Summer Reading 2019: A Universe of Stories

[New Providence]

Starting today through July 31, enter to win gift cards donated by these local businesses!

Bagel Cafe, Bellariva, Chopt, Cinemark, Coppolla, Linda's Creative Gifts, McDonald's, NP Fuel, Prestige Diner, ShopRite, Skin Deep, Trader Joe's, Unwind Yoga, Zita's

Earn a raffle ticket for each adult- or YA-level book you read, up to 6. Pick them up at the reference desk. This year, you select which gift card drawing(s) you want to enter!

Last day to collect your tickets and place them in the prize baskets is July 31. Winners will be contacted August 1.

Get your reading log here or at the reference desk.

After you read 3 books, pick up your choice of coupon at the reference desk: $1 off fines coupon, free DVD checkout, or a bookstore buck. Get your Universe of Stories bookmark too!

If you read anything you'd like to recommend to the rest of the GoodReads group, please mention it the comments!

[Rosanne]

Reading The Patch by John McPhee (from new book shelf, I should return by next week!). Who knew I could find essays about fishing, golf etc interesting. Besides being an author, he is (was?) a creative writing professor at Princeton, so some local stuff.

Listened to If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin from the Libby site. Wonderful.

[Sangeeta]

hi
the Challenge and Raffle sounds fun. thanks for starting up the discussion again this year ! hope everyone has a good summer.

some recently read recommendations:

Women Talking (Miriam Toews)


Why Not Me (Mindy Kaling)


Silent Spring (Rachel Carson)


Bridge of Clay (Marcus Zusak who wrote The Book Thief)


reading Factfulness now
Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think


listening to Machines Like Us (Ian McEwan)

[New Providence]

I am in search of a recommendation for a really good historical fiction book as a respite from the serious stuff I've been reading lately! Any suggestions out there?

[Sangeeta]

Diane Setterfield
Once Upon a River


this was an light read, well written, playing with magical realism. she's the author of the 13th Tale, in case you read that.

[Sangeeta]

unsheltered
barbara kingsolver



little nothing
marisa silver

[Marilyn]

New Providence wrote: "I am in search of a recommendation for a really good historical fiction book as a respite from the serious stuff I've been reading lately! Any suggestions out there?"

I recently read "The Masterpiece" by Fiona Davis, author of few books that take place in Manhattan years ago. "The Masterpiece" takes place mainly in Grand Central Station and I learned that there used to be an art school upstairs there. Interesting. I'm looking forward to her new book, "Chelsea Girls" especially since I grew up in and around the Chelsea neighborhood.
I also recently read "The Things We Cannot Say" by Kelly Rimmer and I really thought it was well done. WWII story. Good characters.
And have you read "The Lost Girls" by Pam Jenoff.

[Marilyn]

Sangeeta wrote: "hi
the Challenge and Raffle sounds fun. thanks for starting up the discussion again this year ! hope everyone has a good summer.

some recently read recommendations:

Women Talking (Miriam Toews)
[..."

Sangeeta - do you like "Machines Like Us"?

[Marilyn]

New Providence wrote: "Starting today through July 31, enter to win gift cards donated by these local businesses!

Bagel Cafe, Bellariva, Chopt, Cinemark, Coppolla, Linda's Creative Gifts, McDonald's, NP Fuel, Prestige ..."

Fun! Thanks so much for organizing this!

[K]

Historical fiction not usually my thing, but if u haven't read them, would recommend Ken Follett's "Pillars of the Earth" series

[Sangeeta]

hi Marilyn

yes, i'm enjoying Machines Like Me. i guess you could call it sci-fi, but it's low key. provocative , conceivable, and therefore frightening.


Marilyn wrote: "Sangeeta wrote: "hi
the Challenge and Raffle sounds fun. thanks for starting up the discussion again this year ! hope everyone has a good summer.

some recently read recommendations:

Women Talking..."

Marilyn wrote: "Sangeeta wrote: "hi
the Challenge and Raffle sounds fun. thanks for starting up the discussion again this year ! hope everyone has a good summer.

some recently read recommendations:

Women Talking..."

[Jackie]

About historical fiction ... James Michener is great ! Chesapeake is one of my favorites.

[Rosanne]

Just had another car trip and listened to The House of Broken Angels by Urrea. Wonderful, I highly recommend it. So well written and read. Got it off the new CD shelf. Family saga about a Mexican American family in Mexico and then San Diego. I gave this 5 stars which I VERY rarely do.

[New Providence]

Suggestions for beach reads? If they're in, I'll add them to the beach reads display at the library.

Read 3 books since mid-June? Pick up one of the following at the front desk:

$1 off the bookstore, $1 off fines, free DVD checkout, or cellphone wallet with NPML logo

You have until July 31 to read 3 books and earn your giveaway!

[Sangeeta]

listening to "The Sleeping Dictionary" right now. one poor village girl's story in the backdrop of the British Raj in India.



reading The Five: The Untold Lives of the women killed by Jack the Ripper, an in-depth look focused on the women, not the killer.... btw: NOT a beach read :-o

[Sangeeta]

also reading An American Marriage at night on ipad. it's OK, but so far, not living up the hype (imo)



i'm enjoying the challenge. thanks. picked up my FREE DVD ! :-) (Little Women)

[Rosanne]

Just finished The Thirteenth Tale which is a good summer read. Victorian gothic-ish, easy read but well written.

[Karen]

I listened to The Address by Fiona Davis and enjoyed it as well.The Address

[Karen]

I read The Invisible Wall: A Love Story that Broke Barriers, and really enjoyed it. I subsequently picked up the following two memoirs where the story left off, and didn't enjoy them as much. But the family fascinated me.

I've been reading a lot of plays, and here are some I've enjoyed:

Sweat

The Christians: A Play

Apple Tree Yard was also really, really good. Apple Tree Yard

I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death was also really enjoyable.

[Marilyn]

I just recently finished "The Invisible Wall" on audiobook and enjoyed it as well. I didn't know it was a memoir until after I finished it and for some reason that made it even better to me.

[New Providence]

OK...I have expanded my list here and will be busy for awhile. I did get a recommendation from a co-worker and loved the book called A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding. No, it's not about the UN. It takes place in Nagasaki directly before and after the bomb and follows the narrator and her husband and daughter. The author unwinds the story slowly and in flashbacks and the relationships are complex. I liked the insight into Japanese family life and war experience which we don't tend to hear.

[Marilyn]

Recently finished "Girl Waits With Gun" by Amy Steward and it was OK. I listened to some of it and then switched to ebook because I didn't have time to finish if listening to it.
It was, however, a good discussion.

[New Providence]

Have you seen the NY Times' list of the
50 best memoirs of the past 50 years?

Here are the ones the library owns:



I loved Wave & Fun Home. A Life's Work and The Year of Magical Thinking are going on my TBR list.

Do you see anything on the list that you loved?

[Marilyn]

Angela's Ashes was very good. Also, H is for Hawk was interesting and a good discussion book.
Read Woman Warrior many, many years ago but didn't care for it.
Now for those that I would like to read:
Since I liked Wolf Hall would like to read author's memoir - Giving up the Ghost.
Temple Grandin's book, "Thinking in Pictures" might be interesting to be because I find her life interesting. Saw a movie about her once and it was so good!
A Year of Magical Thinking is something I thought I'd like to read but am afraid it would be too sad.
Come to think of it, most memoirs are sad! Perhaps this is why I rarely read them?

[Karen]

I love memoirs; I think it's my favorite genre. Fun Home is amazing. Sally Mann's book is really great, too, as well as Jeanette Winterson's (make sure you read her novel, Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, before or after. Wave has been on my list for awhile now. I just started Kate Mulgrew's new book, How to Forget: A Daughter's Memoir, which I'm really enjoying.

[Sangeeta]

great list.

i have read: Dreams from My Father, Between the World and Me, The Year of Magical Thinking , Angela's Ashes (one of my all time faves) and The Color of Water

started, but didn't like/finish H is for Hawk.

The Wave will be terribly sad, so won't be reading that one.

I'll put Temple Grandin and Christopher Hitchen on my to-read list. They are fascinating. I've read his books Mortality and God is Not Great.

[New Providence]

Sangeeta - Wave can be sad, but because it starts with the tsunami and works backward in time from there, it's also a celebration of life.

[New Providence]

Remember reading Barbarian Days, Sangeeta? Or maybe it was one you didn't get through. I loved it. It's about surfing. I knew nothing about surfing and had no interest but through this book, I realized there is a lot to it including terrain, weather, wind and type of board and style. It is also a chronicle of child-raising in the 60's and how mores around interpersonal relationships between men and women have changed. Beautifully written, thoughtful. Recommended but takes a little effort.

[Sangeeta]

Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II



Lisa, i never got to Barbarian Days, but on a similar theme (learning about something i never know a thing about, mixed in with personal stories and drama) was Shadow Divers, which the evening BC did several years ago