From the Bookshelf of Constant Reader…

The Bee Sting

Paul Murray

Start date: May 15, 2025

Finish date: June 15, 2025

Discussion: Reading List

Discussion leader: Justin Pickett

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Reading List

* The Schedule for July through Dec. 2025
By Lynn · 1 post · 43 views

last updated Jun 20, 2025 08:37AM

In Winter I Get Up at Night by Jane Urquhart Spoilers/Discussion
By Barbara · 13 posts · 17 views

last updated Sep 19, 2025 11:35AM

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What Members Thought

Feb 13, 2024 Ken added it

Shelves: finished-in-2024, world-literature, contemporary

What we’ve got here is failure to communicate. – famous line from the Paul Newman movie, Cool Hand Luke (seen here as 640 pages of nonexistent communication).

As a kid, I was given the job of trapping Japanese beetles with an empty jelly jar. I had to go from one of my mother’s rose bushes to another, picking them off and dropping them into the jar, which I quickly lidded. Neither their wings nor their feet did them much good in the glass. Those poor bronze bugs were trapped but good.

I thought of ...more

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May 16, 2024 Renata rated it really liked it

This was really amazing and heading for a shoe-in 5 star read for me. The anxiety inducing ending somehow left me strangely dissatisfied, so I’ll need to sit with it a bit.

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Dec 07, 2023 Victoria rated it really liked it

This was very long, but that’s the charm of it, I suppose. It delves into all of the little ways our lives change, reminding us there we have less control over our destiny than we like to think. I felt close to the characters in the Barnes family by the end, and when I closed the last page, I wished there was a sequel.

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