Stina’s Comments (group member since Dec 11, 2016)

Stina’s comments from the Challenges from Exploding Steamboats group.

I was going to go with Bulgarian Cuisine: The Best Traditional Recipes, but then I realized I had a jar of Bulgarian yogurt (my favorite) sitting in my fridge. Sooo....The Island Kitchen: Recipes from Mauritius and the Indian Ocean it is!

I already have quite a bit of Stephen Graham Jones, Louise Erdrich, and Rebecca Roanhorse I can choose from, but some the other challenges I'm doing this year call for me to read Indigenous authors from cultures I'm not familiar with, so that might pop up here, too.

Ugh. This one again. Just so you know, orange is my least favorite color. But I do have at least three books that qualify for this, so I really have no excuse for failing this prompt again:
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
Geek Love
Walkaway

Cheryl wrote: "My friend told me that she is the Russian Scarlett O'Hara -- it has not increased my desire to read the book. GWTW was a slog and War and Peace was worse, so a cross between them . . . ."

I remember quite liking GWTW. But I was, like, 12. Tween Me and Teen Me had some really questionable tastes.

Cheryl wrote: "I liked Devil in the White City better than Poisoner's Handbook, because it was all linked to a single event, fwiw"

Ah, good to know!

Cheryl wrote: "I have the same issue. Perhaps our copies are somewhere on a beach together -- they deserve it."

LOL

Cheryl wrote: "... If you have not read The Mermaids Singing by Val McDermid, I highly recommend. ..."

I have read several of Val's, but I can't remember right now if that's one of them. I will have to look and see. I'm wanting to say I haven't read it yet, so I will definitely keep it in mind.

Cheryl wrote: "I am thinking about Night by Elie Wiesel, which I think I have a copy of finally."

I was planning to read that last year, as I know I have a copy of it. Somewhere. But I have looked all over and cannot find it. Oh, well, surely it will turn up eventually. It's not like I have a pet who might have eaten it or something.

Cheryl wrote: "Are you into Anne Perry? I have a 2fer of hers which are Christmas crimes that I got from eponine38. Not sure where they would fit in her series, but I haven't read her in order anyway, only jumped..."

I don't think I've read any of hers yet, though I know I do have at least one on my shelves somewhere. I probably haven't read it because I'm kinda finicky about reading series in order. I will definitely get to read one this year, though, as The Face of a Stranger is a book club pick soon.

Cheryl wrote: "That is usually the true crime that I recommend to non-true-crime folks. I am trying to think if there was anything else I can suggest to you that might appeal.
The Devil in the White City -- not a..."

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America is one I'm seriously considering. And I think I have a copy of The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York. I have also never completely finished Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, so that is a distinct possibility.

Cheryl wrote: "I completed my first book in this challenge with Gingerdead Man, a Christmas-time cozy mystery. When in doubt, Christmas in the Northern Hemisphere is in the winter, so that is a good way to go."

Yeah, I figured I'd have a lot of cozies to choose from, but apparently all of my next-in-series reads at the moment are in spring or autumn. So if I read in those series, I will be careful to stop before I get to Christmas. :-)

Cheryl wrote: "I keep saying that I will read Anna Karenina one day. Maybe this year I'll do it."

I have tried it a few times, but dang, that is one whiny bitch.

Cheryl wrote: "If you have not read In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, it is the gold standard. Reads more like fiction."

Eh. I wasn't a fan of that one. His tone was pretty condescending, and I didn't trust his scholarship. It rather put me off of reading anything else by him, in fact.

I probably have several that count for this, but the only one I can think of at the moment is The Lions of Al-Rassan. What ones do you recommend?

Once again, a great opportunity to triple or quadruple up on other tome-oriented prompts!

According to book-genres.com, "Books in the contemporary fiction genre are made up of stories that could happen to real people in real settings. The books do not fall under other categories or genres."

Yeah, screw that last bit. I read Hanging Falls, which is a contemporary mystery. I'm counting it.

I have already read The Haunting of Tram Car 015 for this one, and I highly recommend it. Though you might want to start at the beginning of the series with A Dead Djinn in Cairo. I doubt it will be my last AOC read for the year, though.

I'm interpreting that to be a book recommended directly to me, but if you want to take a broader view and pull something off of a best-of list or whatever, go for it. My mom has recommended Ivanhoe, and my husband has recommended The City in the Middle of the Night, so those are just two of my contenders.

Despite reading lots of opinions on what makes a book epic fantasy -- or perhaps because of reading lots of opinions on the subject -- I really don't know what to tell you. Many of the "experts" directly contradict each other. Sooo....I guess if you read a fantasy book and think, "Yeah, that was epic," count it. There are no epic police here.

So far I have not had great luck with this genre. Got any suggestions?