couldn't decide what to start next so just listened to some of one of my favorite Susannah Kearsley books: The Shadowy Horses. It was lovely. Happy Holidays to Everyone! - deb

Here's a spot to discuss our Winter Reads. Don't forget to keep track of the titles for Book Blizzard (either on Beanstack or a paper form) to win prizes! - deb

Hi Everyone!

Just a heads-up - I'll be starting a Winter 2022 thread so feel free to post on there even though it's not quite 2022 yet.

Hope you've all bee reading good things; I've been doing a number of Christmas books: some of Stephanie Lauren's Lady Osbaldestone's Christmas books (so incredibly cozy and innocent), 'Misteloe and Murder' by Carola Dunn, 'God Rest Ye, Royal Gentlemen' by Rhys Bowen and I'm currently reading 'Tied Up in Tinsel' by Ngaio Marsh (going out of order a bit on the series). I think Mary Stewart's 'This Rough Magic' has been my favorite recent read, so hopefully we'll have a good discussion tonight! - deb

Hello! I hope to see everyone tonight at book club - 'The Mystery of Mrs. Christie' isn't going to become a favorite book, but I love talking about Agatha Christie!

I'm still working through the Roderick Alleyn series and enjoying it. I might even prefer Ngaio Marsh's mysteries to Agatha Christie's....?

- deb

I don't know how everyone else is doing, but I've had a brilliant run of new books by favorite authors! I read the 2nd book in the Thursday Murder Club series, 'The Man Who Died Twice,' and I think I might have liked it even better than the first one. I hope that series keeps going for a while because Joyce and her friends seriously just make me feel happy.

I also read the new Anthony Horowitz book, 'A Line to Kill.' It wasn't my favorite in the Horowitz/Hawthorne series, but it was still very entertaining. I feel like without even trying very hard you could write a paper about any of his books - he's so blatantly meta that you trip over fascinating ideas everywhere about mystery novels (do they trivialize crime? prop up our belief in a sense of justice? are they trashy?), the role of the author, the proper use of pathetic fallacy, how to interact with somebody you don't like but who does good work....seriously just the tip of the iceberg.

And I also got the new Donna Andrews holiday mystery: 'The Twelve Jays of Christmas." Again Bernadette Dunne does an amazing job of capturing the recurring characters voices in the audio version; her narrating this series is probably one of my favorite audio experiences ever. This particular installment in the series doesn't necessarily stand out from the others, but it was completely entertaining and made for a lovely weekend's listening.

Meanwhile, around the new books I've been listening to the Roderick Alleyn series by Ngaio Marsh. I'm in a bit of a groove with them and enjoying them, especially the mystery aspect. I think she excels at laying out mysteries w/ clues the reader can follow and try to solve it for themselves.

With that said, there are definitely times where you just have to be thankful that we've (sort of?) moved past such casual homophobia and racism. It can be very jarring as you're reading, which I think is a good thing and indicates that progress has been made, even if sometimes it feels like we've regressed to an earlier time.

I hope you've also all enjoyed some good books and I look forward to hearing about them! - deb

I'm listening to the new Thursday Murder Club book! (The Man Who Died Twice). So far I'm loving it as much as the first one, although there's certainly a bit of a shocking beginning. But for books that just overall make me smile, they're definitely going towards the top of my list.

Also still working through the Kelling/Bittersohn series; I'm on the last one, but paused it to listen to Murder Club. I'm also looking forward to exploring some mystery audiobooks I've discovered on hoopla - I came across a list of historical mysteries and hoopla has almost all of them! They really do have a crazy-good audiobook selection.

Karen - I've never read the CJ Sansom books and imagine they might be kind of dark for me, but let me know what you think

I'm going to be sending out an email reminder about October's meeting soon, but feel free to let me know if you'd prefer not to get emails from me.

Hello anyone who happens upon this! I don't know if any of you want to continue on here now that we're meeting in person , but thought I'd issue an invitation in case you do. Feel free to post any thoughts about things your reading!

I'm currently working my way through Charlotte Macleod's Kelling and Bittersohn series. I don't think they're likely to become favorites, but I'm enjoying them. I know I'd read at least a few back in the day, but I have no recollection of any of the mysteries.

- deb

Hi Everyone! I'm so sorry - I'm very late getting this thread up. Hopefully you've all been reading good things. I'm on my last (of the published) Aunt Dimity book, read the new Nora Roberts (and a few old ones while I was waiting for that one), and have read a couple of Simon Brett's Feathering series. I've enjoyed them all.

I'm a little sad I'm getting to the end of the Aunt Dimity books - they've pretty much been a guaranteed laid back and enjoyable time. So I'm savoring the last one by listening a little here, a little there, while searching for a new series to cruise through.

At the moment I've landed on Simon Brett's Feathering series. They're entertaining, but I don't think I love them as much as I love the Dimity books, so I might just do a few before moving on to something else; we'll see.

I also re-read Nora Roberts' Boonsboro Inn series because I was in the mood for a Nora Roberts book and the new one wasn't out yet. when it did come out I gulped it down. I don't know that I've liked her more recent stuff as much as the older ones (or maybe I've just read enough of her that I'm not likely to be blown away by much?), but they're still my definition of a perfect summer read.

Do you have perfect summer reads you recommend?

- deb

Hope to see you all Tuesday night @ 7! Here's the link for our meeting: meet.google.com/bwy-gpfe-xgb

Salut! Here's a spot to discuss any thoughts you're having as you read this month's selection, Writers and Lovers. Since I'm late getting this up, I've actually already started reading it an have some thoughts! I started out listening to it and kind of hated it. It has to be one of the saddest most depressing beginnings of a book ever. However, I switched to reading it and that didn't bother me as much? Or maybe it just got more interesting and was less straight-up sadness? Anyway - I plan to continue reading it in case it was the audio that put me off at first, although I suspect it was the unrelenting suckiness of her life at the beginning amplified by my own student-loan anxiety issues that it resonated with. - deb

Hi Everyone! Sorry this is so late getting up - it completely slipped my mind. I've been continuing my Aunt Dimity kick (I'm up to the 16th book!) since they're still making me happy, w/ some side excursions into re-listening to Murderbot (and listening to the new one, Fugitive Telemetry!) and trying some new titles like Dial A for Aunties and A is for Adobo. Confession: I haven't finished the latter 2. I don't think they were bad, they just weren't fitting my mood. And there were new episodes of Midsomer, Death in Paradise, and Brokenwood (I know, shouldn't even mention them here since they're tv, but they took up some of my book time). Anyway, I plan to revisit the 2 new mysteries I didn't finish when I'm looking for something new to read. - deb

ooh - are you a Mary Stewart fan, Kathy? If there's interest, I'll totally try to work one in for next fall/winter. If there a preferred title you'd like to do?

As for how I read/listen - I do both, but most of it over the past couple years has been listening so I can knit/crochet at the same time. Interestingly, I think I do better reading some things. I feel like if I listen to romances they seem too cheesy? But if I read them, I'm able to ignore that and just enjoy the story. Not at all sure what that says about how my brain works. And sometimes I just want the complete immersion that comes with reading a book rather than listening to it. - deb

I've been on a major Aunt Dimity kick; looking back I think I've read 5 of them this month (they go pretty fast). Nancy Atherton takes all the fun tropes of mysteries and gothic fiction and wraps it all up in improbably good-hearted cozy mysteries that usually (although not always) leave out any violence or death.

I also read the 2nd Ruth Gallaway mystery back at the beginning of the month: The Janus Stone by Elly Griffiths. I want to like these books more than I have so far. I'm hoping I've just been in the wrong mood to read them and I'll like them better at some future date.

Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to the new Martha Wells which I have queued up on Libby even as I type: Fugitive Telemetry. And after that I have A is for Aunties all set to go (a mystery that I keep seeing everywhere so hopefully it's good). Hope you all have books you're looking forward to reading too! - deb