Jennifer’s
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(group member since Dec 03, 2021)
Jennifer’s
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from the On The Same Page group.
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WHEN YOU POST YOUR AUTHORS PLEASE ALSO POST TWO BOOKS BY THAT AUTHOR THAT YOU'RE CONSIDERING READINGMost people are probably familiar with "series interactive" challenges, where someone posts multiple outstanding books from several series they are reading, and another participant picks which series they will read from in the following month, with the purpose of edging us all closer to being caught up in our favorite series.
This is the same idea, except we're doing it for authors who write multiple books that are stand-alones and **NOT** part of a series. Examples would be Marie Benedict, Jodi Picoult, Ron Chernow, etc. I find I get so focused on series books (in part because of challenges) that I forget to read these others and they pile up! I can't be the only person in this situation. :-)
How this works: on or about the 19th of the month (we're starting late but typically the 19th will be used), participants will be invited to post a list of three authors that they have at least two unread books by. On or about the 25th of the month, pairs will be posted. Everyone will pick the next month's "featured author" for the person they're assigned. I will pick for anyone who does not have a pick by the 30th if I cannot reach the member who is assigned the pick via PM.
The following month, participants should read at least one book by their chosen author. (If you don't get to it and have to backfill or skip it, that's fine -- the point is to whittle down that TBR and have fun!)
Books can be any length, and can be fiction or non-fiction -- they just CANNOT be part of a series, and you need at least two books by an author for that author to qualify for this challenge.
Come join us for July!
Pairs:
Jennifer picks for Denise
Denise picks for Desley
Desley picks for Joy
Joy picks for Jennifer
Nice, a play! I like to read plays but I don't often see others here who do.
Good to know re Henry, Patricia— thanks!
Glad you liked it, Lindsey: it's somehow found it's way onto my TBR. Not sure how that happens. It's a mystery.
I like the Stabenow series quite a bit, Bonnie. I hope you do as well.
The poll winner for the 3Q22 Nonfiction Group Read is Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey.
From the Academy Award®–winning actor, an unconventional memoir filled with raucous stories, outlaw wisdom, and lessons learned the hard way about living with greater satisfaction
I’ve been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me.
Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries. I found stories I experienced, lessons I learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, beliefs about what matters, some great photographs, and a whole bunch of bumper stickers. I found a reliable theme, an approach to living that gave me more satisfaction, at the time, and still: If you know how, and when, to deal with life’s challenges - how to get relative with the inevitable - you can enjoy a state of success I call “catching greenlights.”
So I took a one-way ticket to the desert and wrote this book: an album, a record, a story of my life so far. This is fifty years of my sights and seens, felts and figured-outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops.
Hopefully, it’s medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot’s license, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears.
It’s a love letter. To life.
It’s also a guide to catching more greenlights - and to realizing that the yellows and reds eventually turn green too.
Karen wrote: "I finished 
, I think it would be a great book club selection. So much to discuss. It's my second book by Taylor Jenkins Reid."I really enjoyed that book. I've read three or four others of hers but that is probably my favorite.
So I haven't posted here since March because I didn't think I'd read all that much NF...... yeah.... I was wrong. Here goes. 
Ride the Devil's Herd: Wyatt Earp's Epic Battle Against the West's Biggest Outlaw Gang Good history focusing on the time in Wyatt Earp's life after Morgan Earp's murder. Those of you who are Tombstone fans will remember it as "the reckoning."
Munich 1972: Tragedy, Terror, and Triumph at the Olympic Games Horrifying tale. I had only the vaguest memory of it: I was about 8 when it happened.
The Killing Season Average true crime.
The Soul of a Woman Some perspectives on feminism by the acclaimed novelist based on her life and what she learned from her mother.
I'll Have What She's Having: How Nora Ephron's Three Iconic Films Saved the Romantic Comedy Fabulous look at Nora Ephron -- it's easy to think of her as successful: this was a revealing look at what it took to get there. 
Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy A look from the inside by an electoral college /constitutional scholar at the events of January 2021.
Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right -- interesting.....
Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated Who knew it could be so freeing to play the person no one could stand!?
If You Ask Me Pablum. 
Europe's Last Summer: Who Started the Great War in 1914?. Turns a lot of our assumptions about the causes of WWI on their ear.
The Unknowns: The Untold Story of America's Unknown Soldier and WWI's Most Decorated Heroes Who Brought Him Home. A lot of battle stuff which I have a hard time following but still a good story.
THINK STRAIGHT: Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life Ugh. There are way better books out there for this.
In the Shadow of the Empress: The Defiant Lives of Maria Theresa, Mother of Marie Antoinette, and Her Daughters A fascinating look at a mover-and-shaker of empires, particularly if, like me, you know little of pre-unified-Germany Central Europe.
Priestdaddy Never really caught me.
The Name Below The Title, Volume 2: 20 MORE Classic Movie Character Actors From Hollywood's Golden Age Another fun round-up of familiar faces that you can never remember the names to go with.
Truly, Madly: Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier, and the Romance of the Century Oh dear god that poor woman!
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI I freely admit I expected this to be an entry on the "big bad US government hurting the poor native Americans" bandwagon. It was more true crime where the criminals were taking advantage of unfair laws (so yes, there was some big bad there) and it was fascinating, and ended satisfyingly on many fronts. 
Young Elizabeth: The Making of the Queen and
The Queen's Marriage. Liked the first, the second was gossipy and written by someone who calls herself "lady Colin Campbell" after a marriage that lasted about a year and ended badly, and while she may be entitled to the name, it seems cheesy to use it for decades and decades after the blip-on-the-screen marriage ended. She comes off as a social climber. No idea if she actually is one. 
Kindred Souls: The Friendship Of Eleanor Roosevelt And David Gurewitsch - a look at Eleanor near the end of her life, by one of the two people she was close friends with in her last years.
The Last Days of Dorothy Parker: The Extraordinary Lives of Dorothy Parker and Lillian Hellman and How Death Can Be Hell on Friendship. When I was in my early 20s I had a real thing going for Dorothy and Lillian. I hadn't read anything by or about them in several decades, and this just made me sad for Dottie and loathing of Lillie. Eye-opening!!
In Cold Blood -- a re-read. I liked it better this time than I did the first. It is credited as the first "nonfiction novel" although I think there's an argument to be made for Maugham's The Razor's Edge having gotten there first.
Watergate: A New History -- one becomes so used to thinking of "All the President's Men" as being the gold-standard text that one forgets how much of the story the original reporting didn't uncover. This book fills it in wonderfully. If you have any interest in Watergate, this is a must-read.
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism A depressing book without hope written by someone who grinds that ax over and over again with a vengeance. UGH! Is everyone, black or white, really this irredeemable? 
The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire A more global look at the financial meltdown of 2007-2008.
A Man on the Moon -- Enough science to explain but not so much as to make the book dry, and the lore -- oh the lore -- it's like a good book about the history of baseball. 
Judy and I: My Life with Judy Garland more objective than I expected, and I walked away really liking Sid Luft. 
Marie Antoinette: The Journey Fraser and Alison Weir are my go-to historians and this did not disappoint. 
Killing the Mob: The Fight Against Organized Crime in America. Not a fan of O'Reilly the journalist (strident and nasty, anyone?) but this book was quite entertaining and I will likely read some others. 
The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed. True crime, add money, and do it in Italian.
...then just stay fat. -- Tough love for people who need to walk away from the fads and do the work.
Dead In The Water - A forty year cold case, solved.
The Dillinger Days I can't help it, I love me some 1930s gangsters.
The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels, and the History of American Comedy What a fascinating book!OK, well, that's the last three months.....
Good show, Rhonda!I started an "accidental" green yesterday:
Oh excellent: that's on my TBR and I've been reading a lot of Weir lately -- thanks Joy!
High praise, Denise. I’ll check it out.
Oh I like that cover, Rhonda! And "Last Garden" is on my TBR.
Nice that you got a bonus in, Joy!
Glad you enjoyed it, Tawallah!
@Lance -- I'm halfway through the other book you picked for me that you were interested in hearing about:
. First of all, I'm really enjoying it. It's a romp!
It's a cultural review, mostly, so far -- right now it's talking about Division 1 NCAAF (I knew THAT would get your attention...) but it's covered changes in social handling of films, it's covered the music scene, and it's covered the mindset of the Gen-Xer. I was a young-ish adult in the 90s (late 20s early 30s) and am a member of the boomer generation, barely. I found the GenX stuff fascinating and completely foreign to me -- it had never occurred to me that anyone had that mindset about the 90s. I kept thinking "I was alive then, right??? Because I don't remember this..."
I'm off to finish it now..... I'm certain there's some OJ and Michael Jackson in my future this morning.....
Welcome to the challenge!
5/7/22 through 6/6/22757 The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire
A Man on the Moon
Oh William!
760 Uneasy Money
Judy and I: My Life with Judy Garland
See Jane Snap.
Yule Log Murder
The Wire in the Blood
765. Marie Antoinette: The Journey
The Shotgun Lawyer
Killing the Mob: The Fight Against Organized Crime in America
Nothing Serious
Bad Action
770. Hard Target
Golden Girl
The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed
Stealing the Crown
Burying the Crown
775. A Killer's Wife
Corpse in the Carnations
Dagger in the Dahlias
Under A Sky of Memories
Damsels in Distress
780. Four Aunties and a Wedding.
In Shining Whatever
Much Ado in Maggody
A Very English Murder
Picture Perfect Frame
785. The Daydream Cabin
Under a Sky on Fire
Hard Way
Secrets of a Charmed Life
The Thing About Clare
790. No Crone Unturned
'Scuse Me While I Kill This Guy
Dead In The Water
Jaws
The Dillinger Days
795. Witching For Hope
Hard Shot
Honeysuckle Season
Writing All Wrongs
Lethal Letters
800. The World Played Chess
The Night She Went Missing
Band of Sisters
The End of Everything
Chilled to the Cone
805. A Beginner's Guide to Free Fall
Super Con
Hell Hole
Mind Scrambler
The Gold Pawn
810. As the Wicked Watch
The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post
Lily and the Octopus
The Lying Club
A Caribbean Mystery
815. Deconstructed
The Glass Hotel
817 Strange Weather in Tokyo
I’ve been a little on the fence about that one, Denise. Thanks for the push!
That was quick, Denise! Glad you enjoyed the book.
