You'll love this one...!! A book club & more discussion
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What Are You Reading? - 2019
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PattyMacDotComma
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Jan 09, 2019 04:40AM
Ghost Busting Mystery by Daisy Pettles is corny humour and a quick, light "detective" story.
3★ Link to my review with several quirky quotes
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I finished The Little Paris Bookshop last night. Finally! It felt like it was taking forever to read it.Tonight, I will start Alias Grace. It's for my real life bookclub, and I'm hosting the discussion on Jan 22nd, so I'm anxious to get it finished. It will also count for the MM challenge.
I really enjoyed Alias Grace on audio. Did you choose tha book or do you have a more democratic club? In my book club (to which I am just waiting for my lift) the host chooses the book.
I finishedA Drink Before the War and liked it but wasn't blown away. I agree with Janice about how long it takes to get throughThe Little Paris Bookshop, but I'm determined to finish it tonight.
Educated is going better than expected, but because I'm feeling the need for something historical and mysterious, I'm going to start A Morbid Taste for Bones today as well. Sometimes, I get bored way too easily and like to bounce between books to keep things interesting. LOL Also, I think I can fit it into the yearly challenge somewhere; so that's a bonus.
I started Every Day by David Levithan for the yearly challenge 😊
Margo wrote: "I really enjoyed Alias Grace on audio. Did you choose tha book or do you have a more democratic club? In my book club (to which I am just waiting for my lift) the host chooses the book."Whoever is hosting choses the book to be discussed. She also provides all the snacks and beverages for the evening. We rotate the host duties. I wonder what I should serve for prison fare. LOL!
I finished Becoming. I had a lot of admiration for Michelle Obama before I read the book, and I have even more now. Living your life in a fish bowl is very difficult. Tomorrow I will start Royal Assassin for the buddy read. It will also find a place on my MM challenge.
Now I’m looking even more forward to read Becoming, Janice! And it’s next up - it already is on my nightstand 😄
I put aside A Free Man of Color since I was suffering from a "right book/wrong moment" case. I liked her descriptions of New Orleans pre civil war, but I don't think I was getting into the story enough. Back to my TBR.I am going now with The Little Stranger, that of course fits the MM Challenge.
Janice wrote: "I finished Becoming. I had a lot of admiration for Michelle Obama before I read the book, and I have even more now. Living your life in a fish bowl is very difficult."I'm reading that with another group next month. I can't wait to read it.
Yesterday I started Die Therapie byFITZEK SEBASTIAN. I am still in the beginning, but I have read two other of his books and I liked them.
I'm almost done with Us Against You and expect to finish it today. I'm also reading Sold on a Monday, which is a little slow to me right now. So, I picked up The Nowhere Child, which feels like the right pace for me right now.
Ooooh, Wildgoose! Finally someone that also reads in German 😊
Wildgoose wrote: "Yesterday I started Die Therapie byFITZEK SEBASTIAN. I am still in the beginning, but I have read two other of his books and I liked them."I have that book in english but still haven't read it. I will be interested what you think.
Fiona wrote: "Ooooh, Wildgoose! Finally someone that also reads in German 😊"Pretty sure there are a few actually. I think Annerlee does.
I think Claire also reads in German.
I finished The Corset. It was an enjoyable listen with a little twist at the end but on the whole, fairly predictable.Starting Royal Assassin today I hope - at the moment it is missing from my kindle 😱 Alexa will read it for me so I'm not imagining that I own it, but great and all as Alexa is, I can't get her to read to me outside the house!
While I'm working on that problem I will start Different Class which IS on my kindle. It's time I got back to some whispersync reading anyway. I am getting very lazy about actual reading when it is so much easier to listen while I do other things.
Fiona wrote: "Ooooh, Wildgoose! Finally someone that also reads in German 😊"hahahaha! Actually, no, not in German...I studied german for about a year, but due to work etc I was not able to continue...so I'm reading it translated in my mother language.
I have read two more of his books and I liked them, so I hope this one too will not disappoint :)
Oh no Margo! Hope you can recover it. I've started too.A guy across from me in the train is reading and he just laughed out loud. If he doesn't laugh, he looks amused. I had a sneak peek and he's a few pages into The Martian. I never knew it was humorous, is it?
I laughed out loud with The Martian, for sure. :)
Oh yes, some very funny parts in The Martian!I finally outsmarted my Fire and got my book! I tried search by title, no luck, then by author, still nothing. Finally searched my entire by length - SUCSESS!!! It is the 15th longest audiobook I own ;-)
Alexa can read to you? I have Alexa on my new kindle but i've jot used her yet. I don't know what she can do really.
Yes, Alexa can read most kindle books out loud. Some people think she speaks too fast, but I don't really mind it. The only problem is that when I switch between Alexa and reading on kindle, the book doesn't always sync up like it's supposed to. So if Alexa reads a few chapters out loud, and then I want to continue reading the ebook on Kindle, it will still be at the point where Alexa started reading rather than where she left off. She can also start and stop audible books, and this process seems to be much more fluid.
Peggy wrote: "A guy across from me in the train is reading and he just laughed out loud. If he doesn't laugh, he looks amused. I had a sneak peek and he's a few pages into The Martian. I never knew it was humorous, is it?"I didn't love that one because there was too much science/math involved, which took me out of the story. So, I tend to remember it as boring. (Definitely not the popular opinion.) However, the main character is very witty and humorous. So, I'd have to say yes, there are at least funny parts.
Peggy wrote: "Oh no Margo! Hope you can recover it. I've started too.A guy across from me in the train is reading and he just laughed out loud. If he doesn't laugh, he looks amused. I had a sneak peek and he's..."
Oh yeah - there were some great lines in The Martian!
I am confused about the Alexa you guys are talking about on the Kindle, and the Alexa that my sister has (I have not seen it.)My sister does not read. I have been trying for years to convince her to get audiobooks from her library, but she thinks she will not like it. If her Alexa can read to her, even better, but I am not sure my sister can manage Audible nor Overdrive. She has a tablet because she needed it to be able to get an Internet account, but she has no idea how to use or do anything. I just wanted her to try a book on CD. She does crafts and makes jewelry and lots of other things that she could be listening to a book while she is doing it. I am going to keep trying though. I just wish she did not live 300 miles away.
Gregg Hurwitz's Hellbent is the third in the Orphan X (Nowhere Man) series. This is my favourite so far.
4.5★ Link to my review
I was one who loved The Martian. There are definitely some laugh out loud moments. Margo, I'm glad you got your Kindle to behave. How is the quality of Alexa's narration compared to the narrators of audiobooks? My dad got the Echo Show for Christmas which has a screen. I thought it would pull up the Kindle edition of his books, but she just wanted to read it to him. I was more focused on the mechanics of the device than the quality of the narration.
Oh, and my niece hates the Echo Dot. Her name is Alexa.
Janice wrote: "Oh, and my niece hates the Echo Dot. Her name is Alexa."We just had a new girl at work start this week called Alexa. I had to ban the IT guy the day before she started from making any Amazon jokes.
I started The Ruin today for the Movie Challenge. I am of the opinion that I shall pick up whatever looks interesting at the moment as most things will work for the Challenge, otherwise I get overwhelmed with the possibilities!The author is coming to work in Feb for an author talk, so I thought I would give it a read and see if I want to go along. So far, it's great.
I finished Educated and liked it. Having said that, books like this always make me a little nervous. Even though the author tries to make it clear that she's giving her own experiences within her particular family, I'm always afraid that one bad situation will shape people's opinions of others who might share the same ideals. I don't know if that makes any sense. The family, especially the father, in this book held some really extreme views. However, many of the underlying ideals are not harmful in and of themselves. It's only when they become unsafe or abusive that the problems arise. I just hope this book and others like it don't fuel the intolerance that some people have towards those who are different from themselves. LOL Okay off my soapbox now.I also finished A Morbid Taste for Bones which was lighter and much more fun. It was the first in a series though which I definitely don't need. Here's to adding to an already too full TBR.
Now, I'm going to start reading The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane which I think will fit the historical fiction task on the yearly challenge. I'm also going to start listening to A Red Herring Without Mustard mostly just because this series makes me smile. I might be able to find a place for it in the challenge, but I'm not sure yet.
Rusalka wrote: "I started The Ruin today for the Movie Challenge. I am of the opinion that I shall pick up whatever looks interesting at the moment as most things will work for the Challenge, other..."Looks good. Nice you might have the chance to talk to the author.
Rusalka wrote: "We just had a new girl at work start this week called Alexa. I had to ban the IT guy the day before she started from making ..."I'm sure she gets a lot of that...
Sandra wrote: "Rusalka wrote: "We just had a new girl at work start this week called Alexa. I had to ban the IT guy the day before she started from making ..."I'm sure she gets a lot of that..."
Oh have no doubt. She didn't need it from us on day one though :D
Tricia wrote: "Yes, Alexa can read most kindle books out loud. Some people think she speaks too fast, but I don't really mind it. The only problem is that when I switch between Alexa and reading on kindle, the bo..."Yes, the syncing is a nuisance. They have just brought in a new feature that you can say "alexa slow down" and she will speak at 0.75 of normal speed. You can also speed her up in increments of 0.25. I like that feature as some audiobook narrators are very slow to my ear.
I just started The Winter of the Witch, the third book in the Winternight Trilogy. It starts right where book two left off. Yay!
@cherie - alexa can read to you but only audible or kindle books so your sister would need to able to manage those acvounts. Digital downloads from the library might be a better option for her. Sounds like she is a perfect candidate!@janice - in this case it was the professional narration that was lost ( thankfully now found!). I find the mechanical voice hard to handle. It has to be a really good book for which their is no audible available to tempt me to go there!
@tricia - I thought it pretty clear that the problems in the MCs family sprang mostly from illness although there were elements of the patriarchal role that i didn't like that are, i think, connected to religious belief. I agree with the principal of freedom of belief but it seems to me that in many religions women have less freedom than men. Educated is a though provoking book though. I don't read a lot of non-fiction but I really enjoyed this one. I think some of it, as with most memoirs, needs to be taken with a large grain of salt though 😉
Rusalka wrote: "Janice wrote: "Oh, and my niece hates the Echo Dot. Her name is Alexa."We just had a new girl at work start this week called Alexa. I had to ban the IT guy the day before she started from making ..."
Why would they pick such a common name for the device? At least Apple chose something less common like Siri. Apparently, you can change the name to "Amazon or Echo". Still, I know a woman named Echo.
I just bought a Ring doorbell that has a camera feed and you can see who's at the door from your phone. It came with an Echo Dot, but I'm not sure I'll set it up. I have an Apple TV and Siri and the Echo Dot is a bit of a duplication.
I'm reading The Rain Watcher. I've read other books by this author an liked them for the most part. I guess I wasn't paying attention to news about Paris and the Seine in the past and didn't realize that sometimes the Seine floods. A major time in 1910 and as recently as 2016. Or that the Zouave statue is used as a flood gauge. One certainly learns new things by reading books.
Janice, I’ve been looking at the Ring doorbells, there is just so much questionable activity going on. How are you liking it?
I am also reading Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback for my yearly challenge. Managing and caring for camels is rough!
Margo wrote: @cherie - alexa can read to you but only audible or kindle books so your sister would need to able to manage those acvounts. Digital downloads from the library might be a better option for her. Sounds like she is a perfect candidate!..."Thanks for the clarification and the information, Margo.
Jenn wrote: "Janice, I’ve been looking at the Ring doorbells, there is just so much questionable activity going on. How are you liking it?"I have a friend coming on Thursday to install it. I could have used it today, since I had just gotten out of the shower when the bell rang.
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You'll love this one...!! A book club & more
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