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What Are You Reading....The Third
Song Of the Lion – Anne Hillerman – 3.5***
This is book # 21 in the Leaphorn & Chee mystery series, set on the Navajo nation in Arizona and New Mexico. A car bombing in a high school parking lot begins the action, which focuses on the mediator for a dispute over a major development at the Grand Canyon. Hillerman matches her late father’s skill at plotting and character development. I love Officer Bernadette Manuelito who is a strong female lead. I read this out of order, but didn’t feel lost; still I think it’s a series that begs to be read in order.
My full review HERE
Simon the Fiddler – Paulette Jiles – 4****
Set in Texas at the end of the Civil War and the beginning of the reconstruction period, Jiles follows Simon Boudlin and his band of iterant musicians as they try to stay alive and out of trouble, and as Simon tries to win the heart of Doris, an indentured immigrant Irish lass. Simon is a marvelous character: intelligent, quick witted, resourceful, and determined. I love the way Jiles crafts her novels. While the plot focuses on the characters and their reactions to events happening around them, the atmosphere is enhanced by her descriptions of the landscape, the food, and culture of the times.
My full review HERE
Under the Mercy Trees – Heather Newton – 3.5***
Oh, what a tangled web we weave… There are so many things going on, so many secrets, so many betrayals. We have people consumed by alcohol (and/or drugs), mean-spirited control freaks, unfaithful spouses, guilty consciences, mental (and physical) illness and abject loneliness that comes with keeping all that bottled up. I’m exhausted by the effort required by these characters to hide so much and still co-exist in such tight quarters. This is Newton’s only novel; I wish there were more for me to read.
My full review HERE
Elevation – Stephen King – 4****
This was a delightful novella with an unusual plot device, but that focuses on human kindness and respect. King gives us a lesson on what it means to be a good neighbor, and how to support one another despite our differences. I like the way that they slowly come to know one another and resolve their conflicts. My edition also included a bonus short story, ”Laurie,” about a widower and his new puppy, which was a nice break from King’s well-known horror genre.
My full review HERE
The Odds – Stewart O’Nan – 4****
Subtitle: A Love Story Art and Marian Fowler travel to Niagara Falls for a sort of second honeymoon. Their thirty-year marriage is in shambles, and they’re facing financial ruin, so, of course, they cash in their life’s savings and decide to bet it all at roulette. Oh, I love O’Nan’s writing! He gives two wonderful characters, warts and all. At the end I’m betting on THEM.
My full review HERE
A Bookshop In Berlin – Françoise Frenkel – 4****
Subtitle: The Rediscovered Memoir of One Woman’s Harrowing Escape From the Nazis. Originally titled ”No Place To Lay One’s Head”, this is an interesting first-hand account of the author’s ultimately successful journey to safety in Switzerland.
My full review HERE
Olive Kitteridge – Elizabeth Strout – 4****
After my F2F book club chose to discuss the sequel, Olive, Again , I decided to revisit the original. I can clearly see her growth as a character. And I’m more sympathetic to Olive, even though she is still hard to like.
My full review HERE
The Dutch House – Ann Patchett – 4****
Patchett uses the youngest member of the Conroy family, Danny, to tell this decades-long story of the family’s fortunes. I love Patchett’s writing. I love the way she reveals her characters in what they say and do. We see Danny grow from a young child to a middle-aged man with children of his own. And we watch Maeve take on the mantle of responsibility for her younger brother, encouraging and pushing him to succeed, to prove that they can thrive without the legacy they expected.
My full review HERE
The Last Rhinos – Lawrence Anthony & Graham Spence – 3.5***
Lawrence Anthony has been called the Indiana Jones of conservationism. He certainly lives up to that moniker in this memoir of his efforts to save the last remaining Northern White Rhinos in the wild. Anthony went to great lengths to plan a rescue of these magnificent beasts. I only wish that more of the book was focused on the animals rather than on the negotiations with government officials and rebel group leaders.
My full review HERE
Hot Six – Janet Evanovich – 4****
Episode Six in the Stephanie Plum series has our charmingly inept bounty hunter on the trail of her mentor, and man of hot dreams, Ranger. This is possibly the funniest of the books in the series that I’ve read. I first read this in about March 2003, and I remember clearly reading in the cafeteria during my lunch break and bursting out in laughter loud enough to have people several tables away look up to see what was going on.
My full review HERE
American Spy – Lauren Wilkinson – 4****
What an interesting and inventive debut. Told as a letter to her young children, Marie relates the events that led to her meeting their father and her career in counterintelligence. Wilkinson uses some events from history – particularly the assassination of Thomas Sankara – to frame this story of personal responsibility, family dynamics, and loyalty: to family, to country, to social ideals.
My full review HERE
Secretariat – William Nack – 4****
Subtitle: The Making of a Champion. I think everyone knows about this horse and his extraordinary Triple Crown victory. Nack did extensive interviews with the people involved: owner Penny Tweedy, trainer Lucien Laurin, jockey Ron Turcotte, and groom Ed Sweat, as well as the many others surrounding the horse. The book starts slowly with a laborious genealogical history of both the people and the horse. But once he starts writing about the actual races …Nack makes the telling of those races almost as nail-bitingly exciting as it was to watch them live.
My full review HERE
Walk Two Moons – Sharon Creech – 5*****
I was completely drawn into the book from the beginning, as I learned that Sal was forced to move from her beloved Kentucky farm some 300 miles north to a town where there wasn’t even a tree in her yard. I liked the multi-generational aspect of the novel, as well as the story-within-a-story way Creech revealed what had happened. As Sal told the story of Phoebe and the lunatic, she was peeling back the layers of her own story, and finding ways to process her loss. Though I cried at the ending, I was left with a feeling hope. A marvelous book.
My full review HERE
The Unteachables – Gordon Korman – 4****
This was a fun, enjoyable middle-grade book about kids – and at least one teacher – who need a little extra help and a hefty dose of understanding and empathy. I loved how the kids came to understand one another, and how they came to understand their teacher and his struggles. I think that young teens and middle-grade students will particularly like the focus on what the kids CAN do. Put down and bullied, they are clearly NOT helpless victims. Bravo!
My full review HERE
Beneath the Bonfire – Nickolas Butler – 4****
In this collection of short stories Butler explores relationships: men and women; male bonding; fathers and children; people and the land. The ten stories are dark and mesmerizing, Butler’s characters are lonely and yet reaching out for connection. I recognize the landscape which can be brutally unforgiving for the person not experienced or equipped to survive the dangers of the north woods.
My full review HERE
Home – Nnedi Okorafor – 4****
Book 2 in the marvelous “Binti” science fiction trilogy. Okorafor is a wonderful storyteller! I love the way she crafts her tale, combining science fiction and traditional mysticism. I also like how she weaves in a message of social justice and against racism. Binti is one strong female lead. I’m looking forward to Book 3, to see how (I’m not even wondering whether) Binti manages to bring peace between warring factions and ensure the future of her people.
My full review HERE
Bluffton – Matt Phalen – 4****
Subtitle: My Summers With Buster Keaton. This graphic novel explores the early 20th century era of Vaudeville, and one particular summer resort that catered to many of the era’s Vaudeville stars – including the Keaton family and their talented son, Buster. It’s a wonderful way to introduce young readers to this by-gone era.
My full review HERE
The Winter of Frankie Machine – Don Winslow – 4****
Wow, what a ride! The action is fast and furious, and deadly. Retired Mob hit-man Frank Machianno (a/k/a/ Frankie Machine) is really on his own, with no one to trust. And the reader is pretty much on her own as well. There are more potential suspects than Carter has pills. The action is non-stop and there are surprises right up to the ending. This is the first book by Winslow that I’ve read. It won’t be the last.
My full review HERE
: This Time Together – Carol Burnett – 4****
Subtitle: Laughter and Reflection. In this memoir Carol Burnett chronicles her show business career, from her early roles in New York, to headlining her incredibly popular variety show and beyond. I love Carol Burnett. She is truly an American Treasure. I can’t remember the last time I read a book that had me both howling out loud in uncontrollable laughter (my husband came from the other side of the house to see what was going on), and crying to the point where I had to put it aside for a moment because I literally could not see the words on the page for my tears. That speaks, I think, to the genuine person Burnett is, and to her generosity of spirit to lay it all wout there.
My full review HERE
An Irish Country Village – Patrick Taylor – 4****
Book two in the popular Irish Country Doctor series, relating the trials and tribulations of young Dr. Barry Laverty as he begins his practice as a country GP in the mid-1960s in Ballybucklebo, a fictitious community in Northern Ireland full of eccentric and memorable residents. Taylor has a gift for making his character so alive they fairly jump off the page. I also love the descriptions he gives of the landscape; makes me feels that I’ve actually been to Northern Ireland. Will definitely keep reading this series.
My full review HERE
The Bookshop Of the Broken Hearted – Robert Hillman – 3.5***
In 1968 in rural Australia, Tom Hope runs his farm, milks his cows, tends his sheep and tries to find a new purpose in his life after his wife, Trudy, left him and took her son, Peter, with her. Then he meets Hannah Babel, a survivor of Auschwitz and some 15 years his senior, who hires him to build bookcases for her new bookshop. I really liked how Hillman drew these broken-hearted people, how he revealed their pain and their efforts to heal and move forward. Yet, I wasn’t sure I understood Hannah all that well.
My full review HERE
Finding Dorothy – Elizabeth Letts – 3.5***
Letts mines history to go “behind the scenes” on the making of the 1938 movie that launched Judy Garland’s star - The Wizard of Oz - and, more importantly, the story of how L Frank Baum came to write the series that captured the imaginations of millions of readers. I was engaged and interested from the beginning and felt that I learned much about both the making of the movie and about the people Maud and Frank Baum were.
My full review HERE
The Accidental Tourist – Anne Tyler – 3.5***
Tyler excels at writing character-driven works that give us a glimpse of their lives in all their messy complexity and banal ordinariness. I love the scenes she creates that reveal so much of family dynamics; the Thanksgiving dinner is priceless, as is Rose’s wedding, and Christmas at Muriel’s mother’s house.
My full review HERE
All Quiet On the Western Front – Erich Marie Remarque – 4****
Many have called this the “greatest war novel of all time.” I’m not certain I agree with that superlative, but it IS a powerful, emotional, gripping, disturbing, enthralling, and honest exploration of war and its affects on the young who become the pawns of their leaders.
My full review HERE
Little Big Man – Thomas Berger – 3.5***
Berger’s novel purports to be a memoir/autobiography of Jack Crabb – frontiersman, Indian scout, gunfighter, buffalo hunter, adopted Cheyenne. I was completely entertained by this novel of the American West. Berger gives the reader quite the raconteur in Crabb, with a gift for story-telling and colorful language. By the narrator’s own account, he certainly has a gift for landing on his feet, managing to get out of more than one potentially deadly scrape by his wits or sheer dumb luck. If the scenarios stretch credulity, well that is part of the fun.
My full review HERE
Where We Come From – Oscar Cásares – 4****
The setting is Brownsville, Texas, a border town with a mean reputation as a haven for human traffickers and drug runners. But it’s also a community of hard-working, middle-class people who want nothing but a safe home for their children, decent schools, good roads, a thriving business district and reliable city services. Cásares focuses on one such family. I really enjoyed this exploration of a complex issue. There are multiple layers to the novel and much fodder for a stimulating book club discussion.
My full review HERE
A Long Petal Of the Sea – Isabel Allende – 4****
A family epic covering six decades of history from 1930s Spanish Civil War to 1990s in Chile. This is the kind of historical fiction at which Allende excels. She seamlessly weaves the real historical events into the story line, while giving the reader characters that come alive on the page and about which we come to care. Central to this work, as to all of Allende’s novels, are the strong women. Roser and Ofelia certainly take center stage. But the older women – Carme, Laura and Juana – are equally strong, resilient, intelligent and determined.
My full review HERE
A Gathering Of Old Men – Ernest J Gaines – 4****
A dead man. A running tractor. A white woman who claims she shot him. A gathering of old men with shotguns. A sheriff who knows everyone is lying. A father who needs revenge. What is so marvelous about this work is that Gaines tells it from a variety of viewpoints, as different characters narrate chapters. One by one they tell their stories simply but eloquently.
My full review HERE
Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee – Dee Brown – 5*****
Subtitle: An Indian History of the American West. Brown’s interest in the history of the American West took him to many resources that were previously ignored in crafting the official textbooks from which millions were taught American history. This work is one attempt to correct the information so many thought they knew. Brown relates the systemic plunder of Native lands region by region, tribe by tribe, battle by battle, broken treaty by broken treaty. It is a very personal account. And it is heartbreaking.
My full review HERE
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And that gets me all caught up with reviews for this year!
I just finished
by Yaa Gyasi, which was amazing. I'm starting
.
Mod
Just finished... Fateful Destiny: An Epic Struggle to Change the Course of American History ... edgy for sure!Now looking for my next read. Perusing the posts for ideas.
Mod
Blistering barnacles, I'm a reader! wrote: "Hello, I'm new here. I couldn't post in the intro thread so I guess I will just post here. You can call me A. I love to read (cliché but what can I say? It's true!) I just finished 1984 [yesterda..."
Hi A!!
I read 1984 in 1981 and I still think it is one of the best books I ever read.
I'm about halfway through Daisy Jones & The Six. Pretty good so far. I was in high school during the late 60's/early 70's - it doesn't seem like anything new and kind of predictable but will wait to get to the end for a review.
I haven't been on here for ages so its fascinating to see the variety of books everyone is reading.I have just finished The Tattooist of Auschwitz which was pretty horrific but, in my opinion, a “must read” and I am now reading Where the Crawdads Sing.
Kylie wrote: "A cosy mystery from the point of view of an eleven year old girlThe Nancys by R.W.R. Mcdonald
https://www.goodreads.com/review/sh..."
That does look interesting
Just finished:
Pretty Little Wife
by: Darby Kane
Strong female characters and some decent twists. My full review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Just finished:
No Sleep Till Wonderland
by: Paul Tremblay
A departure from his usual fare, poking some fun at the noir tradition with mixed success. My full review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Mod
Finishing Frankie and the Wedding, last piece of a Spanish compilation of Carson McCullers, and starting Rayuela by Cortázar.
Just finished:
Finlay Donovan Is Killing It
by: Elle Cosimano
Really funny caper- see my full review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
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