What Are You Reading Now (anything goes) 2019

[Julie]

The Graveyard Apartment
Mariko Koike
4/5 stars
A young Japanese couple with a child is living in Tokyo but they decide to move out of their current lodgings and buy a condo. The condo is a steal but is located next to a cemetery. Shortly, after moving in to their new apartment they find out that few people are living there. They make friends with the people that are there but one day their child and a friend are playing in the basement and are trapped down there. Luckily they are rescued but unusual and eerie events continue to occur impelling the residents to leave until they are the last family in the building. I enjoyed this fast and eerie read.

[Koren]

Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout
5 stars and a heart


A rare jaunt into fiction for me:

I loved the first book about Olive so was excited to see another book about her. At the end of this book Olive is quite elderly so I was sad to think this is probably the last book about her. Olive says exactly what she is thinking and does not worry if she is politically correct. She can be abrasive and yet loveable at the same time. I loved it that Olive is not perfect and she knows it. Olive can make you laugh and cry. She seems just like someone you would want to sit and have coffee with and gossip about everyone else in town. I tried to take my time reading this book to make it last but it was impossible.

[Julie]

Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War
Mary Roach
4/5 stars
Mary Roach, one of my favorite non-fiction authors, loves to explore the most unusual subjects and she doesn’t fail in this book about the science behind the problems that crop up when soldiers are defending us. Topics include stink bombs, flies on the battlefield, how to make shark repellent and much more. Not for everyone but for those curious in unusual topics.

[Julie]

Nightbird
Alice Hoffman
4/5 stars
This wonderful children’s novel about acceptance revolves around Twig, a young girl and her family who keeps to themselves because of her brother’s mysterious condition. When a new family moves to town everything changes for them when the sisters befriend Twig. I have read Hoffman before but I never knew she wrote children’s books.

[Koren]

My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
2 stars



After reading Olive Kitteridge and Olive, Again I wanted to read more by this author, but Lucy Barton just left me confused and actually, kind of bored. I was confused with the back and forth timeline and the relationship between Lucy and her mother was actually a lack of relationship. The book didnt really go into any depth about any of her relationships. About 50 pages in I didnt really want to continue, but it is a short book so I powered through and finished it in one day.

[Julie]

Dear Fahrenheit 451: Love and Heartbreak in the Stacks
Annie Spence
3.5/5 stars
Annie Spence, real life librarian, writes of her love of reading and the books she adores by writing quirky love letters to them. Of course she also writes about some of the duds that she has read and those get breakup notes. A very charming book but be warned this may increase your to be read book list!

[Koren]

Julie wrote: "
Dear Fahrenheit 451: Love and Heartbreak in the Stacks
Annie Spence
3.5/5 stars
Annie S..."

Not mine! Read it already and would recommend it.

[Julie]

Echo
Pam Muñoz Ryan
5/5 stars
This is the wonderful story that starts with Otto, a young man who was lost in the forest but saved by 3 girls who are trapped in the forest. They give him a harmonica marked with an M. If he passes it on and it saves someone, the girls will be released. The harmonica touches the lives of three families and we learn of their tragic stories and what has become of them and the girls trapped in the forest. Written for children and young adults but adults will enjoy this too!

[Selina]

Uncle Tom's Cabinby Harriet Beecher Stowe
Was in the fridge library, its a classic that I never read so I thought I would, well its been a while since I heard of african americans being described as negroes and mulattos and quadroons and octoroons.

But I always wondered about the logistics of slavery in the South and how it came about in the first place, although that was never really explained, they just seemed to have them. The brutalities and heartaches of a system where men and women worked for others and were brought and sold and split up reminded me of the way people sometimes keep pets. Or farm animals, like horses.

In the story a couple who are about to be split up and sold along with their children escape, the mum flees to a Quaker settlement where she is treated kindly as a refugee and then goes on toward Canada I wonder just how many got that far. There is an element of preachiness to it but I think (white) people werent aware of how unchristian it was to have slaves, even if treated with kindness and it was trying to appeal to those aristocrats who had consciences.

I could probably say the same for every mean employer who treats their workers with contempt as if they are cattle, regardless of race.

[Julie]

Turbo Twenty-Three
Janet Evanovich
3.5/5 stars
Stephanie, once again is embroiled in another mystery when Ranger, a bounty hunter she occasionally works for, needs her to go undercover at an ice cream factory after a dead body covered with chocolate and pecans shows up in an ice cream truck. All the regulars make an appearance in this story including her Grandmother and her crazy friend Lula. I like this series, always a fun fast read.

[Koren]

Rod Serling and the Twilight Zone: The 50th Anniversary Tribute by Douglas Brode
3 stars


I am a huge Twilight Zone fan so I had to get this book. The book is published in 2009 so the series is actually 60 years old now and still playing. Netflix has all of the shows and it plays in holiday marathons on Sci-fi Channel. There is a more comprehensive book on the show by Marc Scott Zircee that is cited often in this book. The Zircee book is more comprehensive, listing each show in order and who acted, wrote, and produced the show and a brief synopsis of each show. This book by Doug Brode doesn't talk about each of the shows but offers a more in-depth look at the shows he thinks are more popular or maybe he just likes better. It was interesting to see, for instance, how Serling used clocks and mirrors as symbols in many shows and his use of references to Shakespeare. As a Twilight Zone fan I would read both books to get different perspectives.

[Julie]

The Westing Game
Ellen Raskin
3.5/5 stars
A group of residents from the same apartment building are invited to the home of the wealthy Samuel W. Westing to hear his will being read. To receive money from the will, they will have to partner up and play a game. But the game is very tricky and dangerous and they will have to rely on their partners to win! The core reading group for this Newberry Medal winner is teen and older children but adults will enjoy it too.