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What I'm Reading - Jan & Feb 2020
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I'm just started reading Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett and Seven Ghosts by Chris Priestley.
PattyMacDotComma wrote: "Address Unknown by Kathrine Kressmann Taylor is a terrific story, first published in the US in 1938, as Hitler was promising to restore German prosperity. It had an ama..."Thank you for this recommendation, it is terrific. Amazing to think it was published in '38!
Tonya wrote: "PattyMacDotComma wrote: "Address Unknown by Kathrine Kressmann Taylor is a terrific story, first published in the US in 1938, as Hitler was promising to restore German ..."Yep, before Hitler's real rise!
It's hardly the Definitive Dylan, but this book for kids, Bob Dylan, by Mª Isabel Sánchez Vegara is a good introduction to a unique singer-songwriter and the first musician to win the Nobel Prize for music.
4★ Link to my link review with a bit of the artwork
I love Maggie O'Farrell's books, but this one, about herself, is something else again! I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death is 17 stories from her life, which could have been a lot shorter at least 17 times! 
5★ Link to my review
JUDI DENCH! Do yourself a favour and spend a few minutes listening to this little radio play online. SO good! Two in Torquay by Alan Bennett, who plays the role opposite Judy. It's a quarter of an hour that will brighten your whole day! 
5★ Link to brief note and where to listen or downloadDo it!
Isaac wrote: "I'm just started reading Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett and Seven Ghosts by Chris Priestley.[bookcover:Little Lord ..."
Isaac, I need to read Little Lord Fauntleroy. It's one I missed when I was young.
I just finished The River Why. This was such a wonderful book and I don't like fly fishing at all. I've never been or want to go, but one day I will read this book again. It was THAT good. I like David James Duncan a lot - his book The Brothers K was also wonderful. This book is the story of a young flyfisherman growing up and coming to terms with his adult life.
Adam Higginbotham’s MIDNIGHT IN CHERNOBYL, narrated by Jacques Roy. I think AH has written a gripping account of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. I’ve visited the exclusion zone, read a lot about it, and knew some of the pediatricians at the medical school in St. Petersburg who were investigating the effects of chronic low level radiation on children who were living in the affected areas of Ukraine and Belarus and still this book enthralled me.
Wow, that is high praise, Mary. I had heard good things before but this persuades me.
Mary wrote: "Adam Higginbotham’s MIDNIGHT IN CHERNOBYL, narrated by Jacques Roy. I think AH has written a gripping account of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. I’ve visited the exclusion zone, read a lot about it..."Does this discuss mainly the aftermath and human costs? I think Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe by Serhii Plokhy is an excellent book giving the historical/political/social context of events leading up to and immediately after the disaster. I’m wondering if this has significantly different information.
Al Capone Shines My Shoes – Gennifer Choldenko – 3***
Book two in this entertaining middle-school series, set on Alcatraz Island during the Great Depression. Moose Flanagan’s dad is a guard at the maximum security prison, and the family lives in the apartments provided for workers and their families. I was completely charmed by the first book, and certainly interested in this second outing. The relationships between the kids seem real to me. Moose deals with many of the things most 12-year-olds have to face, including bullying, peer pressure, and adults who don’t understand him. But he’s also burdened by a unique relationship with one particular inmate: Al Capone.
My full review HERE
Joan, I have not read the Plokhy book but a review I read said AH’s book did a better job of describing the clean up and was generally more readable than the Plokhy book.
I can understand someone feeling that way Plokhy’s book is an historian’s approach - showing how the Soviet culture/system lead to the debacle. I learned a lot about Stalinist USSR and a bit about relations between Russia and the other republics. I was enthralled and even sat up much too late reading.
Joan wrote: "Mary wrote: "Adam Higginbotham’s MIDNIGHT IN CHERNOBYL, narrated by Jacques Roy. I think AH has written a gripping account of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. I’ve visited the exclusion zone, read a..."I read another book about Chernobyl, Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster by Svetlana Alexievich. It was also very good.
I recommend this to anyone dealing with anxiety and/or depression - their own, or someone else’s. Your Own Kind of Girl is Aussie singer and entertainer Clare Bowditch’s raw, often funny, memoir, which includes lots of tips and a good reference list. The cover is one of my favourites!
4.5★ Link to my review
Gina and Joan, I read VOICES FROM CHERNOBYL a couple of years ago. I agree, Gina, that it was a terrific book.
I just finished What There Is to Say We Have Said: The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and William Maxwell. I never read entire books of people's letters. However, I couldn't put this one down. I only discovered William Maxwell, as a writer not just an editor, when he died and I read the incredible praise from other writers for his prose. Recently, I can't get enough of his writing. But, this is of another sort entirely. These are the letters of two people who share a love of the written word, who admire each other entirely and cherish their friendship. I honestly could not put it down. I also was constantly learning about other writers that I wanted to read based on their good opinions. I hated coming to the end of it.
My Name is Lucy Barton was one of my favorite novels of the past few years. I was fascinated when I learned that it was being turned into a play starring Laura Linney playing both Lucy Barton and her mother. It opened in London and then came to Broadway. I would have loved to have to seen it but couldn't. Therefore, I was overjoyed when I heard that Linney had done her performance in an audiobook production. I've just finished and she doesn't disappoint. As Lucy, Linney is incomparable. She brought back all of the reasons why I loved the writing. I finished the book in tears as, once again, I heard that longing from a grown woman for her mother after an incredibly deprived childhood. My only small criticism was the way she voiced the mother. I grew up in central Indiana so I have some feeling for the accents of the middlewest. Linney gave the mother's voice so much nasality that it was usually over the top and distracting. Despite that, it definitely rates 5 stars. This is the link here on goodreads to the audiobook My Name Is Lucy Barton.
Thanks for that info Barbara. I’ll look for the audiobook.
I'm reading Rebel Souls: Walt Whitman and America's First Bohemians, a wonderful history and sort of group biography about the "American Bohemian" scene in antebellum New York. Specifically, it's about a group of artists and writers who frequented Pfaff's saloon on Broadway and Bleecker Street, the most notable being Walt Whitman before he came to fame. It's a fascinating period of time and the book is very readable and richly detailed.
Barb, thanks for your thoughts on the letters of Welty and Maxwell. I have that book and really need to start it, along with others. That you enjoyed it so much bodes well for me.I wonder if the Laura Linney performance will be videotaped at some point. I certainly would love to see it.
I’m reading Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime by Sean Carroll, I’m overwhelmed by the physics but I can’t help being struck by the romance and poetry of quantum physics- two particles interact,
become entangled
and
suddenly they create their own world/reality
It’s just one of many possibilities - and it’s all theirs.
That sounds like a fun book, Joan. I was a science teacher, and quantum physics is so deeply interesting to me.
Barbara wrote: "My Name is Lucy Barton was one of my favorite novels of the past few years. I was fascinated when I learned that it was being turned into a play starring Laura Linney playing both Lucy Barton and h..."That sounds wonderful, Barbara. It's a favourite of mine and so is Laura. I'll look forward to it.
The Good Turn by Aussie/Irish author Dervla McTiernan is her best one yet! Irish detective Cormac Reilly is trying to fight crime and his superiors (I use the term loosely) at the same time. 
5★ Link to my "Good Turn" review
Patty, I’ve requested The Good Turn from NetGalley and hope I get it. Another good series.
Ike And Kay – James MacManus – 3***
In his work of historical fiction, MacManus explores the relationship between General Dwight D Eisenhower and his assigned driver during WWII, Kay Sommersby. Rumor, innuendo and gossip have surrounded their affair for decades. It was interesting to see how the relationship unfolded and to get a glimpse of what they may have meant to one another, especially during the stress of wartime. MacManus gets at least one detail VERY wrong, and it makes me wonder what else he flubbed. Oh well, it’s historical FICTION, and it held my attention.
My full review HERE
Sue wrote: "Patty, I’ve requested The Good Turn from NetGalley and hope I get it. Another good series."Fingers crossed!
Is anybody normal, or do we just think everyone else is? I recently read Sally Rooney's Normal People, which was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2018. 
4★ Link to my review
Thanks for the review. I've had my eye on this one.
Riders Of the Purple Sage – Zane Grey – 3***
I hardly know what to write about this classic of the Western genre. It’s full of adventure, violence, strong men and women, tenderness, brutality and an abiding sense of justice. And, of course, there is the landscape, which Grey paints so vividly it is practically a character. I found myself laughing at the ridiculousness of some of the "love" scenes with Grey’s melodramatic, “bodice-heaving” dialogue.
My full review HERE
Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra – 4****
I’d read snippets from this work over the years but never experienced the whole thing. I’m sorry I waited so long to do so. It is a marvelous piece of fiction and is widely acknowledged as the first modern-day novel.
My full review HERE
It's interesting that you're reading D.Q., Book Concierge. I've never read the book, but I recently heard a long discussion of it on Wisconsin Public Radio while I was driving home from Spooner that almost prompted me to pick it up. I couldn't recall which show it was on, but a quick Google search revealed it was University of the Air, on Feb. 2. I may have to go back and listen to the discussion again if I decide to read it.
I've thought about reading Don Quixote so often. If anyone would like to nominate it for the next Classics list, I would vote for it. We would definitely want to give it at least 2 months, maybe 3. The University of the Air program would be a good aid probably, Lynn.
Barbara wrote: "I've thought about reading Don Quixote so often. If anyone would like to nominate it for the next Classics list, I would vote for it. We would definitely want to give it at least 2 months, maybe 3...."It is a great book. I loved it.
Believe it or not, I've never read DQ, and would love to read it and discuss it here.I'm closing out this thread. Post now on the March/April 2020 thread.
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Constant Reader
Books mentioned in this topic
Don Quixote (other topics)Riders of the Purple Sage (other topics)
Normal People (other topics)
Ike and Kay (other topics)
A Long Long Way (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Sally Rooney (other topics)Dervla McTiernan (other topics)
Sean Carroll (other topics)
Clare Bowditch (other topics)
Svetlana Alexievich (other topics)
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Remember Kaopectate? Kao for kaolin, Ga's white clay.