What are you currently reading...... Showing 1,901-1,910 of 1,910

[Karin]

MS. KYM wrote: "Currently reading:

ReShonda Tate Billingsley"

How do you like it? I've had mixed experiences with her books (as in whether or not I liked them)

[MS. KYM]

Karin wrote: "MS. KYM wrote: "Currently reading:

ReShonda Tate Billingsley"

How do you like it? I've had mixed expe..."

Hi, Karin... I haven't read many of R.T. Billingsley's book, but this one I did enjoy..
Secrets upon secrets within a family, makes for an interesting storyline.. An unexpected twist & turn, here and there
One promise to be kept at the request of the Matriarch of the Bell family.... Four daughters... Four personalities & situations...

I'd recommend this one, and would like to 'hear' your thoughts. 😊

BTW... I finished the book yesterday, 7/21/25

[Karin]

MS. KYM wrote: "Karin wrote: "MS. KYM wrote: "Currently reading:

ReShonda Tate Billingsley"

How do you like it? I've ..."

Okay. I may read this in the future. One of hers I just didn't like at all, but I've liked two, so it's looking promising.

[Leslie]

I’m reading Lost in the City by Edward P Jones. It’s a short story collection.

[Zadignose]

I haven't participated in the group in a long, long while, but hello! I'm reading Black No More by George Schuyler, and I don't know why I hadn't heard of it until recently. It's from 1930, and it applies a Jonathan-Swift level of cynicism while exploring the question of what would happen if there were a method for turning black people into white people. The book is very sharp in its satire, portraying everybody in every corner of the country as self-interested, and everyone's either a mark or a con, or sometimes both. Capitalism is skewered, racism is skewered, ignorance and moral weakness are explored in all their pettiness and pathos, and all those who preach the good while doing the bad for their own personal profit are held up for shame, as in the thinly disguised parody of Marcus Garvey in the form of fictional character Santop Licorice (not a major character, but a notable one).

Portrayal of overtly racist, weak-willed, fearful followers of white-supremacist movements (not so much the charismatic leaders, but the run-of-the-mill bigots) come in for special treatment:

"The audience was composed of the lower stratum of white working people: hard-faced, lantern-jawed, dull-eyed adult children, seeking like all humanity for something permanent in the eternal flux of life. The young girls in their cheap finery with circus makeup on their faces; the young men, aged before their time by child labor and a violent environment; the middle-aged folk with their shiny, shabby garb and beaten countenances; all ready and eager to be organized for any purpose except improvement of their intellects and standard of living."

The book has its clunky moments, but not many, and often it's quite funny. It's also a good way to revive some almost forgotten old slang ("forty" from "forte", extended to mean "fine and pleasant", "century" for hundred-dollar note, "ofay" as a slur for white folks... do people still say this? I didn't know). Granted, the author also obsessively reuses certain vocabulary words; "comely" and "erstwhile" are fine words to use maybe one or even two times each in a book, but when everything that once was is now erstwhile, and every woman who's not ugly is comely, it gets to be a bit much. But that's a quibble; the book is overall a good read.

I'm 2/3 of the way into it, but I don't doubt it will continue to be good through the end... though I have no idea yet how it can end. Probably badly for everyone, but well for the reader.

Cheers.

[MS. KYM]

Currently reading:

Quinta Brunson

[MS. KYM]

Currently reading:

David Grann

[Trudy]

I’m enjoying it.

[J. C.]

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...

Wow! What a book. All I can say is that it's not an easy read, but it is fascinating so far.

[MS. KYM]

Currently reading:

Kathleen Grissom