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Laurel
(last edited May 21, 2015 08:15PM)
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Nov 09, 2013 12:48PM
I have read books from 21separate countries so far in my Around the World in Eighty Books challenge. Several I can't count since they are American, Canadian, or British and I have already counted those countries once. UPDATED MAY 20/15
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A very interesting list that I do not want to forget about:https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/4...
The best book series with at least 7 books. Have read one or all in the series, almost 50% of those listed.
New Personal Challenge: Read books with a colour word in the title.Possibilities are:
The Man in the Brown Suit
White Hot
The Yellow Birds
Voodoo Season
Scarlet
Scarlet Feather
Trojan Gold
Silhouette in Scarlet The Man With the Golden Gun
Blue Dahlia Black Rose
Red Lily
Girl in Hyacinth Blue
Black Coffee Chesapeake Blue
The Color PurpleFried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
True BlueFive Red Herrings
The Black TowerRoses are Red
Violets Are BlueCompleted:
Lauren Willig's series:
Three books do not have colour words in their titles:
Very excited to announce the safe arrival of our new baby granddaughter, born at 12:44 am, weighing 9.9lb., name pending, first child for our son and our lovely daughter-in-law, and our third granddaughter. All are healthy, we are blessed.
Laurel wrote: "Very excited to announce the safe arrival of our new baby granddaughter, born at 12:44 am, weighing 9.9lb., name pending, first child for our son and our lovely daughter-in-law, and our third grand..."Wonderful! Congratulations!
Elaine wrote: "Laurel wrote: "Very excited to announce the safe arrival of our new baby granddaughter, born at 12:44 am, weighing 9.9lb., name pending, first child for our son and our lovely daughter-in-law, and ..."Thank you, Michael! just got back from the hospital. All is well, she has had her first bath, and seems quite contented. It is so wonderful to see your children holding their own, for the first time. Plus, this little one will be close by, a few minutes drive away, rather than three hours away, like the other two little ones. So, needless to say, we are very excited.
Just wanted to wish you and your family a very merry Christmas and a happy and blessed new year!
Michael wrote: "Just wanted to wish you and your family a very merry Christmas and a happy and blessed new year!"Thanks you so much, Michael. We just got back from our 3 week vacation in Florida yesterday, drove home in 2 days, through terrible rain, all the way from Knoxville. Terrible ice storm here in Ontario.
I wish you and your family every happiness for Christmas and 2014. We are especially grateful to be home safely, to celebrate with our month old granddaughter, and the other little ones, too. After Christmas, I have a story to tell you about my dog, Beezer, a 12 year old golden retriever. As a dog lover, I know you will understand.
Michael wrote: "have a happy new year!"Thank you Michael! Best wishes for 2014. Have you decided on a reading goal for the new year?
I won The Joshua Stone
in an author's giveaway, through Goodreads. This is an unbiased review. I had not heard of this book or author, before I entered the draw, and entered to win it, along with several other giveaways. I had no expectations of winning, nor had I won a book before. I did not read any reviews of The Joshua Stone before I began reading it. On the back cover, it reads "when mysterious events begin occurring along the New River Valley in West Virginia, government agents Mike Califano and Ana Thorne are sent to investigate. What they discover will shake the the foundations of science and religion and put both agents in the crosshairs of a deadly, worldwide conspiracy." As a Canadian, the reference to the New River Valley tweaked my interest, since it is one of the places in the United States that I have visited. It was easy to visualize the bridge that spans the very deep gorge, and the breathtaking beauty of the valley that was revealed, after we hiked down the boardwalk in the steamy heat of an August morning.
I was immediately drawn in by the events that transpired in a research lab, deep in the sides of the gorge, circa the mid 1950's. Skip forward to the present, and an unidentified man turns up at a diner, and collapses. Where has he come from? Why is he wearing clothes that a well-dressed gentleman would wear in the fifties? The unanswered questions begin piling up, like dominoes that have been tipped over. Enter the two main characters, Mike and Ana, who work for an obscure branch of the CIA. They are given the task of finding out where this man came from, and why it seems as if he has stepped out of the past, from an era more than sixty years ago, into the present.
I assumed that the story was going to be about time travel, which is an acceptable premise for plot construction, in my reading world. Mr. Barney has taken this notion, and twisted it, added to it, reinvented it, in a way I had not expected. This is a thriller, and I was invested in the investigation and developing partnership between Mike and Ana, right from the get-go. I had to keep reading to find out what really happened in that lab, and how two small, black stones, fallen into the wrong hands, could have dire consequences for the world.
The fact that this book held my interest is especially impressive, given that it has two major elements that are not usually of particular interest to me, as common elements in the fiction I read-namely science and religion. There is a lot of scientific information, relating to physics, in The Joshua Stone. Additionally, the scientific research/mystery is closely interwoven with a biblical mystery. At several points during my read, I stopped to ask my husband questions, who is a "science type". I admit that there were sections of text that I did not understand, but the main thread of the story more than compensated for that, and kept me reading to the very end.
This is Mr. Barney's second book, the first being The Genesis Key which is about the discovery of a gene that could extend a human life for hundreds of years. The main character is a gifted biologist, who becomes embroiled in the mystery behind her murdered parents secret research-all tied to the topics of the human genome, archaeology, and the Book of Genesis. I am looking forward to reading how Dr. Kathleen Sainsbury investigates this obviously complicated case.
I would recommend The Joshua Stone to anyone interested in a swiftly paced plot, with elements of espionage, time travel in a way you have likely not encountered before ( no spoilers here!), and characters that I cared about. If you like Science and Religion added to the mix, this book is for you! But do not let these latter themes dissuade you from experiencing an enjoyable read. Many of us belong to Goodreads in order to expand our reading comfort zone, find new authors, and enjoy the ride. Thanks to Mr. Barney, all three apply.
I recently completed reading Fiji: A Novel
, as part of my Around the World Circumnavigator challenge. I am not accustomed to giving one star reviews, but this novel left me with no choice. I was tempted several times while reading it to give up. The plot was superficial, and very predictable. A young British entrepreneur, Nathan Johnson, along with a devout pastor and his equally devout and beautiful daughter, sail to Fiji. He is there to make his fortune, and the minister and his daughter are there to covert the pagan natives of Fiji.
This is not an uncommon theme-white men come to a new land, determined to achieve their various personal goals, without any regard for the culture or consequences of the people they encounter. The young man is selfish, self-centred, and has lustful thoughts about the young woman. The descriptions of the Fijian people and their culture, I found to be quite condescending and disturbing. No doubt, there are aspects of their culture that were brutal, in relation to our modern values, but the reader is hit over the head with negative recounts of life on the island. Through a series of events, the young man's attitudes towards some of the Fijians begins to change, and he risks his life to defend those who have become his friends and allies. He still has selfish motives, since he has fallen in love with the young woman, and must rescue her from a dangerous situation.
The reader is expected to believe that he undergoes a complete turnaround in his feelings and attitudes towards the Fijans he has accepted as friends and allies. There is an epilogue at the back of the book that fills in the blanks concerning what happened to Nathan after leaving Fiji.
My main issue with this book is not that a white man could become friends with members of another culture and realize that their ways are not as inferior to his own as he first thought. This character's redemption is extreme, and we are expected to accept these changes over a fairly short time period, driven by his involvement to rescue his love, and a missing Fijian girl, who has been taken by a renegade group of natives.
Perhaps it is unfair to compare this book to Michener's Hawaii, an old favourite of mine. However, I continues to think about how Michener had handled similar subject matter, and this novel came up short. To say any more would give too much away.
Used to cover 2011 in the read a decade challenge for 2014.
Larry McMurtry is one of my favourite authors. Leaving Cheyenne
did not disappoint. This one of McMurtry's earlier works, before he wrote the wonderful
Lonesome Dove, which I count among my all-time favourite novels. Here is my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
List to remember from Listopia: best series with more than 7 books
Cliff Diver
I recently finished Carmen Amato's Cliff Diver. It features Emilia, a female detective in Acapulco, Mexico's all-male Police Department. To say she has a rough go of it would be an enormous understatement! None of her male counterparts want her there, and it was only because Rico, her existing partner, volunteered to take her on as his partner. If he had not done so, she would not have allowed to become a detective, despite achieving the highest marks on the detective's exam.
She suffers many types of harassment from all sides, including from her boss, Infante, who runs the department. Emilia finds herself in especially deep waters when Infante is murdered, and she is unexpectedly placed in control of the department and the investigation into his death, by the leader of the police union. Who is to be trusted in the department? In the mayor's office?
Emilia is one of the most appealing female characters I have encountered in some time. In addition to a hellish work environment, she is dealing with a mother with dementia, and facing the possibility that her devotion to a career has likely removed any chance for a family life.
The author has lived in Mexico, and her writing is gritty, realistic and totally believable. I read this in a day, and instantly wanted to buy the next installment,
Hat Dance. Her writing brings to light the contemporarily-relevant themes of sexual equality and harassment in both the workplace and within a culture. Additionally, she shines a light on police corruption, drug cartels, and the wide gap between classes in countries where rich tourists sip champagne, while the majority of the country's citizens live in abject poverty. There are some fairly violent sections in this book, along with adult behaviour that many would find disturbing, but the content is not gratuitous.
A compelling read, and I am anxious to move on to see how Emilia copes with her next case.
This is a book I want to read, but it is not entered in GR yet, a new release. I read an article about it in The Toronto Star, JAN. 12/14. The books is "Servants- A Downstairs View of Twentieth-Century Britain", by Lucy Lethbridge.
REVIEW IN PROGRESSSummerset Abbey
Reading this book provided me with an enjoyable experience mid-week, as I waited for the upcoming Sunday episode of Downton Abbey. Set in the years before the onset of WW I, this initial volume of Brown's trilogy introduces us to three lovely young women-Rowena, Victoria and Prudence. They are living a rather unusual life for upper class young women of this era. Their father, a botanist, has sheltered them from the highly structured social life of wealthy debutantes, by allowing them to follow their own interests and hobbies. They are well educated, but not driven to find an appropriate match from the hordes of eligible blue blooded bachelors, the cream of London high society.
Additionally, Prudence has been raised as an equal to the other girls, although her mother was Rowena and Victoria's governess. The trio's idyllic life is torn to shreds by the death of their father. His brother, Lord Buxton, decides to move the girls to his massive estate, Summerset Abbey, where they will live until they reach the age of twenty-five. Moreover, he insists that the only way Prudence can join the girls, is if she comes as a lady's maid, rather than recognizing her as one of the three young heiresses.
How the girls cope with the aftermath of this decision, provides the storyline for the novel. Since Prudence is now a servant, we see how her life at the Abbey unfolds in stark contrast to her situation before the botanist died. Lord and Lady Grantham of Downton Abbey fame, are certainly benevolent employers, compared to the master and mistress of Summerset Abbey. If you enjoy reading about the upstairs/downstairs life of the master and mistress of Summerset Abbey versus that of countless servants, this book should be on your reading horizon. Lots of details regarding room decor, fashion, expected behaviour and etiquette, are provided by the author, in order to bring the abbey to life. Rowena, Victoria and Prudence must cope with a very different day-to-day existence, and the reader is along for for the ride!
The book ended rather suddenly, but I did not mind, since I have the second volume of the trilogy
A Bloom in Winter ready to read. I am keen to discover what will happen to Rownena, Victoria and poor Prudence.
Blood Orchids
This is the first entry in a mystery series, by T. Neal, featuring Lei Teixera, a police constable on the Hawaiian Island of Hilo. Lei, short for Leilani, desperately wants to be a detective. When she and her partner stumble across the bodies of two dead high school girls while on another call, she brazenly introduces herself to the detectives who caught the case. She is determined to work her way onto the investigating detective team. Teixera's situation is complicated by a troubled past. While she struggles to prove her worth to the detective heading up the case, she is struggling to not let residual effects of past experiences hamper her ability to do her job. On top of that, someone has begun stalking her at home. These details may seem like common themes for an author to use. Nevertheless, what Neal accomplishes with her plot construction and character development draws you into the story, and keeps your interest as the investigation and Lei's role in it, unfolds. I have deliberately not included details about what happened to Lei, since the reader needs to learn about her past, as the rest of the plot is revealed. The author has lived in Hawaii for several years, and her backstory details are realistic and interesting. I really enjoyed this book, and finished it in a little more than a day. The tropical setting and Officer Lei, are both worth another look in the next book,
Torch Ginger.
Castle Cay
is another first entry in a mystery series, featuring a strong female lead character. She is not working as a detective or police officer, a common device used by mystery writers. Julie O'Hara is a body language expert and counsellor. She assists lawyers with jury selection and businesses with improving client relations.
Out of the blue comes the terrible news that a dear friend, a talented gay artist living in Key West, has died unexpectedly. She heads to Boston for the funeral, and the plot unfolds from there.
Castle Cay, in the Bahamas, is key to the story, although it is used in a minor way as a setting. This is a mystery with a romance woven into the plot. Additionally, Julie's friendship with Marc and his bereft partner David, provides extra interest. A good chunk of the story takes place in Key West, which I visited this summer for the first time. This feature added extra interest for me.
This is a pleasant, quick read and worth your time. The next book in the series is Swan Song
Excellent selection of books, Laurel!
Aaron-{{Everlast}}-Rebel Leader wrote: "Excellent selection of books, Laurel!"Thank you, glad to see you visited!
I'm always interested in what my friends are reading, and how they've constructed their corners. Your corner here is awesome!
Aaron-{{Everlast}}-Rebel Leader wrote: "I'm always interested in what my friends are reading, and how they've constructed their corners. Your corner here is awesome!"Thank you. Feel free to visit often. I love company in the corner.
Just checking in with you Hope you are your family are doing well
We are, Michael. Thank you. So kind of you to ask. Have been busy trying to find a long term care facility for my Mom, who is 95. She cannot remain in the seniors' residence where she has been for the last 3 years, since she needs a lot more nursing care. It is an hour and a half trip each way when we go, since she is in Belleville, where my sister lives. So we have been going out together to look at places. Her health is pretty fragile, and we have had some scares. I had her 5 min. Away from me in her own apt. until three years ago, but her dementia had increased so that she couldn't stay there any longer,although I was leaving meals for her, doing her laundry etc. It is a big worry, and we are hoping we can get her into a new place before anything more serious happens. So, not as much time for reading, at the moment. She has a form of dementia, not diagnosed as Alzheimer's, but close to it. It is certainly difficult to watch. Still missing my doggie- no waggy tail when we come home.
Could really use some energizing from babysitting our two little granddaughters this weekend, so our son can take his wife away for a Valentine weekend. We havent't seen them for a month-they are 3 hours away, so looking forward to that. I turn 60 this Sunday...can't believe it! It is only a number, right?
Hope all is well wth you and yours. Thanks for looking out for me! Much appreciated!
Now that I am home from work I can chat a little.I hope you find the perfect home for your mom, some place close and well staffed. So far, I have been lucky with my mom. She's in her eighties, lives alone in a retirement village in Dearborn MI. She gave up her house a little over a year ago. I thought she would have regrets, but evidently not. She is having a ball. I'll be flying up at the end of the month for a few days. I hope the weather breaks before then. I don't want to spend my vacation time sitting in an airport.
Little League is starting up--no more free time. Johnny wants me to coach again. I really don't want to--I don't have the sports knowledge nor the patience to put up with kids. We shall see.
Not really doing any challenges--just reading whatever falls into my lap. We'll see if any pattern developes.
Just finished Murder in the Place of Anubis
, a first book in a mystery/detective series, set in Ancient Egypt, during the time of Tutankhamen. The main character is Meron, who serves as The Eyes and Ears of Pharoah. I read this a long time ago, and didn't remember much about the storyline. I enjoyed reading this book, especially because of the historical setting, and cultural details provided. Also reminded me of how much my students used to love learning about Ancient Egypt! This was a dangerous time to be in power, and the book provides political intrigue as well as a good mystery to solve. I will certainly search out the next instalment of Lord Meron's story.
Hey Laurel. How ya doin', sugar tits?
Aaron wrote: "Hey Laurel. How ya doin', sugar tits?"Not at all impressed with your choice of words!
Just finished The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling
. This is my second Bernie Rhodenbarr mystery, and the third in the series. Lots of funny lines, and I love his descriptions while Bernie is working in his book store, also learned more about his friend, Carolyn. Not quite as enjoyable as the Sinatra/Burglar book, but perhaps that is because I didn't know much about Kipling. Will look forward to my next Bernie.
Didn't mean to offend you. I call my girlfriend that. Sorry.
Just checking up on you. Hope everything is fine with you and yours. How's that new grand baby doing?
Hi Michael and Laurel. Hope you both are well.
Michael wrote: "Just checking up on you. Hope everything is fine with you and yours. How's that new grand baby doing?"Things are good, Michael. Thank you. Molly is doing well- 4 months old, rolling over, loves to giggle, already 29.6 inches tall! Going to be tall like her daddy! It is wonderful having her only a few min. away from us. We haven't seen the other two since early Feb.- we are all going to be together for Easter. I am very excited about that! Hope you have a wonderful Easter break with your family.
Didn't mean to snub you Aaron. I can only hit Goodreads for a few minutes at at time from my work computer, as my home computer has the flue. Have to keep checking my rear view mirror to be sure the boss isn't sneaking up on me. I relly like your Goodreads Fanantic group.
No, I was being sarcastic, Michael. I know I wasn't snubbed. Oh, you're on GR from work. I've done that, too, so I know how it goes.
Ironies of ironies my computer has the flu. Thanks, and we're glad to have you as a member, Michael.
Ironies of ironies my computer has the flu. Thanks, and we're glad to have you as a member, Michael.
Laura,how you doing? haven't seen much from you lately.
Everything alright?
Michael wrote: "Laura,how you doing? haven't seen much from you lately.
Everything alright?"
Michael, you are much a good guy! I am fine. I have been reading a fair bit but not writing as many reviews or posting as much. I guess I just needed a change. Also, I have been knitting madly! I made my two granddaughters little afghans for their dollies for Easter, and have been working on several large projects. Many of our friends are having grandchildren, so the knitting needles had to come out. I can't knit and read at the same time because of patterns and counting etc. listening to books doesn't work either. So a ball game is usually on, with the sound turned down! But I should be around more, once I finish a couple of these large projects. Unless more babies turn up! Best to you and your family. It is so nice to be missed,
Reminder to self:Read more of Peter RobinsonDry Bones That Dream
. Reread the ones I have already. Have been watching DCI Banks on tv, and enjoying it immensely.
Laurel wrote: "Reminder to self:Read more of Peter RobinsonDry Bones That Dream
. Reread the ones I have already. Have been watching DCI Banks o..."I've been watching it too. Good show. Inspector Banks is played by the same actor who was the priest in the first few series of Ballykissangel
Michael wrote: "Laurel wrote: "Reminder to self:Read more of Peter RobinsonDry Bones That Dream
. Reread the ones I have already. Have been watch..."I have not seen Ballykissangel. What is it about? Is it Irish? Sounds like it might be, and I know you have a great fondness for things Irish. I really like the actor who plays Banks.
It was a BBC series about a village in Ireland (Avoca, County Wicklow was the setting--I made a special stop there last time I was in country, just to drink a pint at Fitzgerald's) about a young Catholic priest who is sent there almost as a punishment. I think it lasted 6 seasons, with multiple cast changes. Alas, some of these actors have left us. You can watch some of the episodes on U-Tube. Just Google Ballykissangle and surf some of the results. I wish our local public station would reair the series. I really miss it.
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